Earlier today, I soft pedaled it at Sierra FoodWineArt magazine about Willie Nelson coming to town, because it’s a broader, more genteel audience. Journalists sometimes do that, tailoring their message to the crowd — just like performers.
But — just between us Sierra Foothills Report enthusiasts — American music icon Willie Nelson is expected to come to Grass Valley this summer, performing in the annual benefit concert for the Bear Yuba Land Trust (formerly the Nevada County Land Trust) at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. It’s going to be a blast.
I expect a formal press release next month. This is a big coup for the Bear Yuba Land Trust and The Center for the Arts, which is handling the concert, and the Fairgrounds, now under Sandy Woods, an innovator.
I’m proud and appreciative of all of them! Julie Baker has done a “bang up job” revitalizing The Center. For us, Willie’s appearance is on a par with landing the Amgen Bike Race, as Nevada City did in the recent past.
Now that’s out-of-the-way, let’s get down to the bigger picture: It is time to get more serious about building a new performing arts center in our town or expand existing ones — an “on again, off again” effort over the years.
We continue to land a lot of major-league talent nowadays: Kris Kristofferson and Judy Collins (The Center for the Arts) and the Vienna Boys’ Choir and world-class pianist Garrick Ohlsson (InConcert Sierra) and Gregory Vajda’s Music in the Mountains performances, among others. We are unique in the Sierra Foothills in this respect — at least when it comes to the breadth and depth of performers.
We also have award-winning community theater, including Sierra Stages, the Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra (CATS), LeGacy Productions and others. The Del Oro Theatre broadcasts live performances from the Met Opera and London’s National Theatre.
To be sure, the county fairgrounds is ideal for a Willie Nelson concert. It also will help reinvigorate and raise visibility for the fairgrounds — just when it is facing state cutbacks.
But landing another world-class talent should cause our community to revisit the need for a bigger venue to handle our ever-increasing performing arts business. The arts are a big “economic engine,” helping the lodging, dining and shopping sectors of our economy with visitors.
An effort to build a larger concert venue at The Center’s downtown location (700-1000 seats) stalled last year because of the economic downturn, public funding (including redevelopment funds), lack of awareness of the arts’ economic power, and other factors.
This included a minimal $1 million effort to upgrade The Center. (We at Sierra FoodWineArt magazine contributed what we could afford to the cause). More substantial renovations brought the proposed figure as high as $14 million for a more ambitious plan.
Several years ago, a movement was quietly growing in the county to build a full-scale performing arts center.
A committee of performing-arts groups was formed and a survey was funded by Nevada City residents LaVonne and the late Frank Amaral, well-known for their support of the arts. Their contributions helped build the Amaral Family Center, a classical music venue at the county fairgrounds.
It came at the same time that Sierra College pulled back from plans to build such a center at its Grass Valley campus — and built a gym.
Now that the arts community has proven its mettle in landing world-class talent, it’s time for the community to step up and help support a full-scale performing arts center.
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I think building an outdoor ampetheatere similar to Red Rocks is something that would work very well for this area. (Red Rocks seats around 9,500 yet is still relatively compact.)
Outdoor could work, but needs a lot of (expensive?) acoustical enhancements to work for non-electric productions – no matter how fancy the electronic equipment, it’s always unpleasant to listen to a play or classical music via loudspeakers, which is one reason I won’t attend MIM concerts at the amphitheater at the fairgrounds any more.
Santa Fe Opera is a wonderful “outdoor” theater, with lovely views of the desert sunset and the Sangria Mts – but they have all sorts of devices to enhance acoustics, and there is a partial roof over the stage (audience needs umbrellas, but the sets, costumes, instruments, artists, etc don’t). The partial roof also helps acoustically, as do the large baffles on the wings, and interestingly, an 8′-wide water-filled moat between the audience and stage that bounces sound to the audience. The result is that the acoustics there are actually fantastic.
Sharon, you bring up some good design points. Surrounding it with lots of trees and maybe some nice rock walls would help…A good design would be needed for sure.
What it would really need would be a very good acoustical engineer, specializing in such.
Pete, You’re referring to Colorado’s Red Rocks, right? If so, as I remember it, the acoustics there were great and that venue hosted many big name concerts. Is there any naturral rock formation in the are even remotely resembling Red Rocks. I guess I’m thinking it would have to be towards NSJ.
Ed,
Yes. I was mainly speaking of the complex/venue that was built at Red Rocks. We would need to come up with another way to enhance the accustical attributes.
I was very disappointed when Sierra College chose the gym over the PA center – a PA complex would really bring our podunk “community” college up to speed, and serve so many local groups. Even the high school might benefit, as their theater is an acoustical nightmare.
Saw Chris Isaak at the Veterans Hall last night. A lot could be said about the need for a place that has the accoustics that our great lineup of entertainers, and us, could enjoy. Great show by the way- regardless.