There will be tours of the new building, plus a chance to meet the health care providers and staff.  Light refreshments will be available and music will be provided by Danny Quinto.

As in past years, the series continues each week for a total of six concerts produced in partnership with the Aspen Music Festival and School. Tickets are $15.00, or students $3.00 at the door or online at SalidaAspenConcerts.org.

For the opening concert, Fliter will be joined by Russian clarinetist Anton Dressler. Both have soloed and played together for some of the world’s greatest orchestras. The duo will play three romances by the great Romantic Era composer Robert Schumann, a rhapsody by Claude Debussy and the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Francis Poulenc, which featured Benny Goodman on clarinet when it was first heard in New York in 1963.

Fliter and Dressler will also solo on their instruments. Fliter (pronounced FLEEter) will play several specialties of hers, Grand valse brilliante, in E-flat major, Op. 18, and five waltzes, one ballade and one nocturne all by Polish composer Frederic Chopin. Dressler will play three pieces for solo clarinet by Igor Stravinsky. Links to the two artists follow: www.IngridFliter.com and www.AntonDressler.com.

This will be Fliter’s second appearance in Salida since 2007 when she thrilled the Salida audience. Her concert is underwritten by Collegiate Peaks Bank of Salida.

Salida Aspen Concerts continues with artists and programs as follows:

Monday, July 19

The Conundrum Wind Quintet, which played in Salida for the first time last year, is a remarkable aggregation made up of faculty members at the Aspen Music Festival and School. They occupy first chairs in bassoon, clarinet, flute, oboe and horn at, respectively, Norway’s Bergen Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and Montreal Symphony. The quintet will play Anton Reicha, Quintet for Winds in E flat major; Carl Nielsen, Quintet for Winds Opus 43; Sofia Gubaidulina, flute and piano pieces, and Francis Poulenc, Sextet for Piano, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and Horn.

Tuesday, July 27

For the fourth consecutive year, Joyce Yang, the young South Korean pianist, returns to Salida. She has been called by one critic “the most gifted young pianist of her generation.” Yang has soloed with the New York Philharmonic more than ten times. She has performed with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, and Houston Symphony.

She will play either Johannes Brahms’ Klavierstucke Op. 119, or Carl Vine’s Piano Sonata No.1. She will play Claude Debussy, Estampes, and two pieces by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Etude and Tableaux Op. 33, No. 6, and Elegie Op. 3, Prelude Op. 23, No. 2.

For the rest of the program, she will join with violinist David Halen, concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony, and Andrew Shulman, principal cellist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. They will perform Johannes Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1 in B major Op. 8. This concert is underwritten by Collegiate Peaks Bank of Salida. The weblink for Miss Yang is www.pianistJoyceYang.com.

Saturday, July 31

They have been coming to Aspen and then over Independence Pass to play for Salida audiences every year since 1978. The members of the American Brass Quintet have been called “the high priests of brass.” This quintet, which specializes in Renaissance and modern music, will be joined by an up-and-coming ensemble, the Oracle Brass Quintet. This is the one concert every year that is held just up the Arkansas Valley in Buena Vista at Valley Fellowship Church, 608 S. San Juan. The program will be announced later. Weblink to the ABQ is www.AmericanBrassQuintet.org.

Saturday, August 7

Israeli-born pianist Inon Barnatan (BARNatan) came to Salida for the first time last year. Only 31 years old, Barnatan is considered an expert on Schubert. He will play Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat major (The Hunt); Britten/Stevenson’s Peter Grimes Fantasy (from the opera Peter Grimes); Maurice Ravel’s La Valse; and Franz Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959. Mr. Barnatan’s weblink is www.InonBarnatan.com.

Saturday, August 14

For the final concert in the series, the audience will get a treat they haven’t had since 1981: a solo guitarist. Benjamin Pila is the only classical guitarist chosen to be a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. He has played at New York’s Lincoln Center and Washington DC’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He will play Joaquin Rodrigo’s Tres Piezas Espanolas for Guitar and other pieces for solo guitar. Then Pila will be joined by the Tesla Quartet of Boulder, Colo. Together they will play Luigi Boccherini’s Quintet for Guitar and Strings and Antonin Dvorak’s American Quartet. Weblink: www.BenPila.com.

Tesla Quartet—Ross Snyder, Xian Meng, Megan Mason, and Kimberly Patterson—formed in 2008 at Juilliard and currently holds a fellowship as the Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Last year, the quartet won Second Prize at the Arriaga Chamber Music Competition. The ensemble currently serves as string mentors to the Boulder Youth Symphony, and has public school residencies in Aspen and Vail.

Except for the July 31st performance in Buena Vista, all the concerts will be at Held Auditorium, Salida High School, Salida, Colo. Concert time is 7:30 p.m. Pre-concert talks with Aspen Program Director Deborah Barnekow and the artists are scheduled for 6:30-7p.m.

Questions can be addressed to Earle Kittleman at 719-539-6153.

Dr. Pabich, founder and president of Water Futures Inc., works with businesses, government, and communities to find innovative solutions to one of the planet’s most pressing problems – the quest for sustainable water.  She is in Salida taking part in a month long Colorado Art Ranch art residency program with cooperation from Salida ArtWorks.  The program culminates during the Colorado Art Ranch Artposium ‘Wade in the Water’ beginning on May 21^st (visit www.coloradoartranch.org for details).

Presentation includes short videos of dZi projects in this spectacular corner of the world and the amazing people that live there.

For more information contact Nathan Ward 719-221-1731

Earth & People is a new theater and gallery created by one of Salida’s favorite adventure junkies Nathan Ward.  Nathan has documented many remote regions of the world in photographs and images and is now sharing these adventures in his new space on F street beside Salida Mountain Sports. – ss

It’s that time again to clean up the Arkansas River and surrounding areas before the summer river season begins! Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area (AHRA) and GARNA are teaming up for the 19th annual Arkansas River Clean Up Green Up on Saturday, May 15. Join fellow volunteers to beautify a section of the river. Register Saturday morning between 8:30-9:30 a.m. at either AHRA at Sackett & G Streets in Salida, in Buena Vista at the Buena Vista River Park on East Main Street or at the Sugarbush Store in Howard. From there, the race is on to scour the river banks and other public lands for unwanted and unsightly trash. After your hard work, enjoy a FREE volunteer picnic on the SteamPlant riverside patio with food, prizes and fun from 12:00-3:00 p.m.

Plan on staying in town for the Salida Police Bike Rodeo, a free bike safety event for children 12 and under, 2:00-4:00 p.m. at Marvin Park. Later, the Cruiser Crit, the entertaining FIBArk fundraiser will take place with a 4:00 p.m. downtown race start and after party. For more information about Clean Up Green Up, please call GARNA at 539-5106.

Come and meet the new homeowners:  Cristyl Nuzum and her three children, Skyler (10), Savanah (7), Madison (5), along with Jennifer Fisher and her daughter, Isabell (6).  Homeowners contribute hundreds of hours of community service and “sweat equity” building their homes.  They assume interest-free mortgages with payments going toward building the next Habitat home.

There will be an opportunity to talk with Habitat representatives about the many ways volunteers work within the organization. Volunteers build new homes using donated and discounted materials and professional services to hold down costs.

For further information, contact the Chaffee County Habitat for Humanity office at 395-0482.

The community is invited to share their needs and concerns regarding health services for the underinsured at public meetings to be held Monday, May 17, at 5:15 p.m.  at Sangre de Cristo Community Room, 29780 Hwy 24 N in Buena Vista, and on Tuesday, May 18, at 5:15 p.m. at the Mt. Shavano Conference Room on the second floor of the Touber Bldg. (old hospital), 448 East 1st Street in Salida. The Chaffee People’s Clinic is especially interested in input from our business community.

A brief overview of the impact of health care reform on Chaffee County will also be presented. Call 530-2596 for more information.

The clinic, which began in October 2006 with two part-time employees, a cadre of volunteers, and a dedicated board of trustees, has grown significantly. Currently, CPC employs a full-time executive director and four part-time medical staff. Three local physicians also donate hours to the clinic to support patient visits. The organization served 509 patients in the first quarter of 2010; of those, 125 were new. Almost three quarters of the patients who use Chaffee People’s Clinic are employed. 
 
Chaffee Peoples Clinic is the only 501c3 non-profit clinic in the county that provides primary care including lab testing in partnership with HRRMC and a patient assistance program that connects patients that qualify to free medications, to the county’s low-income, uninsured.

Clinic hours for Salida are 1-5pm on Mondays, 1-4pm on Tuesdays, 8-12pm on Thursdays. Clinic hours for Buena Vista are 9-11am on Mondays and 1-6pm on Wednesdays. Appointments can be made by calling 539-4144. Please see our website for more information at www.chaffeepeoplesclinic.org.