Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Utah Symphony returns to festival stage 1st time in 15 years

For pianist and conductor Rei Hotoda, the idea of the musician who is wholly committed to serving the community is as essential as rehearsing and learning new music. In Texas and Ilinois, she worked with local Rotary Club chapters, talking about upcoming concerts and initiatives. Programs with local chapters of The Boys and Girls Clubs … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: The ‘internationally acclaimed aliens’ of Neighbourhood Watch Stilts International

Having visited more than 40 countries in more than 20 years, the Neighbourhood Watch Stilts International members have become thoroughly versed in the curious and even sometimes bizarre intricacies of the bureaucracy underlying the process of obtaining visas for the purposes of international performance. However, for the group of seven performing artists who will be … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Art and Technology venue puts the ‘A’ into STEM

Late last year, it took only a few hours for a social media controversy to erupt that would force the Old Navy clothing company to pull a line of T-shirts and sweatshirts which featured the tag “Young Aspiring Artist” with the word “artist” crossed out and replaced with “astronaut” or “president”. The controversy brought a … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Urban Arts highlights graffiti, fat caps, giant 100/One community mural

Each year at the Utah Arts Festival, visitors to the Urban Arts venue try to guess early on what Mason Fetzer’s 100 Artists / 1 image community mural project will be as artists start painting 100 tiles in the 20-foot installation piece. His strategy worked as visitors unsuccessfully guess what the final image would be. … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Diversity, originality, aesthetic enterprise hallmarks of Artist Marketplace

This year’s Artist Marketplace at the Utah Arts Festival continues a trend of the last seven years as being the strongest in terms of diversity, quality, use of media and originality in aesthetics and technique. The total of 167 includes seven returning awards winners. Of the 583 artists who applied to be in this year’s … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: City Library is hub of films, hands-on workshops, random performances

A tremendously diverse, logistically solid venue, the City Library will have perhaps its most extensive presence ever at this year’s Utah Arts Festival with the 40 in 117 exhibition featuring work from Utah artists representing the last 40 years from the state’s Alice collection established in 1899, numerous visual arts and musicians’ workshops, performances of … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: 40 Years New

It becomes immediately evident that Utah’s history in arts and culture is as rich in pioneer spirit as when the settlers first descended into the Salt Lake valley nearly 170 years ago. In 1899, at the age of 30, Alice Merrill Horne was elected to the Utah Legislature (the third woman to do so) and … Read more

Odysseo, it really is an amazing show!

You’ve probably driven by the big white tent at South Towne Mall and seen the billboards advertising Odyesso long before it opened to the public in Utah last week. And the question on everyone’s mind is: is it worth the hype? Attending Odysseo on opening night with approximately 2,000 other spectators, I was pleasantly surprised … Read more

Carlos Gaytán’s mission as Mexican culinary ambassador

The long immigration corridor from all parts of Mexico to all parts of the United States has brought some of the most gratifying results to the American restaurant industry, especially with ambitious, eager and talented chefs. No doubt, Carlos Gaytán, who spent three days last week in Salt Lake City in culinary events to raise … Read more

Live blog and review: Otherwhere presented by Plan-B Theatre, KUER-FM’s RadioWest

Listen live at: http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/otherwhere) 12:01 p.m. Otherwhere, the spell-binding valedictory episode of Plan-B Theatre’s popular Radio Hour series, which just aired on KUER-FM’s RadioWest program, is unquestionably a bold, even controversial, venture. Crafted with the utmost attention to persuade listeners – almost up until the climactic moments of the story – that RadioWest host Doug … Read more