On May 16th, my wife and I had the privilege to attend the 2nd annual L’esprit de France event at the Westin Tabor Center in downtown Denver. The evening was organized by the Rocky Mountain French American Chamber of Commerce (www.rmfacc.org). The guest of honor was David Appia, Minister Counselor of Economic Affairs and the Head of the Economic Department at the French Embassy in Washington D.C.

There were several special guests including Claudine Pepin, television host and daughter of acclaimed chef and food writer Jacques Pepin, as well as, Sarah Jane McMahon who performed a French aria by Poulenc and excerpts from her role as Maria in West Side Story, to be staged this summer by Central City Opera.

The master of ceremonies was Bill Clarke, noted Denver television celebrity and reporter. There were several awards presented to individuals for their contribution to French-American business. Rick Spear, President of Leitner-Poma of America and Robert Joyce, President of Wheelabrator Group both accepted the honors.

Over several hours, we enjoyed a five-course gourmet dinner with French wine pairings prepared by Chef Jean-Luc Voegele in collaboration with Claudine Pepin.  The wine and culinary treats were from the Rhone-Alpes region of France.

The Central City Opera table included Kevin Mynatt and his wife Kate, Deb Hruby, Jeff Haddox and several musicians came down the hill to perform for everyone. Sarah Jane had to moderate her wine consumption so our table considered a silent auction for her serving allotment. Later in the evening, she and her accompanist gave a fabulous performance. I think it made everyone at our table feel really good.

The Denver Art Museum presented a wonderful slide show of French and American painters from two exhibitions: “Inspiring Impressionism” which closes on May 25 and “Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism”, the visiting exhibition opening June 14, 2008.

It’s funny how things work out in life. Nearly 20 years ago, the french company Dassault moved me to Denver from Los Angeles to be the liaison between EG&G (Rocky Flats) and their headquarters in New York and Paris. In the years that I worked with them, I developed a fond appreciation for the unique culture of France.

In many ways, I will be forever indebted to Dassault; after all, I met my wife in Denver and we have been raising our family here for over a decade. Last year, my wife and I went to Paris for Valentines Day. When we arrived at the train station from London, I was able to immediately communicate with our taxi driver. My wife was in disbelief since she had never heard me speak French before.

I am so glad to be a part of the RMFACC and that there is an organization in Colorado facilitating these sorts of cultural and business interactions. Bob Snyder has a first class operation running. My special thanks go out to Virginie Ganivet, it is amazing how the organization squeezed all those activities into a single night.

Thank you so much for having us. Great Job!

On Friday, April 25th, I took the trip over to the Pinehurst Country Club to hear Pat Pearce talk about this year’s upcoming production of Susannah. I enjoy these events since I get to see and catch-up with all the opera regulars; interestingly, at this event there seemed to be numerous newcomers as well.

This was the final part of the 2008 opera teasers series. I decided to record the event for those of you that couldn’t attend, but wanted to hear the proceedings. To listen to Pat’s presentation select the arrow directly below the image above.

Capturing this sort of thing is ideal for mp3 audio files. Many businesses use this format to present and archive seminars online and often call them webinars. Several opera companies are using this technology to distribute their rich media through podcasting.

A podcast is used to describe the distribution of a digital-media file over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and/or computers. The term podcast can refer either to the content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting.

I’m hoping to get your feedback on the topic. Do you find it valuable to hear events like this online? Would you subscribe to a service that automatically downloaded opera teasers to your computer or mobile device? Could you imagine listening to the basic facts of an opera on the way up to Central City before a performance instead of reading the program notes?

In this case, digital video doesn’t make a lot of sense because there really isn’t any staging and visuals remain mostly the same throughout the presentation. Video files are many times the size of audio files and can be costly to deliver to would-be viewers. As bandwidth increases on the Internet this becomes less of a factor, but today audio files are still more prominent for podcasting.

Like the Met’s Live HD broadcasts, there are many things you miss out on by not participating in an event like this in person. So next year make sure you sign up for these events when you get the mailing like the one above. Seating can sometimes be limited.

The Pinehurst Country Club was beautiful on Friday evening and conversations during cocktail hour are always a lot of fun. Our table all laughed out loud at Chris’ chicken stories while Nancy scoured the room for potential donors. Deb and Pam gave me cautious support for trying something new and then Phoebe just came by and gave me a big hug.

The Internet gives us so many options, but cyberspace can’t really replace the feelings we get from the personal interactions we make with people at events like this. You can’t be in two places at once though and it’s pretty easy to record these sort of things now.

I’ve actually found myself reminiscing the powerful music of Carlisle Floyd again and again. Click here to listen to several short musical selections on Amazon. I guess that means this opera teaser was a success since Susannah will be an event I’ll be sure not to miss this year. Perhaps this electronic version will do the same for you!