We can't wait for you to hear our 2017 Holiday Extravaganza! The big event was taped last month at DU. Here's one of the acts, Latin ska band Roka Hueka. Hear them tomorrow at 10am and 7pm. pic.twitter.com/6e0uI0pzGz
Isaac Slade, frontman of Denver rock band The Fray, is a big fan of Christmas, particularly the music, which he says he listens to throughout the year.
"Yeah, I jog to ['A Charlie Brown Christmas'] in June," Slade told Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner. "That's a thing I do."
Slade and his wife, Anna, opened the second annual Colorado Matters Holiday Extravaganza, a showcase of artists sharing their favorite holiday songs, memories and traditions.
From Christmas carols, to a Chanukah classic, a dose of comedy and a story about how one singer came to celebrate Kwanzaa, the event's lineup included:
- House band: Andy Hackbarth, of La Veta, with Mike Hyland, Jean-Luc Davis, Luke Lindholm, Joe D’Esposito and Kevin Matthews
- Isaac and Anna Slade
- Denver comedian Josh Blue, who also performs at ComedyWorks next week
- Denver soprano Christie Conover with pianist Beth Nielsen
- Boulder banjo player Jayme Stone with pianist Paul Fowler
- Denver jazz vocalist Danette Hollowell
- Country singer Braydon Zink, who grew up in the Eastern Plains town of Iliff
- Colorado Matters resident poet David Rothman, of Crested Butte
- Megan McGuire, who regularly performs with Denver's Phamaly Theatre Company
- Denver Latin ska band Roka Hueka
Colorado Matters Holiday Extravaganza was hosted by CPR's Ryan Warner and emceed by former CPR Classical host Charley Samson. The event was taped in front of a packed house at the Robert and Judi Newman Center for Performing Arts in Denver, Nov. 29, 2017.
Here's Josh Blue, and Christie Conover:
We're really excited to share the Colorado Matters Holiday Extravaganza with you! It's our 2nd annual star studded event taped live at DU last month. Here's the great @JoshBlueComedy. Tune in Wednesday at 10 and 7 to hear the full show. pic.twitter.com/So2cVTontC
Tomorrow's the big day! Tune-in for our 2nd annual Holiday Extravaganza taped last month at DU. The star studded event airs at 10am and 7pm -- here's opera singer Christie Conover: pic.twitter.com/evW5y4s84O
And here's David Rothman's poem for the season:
1.
In each long December night,
When the snow lies deep and dark
And our merely human sight
Cannot easily, against the stark
Landscape, fathom the mark
Any bright spring bud might make
In this endless winter’s wake;
When the bitter cold
Seems like every bitterness
Going, making every minute less
Sweet than we were told
We could make it if we only
Worked to make it so;
When the parts that used to go
Sweetly now trend sour and lonely,
Drifting unremarked away,
Breaking up and losing meaning
In the burst of each cold day,
With its hard words intervening;
Then I wonder how to hold,
Even to find, what matters,
Given darkness is so bold
That it takes my friends and scatters
Their unfeeling ashes into less than air;
Shreds whatever truth may be to tatters,
Thereby turning us against each other,
Making fair seem less than fair;
Turns my sister even against my brother;
And by all this, renders these short days
Angry, ugly, jinxed and stony
In a hundred icy ways;
Yes, then, then I wonder how to hold on,
Love appearing to be gone.
2.
Darkness, and a slightly tilted parking lot.
Silverthorne, a winter storm, the season’s first.
Tires were good, or so I thought,
As I fishtailed pointlessly and cursed,
Going nowhere fast. The worst.
That’s what happens when a storm
Freezes after starting warm.
Ninety minutes skidding sideways, stuck
Next to a Chinese restaurant.
This was turning into quite the jaunt.
No one stopped. Just my luck.
Chance of getting to that funeral
Now was low. Oh well.
Did my best. But you can never tell.
Love’s a mystic numeral.
Almost quit. Just then this guy pulls up,
Stops, hops out and asks
How to help. “Two-wheel drive?” “Yup,”
I admit. His laugh masks
No contempt. “My truck
Handles more than this all day.
Let’s get you unstuck.”
Hooked a line, checked it would stay,
Lined it up and boom:
Child’s play.
Funny how a day can change.
Given just a little room,
Simple moves can quickly rearrange
Almost anything. No, maybe everything.
I went on my way, with gratitude,
Dusty and his truck one proof of something
Deep within each turning year
That exists but does not need to be said here.
