Arts Around Town with The Lions Roar November 29, 2006

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM ARTS AROUND TOWN

Arts Around Town is a monthly panel discussion, sponsored by the Boulder City Club, providing a format where artists and professionals in the cultural industries can share their work and promote any events they might working on. We have had very lively discussions and presentations. in fine arts, music, theater, literature and more. This upcoming November program promises to be a gem It is scheduled for November 29th at the Boulder Public Library from 5:30 pm - 8 p.m. Join us for a lively early evening of, art, and the screening of the documentary film, The Lion's Roar . The suggested donation for this event is $5. We ask that you RSVP by replying to this email, or by emailing Topher Wilkins at topher@highlandcityclub.com

The Program:
What is MahlerFest XX? In January 2007, MahlerFest will celebrate its 20th year with gala performances of Gustav Mahler’s magnificent ‘song’ symphony Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) as well as the Adagio (the 1st movement) of Mahler’s 10th symphony. Principally known as a conductor, Mahler wrote only symphonies and songs for voice. The January concerts will be highlighted by the first Colorado performance of the world-renowned baritone, Thomas Hampson who has been called “the greatest voice of our time.” An American living in Vienna, Hampson appears at the NY Metropolitan Opera and all the world’s major opera houses and is known for his sensitive performance of Mahler’s songs. MahlerFest board member and baritone Patrick Mason, Associate Professor at the CU School of Music, will lead a short program of information about Mahler—in songs, DVD clips, and stories. Why is there an annual festival celebrating his music in Boulder? What’s so special about him that the MahlerFest orchestra members come from all over the U.S at their own expense and volunteer their time for a week of rehearsals and performances of Mahler’s music? What is it that draws Mahlerites world-wide to the chamber concerts, a scholarly all-day symposium and orchestra concerts that take place during MahlerFest week? Gustav Mahler- 1860-1912- what is the mystique about Mahler? Come to Arts Around Town November 29th and find out.

Vicki Aybar-Sterling, Assistant Director of the Denver Art Museum, will provide insight into the museum’s new Daniel Libeskind-designed expansion project including highlighted programs and upcoming events. The DAM’s first major expansion in more than thirty years, the Hamilton Building pushes the boundaries of traditional architecture and provides dynamic new galleries to showcase the museum’s collections. A leader in the field of museum education for decades, the creation of this new engaging environment for art compliments the museum’s visitor-focused mission.

Ken Green, film, performance, new media, music producer; Buddhist practitioner and mentor; and founding director of Golden Sun Foundation for World Culture has dedicated himself to produce cultural productions and events that inspire wakefulness, authenticity and elegance. Applying the teachings he received during 17 years from the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Ken seeks out collaborations with diverse artists, like-minded individuals and groups to produce original works that join the wisdom of the past with the culture of the future. He is currently working with Philip Glass, on a theatrical/multimedia adaptation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Among his accomplishments, as a film producer, is the award winning documentary The Lion's Roar, which he produced in 1982, a 16mm film that is presently being re-released in DVD format. The 50 minute film is the masterful portrait of the late 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, the great Tibetan Buddhist master known as the Black Hat Lama. The Karmapa is the head of the Karma Kagyu lineage, one of the four great lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. His line of successive reincarnations has its origins in the 13th century when it was the first to identify tulkus, who are reincarnations of Buddhist teachers. He is recognized as the embodiment of the teachings of his lineage, one that traces its source from teacher to disciple through Tibet‘s great teachers Milarepa and Marpa to India‘s Naropa and Tilopa all the way back to the historical Shakyamuni Buddha.

The narration script was written by the late Rick Fields, the well-known author of How the Swans Came to the Lake and a founding editor of Tricycle and The Vajradhatu Sun. The film features rare interviews with renowned Tibetan Buddhist lamas Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Filmed on location in Sikkim and North America, with archival footage from France. Narrated by Oscar winning James Coburn. Produced by Ken Green.

Words of praise for this film include:
“uncommon clarity…vivid and haunting imagery.” –Hollywood Reporter

“…a magnificent work-dramatic, moving, richly colorful in both sound and
sight” –American Anthropologist

Ken will discuss the film and we will be treated to a screening. The stage will be set by Jai Gottlieb, playing the Japanese bamboo flute, known as the Shakuhachi. This instrument was originally used as a meditational tool to transport the practitioner beyond the conventional mind into a direct encounter with nature. The instrument itself is fashioned from a bamboo root-end with four-holes in front and one behind. Although deceptively simple in construction, it is capable of an unusually wide range of of tonal colors and expression. Jia has been a student of the Shakuhachi for twenty years and for his day job works as a holistic medical doctor and acupuncturist.

For those of you who are either unable to make the screening or who would like to purchase a dvd of the film please go to http://www.windhorse.com/ for further information. (the dvd will be on sale at the event)

Official Website: http://www.windhorse.com