Arts and Culture

UPR’s Taylor Halversen traveled with members of Cache Valley’s American Festival Chorus as they caroled to assisted living centers and charity events around Logan City on Dec. 13. What began as a local news coverage opportunity turned into a heartwarming experience for those being served, spectators and performers, including an unsuspecting UPR reporter. Listen below for the full story. 

Violinist, dancer, and self-proclaimed film nerd Lindsey Stirling is the subject of a new, two-part television series called Song by Song. She says this documentary will allow her fans to see a different side of her through the eyes of everyone she works with behind the scenes.

“I really hope that people draw the message of perseverance because I think anyone who is pursuing their dream or is passionate about something, we all have to face the ups and downs of the industry or just life. It talks about that in the documentary and the highs and lows of what I’ve experienced. In order to make it I feel like it takes people who are willing to persevere through the failures and pick themselves up and keep going. Those are the people that are able to find success.”

Many traditions have made their way to the Americas since the first Thanksgiving in 1621, but one tradition that has stayed the same is the Thanksgiving turkey. In fact, Ol’ Tom Turkey even has his own hotline.

Karen, a hotline operator for Butterball said people call from all over the world with questions – everything from how big of a turkey they should get to whether or not they can defrost their turkey in their electric blanket. Some questions might be a little harder to answer.  

“A woman called me and asked me if she should invite her sister-in-law to dinner or not," Karen said. "And I had no answer for that one, what so every. What do you say to that? I thought, ‘Ooh, I don’t know, should ya?’”

She said working on the hotline has provided her with more than recipes to enjoy, it has given her memories of people who have touched her life just by calling in for help.

Pianist David Korevaar will be performing a recital this Saturday at the Fibonacci Fine Arts Center in St. George. As a professor of piano at the University of Colorado, Boudler, he considers teaching to carry the same amount of weight as his creative work.

The centerpiece of pianist David Korevaar’s program will be Schubert’s sonata in A major. A grand and symphonic work, the piece was written in the final year of the composer’s life. To complement the piece, Korevaar will also be performing Mozart’s sonata K. 333 in B flat.

They can be held on a stage, in box, or in a zoo next to a fox. Heard through an app, in person or in your home on your desktop. Each week they air here, on UPR through the radio in your car.

If he were living today, Dr. Suess would be on my wish list of speakers asked to present a short, powerful talk about technology, entertainment or design known as a TED talk.

"To be an official TEDx event, you have to register and apply to the TED organization," said Scott Bates, associate vice president for research and associate dean of graduate studies at Utah State University.

Bates is one of the organizers of USU's TEDx event, taking place Wednesday in Logan, where you won't hear from Dr. Seuss but you will hear from Utah author Orson Scott Card, selected community members and USU students and faculty.

The exhibit “We are Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On” features production photographs spanning 50 plus years at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. This Tony award-winning company has featured big names and big shows with Shakespeare as its cornerstone.

Jason Spelbring is a theatre professor at Utah State University and has worked as an actor at the festival for six seasons.

“People in this exhibit can see the progression of work, quality, names, people that people probably know from T.V, film, and the state of Utah. It’s just sort of a great way to remember and realize that there is world-class theatre right here in the state of Utah,” said Spelbring.

The Cache Valley Cowboy Rendezvous is presenting an evening at the barn on Tuesday at the American West Heritage Center. Doris Daley, one of the featured performers, is a Canadian cowgirl and poet. She says the energy and audience engagement at events such as these is invigorating.

“One of my goals is to bring my audience along on the ride with me. If there are 100 people in the audience, I hope that there are 100 different movies playing in their heads. I want to bring people along in my story, but I also hope that they are experiencing their own stories,” Daley said.

The Natural History Museum of Utah will host Native American artists from across the state this weekend. We spoke with organizers of the event to learn more about what makes these Native American creations so unique.

Twenty Native American artists of tribes from Apache to Zuni will participate at this year’s second annual Indian Art Market.  A wide range of mediums will be on display including jewelry, sculpture, beadwork, fetish carving, and pottery.

Cache Valley boasts many gems, from its beauties in nature to its hidden outdoor adventure destinations.  Also lesser-known is the fact that the Valley is home to a thriving community of talented artists. Representatives from the Cache Valley Center for the Arts spoke about the grand opening for their new gallery in downtown Logan. One of their goals: to feature and uncover these great artists.

The new art gallery in downtown Logan, located in the Bullen Center, will be opening after months of dedicated passion and work. Adam Shelton, the Marketing Director for the Cache Valley Center for the Arts, says the opening exhibition displays a fascinating variety of works.

“I’ve been walking through as they’ve been setting up and it’s really interesting to see the works of photography standing right next to jewelry, standing right next to ceramics, and all of those arts working together,” said Shelton. “I think it’s like having an all-year-round Summerfest, right indoors.”

His works of stencil and spray paint have sold for tens of thousands of dollars in auctions. His true identity is cloaked in a veil of secrecy and he incites a media circus wherever his work appears. Most of his works are in large cities across Europe and North America.

David Wall, professor of visual studies at Utah State University spoke with UPR about the appeal of the mysterious street artist known as “Banksy.”

“We love things that are kind of dangerous because so little of our own lives are ever lived like that. That’s what James Dean’s great appeal was, that’s what Elvis’ great appeal was,” Wall said.

In 2010, residents of Park City woke up to find that the town of 7,500 people was now home to not one, but three Banksy works. The film about Banksy, “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival the same time the paintings appeared, And one of the Banksy pieces ended up on a side door of the Mary G. Steiner Egyptian Theatre. Theatre manager Randy Barton awoke to the news that the artist had left his mark.

Is it possible to see music? Or hear a painting? The art exhibition "Enchanted Modernities: Mysticism, Landscape and the American West" answers these questions and more by exploring the impact of Theosophy, an esoteric-philosophical movement, on visual artists, writers, and composers in the American West.

Alexander Scriabin, a Russian pianist and composer who was deeply influenced by Theosophy, visualized a grand magnum opus, or large and important work, which he entitled “Mysterium.” This week-long, multimedia performance would have taken place in the Himalayas incorporating music, incense, dance, and light. This great and final concert would ultimately bring about the end the world. Luckily for the fate of the rest of us, this work remained unfinished.

On Thursday, Utah will host their own version of the Grammys. The “Utah Music Awards” or “UMA’s” will be a glamorous evening of awards and performances, giving Utahns their chance to get the “Hollywood Treatment” in the Beehive State.

If you were asked what the bands Neon Trees, Imagine Dragons, The Used, Royal Bliss, Panic and the Disco and The Killers all have in common, what would you say? It’s a little known fact that all of these bands actually got their start in Utah.