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Imagine hearing about a touring show scheduled to come to Cache Valley, buying some tickets, watching for the date on your calendar, then driving to downtown Logan and filing into the Eccles Theatre with a throng of other locals on a chilly, starlit evening full of excitement and anticipation.
Thatâs an experience that seemed far off this time last year after Cache Valley and the rest of the country scaled back live entertainment as a precaution against the coronavirus.
On Monday, CacheArts announced it is returning with a full schedule of national touring shows for its 2021-22 season â and as things have turned out, the seasonâs opening show on Sept. 7 will be âAir Play,â a circus-style extravaganza slated to come to Logan in March 2020 but forced to cancel just after the coronavirus pandemic was declared.
For anyone who had forgotten about the simple pleasures of sitting outside in a camp chair, amid a throng of a thousand of your friends and neighbors, with a cold drink and a picnic dinner, all in front of a stage with a parade of live musicians performing, Saturdayâs Spring Fling at the site of the Bar J Chuckwagon was a potent reminder.
It was a fundraiser for the Teton Music School, the nonprofit that for a bit over a year has been connecting teachers and pupils in the Center for the Artsâ music rooms. It was also the first outdoor music fest of 2021, and, really, the first massive outdoor gathering any sort since the fall of 2019. Featured were local headliners The Deadlocks, Baldy Dread (Peter âChanmanâ Chandlerâs reggae incarnation), a trio of members of the legendary Bar J Wranglers, and Sister Karee and Friends, who all helped lure an energized but well-behaved crowd of 700 or more lockout-weary music fans to the venue off Village Road.
If you arenât familiar with the Teton Music School youâll have a chance to become so on Saturday when it hosts its first fundraising âSpring Flingâ at the Bar J Chuckwagon off Highway 390. Proceeds will fill the schoolâs scholarship coffers.
Starting at 2 p.m. and running into the night, the Spring Fling will feature well-known and -loved performers as well some new ones.
Family, friends and other fans are welcome to come for a set or two or for the whole day. Kiddies will have two bouncy castles to ricochet around in, and Teton Music School will have tables of info about its busy summer of programs, like Adventures in Music for grades three to five (July 5-9); Beats/Bangers, a weeklong songwriting and audio production workshop for grades six-12 (July 12-16); and Summer Strings Camp for sixth to 12th graders (July 19-23).
For nigh on 60 years, if you wanted to learn how to paint or draw you could go to the Art Association of Jackson Hole, one of the valleyâs oldest nonprofits. Gotta dance? Then your place was at Dancersâ Workshop, just a few years the Art Associationâs junior. And those bitten by the theater bug had Off Square Theatre Company, the direct descendant of community performing arts organizations that go back at least 40 years.
But if you had a song in your heart or a tap in your toe, well, here in Jackson Hole your options were limited. While there were skilled musicians willing and able to teach you, as well as various community ensembles, no single entity championed music education like those other nonprofits until the late 2000s, when the Jackson Hole Music Experience tried to do so.