Wintersköl luncheon tickets available
The Aspen Chamber Resort Association’s Wintersköl luncheon takes place on Thursday at noon at the St. Regis Aspen, 315 E. Dean St. The ACRA will present this year’s Wintersköl king and queen, as well as the 2012 business of the year, emerging business of the year, and nonprofit of the year. Tickets are $40 for ACRA members and $50 for non-members. Call 970-925-1940 to reserve a seat.
New second-in-command at LIFT-UP
Kim Loving has been appointed assistant executive director of LIFT-UP. She was the office manager for the past two years.
With 15 years of management and bookkeeping experience, she processes all donations, handles all accounting responsibilities and oversees grant writing for the nonprofit organization.
Loving is part of a team of five full-time and five part-time employees, which works to assist local families in need from Parachute to Aspen.
ACES produces nonprofit short film
After the record-breaking 2012 fire season and drought in Colorado, Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), through its For the Forest program, has launched an educational forest health initiative aimed at engaging the public with its Forest Health Index and animated short film, “What’s Happening in Our Forest?”
The four-minute film was created to raise awareness about forest health issues on a national level. The film, which has been submitted to the New York Animated Short Film Festival, is designed to familiarize the public and policy-makers about the state of America’s forests.
The index attempts to synthesize bioclimatic data and ecological monitoring into an annual report that can be used as an instrument for public engagement, education and policy reform. The recently published “Introduction to the Forest Health Index” sets the stage for future annual reports.
ACES is in the process of tracking 19 unique data sets ranging from frost-free days to air quality to critical fire-risk days. In the full index, each metric will be assigned a score between one and 100 based on those variables and will be reported annually, allowing for long-term monitoring of trends. An introduction to the index has just been published and the first complete iteration will be released this year.
The index, created in partnership with Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI), utilizes troves of existing data from sources like the National Weather Service, NOAA and U.S. Forest Service. ACES also is collaborating with local land management agencies to bring new long-term monitoring programs to the valley, including a soil moisture monitoring network. This summer ACES will be training citizen scientists to monitor plant phenology and avian migration data to contribute to the Index.
Music festival mourns death of former president Hardy
The Aspen Music Festival and School has announced the passing of Gordon Alfred Hardy, a longtime administrator and key supporter of the nonprofit organization. He was 94. Hardy served the organization in various administrative capacities for 28 years, retiring in 1989. The administrative building on the Bucksbaum Campus is named in his honor.
Hardy came to the festival in 1962 from The Juilliard School in New York City, where he was a music theory faculty member. He started as assistant dean, became dean a week later, and took the reins as president in 1977. Hardy is remembered especially for his deep devotion to the music students; the erection of the Bayer-Benedict Music Tent in 1965; the development of the first campus, also in 1965; the creation of the Friday Aspen Chamber Symphony in 1968 and the engagement of legendary violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay in 1971. During his tenure, there also was the launch of the Aspen Opera Theater Center, the Aspen Center for Advanced Quartet Studies and the Edgar Stanton Audio Recording Institute, among other programs.
He is survived by his wife Lillian, son Christopher Bartlett Hardy and daughter Susan Hardy Suechting. Sons Gordon Alfred Hardy Jr., Jeffrey Pike Hardy and John Studebaker Hardy predeceased their father.
The Aspen Music Festival and School is a classical music festival, presenting more than 300 musical events during its eight-week summer season in Aspen.