‘Aspen Idea’ alive and well

Others may count the “birthdate” differently, but 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the “Aspen Idea.” It was in the spring of 1945 that Elizabeth Paepke first brought her husband Walter to the Roaring Fork Valley and soon they set out to actualize their vision of Aspen as a place for “man’s complete life” — a hub for physical recreation and a place for arts, culture and the intellect.

The kernel of the idea would not manifest itself until 1949’s “Goethe Bicentennial Convocation and Music Festival,” a 20-day cultural gathering to honor German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. Goethe was a novelist, poet, playwright, theater director, scientist, statesman and critic whose work included plays, poetry and essays. He was a humanist who personified the idea that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible. 

He was, in short, the embodiment of the Aspen Idea: “Mind, body and spirit.”

That same year, the Paepckes founded The Aspen Institute, which since its inception has worked to “solve the most important challenges facing the United States and the world,” as its website says.

In 1950, arguably the greatest composer in the world at the time, Igor Stravinsky, came to perform at the nascent Aspen Music Festival and conducted his symphony, “The Rite of Spring.” Held in an amphitheater tent in a meadow not far from downtown Aspen, the event attracted 2,000 people, a huge number at that time. 

Indeed, Aspen had announced itself as a major player in the cultural and artistic landscape of Colorado and the world. The bar was set. Aspen would be a destination for world class art and culture. 

Here are some of the events from 2024 that embodied the Aspen Idea — gatherings that were world-class and as thought-provoking or entertaining as anything one could experience in New York, Chicago, San Francisco or any of the great cultural hubs of America.

AI coverage at Aspen Ideas

The Aspen Ideas Festival brings scientists, artists, educators, historians, politicians, activists and some of the greatest minds in the world to the Aspen Meadows campus in the West End annually to present, debate and discuss the most important ideas and issues of our time.

Indeed, Aspen Ideas Festival and its producer, the Aspen Institute, are one of the premiere “think tanks” in the world. The theme of this year’s festival, held in late June, was “Bright Minds for Dark Times.” The event was curated by Tina Brown, former Vanity Fair editor and editor of The Beast.

When Aspen Ideas tackles a subject, its finds some of the top people in a particular field to discuss it. A panel this year that captured the tenor of the times as well as any was one on artificial intelligence (there were several AI seminars in 2024’s Aspen Ideas program). Titled “AI Super Thinker,” it featured Mustafa Suleyman, one of the architects of artificial intelligence, who now works for Microsoft as their CEO of AI. 

AI is the great unknown of our time. No one knows exactly what direction it is heading. Some see it as having a great potential for good while others see it as a tool that could undermine traditional systems in education, the legal system, the economy and overall culture.

In “AI Super Thinker,” Suleyman engaged in conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin, a financial columnist for The New York Times and a co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Suleyman promoted AI as a positive tool for humanity. But much like the internet, which can be a great utility, it can be used as a tool for misinformation, pornography, crime and other negative purposes. 

Sorkin asked if AI could be “the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between,” to which Suleyman responded, “Don’t fear the downside of every tool.” Suleyman explained that the next progression for AI will be AGI (artificial general intelligence). AGI will reach its zenith when AI can do every human task better than humans. 

The next step after AGI will be EDR (emotional detection recognition), in which bots are able to “feel” human emotions and provide meta-data and information. Currently, AI is being developed by large technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon. China and Russia are developing their own systems of AI.

Will AI be used as a weapon between competing forces and rogue states or could it be used as a tool for peace? These are some of the most important questions of our time and Aspen Ideas tackled them in 2024 and certainly will continue to do so.

“Banksy: Restored and Reclaimed”

The identity of the street artist Banksy is one of the great secrets of art in the 21st century. Over the last 27 years, Banksy’s art, created with stencils and spray paint, have shown up on walls, bridges, phone booths and any number of street canvases with his distinctive visual style.

Many of his messages are anti-war, anti-consumerism, anti-imperialism and existentialism. All of these pieces are imbued by his authentic signature, simply “Banksy.”In March, Meuse Gallery featured the show “Banksy: Restored and Reclaimed,” which focused on how some of Banksy’s street art had been restored from its original locations and turned into fine art. 

There were five original pieces on display, including one with Banksy’s most iconic image, “Girl With Balloon.” There were four other original Banksy pieces that were reclaimed and restored for the show. These pieces were one-of-a-kind originals that were shown on the very walls on which Banksy spraypainted them.

“Peace is Tough” features a depiction of a helicopter from “Apocalypse Now.” A second helicopter piece called “Have a Nice Day” featured the same helicopter but adorned with a pink ribbon. “Yellow Lines Flower Painter” depicted a street painter sitting on a paint bucket with his roller. A wall covered with red graffiti stated “If Graffiti Changed Anything It Would Be Illegal” and the signature Banksy rat was present as the visual terrorist.

Meuse gallery owner Simon Bull made the show free to the public (admission to the last Banksy show in Denver was $35). 

“We could have done the show in London but we chose Aspen because it’s a small market where we can reach the right people,” Bull said. “The environment is perfect, you can ski in the day and buy a Banksy in the afternoon.”

Benko cabaret performance

Actress Julie Benko went from understudy to Broadway lead in a play in which a no name actress becomes a star. The play was “Funny Girl” and it was a classic example of art imitating life and life imitating art. Benko’s meteoric rise in the theater world is the stuff of legend. 

Benko had been an understudy on Broadway for 14 years and was serving that function for lead actress Beanie Feldstein (“Booksmart,” “Ladybird”) in the revival of the 1964 play “Funny Girl,” a hit for Barbra Streisand. The lead character, Fanny Brice, who goes from unknown Vaudeville performer to the Broadway big time.

Feldstein’s performance as Brice in the first ever revival of “Funny Lady” was met with tepid reviews. When she came down with COVID-19, Benko put on a pair of Cinderella slippers by stepping into Brice’s theatrical shoes and blew the proverbial roof off the August Wilson Theater.

Broadway had found its new Fanny Brice. “CBS Mornings” called Benko “Broadway’s breakout star.” Today.com wrote, “Julie Benko might be the greatest star of them all” and The New York Times named her the 2022 Breakout Star for Theatre saying, “Julie Benko is the bright eyed, dulcet-voiced soprano who went from standby to star.”

On July 2, Benko performed two cabaret performances at Hotel Jerome with her husband Jason Yeager on piano. The shows were called “Standby, Me.”

When asked to describe the art of performing cabaret, Benko put it this way: “Cabaret is an art form that mixes music with storytelling. It’s personal and autobiographical. Cabaret requires an ease and rapport with the audience; it’s as though I’m coming into your living room. You want things to be alive and different night-to-night so nothing feels contrived.

“It’s different from playing a character in a theater piece. You are playing yourself which can be the hardest thing of all.”

Benko’s performance at Hotel Jerome incorporated elements from her life story and growing up to tales of her career as an actress who worked for years as an understudy. She sang songs from “Funny Girl” and finished the show by paying homage to John Denver with a stirring version of “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

The magazine “Showbiz 411” wrote about Banko’s cabaret performance. “Benko is a master at the cabaret genre,” the publication said.

Aspen audiences were treated to this high-level performance in an intimate setting with roughly 50 people in attendance: a truly memorable experience. 

JAS Labor Day Experience

Sunday was the best day, top to bottom, of the 2024 Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience. The War and Treaty, The Black Crowes and Dierks Bentley were all fantastic, closing out the three-day event on Sept. 8.

The husband-and-wife duo of Michael and Tanya Trotter, known as The War and Treaty, had a powerful version of “Proud Mary.” They pulled a relatively surprising move and rewarded early arrivers with a stirring version of their song “Hey Driver” next. This is the song they performed along with Zach Bryan on his eponymous 2023 release that has amassed 270 million spins on Spotify. One would have thought it would be used as an encore.

The Trotters love for one another came through as The War and Treaty played several love songs and an equal amount of rockers. 

The Black Crowes followed War and Treaty and put on a display of straight-ahead rock ’n’ roll fury for what felt like a long festival set. Some of their high-octane rockers included “Sting Me,” “Remedy,” “Sometimes Salvation,” “Soul Singing,” “Hard to Handle,” “Jealous Again” and “Thorn in My Pride.” They played their masterpiece “Wiser Time,” the sweet-sounding “She Talks To Angels” and a new song called “Bedside Manner” from their Grammy-nominated album “Happiness Bastards.”

Dierks Bentley was a late in the game substitution for original headliner Tim McGraw. Bentley delivered a crowd-pleasing set that put an exclamation mark on the 33rd annual Jazz Aspen Snowmass weekend. His set was a perfect mix of country and rock; he even covered Tom Petty’s “American Girl.”

The show was a lovefest for Colorado. Bentley has a home in Telluride, and several of his songs were odes to the Centennial state, including “My Sun Sets in Colorado.”

He saved the best for last when the stage was converted to a cockpit and came out and sang his epic song “Drunk on a Plane.” Bentley handed out beers to the general admission crowd. He showed a video depicting his band as a hockey team (even though none of them could skate); he showed a video of his crew. He came off as the ultimate great guy: The girls want to date him and the guys want to be him.

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet gala

The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet kicked off its 2024 season on July 10-11 with two gala performances featuring the Joffrey Ballet, Royal Ballet, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet and Ballet West. Seventeen dancers on the stage of The District Theater performed classical works and neo-classical pieces by Ulysses Dove, Yuri Possokhov, Gerald Arpino, William Forsythe and more.

The gala event was a stunning and sublime display of ballet by some of the best dancers from the best companies in the world performing their favorite pieces. The opportunity to see them all in one performance was a treat and a classic Aspen experience.

Ginacarlo Perez is a male dancer from Havana. He said he was in awe of all the talent that was together in one place.

“I have done a lot of galas around the world but what usually happens is you get some famous dancers and then some not-so-famous dancers, but not this time around,” Perez said. “They brought in the big guns from the best companies for this performance. 

And it was so great that I got to watch, got to learn and I got to also compare myself. ‘Where am I with the standard?’ They’re superstars around the globe and I got to see what I need to work on. It’s not often you get to experience that. I’m happy I got to have this opportunity and was able to be there with all of these incredible dancers.”

Molly Tuttle at Belly Up

Belly Up Aspen is widely considered one of the best music clubs in America with a capacity of less than 500 people. There is no other club of that size that hosts artists of the caliber of Lyle Lovett, Melissa Etheridge, Leanne Rhymes and Nelly, all of who performed at Belly Up in 2024. The club has great sightlines, superior acoustics, ample private tables and a good “pit area” in front of the stage. 

Bluegrass guitar player and vocalist Molly Tuttle is an example of one of several artists at the top of her craft who appeared at the local venue in 2024. She won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album back-to-back in 2023 and 2024 for “Crooked Tree” and “City of Gold,” respectively, the first time an artist had ever won the award back to back. She is the reigning queen of bluegrass. 

Molly Tuttle performed at Belly Up on Aug. 11 with her band Golden Highway. The band consisted of Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on fiddle, Kyle Tuttle on banjo, Molly Tuttle on guitar, Shelby Means on bass and Dominick Leslie on mandolin. 

How good is the band? Keith-Hynes released her debut album “I Built a World” this year and earned the Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. 

Tuttle transformed Belly Up into a Rocky Mountain version of the Ryman Auditorium (the famed venue in Nashville). She did a stirring a cappella version of  “Cold Rain and Snow” and played many tracks from her last two albums, proving why she won back-to-back Grammys. 

In anticipation of the show, Tuttle told the Aspen Daily News, “I hope people have a great time. I feel like I put on shows to give people a break from their everyday life. We all need to get in a different headspace and feel happiness and joy, to get together with friends, maybe feel inspired to, if you’re a musician, pick up your guitar when you get home.

“We need art because it gives us a different perspective for looking at the world. It can break you out of that routine if you get in a rut, are stressed out, or you just need some sort of beauty to kind of reinfuse you with that creative energy. That’s what I hope to offer people.”

‘Fiddler on the Roof’

On July 22, Theatre Aspen and the Aspen Music Festival and School collaborated on a one-night-only performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Michael Klein Music Tent.  

Andy Einhorn (“Carousel,” “Cinderella,” “Hello, Dolly!”) conducted the 60-plus piece AMFS student orchestra as they performed John Williams’ Oscar-winning score of the 1971 feature film version. The production was a star-studded affair with Broadway’s Shuler Hensley both starring and directing. Hensley won a Tony Award for “Oklahoma!” and most recently appeared in “The Music Man” on Broadway. He reprised his role as Tevye from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s production in February.

Anne L. Nathan co-starred alongside Hensley as Golde. Nathan has appeared on Broadway in “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Once.” The cast was rounded out by supporting actors David Benoit (“Les Misérables”) as Lazar Wolf, Danny Kornfeld (“Harmony”) as Motel, and Sydney Borchers (“The Sound of Music In Concert”) as Hodel.

“Fiddler on the Roof in Concert” was the fifth collaboration between Theatre Aspen and AMFS. Past productions include “South Pacific” in 2019, “The Music of Richard Rodgers” in 2021, “The Sound of Music in Concert” in 2022 and “Master Class” in 2023.

One of the highlights of the collaborations: Local actors are included in the productions. Eleanor Carroll is a local actress who has appeared in many productions. She was a part of the AMFS collaboration with Theatre Aspen in 2022 for “The Sound of Music.”

“As a young actress, it was incredible to have an opportunity to be around professional actors and musicians,” Carroll said. “I learned so much about what it takes to be an actor. … The musicians are the best in the world and the productions are full of Broadway actors, so it’s really the highest quality.”

Also extraordinary about the AMFS/Theatre Aspen show is that it happens only once. The curtain goes up and when it goes down, it’s over — hundreds of hours of rehearsal and preparation all put into a singular performance.

Art for art’s sake, the embodiment of the Aspen Idea.