What’s New for Arts & Culture in Aspen for the 2022/23 Winter Season

Music, Theatre, Dance, Visual Arts & More

ASPEN, Colo. (Nov. 3, 2022) – The Aspen Idea instilled the concept of Aspen as a haven for nurturing mind, body, and spirit. Today, Aspen is one of the most culturally rich small cities in the country, offering visitors and locals access to new art exhibits, performances, live music, literary events, and more. For information on Aspen’s arts & cultural organizations, visit arts and culture.

CULTURAL NEWS 

Colorado Historic Opera Houses Circuit – The first-ever Colorado Historic Opera Houses Circuit, is a joint promotion of five mountain opera houses, including Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House. The circuit seeks to attract visitors interested in history, arts and culture, live entertainment, and private event rentals. 

Since 1889, the Wheeler Opera House has been Aspen’s favorite year-round performance venue and has become the Roaring Fork Valley’s premiere site for concerts, films, festivals, lectures, community events, and more. Wheeler Presents is a robust, season-long series of events, including the Aspen Laugh Festival, Feb. 21 - 25, 2023.  

The newly constructed Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies (The Bayer Center) located on the Aspen Institute campus, is open for its first winter season (official opening June 26, 2022) with the inaugural exhibit Herbert Bayer: an Introduction. A Landmark Exhibition celebrating Herbert Bayer’s artwork and legacy, on view through May 2023. The Bayer Center, which offers complimentary admission and welcomes visitors Tuesdays - Saturdays from 12 - 5 p.m., preserves the art and legacy of Herbert Bayer, an influential modern artist, and designer who studied and taught at the Bauhaus before emigrating from Germany to the United States in 1938. After relocating to Colorado in 1946, Bayer helped lead the postwar revitalization of the city of Aspen, shaped the early artistic and programmatic vision of the Aspen Institute, and designed the historic Aspen Meadows campus. 

VISUAL ARTS

Aspen Art Museum is a “kunsthalle,” a non-collecting institution, and home to contemporary exhibitions with complimentary admission Tuesdays - Sundays all year long. The 30,000-square-foot museum in downtown Aspen, designed by Japanese architect and humanitarian Shigeru Ban, includes 12,500 square feet of exhibition space, educational spaces, a bookstore and shop, and a rooftop cafe with views of Aspen Mountain and Independence Pass. For Winter 2022/23, exhibitions include the following: 

• Hervé Télémaque: A Hopscotch of the Mind (Nov. 4, 2022–Mar. 26, 2023) - Since the late 1950s, Hervé Télémaque has created an expansive body of work with a playful visual vocabulary, featuring abstract gestures, cartoon-like imagery, and mixed media compositions. Through paintings, drawings, collages, objects, and assemblages, he brings together striking combinations of historical and literary references with those of consumer and popular culture. Incorporating images and experiences from his daily life, the artist’s extensive body of work draws connections between the realms of interior consciousness, social experience, and the complex relationships between image and language.
• Jeffrey Gibson: THE SPIRITS ARE LAUGHING (Nov. 4–Fall 2023) - Jeffrey Gibson’s practice mixes Indigenous aesthetic histories with the visual language of Modernism to explore culture, history, and identity. The artist works with garments, sculpture, performance, video, and painting to consider the complex and fluid narratives surrounding selfhood in this country. 
• New! The Rooftop Cafe at the Aspen Art Museum - Is now operated by The Farmer & Chef, a husband-and-wife team dedicated to localizing food systems one delicious plate at a time, with a new focus on genuinely local, organic food.

Red Brick Center for the Arts - In addition to winter classes, the Red Brick will host two exhibitions, free and open to the public:

• Resident Artists Exhibition (Dec. 1- Jan. 27) A showing of resident artists' latest creations in a range of materials and subjects from ceramic ware and vases, abstract and representational painting, photography, mixed media, sculpture, and jewelry design.
• Tamara Susa: Disturbance (Dec. 1 – Feb. 23) A collection of works by Tamara Susa, a Serbian documentary photographer based in Aspen. Her work explores the human innate connection to the environment, and merges scenes of beauty and destruction as if they were part of one continuous landscape, showing how everything in nature is connected. 

Aspen Film is a nonprofit, year-round organization, presenting festivals, film series, and youth programs. In October 2022, Aspen Film took ownership of Aspen’s iconic Isis Theater. This winter season’s event highlights are as follows:

•  30th Annual Academy Screenings  (Dec. 19-23, 2022) - From buzzy, big-name features to fresh independent voices, Aspen Film Academy Screenings bring a high-profile roster of prominent end-of-year titles to the mountains for a showcase of awards season contenders, showcasing some of the most anticipated and accoladed films of the year at Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House and Isis Theater.

• 30th Annual SHORTSFEST (April 10-13, 2023) - Aspen Shortsfest is an Oscar®-qualifying film festival recognized as one of the premier short film festivals in North America. Each April enthusiastic audiences, filmmakers, and special guests from around the globe gather to participate in public screenings, panels, workshops, and other festivities that spotlight the art and craft of short movie making. 
• Aspen Film/Up Next - Aspen Film presents regular screenings of documentary and indie films at the Isis Theater. For upcoming events, visit https://aspenfilm.org/up-next/.

Anderson Ranch Arts Center is a nonprofit, year-round organization serving the personal and professional development of amateur and professional artists through workshops, artist residencies, exhibitions, tours, lectures, and community outreach programs for artists of all skill levels. 

PERFORMING ARTS

Theatre Aspen produces world-class entertainment and arts programming in an engaging, intimate, and personal way. This winter season kicks off Theatre Aspen’s 40th anniversary with its annual Holiday Cabaret, Dec. 19-23, in partnership with the Hotel Jerome. Celebrate the holiday season with evening performances, a chef’s dinner, followed by a 60-minute musical revue, presented by a Broadway award-winning cast of Theatre Aspen alumni performers.

Dance Aspen: With the mission of enriching the Roaring Fork Valley with locally based curations of high-caliber dance, Dance Aspen returns with their Winter Program (Mar 17 & 18, 2023) - A thrilling evening of dance with innovative choreography, unmatched athleticism, and emotional artistry. This performance will feature a new creation set on the Dance Aspen artists by world-renowned choreographer, Yin Yue. 

MUSIC

 Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS): JAS Café Winter Series - Featuring intimate jazz performances at The Little Nell (Jan, 13-14 and Feb 10-11) and Here House (Feb. 24-25, March 10-11, and March 24-25). Enjoy candlelit performances from some of the greatest jazz artists from around the world alongside delicious food and beverages. 

Aspen Music Festival and School: The 2023 winter music recital series returns to the intimate 500 - seat Harris Concert Hall with a lineup of top classical artists: The Pacifica Quartet (Feb. 16),  Alexander Malofeev (Feb. 23), and Joyce Yang (March 16).

Belly Up Aspen: The intimate 450-person music club will be offering a season of live music shows with highlight shows from Marcus Mumford (Dec. 14 & 15), Zhu (Dec. 22 & 23), The Chainsmokers (Dec. 27 & Dec. 28), Emancipator (Jan. 1), Neal Francis (Jan. 2), and Flume (Jan. 4).

• Palm Tree Music Festival (Feb.24 -25) - An outdoor two-day concert produced by BellyUp in Aspen's Rio Grande Park. Performers include Kygo, Jack White, Gryffin and more.

CULTURAL

Aspen Historical Society: In addition to a full tour schedule, there are several other offerings this winter, such as History Lessons in the AHS Archives, annual Wintersköl programs, "History on Stage" performances at the Wheeler Opera House, and Retro Films screenings at the Limelight hotel. 

Aspen Words: Celebrating the power of storytelling, the 26th Winter Words series presents five events with a lineup of award-winning authors: Patrick Radden Keefe (Jan. 9), Bessel van der Kolk (Jan. 23), Kwame Alexander (Feb. 15), Imbolo Mbue (March 7), and Geraldine Brooks (March 21). Tickets and season passes go on sale Dec. 1. For more information visit: https://www.aspenwords.org