Salida Aspen Concerts has just announced the second annual Locals Concerts beginning at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, April 1 with a second performance at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, April 2. Both concerts will be held at A Church, 419 D Street in Salida.
Tickets are $25 and are available from any board member as well as online at www.salidaaspenconcerts.org. Organizers encourage patrons to purchase tickets ahead of time, as last year was a sell-out. Wine, beer, and light refreshments will be served for a donation. An outstanding mix of performers is scheduled again this year.
Don Grusin (playing Saturday only) has recorded and performed with hundreds of artists and engineers, receiving three Grammy awards. His recording projects and live gigs have taken him around the world many times from 1980 with his band Friendship at the Montreux Jazz Festival to 2018 in Japan for a project with Minoru Mukaiya and others in Austria, Peru, Mexico, Australia, Venezuela, and Africa. He has a special affinity for Latin jazz. Grusin is the founder of Don Grusin Studio @ Poncha Creek, a state-of-art recording studio, just outside Salida.
David Reis (playing Sunday only) has both a Bachelor’s and a Master of Music in classical piano performance. He spent 20 years in the city of New Orleans absorbing its musical culture. Moving to Salida in 2017, he does music engraving/copyist work utilizing the music notation program Finale. He’ll be playing New Orleans piano selections in the style of James Booker.
Justice Wise is trained in classical, jazz, and contemporary music for the flute. She performed with a woodwind quintet from her senior year of high school through undergraduate school, as well as performed with the University of New Mexico Wind Symphony, Symphony Orchestra and New Mexico ensembles. After teaching English, math, and science in New Mexico, Wise now teaches 7th Grade Language Arts in Salida, gives flute lessons, and performs locally.
Andre Wilkins has spent the last 14 years teaching music in rural Colorado, since 2012 in Salida. He is currently the Performing Arts Director at Salida High School, teaching Concert Band, Jazz Band, Concert Choir, Theater, Beginning Guitar, Music Theory, and the History of Rock ‘n Roll. He just successfully produced the Broadway musical Pajama Game at Salida High School. Wilkins is playing saxophone and singing a Cole Porter duet with Mary Sandell.
Mary Sandell is the owner and director of the Sandell Music Studio in Salida. She offers private lessons to all ages in voice, strings, and piano, and specialized group lessons as well. Her Salida Youth Choir provides young people instruction and performance opportunities in choral singing. This summer, her studio is hosting a Youth Choir Camp. Sandell also travels all over the country as a featured soprano soloist.
Katie Oglesby returns with her amazing clarinet music. During the school year, she teaches band and choir at Salida Middle School. In the 2022-23 school year, Oglesby played a lead role in creating the first annual Collegiate Peaks Middle School Band Festival and in reviving the Salida High School Marching Band. She is thrilled to serve on several statewide committees that support music and music education.
Yufen Chou, originally from Taipei, Taiwan, was an active music educator and performer in the Washington, D.C. metro area for 16 years. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocals Accompanying and a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance. Since relocating with her family to Salida in the summer of 2021, Yufen enjoys running a music studio offering private and small group piano and violin lessons, as well as sharing the joy of music with the local community.
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