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ENLARGE
Singer-actress Zoe Levine, right, appears this spring in the Aspen Community School play, “Once Upon a World,” in the Gottlieb Bartley Productions’ presentation of “Beauty and the Beast” and in Symphony in the Valley Mother’s Day Concerts. (Jordan Curet/The Aspen Times)
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Glenwood Springs senior Ben Fout has six films entered in this year’s Rocky Mountain Student Film Festival. (Jordan Curet/The Aspen Times)
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Aspen Country Day School students Taylor Clayton, left, and Allie Fifield wrote and appear in the school’s play, “Friends!?!: A Story of Getting Along.” Fifield also appears in May in a production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” (Jordan Curet/The Aspen Times)
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ENLARGE
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Aspen violinist Sylvia Tran performs in May in the Symphony in the Valley Mother’s Day Concerts, and in Heidi Curatolo’s Suzuki Piano and Violin Recital. (Jordan Curet/The Aspen Times)
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ASPEN — Zoe Levine was thrilled that this year’s curriculum for her seventh-grade class at the Aspen Community School included a section on “The American Musical.” Not because she wanted to learn more about the subject; Sondheim knows, she’s already remarkably well-versed in “Oklahoma,” “West Side Story” and the like. Instead, she figured a course in musicals would give her classmates insight into Levine herself. “It was amazing to have other kids get into what I get into,” said the 13-year-old.
Levine’s iPod is limited mostly to the Broadway songbook. She’s got her dream roles picked out: Val in “A Chorus Line,” and Elphaba in “Wicked.” She’s got much of her spring planned: the Incan god Sura in the Aspen Community School play, “Once Upon a World”; and the leading role of Belle, the attractive young villager, in Gottlieb Bartley Productions’ “Beauty and the Beast.” Levine might even take a step toward her theater goals, as Gottlieb Bartley is staging a teen-appropriate version of “A Chorus Line” this summer, and Levine expects to audition for Val.
Levine got turned onto the voice when her father, Scott, was on Jazz Aspen Snowmass’ staff. Her dad took Zoe, 4 at the time, to see a friend of his, singer Nina Storey, perform in Snowmass Village. Zoe was struck by the voice, and further infatuated when Storey would come to her house for dinner, and occupy Zoe by singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” with her. Guided by her father, Levine learned the songs of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.
At 11, what she calls “the show-tune thing” hit. Levine auditioned for a local kids production of “42nd Street.” With no stage experience, she expected to get a role in the chorus. Instead, she was cast in the featured role of Dorothy Brock. She was surprised, but instantly comfortable on the stage.
“I love to belt. I love to have that feeling of belting,” said Levine, who has since had major roles in the Gottlieb Bartley Productions of “Grease,” “West Side Story,” “Singin’ in the Rain” and more. “I’ve gotten a lot of confidence, belting it out in all these shows.”
While she hopes for a career in musical theater, the Carbondale resident is also branching out. Levine makes her debut as a classical vocalist this month, having earned a soloist slot in Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day Concerts, by winning the group’s Young Artists Concerto Competition. She will sing the Andrew Lloyd Webber Requiem, “Pie Jesu” — a soprano part (a “very soprano” part, she emphasizes), and a stretch for the natural alto.
<i>Hear Zoe Levine in the Aspen Community School play, “Once Upon a World,” Thursday and Friday, May 1-2; as a vocal soloist on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu,” at Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day Concerts May 10 at Carbondale’s Roaring Fork High School and May 11 at the First United Methodist Church in Glenwood Springs; and as Belle in Gottlieb Bartley Productions’ “Beauty and the Beast” May 17-18 at the Wheeler Opera House.</i>
Levine’s iPod is limited mostly to the Broadway songbook. She’s got her dream roles picked out: Val in “A Chorus Line,” and Elphaba in “Wicked.” She’s got much of her spring planned: the Incan god Sura in the Aspen Community School play, “Once Upon a World”; and the leading role of Belle, the attractive young villager, in Gottlieb Bartley Productions’ “Beauty and the Beast.” Levine might even take a step toward her theater goals, as Gottlieb Bartley is staging a teen-appropriate version of “A Chorus Line” this summer, and Levine expects to audition for Val.
Levine got turned onto the voice when her father, Scott, was on Jazz Aspen Snowmass’ staff. Her dad took Zoe, 4 at the time, to see a friend of his, singer Nina Storey, perform in Snowmass Village. Zoe was struck by the voice, and further infatuated when Storey would come to her house for dinner, and occupy Zoe by singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” with her. Guided by her father, Levine learned the songs of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.
At 11, what she calls “the show-tune thing” hit. Levine auditioned for a local kids production of “42nd Street.” With no stage experience, she expected to get a role in the chorus. Instead, she was cast in the featured role of Dorothy Brock. She was surprised, but instantly comfortable on the stage.
“I love to belt. I love to have that feeling of belting,” said Levine, who has since had major roles in the Gottlieb Bartley Productions of “Grease,” “West Side Story,” “Singin’ in the Rain” and more. “I’ve gotten a lot of confidence, belting it out in all these shows.”
While she hopes for a career in musical theater, the Carbondale resident is also branching out. Levine makes her debut as a classical vocalist this month, having earned a soloist slot in Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day Concerts, by winning the group’s Young Artists Concerto Competition. She will sing the Andrew Lloyd Webber Requiem, “Pie Jesu” — a soprano part (a “very soprano” part, she emphasizes), and a stretch for the natural alto.
<i>Hear Zoe Levine in the Aspen Community School play, “Once Upon a World,” Thursday and Friday, May 1-2; as a vocal soloist on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu,” at Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day Concerts May 10 at Carbondale’s Roaring Fork High School and May 11 at the First United Methodist Church in Glenwood Springs; and as Belle in Gottlieb Bartley Productions’ “Beauty and the Beast” May 17-18 at the Wheeler Opera House.</i>
<b>Ben Fout — Film</b>
Ben Fout mentions that he “helps out” with the Rocky Mountain Student Film Festival. Yeah, and LeBron James “helps out” with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ offense.
This year’s festival features 25 films. Six of them are by Fout. (Two others he submitted were not accepted into the festival.) Of course, Fout, a home-schooled senior from Glenwood Springs, isn’t a one-man production company. One of his films, a live-action comedy titled “The Atrocity,” was made in collaboration with a friend. And for “Cancerous Romance,” his longtime piano teacher, Linda Jenks, shared a credit for the film’s score with Fout. The other four films, however, were made entirely by Fout.
Fout’s rich cinematic imagination spans a wide range of genres, techniques and concepts. “Cancerous Romance,” which he describes as “sort of a tragic romance between a cigarette and a model lung that fall in love,” features a real cigarette, a model lung and fairly elaborate dollhouse-like sets, and was done with stop-motion cinematography. “Band of Brothers” focuses on four members of a band — all of them played by Fout — playing out typical rock-band dramas: “They kick the bongo player out of the band, because he kind of sucks,” said Fout. “Except,” a commentary on war and religion, uses found footage from a History Channel movie, with Fout’s own manipulated, stereo sound.
Fout, who has two demo CDs of original songs to his credit, is a former street performer, whose juggling/balancing/hat tricks act earned him a decent day’s pay at the Aspen Saturday Market. But his devotion is to film — he might attend the Colorado Film School on the Front Range next year; if not, he will make continue making films on his own — and he’s focused on figuring out how to make money from his shorts.
“Some people say it’s hard; others say it’s easy” to make money from short films, said Fout, who was a devoted attendee at Aspen Shortsfest earlier this month, and served on the festival’s youth jury. “You have to do certain things: make them short, make them cheap, make them funny. So I’m still trying to figure that out.”
<I>See Ben Fout’s films at the Rocky Mountain Student Film Festival on Friday, May 2, the Basalt Middle School auditorium. For further information, go to studentfilmfest.org.</I>
Ben Fout mentions that he “helps out” with the Rocky Mountain Student Film Festival. Yeah, and LeBron James “helps out” with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ offense.
This year’s festival features 25 films. Six of them are by Fout. (Two others he submitted were not accepted into the festival.) Of course, Fout, a home-schooled senior from Glenwood Springs, isn’t a one-man production company. One of his films, a live-action comedy titled “The Atrocity,” was made in collaboration with a friend. And for “Cancerous Romance,” his longtime piano teacher, Linda Jenks, shared a credit for the film’s score with Fout. The other four films, however, were made entirely by Fout.
Fout’s rich cinematic imagination spans a wide range of genres, techniques and concepts. “Cancerous Romance,” which he describes as “sort of a tragic romance between a cigarette and a model lung that fall in love,” features a real cigarette, a model lung and fairly elaborate dollhouse-like sets, and was done with stop-motion cinematography. “Band of Brothers” focuses on four members of a band — all of them played by Fout — playing out typical rock-band dramas: “They kick the bongo player out of the band, because he kind of sucks,” said Fout. “Except,” a commentary on war and religion, uses found footage from a History Channel movie, with Fout’s own manipulated, stereo sound.
Fout, who has two demo CDs of original songs to his credit, is a former street performer, whose juggling/balancing/hat tricks act earned him a decent day’s pay at the Aspen Saturday Market. But his devotion is to film — he might attend the Colorado Film School on the Front Range next year; if not, he will make continue making films on his own — and he’s focused on figuring out how to make money from his shorts.
“Some people say it’s hard; others say it’s easy” to make money from short films, said Fout, who was a devoted attendee at Aspen Shortsfest earlier this month, and served on the festival’s youth jury. “You have to do certain things: make them short, make them cheap, make them funny. So I’m still trying to figure that out.”
<I>See Ben Fout’s films at the Rocky Mountain Student Film Festival on Friday, May 2, the Basalt Middle School auditorium. For further information, go to studentfilmfest.org.</I>
<b>Taylor Clayton & Allie Fifield — Theater</b>
Bringing the Aspen Country Day School’s play to life has always been a hands-on, full-immersion project for the students, with everyone from kindergartners to eighth-graders contributing to the sets, dialogue and music. Writing the script, however, has always fallen to teachers — and for the last eight years to Marci Sketch, the school’s drama teacher.
This year, Taylor Clayton and Allie Fifield figured Sketch deserved a break. Or more accurately, they thought they had ideas worth putting onstage. While watching a commercial for “High School Musical,” the two eighth-graders began to devise a plot. Also swirling about in their heads were “A Chorus Line” (a production of which Fifield expects to participate in this summer), rock band issues (Fifield is lead singer of the group, Common Sense), and standard school dynamics. The fact that they began writing the show before getting the go-ahead from Sketch didn’t give them much pause: “We’re both so involved with theater, she knew we’d be able to pull it off,” said Clayton.
The show they came up with is “Friends!?! A Story of Getting Along.” The musical involves a spat between best friends, after Dylan (Clayton) replaces Ella (Fifield) as singer of a band, and how their feud divides the school. The play gets a dose of humor from the fact that Dylan is a lousy singer, who only gets the position because her parents have just built her a rehearsal space.
“Because who doesn’t want to see a bad singer?” asks Clayton. “On ‘American Idol,’” adds Fifield, “you’re only attracted to the people who can’t sing,” added Fifield.
Actually, part of the reason they wrote a music-oriented plot was because they were interested in some talented musicians — the members of Fifield’s band, Common Sense. The group, comprised of Aspen Country Day students, earned top prize at last year’s Basalt Battle of the Bands. Clayton and Fifield wrote acting and musical parts for Common Sense into “Friends!?!”; they will perform tunes by the White Stripes, the Last Good Night and Hoobastank.
Fifield and Clayton appeared together in December in the Jayne Gottlieb Productions version of “Singin’ in the Rain,” with Fifield earning raves for a spot-on performance as the clueless, helium-voiced starlet Lina Lamont. For Clayton, theater ambitions take a backseat to other interests; the student council president at Aspen Country Day, she is eyeing a career in journalism, and perhaps launching her own magazine.
Fifield, however, plans to take her acting and singing as far as she can. She appears in the Gottlieb Bartley production of “Bye Bye Birdie” — and beyond that, in any show that will have her. “I’ll be in every Jayne Gottlieb show, every Aspen Community Theatre show I can get into,” said Fifield, who has been in ACT’s “Fiddler on the Roof” and “The Sound of Music.” “I hope to be on Broadway.”
<i>Taylor Clayton and Allie Fifield can be seen in the Aspen Country Day School production of “Friends!?!” Friday and Saturday, April 25-26, at the Wheeler Opera House. Fifield will also appear in the Gottlieb Bartley Productions version of “Bye Bye Birdie” May 9-11 at the Wheeler.</i>
Bringing the Aspen Country Day School’s play to life has always been a hands-on, full-immersion project for the students, with everyone from kindergartners to eighth-graders contributing to the sets, dialogue and music. Writing the script, however, has always fallen to teachers — and for the last eight years to Marci Sketch, the school’s drama teacher.
This year, Taylor Clayton and Allie Fifield figured Sketch deserved a break. Or more accurately, they thought they had ideas worth putting onstage. While watching a commercial for “High School Musical,” the two eighth-graders began to devise a plot. Also swirling about in their heads were “A Chorus Line” (a production of which Fifield expects to participate in this summer), rock band issues (Fifield is lead singer of the group, Common Sense), and standard school dynamics. The fact that they began writing the show before getting the go-ahead from Sketch didn’t give them much pause: “We’re both so involved with theater, she knew we’d be able to pull it off,” said Clayton.
The show they came up with is “Friends!?! A Story of Getting Along.” The musical involves a spat between best friends, after Dylan (Clayton) replaces Ella (Fifield) as singer of a band, and how their feud divides the school. The play gets a dose of humor from the fact that Dylan is a lousy singer, who only gets the position because her parents have just built her a rehearsal space.
“Because who doesn’t want to see a bad singer?” asks Clayton. “On ‘American Idol,’” adds Fifield, “you’re only attracted to the people who can’t sing,” added Fifield.
Actually, part of the reason they wrote a music-oriented plot was because they were interested in some talented musicians — the members of Fifield’s band, Common Sense. The group, comprised of Aspen Country Day students, earned top prize at last year’s Basalt Battle of the Bands. Clayton and Fifield wrote acting and musical parts for Common Sense into “Friends!?!”; they will perform tunes by the White Stripes, the Last Good Night and Hoobastank.
Fifield and Clayton appeared together in December in the Jayne Gottlieb Productions version of “Singin’ in the Rain,” with Fifield earning raves for a spot-on performance as the clueless, helium-voiced starlet Lina Lamont. For Clayton, theater ambitions take a backseat to other interests; the student council president at Aspen Country Day, she is eyeing a career in journalism, and perhaps launching her own magazine.
Fifield, however, plans to take her acting and singing as far as she can. She appears in the Gottlieb Bartley production of “Bye Bye Birdie” — and beyond that, in any show that will have her. “I’ll be in every Jayne Gottlieb show, every Aspen Community Theatre show I can get into,” said Fifield, who has been in ACT’s “Fiddler on the Roof” and “The Sound of Music.” “I hope to be on Broadway.”
<i>Taylor Clayton and Allie Fifield can be seen in the Aspen Country Day School production of “Friends!?!” Friday and Saturday, April 25-26, at the Wheeler Opera House. Fifield will also appear in the Gottlieb Bartley Productions version of “Bye Bye Birdie” May 9-11 at the Wheeler.</i>
<b>Sylvia Tran — Music</b>
Mei Ying Tran may be the first Asian-American parent to discourage her child from taking up violin. But when her daughter, Sylvia, expressed interest in the instrument four years ago, as an 8-year-old, Tran though it would be a passing fancy. “Believe it or not, when she first started I said no,” said Tran. “I thought it was just because her friend was doing it.”
But Sylvia saw good reason to take music seriously. Shy by nature, the younger Tran thought that, in a family of non-musicians, becoming accomplished on violin would make her stand out.
“It made me different,” said Tran, a seventh-grader at Aspen Middle School. “I thought violin would give me confidence, and build my confidence. And it has. Playing my violin and having other people listen to it makes me feel confident.”
Tran seems now to have talent as well as a belief in herself. It didn’t dash her spirits the last two years when she entered, but didn’t win, Symphony in the Valley’s Young Artists Concerto Competition. She entered again this year, and won; her prize includes a soloist turn at Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day concerts next month. Tran will play the third movement of Seitz’s Violin Concerto in D. The following weekend, Tran she will perform in a recital featuring the students of her teacher, Heidi Curatolo, playing Severn’s “The Polish Dance.” In September, Tran travels to California for a gig — at her cousin’s wedding.
Tran has taken advantage of the Aspen Music Festival’s resources. Last summer, she was accepted into the festival’s PALS program, which offers young players access to concerts and lessons. She spent the summer improving her technique, and gaining inspiration by watching world-class violinists.
“I want to keep on playing until I can play on a stage at the Music Festival,” said Tran. “I want to try to play as well as Sarah Chang.”
<i>Sylvia Tran will perform in Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day Concerts, May 10 at Carbondale’s Roaring Fork High School and May 11 at the First United Methodist Church in Glenwood Springs; and at Heidi Curatolo’s Suzuki Piano and Violin Recital, May 18 at the Aspen Chapel.</i>
stewart@aspentimes.com
Mei Ying Tran may be the first Asian-American parent to discourage her child from taking up violin. But when her daughter, Sylvia, expressed interest in the instrument four years ago, as an 8-year-old, Tran though it would be a passing fancy. “Believe it or not, when she first started I said no,” said Tran. “I thought it was just because her friend was doing it.”
But Sylvia saw good reason to take music seriously. Shy by nature, the younger Tran thought that, in a family of non-musicians, becoming accomplished on violin would make her stand out.
“It made me different,” said Tran, a seventh-grader at Aspen Middle School. “I thought violin would give me confidence, and build my confidence. And it has. Playing my violin and having other people listen to it makes me feel confident.”
Tran seems now to have talent as well as a belief in herself. It didn’t dash her spirits the last two years when she entered, but didn’t win, Symphony in the Valley’s Young Artists Concerto Competition. She entered again this year, and won; her prize includes a soloist turn at Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day concerts next month. Tran will play the third movement of Seitz’s Violin Concerto in D. The following weekend, Tran she will perform in a recital featuring the students of her teacher, Heidi Curatolo, playing Severn’s “The Polish Dance.” In September, Tran travels to California for a gig — at her cousin’s wedding.
Tran has taken advantage of the Aspen Music Festival’s resources. Last summer, she was accepted into the festival’s PALS program, which offers young players access to concerts and lessons. She spent the summer improving her technique, and gaining inspiration by watching world-class violinists.
“I want to keep on playing until I can play on a stage at the Music Festival,” said Tran. “I want to try to play as well as Sarah Chang.”
<i>Sylvia Tran will perform in Symphony in the Valley’s Mother’s Day Concerts, May 10 at Carbondale’s Roaring Fork High School and May 11 at the First United Methodist Church in Glenwood Springs; and at Heidi Curatolo’s Suzuki Piano and Violin Recital, May 18 at the Aspen Chapel.</i>
stewart@aspentimes.com
