Stroll across campus on a summer evening and you might hear the pounding rhythms of an eclectic dance performance or the hushed absorption of a poetry reading. In the expanding world of CC’s summer programs, choices include orchestral or chamber ensemble concerts, student art exhibits, puppetry, film screenings, operatic or musical theater, literary readings, dance performances, and more.
This is the Summer Festival of the Arts at Colorado College.
“We have larger audiences, a wider variety of individual events, and increasing connections to community organizations,” said Bettina Swigger, festival manager. “We really see it as a community arts festival.”
Continuing a tradition that began more than 100 years ago, the festival began June 8 with “A Celebration of Beethoven,” performed by local musicians from the Colorado Springs School. It will end Aug. 13 with the final rounds of the Rocky Mountain Piano Competition, hosted by Amateur Pianists International.
The Summer Music Festival, a “festival within the festival,” grew by a half week, added a recording contract with Bridge Records, and featured nearly 20 performances by 42 advanced student musicians and more than 20 internationally known faculty musicians. More than 300 students applied for the program, which ended July 3.
Likewise, the three-week Extraordinary Dance! festival, which ended July 14, drew some 70 students to its three-week program of classes and performances. The international faculty teaches everything from flamenco, ballet, and jazz to contemporary dance, hip hop, and Arabic-American tribal fusion.
Still to come is the Vocal Arts Symposium, which runs through Aug. 6. The program was started eight years ago by internationally acclaimed operatic soprano Martile Rowland in collaboration with the Opera Theatre of the Rockies. Since that first two-week opera symposium, the program has grown to three weeks of opera, musical theater, and jazz, Rowland said. Sixty students, chosen from 125 applicants, and an international faculty will work 14 to 16 hours a day, preparing for an intense performance schedule.
“We don’t really know what to expect, because the personality of it seems to change from summer to summer,” Rowland said. “We have participants of all levels, so I’m always excited to see what develops.”
An arts festival schedule can be found at http://ArtsFestival.ColoradoCollege.edu. Information also is available by calling (719) 389-6098 or (877) 894-8727.