Each year, the Utah Arts Festival is the most effective barometer of the strength, impact and potential of arts in the state. At 40, the festival is really a cosmopolitan miniature city in which more than 80,000 people will sample from the largest slate of programming, artists and performers ever presented at one time in … Read more
In addition to the premiere of a dance composition by Ballet West’s Adrian Fry and performances by Christopher Ruud’s Stars of Ballet West (watch for a preview next week), three historically significant Utah dance companies will present performances to help commemorate the festival’s 40th anniversary. Many of the works were given either world or Utah … Read more
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
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
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
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
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
Alice Merrill Horne, one of the greatest champions of local and public art in Utah’s history, had a passion especially for the output of artists who lived and worked in the state. As a feature by Laura Durham at the Utah Division of Arts and Museum notes: “In her book Devotees and Their Shrines, she … Read more
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
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