The Glass Castle: A Look at Poverty in America

“I’m worried about you,” I said. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

“You want to help me change my life?” Mom asked. “I’m fine. You’re the one who needs help. Your values are all confused.” – The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

On Wednesday, Strings Music Festival will present a one-hour theatrical adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ best-selling memoir, The Glass Castle. This performance strays from our typical music concert and I thought it appropriate to address one of the themes of the book. If you haven’t read it, perhaps my editorial below will entice you to read the book, attend the performance, or both.

Poverty continues to exist in America and countless organizations across the nation are devoted to providing food, shelter, and clothing to the poor. But before we try to solve the poverty problem, first we must look at why it exists. Some say there aren’t enough jobs or that wages are too low. Others say the government’s definition of poverty is inaccurate. The list goes on, but most agree that external factors, such as unemployment rates and welfare, may contribute to some of the poverty problem. However, we also must take into consideration the internal factors, individual psychological make-up, that may lead to poverty.

Llamas on the Strings Stage

“My fondest Strings memory is the llama kids concert with a llama on stage. And the front page of the Steamboat Today with a picture of the orchestra and our current music director with the llama.” Mary Ann Duffey – Strings Music Festival Board of Directors

Can you guess which Strings affiliate appeared with the llama in this picture?

Hint: the photo was taken in 1996. Post your answer below!

Classical Music Enters the Playing Field

Many argue that Americans place more emphasis on professional sports than on professional music. Athletes make millions of dollars a year, while musicians are lucky to make a hundred thousand. Sports arenas constantly get makeovers, while theatres and performance halls look the same as they did when they were first built. Yet professional athletes might not be as good as they are today without the help of classical music.

Since the 1970’s when professional football player Lynn Swann first announced that he took ballet lessons to help improve his agility on the playing field, ballet has become a staple of American football. And professional football players aren’t the only ones to dance. NBA player Clyde Austin Drexler, Olympic Track and Field Star Maurice Green, and professional snowboarder Louis Vito all have history with dance. Even here, the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club has started a dance program to help with pre-season training. Not to mention the hit television series, Dancing with the Stars, that puts pro athletes up on stage with pro dancers.

So what are the benefits for athletes taking dance lessons?

Even Famous Musicians Eat PB&J

Quirky musicians are as much a part of Strings Music Festival as the music that they play.

We try to prepare for everyone’s needs with our abundance of supplies backstage. We have bobby pins, lint rollers, band-aids, make-up, and anything else you could think of to help beautify before a concert. We also know that mysterious holes develop in bags and socks, jackets, and ties disappear, so we’ve got extras of those too. For our musicians who forget to eat before they come, we’ve also got chocolate, nuts, trail mix, mints, and other snacks. But sometimes we just can’t guess what our artists will want.

Pam Geppert’s favorite Strings Memory is when the Avett Brothers requested peanut butter, jelly, and milk for their backstage food. I guess Moms know what’s up when they send their kids off to school with the PB&J lunch. If it’s good enough for the Avett Brothers, it’s good enough for you!

What else do you remember about our musicians? Post it here on our blog or email it to cristin@stringsmusicfestival.com.

Strings 25th Anniversary: Leave Your Memories...

“For the first season of Strings in the Mountains, we planned a series of eight concerts to run throughout July 1988; four short Wednesday concerts on the deck of the Steamboat Athletic Club and four regular length chamber music concerts on Saturday nights in the conference room of the Athletic Club. We hoped for a total of 200 people to attend all eight concerts. An hour before the first concert was to begin on Wednesday evening, hoping that someone would attend, we walked out the front doors and were startled by a what seemed to be an endless line of people waiting to get in. In a panic we quickly scavenged the entire building, grabbing every chair or stool in every room to accommodate all the enthusiastic people who had come to experience the first concert of Strings in the Mountains! When we ran out of seating on the deck, we expanded into the conference room and restaurant and even removed windows to let the audience seated inside hear the music. The weather was spectacular, the concert was wonderful and Strings was launched.” Betse Grassby - Strings Music Festival Operations and Programming Director

Who knew that this first concert 25 years ago would evolve into a staple of summertime in Steamboat Springs. To celebrate Strings Music Festival’s 25th birthday, we’re going to bring you fun facts and memories of Strings every Friday. Have a memory you’d like to share? Post it here on our blog or email it to cristin@stringsmusicfestival.com.

Michael Jackson Still Hits #1

Numerous Guinness World Records and Hall of Fame inductions, 26 American Music Awards, 13 Grammy Awards, 13 number one singles and now a number one cell phone application. More than two years after his death, Michael Jackson is still in the limelight, but this time for more than one million downloads of “The Michael Jackson Doctor Trial App.” Even with no new music, The King of Pop still hits the top of the charts.

With the help of the new phone app, the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray has dominated internet news, and blogs are brimming with discussion over what really happened on June 25, 2009. Only 18 days before he was set to launch the This Is It Tour, Michael Jackson was pronounced dead due to an overdose of propofol, a sleep aid drug. With a tour that would go down as “The biggest audience ever to see an artist in one city,” “The most amount of people to attend a series of arena shows,” and “The fastest ticket sales in history" looming, it’s no surprise that Jackson was nervous. Millions of fans anxiously awaiting the return of a pop star, who had supposedly hung up his touring career more than ten years ago, would undeniably cause sleepless nights. Everyone seems to have an individual theory on the death, including one woman who insists that Jackson is still alive, according to Huff Post blogger Tanya Young Williams. Certainly with theories like that the court has a difficult task in finding who’s to blame for the overdose.

Yet how ironic that a tour titled This Is It really was it for Michael Jackson. With apparent health issues long before he decided to go on tour, the grueling schedule of a concert nearly every day for six months could have led to doubts if he really had it in him. Perhaps the title was meant to tell the world that this tour really would be the last, similar to Michael Jordan’s third retirement speech. Or maybe he knew that merely launching the tour would be the last thing he ever did for his music career.