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Arts and Entertainment

Pine River Arts bringing live performances

Youth Orchestra to perform inaugural concert for new series
Youth Orchestra to perform inaugural concert for new series

“Art” and “Bayfield” might not be viewed by many as synonymous terms.

So Pine River Arts is out to change that.

The vision of the group is to help develop Colorado’s most vibrant rural art community.

To start developing that vision, the group, made up of a few dozen volunteers with backing from several businesses and groups, is kicking off a concert series that will start Monday, featuring the San Juan Symphony Youth Orchestra.

“This is what the community was asking us for,” said Shelley Walchak, a member of the group and director of the Pine River Public Library. Between the Bayfield Performing Arts Center, the library and concerts in local parks, almost a dozen performances are planned through this fall.

“It’s really been a very rewarding project,” Walchak said. “Everybody is so excited about bringing the arts to the Pine River Valley.”

Highlights include The Hunts, a pop-rock group from Virginia who will perform at the arts center as part of Music in the Mountains in July.

A string quartet from the festival also will perform in the Pine River Library Park later in July. Stillwater Music, Jonas Gruskin, a performance of Peter and the Wolf, and concerts by Thom Chacon and Mark Kroos round out this year’s offerings. Finally, in November, there will be operatic scenes by music students at Fort Lewis College.

An eight-member committee and 16 volunteers raised $10,000 for the series, Walchak said.

More information and a full schedule and donor information are online at www.pineriverarts.org.

Donors and sponsors include First National Bank of Durango, San Juan Regional Medical Center, Bayfield PTSA, Bayfield Education Foundation, KSUT, Bayfield School District, Billy Goat Saloon, Town of Bayfield, Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, San Juan Symphony, Pine River Library, Durango Arts Center, Rocky Mountain UkeFest, Southwest Ag, Be FRANK Foundation, Town of Bayfield, Pine River Valley Centennial Rotary and Stillwater Music.