Is High Culture In Aspen A Natural High?

August 31st, 2006 at 06:38am Michael Conniff 2

Aspen is a code word for elitism across the country and around the world, but is the word really justified when it comes to the arts that we get to see and feel? Or has the arts scene in Aspen veered inexplicably and inexorably toward kitsch and popular culture?

In the best of times, the heads of non-profits in the Roaring Fork Valley perform a balancing act between high culture and lowball entertainment, a notion of immediate relevance as the Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) festival kicks into gear this weekend with a country siren (Leann Rimes), a Jewish rapper (Matisayu), an aging pop star (Don Henley), a marquee hip-hop star (Kanye West), and no jazz legends to be found.

Much has been written, including by me, about the dearth of jazz at Jazz Aspen Snowmass on and about Labor Day 2006. Suffice to say the JAS organizers make the same call as other non-profits in the valley: do they want to put fannies in the seats, or hew to a “pure” construction of their mission.

Attention—and bills—must be paid.

Look at it this way: to put real jazz on the agenda over the Labor Day weekend would be an unmitigated box office disaster, one incapable of supporting a valley organization that just added a full-blown blowout in Sonoma, California, to go with the Snowmass hoe-down. As JAS has grown over the last fifteen years—topping out at 34,000 in attendance two summers ago—the need for acts that can grow the audience has become a matter of survival.

In other words, JAS can no longer afford jazz as the main course.

The other arts organizations face the same dilemma. As Theatre Aspen, for example, continues to re-make itself, it has become necessary to open with toe-tapping crowd pleasers (“Smokey Joe’s Café,” “Janis, Lives), followed by a serious drama (“Colorado Catechism,” “Dinner With Friends”), concluding with bona fide comedies (“The Underpants,” “Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.”) That kind of triangulation represents the three-legged stool arts organizers in Aspen are always trying to balance.

Sometimes, in my opinion, the need to be loved (and sold out) can go too far. When the Aspen Writers Foundation brought in Candace Bushnell, author of “Sex and the City,” I had my doubts. The same goes for the blockbuster producer James Patterson, who makes no pretense to literature whatsoever. A program honoring songwriters confuses me completely. In the foundation’s defense, these crowd-pleasers have put fannies in the seats and speak to their mission to grow readership along with enhancing writership.

The Aspen Music Festival & School wrestles with the notion of eat-your-spinach all summer long, mixing and matching Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven with more obscure side courses. Of all the performing arts organizations in the valley, only the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet keeps the bar high in terms of consistent content, but that has also limited its audience mainly to dance aficionados.

High culture or low? In Aspen, we get a dollop of each as those behind the scenes at our favorite festivals seek out financial security even as they espy the higher ground of truth and beauty. It’s a good thing a little low culture can be good for the soul.

Entry Filed under: Classical Music, Books, Theater, Aspen, Colorado, Dance, Non-Profits, Pitkin County, Jazz, Pop, Fractional Post