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2010 White Pine Festival to feature exhibition of "Painters Paint Poetry," a tribute to heroism and sacrifice

Music- and poetry-inspired exhibits make up festival's distinctly multi-genre flavor

Start with a healthy helping of classical music. Stir it up with a dollop of jazz. Sprinkle in notes of poetry and visual art. Add a dash of sparkling conversation, good food and laughter. Gently bask mixture between 75-80 degrees in a gorgeous river valley. Serve and enjoy.

That's the recipe for summer from the White Pine Festival, an annual celebration of the arts amidst the natural beauty of Stillwater, Minn. and Hudson, Wis. This year's featured events are Thursday through Sunday, June 24-27, 2010.

No White Pine Festival would be complete without a slurry of artistic disciplines: music inspired by paintings, poetry inspired by music, paintings inspired by poetry. This year, festival organizers coordinated with artists in the St. Croix Valley and beyond to produce an exhibit, Painters Paint Poetry, showing work inspired by the 1964 poem "I Think Continually" by Stephen Spender, which explores the meaning of sacrifice and heroism. Artists gathered to hear and discuss the poem, and then set out to express their individual artistic visions on canvas. The exhibit takes place at the Alesci Gallery (116 S. Main St., Stillwater) from June 16 to July 12.

Students at the St. Croix Preparatory Academy similarly took their inspirational cues from the music of the Miró Quartet's Saturday evening concert, including George Crumb’s Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land. Crumb’s remarkable quartet requires the musicians to play, in addition to their instruments, various glass, metal and crystal objects. Crumb’s piece was composed in response to the Vietnam War, though it is a broader commentary on loss, destruction and resurrection. With this in mind, students produced works for a show on display at ArtReach St. Croix (224 N. 4th St., Stillwater), June 8 through July 3.

Jim Hainlen, White Pine Festival artistic coordinator, is deeply moved by his observations of student artists’ abilities to capture such profound concepts in their artwork. “I told them to try to remember the vitality of their insights and to avoid the easy cynicism that can take over in life,” he says. “And in fact, that is partly what art is for, to remind us of the vast reservoir of questions and insights we have before the fog blows in.”

For the festival’s main events, violinist Jorja Fleezanis opens the festival with pianist Karl Paulnack and what is sure to be a mesmerizing set of poems delivered by Guthrie veteran Stephen Yoakam. Jazz artist Charles Lazarus brings his quartet back to town, this time combining forces with composer Jack Perla and mixing it up with Fleezanis and the Miró Quartet, which will perform two programs on Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets

Tickets can be purchased online at www.whitepinefestival.org, or over the phone at 1-800-838-3006. Individual concert tickets are available now at $15 for each performance ($10 for students) or $45 for all four. A complete listing of festival activities is available on the Web site. Tickets are also currently available for purchase at ArtReach St. Croix in Stillwater and The Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson.

About the White Pine Festival

THE WHITE PINE FESTIVAL is an annual series of world-class artistic and intellectual events set amid the natural beauty of Stillwater, Minn., and Hudson, Wis. The fourth annual festival will take place June 24–27, 2010.

The White Pine Festival explores challenging ideas from a wide range of artistic and intellectual perspectives, including music, literature, visual art, history, poetry, nature, science and philosophy. Festival participants are encouraged to view art and the world in new ways, and to approach the task with the vitality, humor and candor one finds in conversations among close friends.

This activity is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council from an appropriation by the Minnesota Legislature. This program is also supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

More information, including a complete listing of festival events, high-resolution photographs and extended artist biographies, is available at www.whitepinefestival.org.

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