UPCOMING EVENTS

Saturday, October 19 at 7:00 PM

Cowboy Poetry at the Elling House!

Saturday, September 14 at 5:00 PM

Place: Elling House

The Elling House Arts and Humanities Center will be hosting a Cowboy Poetry event on September 14. The evening will feature of 8 to 10 poets/reciters sharing their best. Each will have 10 minutes to entertain and about an hour and a half to be entertained! Anyone interested should contact Toni at (406)843-5454 or (406)843-5508. This is not a juried event. The first ten who contact Toni will be put on the list of performers. Other applicants will be placed on an alternates list and may be able to perform if any of the first ten applicants back out.

We will be outdoors, so plan to bring a lawn chair or something else to sit on!

PAST EVENTS

Saturday, August 24 at 7:00 PM

Place: Sr. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Lands of the Free: Languages of Improvisation

Notated music has always contained a degree of interpretation and improvisation; in the 17th and early 18th centuries, this improvisation played many roles. Sometimes it was decorative ornamentation around written notes, or completely new pieces generated by improvising upon a common bass line. Other times, it was a way of establishing a key or connecting more structured episodes to each other. Styles of improvising differed as much as their nation’s languages, and this program explores the ways the lively, charming, and surprising ways they coexisted and influenced each other.

Willson and McKee

Friday, August 23, at 7:00 PM

Two voices with Celtic Harp, Accordion, Irish Bouzouki, Guitars, Banjo, Dulcimers, Bodhran and a new Harmonium and lots of fun and passion!

Admission $20

MEMBERSHIP MEETING

May 18, 2024 1:00PM

The Membership meeting is an opportunity for the community to offer ideas and suggestions for future activities at the Elling House. The current board will also report briefly on its activities and plans. The meeting will also be a chance for the members and community to vote on the future board of directors.

Anyone interested in the bringing cultural events to soutwhest Montana is welcome to attend.

Snacks will be served. (Not quite on the scale of the Splendid Feast pictured to the left).

Dan Rose Photography

Saturday, June 1, 2024, 5PM

Local photographer, Dan Rose, will exhibit his work in the Gallery at the Elling House June 1-June 29.

An artist reception for the exhibit is Saturday, Jund 1. The exhibit will be open an Saturdays 2:00 to 5:00 PM. All are welcome.

Montana Wildflower

June 15 7:00PM

Join us for an evening of acoustic folk music as Natalie Padilla & Quinn Bachand play music from their 2023 album "Montana Wildflower'', featuring Natalie's fiddle tune writing and Quinn's innovative trad guitar mastery. You can also expect some vintage swing songs, trad celtic tunes, and more of Natalie's original music.

F“…All in all, Montana Wildflower is a tour-de-force, a great shop-window for Natalie Padilla's strong compositional abilities and the masterful playing and strong musical rapport shared by herself and Quinn Bachand.” - Bob Leslie (Fatea, UK)

Mike Dowling

Blues, Folk, and almost any other thing you can do with a guitar

Friday, June 21, 2024

Jim Pappenfus Ceramicist

Reception Saturday, July 6, 5PM

Exhibit will be during the reception

and 2-5PM, July 13, 20, and 27.

Jim Pappenfus first came to shaping things from dirt by making a clay Roman style amphora for extra credit for his high school Latin class. In the years since he has developed his skill by learning to throw clay on a wheel.

Jim has experimented with other crafts during his lifetime, but finally settled on working with clay as being more satisfying. At one time he worked to fashioning stained glass. But he found this a bit nerve wracking because glass has a greater fragility than clay. In Jim’s experience clay is more forgiving. This thinking is understandable, because, while it is true that clay pieces break, crumble, and shatter, the investment in time and energy before the disaster happens is much less with a pot than it is with stained glass piece. If a clay piece breaks you’ve lost an hour’s work—at most. If a stained-glass piece falls apart, you may have lost hours of planning, shaping, and designing—very discouraging. Also, if clay disintegrates in early stages—before it is fired in a kiln—you can just add water and reuse the recalcitrant clay to create another piece. Glass is quite a bit more difficult to resurrect.

Once Pappenfus retired and relocated to Montana full time, he started creating pieces with a more salable consideration. Pappenfus’s process involves firing his glazed pieces in a gas kiln using a reduction atmosphere. This means that at some point in the firing process, oxygen is prevented from entering the kiln. As a result, because the fire still needs oxygen, it pulls molecules from the clay and glaze. This creates changes in color to the clay and the glaze. The result is often dazzling and shimmery, or sometimes with an earthy gloss—depending on the clay body and the glazes used.

Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Where we come from: Country Folk and Classical A Cappella Songs

Fridday, July 12, 7:Pm

The acoustically superb ballroom of the historic Elling House in Virginia City provides the perfect setting for this professional vocal ensemble from the Bozeman Symphonic Choir.

Paul Boruff, Singer/Songwriter/Musician

July 26, 7PM

“Paul Boruff has spent years as a touring singer/musician/composer. His venues have ranged from nightclubs to “mountain man rendezvous,” from exclusive resorts to county fairs, and to stages where he has performed his original music Trappers. Boruff is as at home with popular classics and folk music, as he is with his own compositions, collections of which can be found on his many recordings. I hired him to do the original music and act as musical director for my production of Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom, intended for an East European theatre festival. As a composer, singer, on stage personality Paul Boruff has no peer.“Mr.Boruff is more than an accomplished singer and instrumentalist; he brings to the stage a warmth and charisma and his expansive repertoire encompasses a wide range of styles, transcending the barriers of age and cultural differences. Whether it be an original interpretation of an old standard or a tune of his own creation, Paul sings from the heart and play with a technical virtuosity second to none.”

–Janet Zimmerman, chair – Ennis Arts Association, Pony MT

Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring

Montana Chamber Music Society Summer Festive

Saturday, July 27, 7PM

At St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Virginia, City

According to the Montana Chamber Music Society Webpage its “mission . . . .is to advance chamber music by delivering the highest quality performances in the Big Sky country, and to expand ongoing cultural relevance for all by engaging a diverse public.”

St. Thomas Episcopal Church is an excellent venue to hear the Chamber Music Society perform Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” and the Elling House Arts and Humanities Center is pleased to help bring them there.

56 Counties

A Montana Journey by Russell Rowland

Saturday, August 10, 7:00PM

A county-by-county story of how Montanans see Montana and how it made them Montanans.

Join us to hear Russell Rowland read from his book and discuss the various and complex nature of this vast mountain/plains/prairie/ farming/ranching/state and the people who make it and who are made by it.

Brought to the Elling house through a grant from Humanities Montana.

Admission by Donation