Schedule
12-12:30pm Community Yoga with Urban Sanctuary, bring your mat, all ages, family friendly
12:30-2pm Denver Municipal Band - Latin Jazz
1-3pm Community Printmaking Art Workshop with Nikki Pike
2-4pm Community Lighthouse Writers Workshop
2-4pm Nico Jiménez DJ set
4-6pm Cherokee Social
Lighthouse Writers Workshop - Join Suzi Q. Smith for a series of interactive writing activities open to all ages! Together we'll explore themes of home, community, memory, and storytelling. Anyone who participates in an activity will receive a free Lighthouse journal!
Vendors
Denver Food Rescue, Denver Public Library Mobile Library Truck, Cohesion, Harvest Moon Botanics , Big Raven Bread, Denver Urban Gardens
Food
Big Raven Bread, Cohesion, South American (arepas + empanadas), Little Bodega (paninis and convenience store in Five Points), Lottie’s Meats + Provisions
About the Artists
The Denver City Band was formed in 1861 to bring culture to a mining town. More than 160 years later, we're sGll here, but today we're known as the Denver Municipal Band. We're also sGll bringing music to the Denver-area community. In fact, today, our mission is to bring music to Denver-area residents (from Westminster to Highlands Ranch) for free in parks near them. We also help Denver-area youth develop a passion for music and refine their musical talents.
We're unique in that we play as a 40-piece Concert Band, a 20-piece Jazz Band, and contract to a show band, a brass quintet or smaller ensembles. Because of our flexibility, we play everything — orchestral, rock, soul, and funk. Our Concert Band, which plays the most frequently, performs a wide variety of music including movie scores, showtunes, Big Band standards, marches, and other classic masterpieces.
We're made up of some of the best professional Colorado musicians. Many of our performers play with other ensembles such as the Colorado Symphony, Colorado Ballet, Central City Opera, Denver Brass, and the Queen City Jazz Band. In fact, famous visiting musicians want to play with us.
Our Conductor Dr. Joe MarGn's professional brass playing includes principal trombone/ euphonium with the Denver Brass, trombonist with the Aries Brass Quintet and principal trombonist with the High AlGtude trombone quartet. He appears on numerous recordings with these three groups including CDs on the Delos and Klavier labels. Dr. MarGn performs and provides clinics with the Summit Brass as part of the annual Rafael Mendez Brass InsGtute hosted by the University of Denver. He has also performed with the Colorado Symphony, the Boulder Philharmonic, Greeley Philharmonic, Cheyenne Symphony, Colorado Ballet Orchestra and numerous Broadway show producGons at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Nikki Pike grew up in Black Forest Colorado where she learned to ride bikes and climb trees in between flashlight tag, midnight soccer, and competitive sledding. The adopted daughter of a Nurse and an Engineer, and sister to four brothers and a sister, Nikki learned to work in groups and negotiate at an early age. Fighting over the measuring cups in the bathtub and wooden spoons in the garden, The Pike family children grew wild imaginations.
The earliest sign that Nikki may later become a sculptor was in her sixteenth year in being grounded for a month. Rather than moping around and feeling sorry for her new life in confinement, Nikki raided her father’s toolbox and undertook the accidental but artistic resurfacing of her very first vehicle, an AMC gremlin. Otherwise, realizing her interest and making a commitment to art came much later after her surrender to finally join the quest to attend college and explore communications design. Her exposure to materials and objects fed her need to make and build and fulfilled the physical gap that once was spent playing soccer.
Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, organizer, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado. She has created, curated, coached, and taught in Denver for over 20 years, managing the largest poetry festivals that Denver has seen to date. A TEDx speaker multiple times, Suzi has performed throughout the United States for over a decade, and has shared stages with Nikki Giovanni, the late Gil Scott Heron, and many more. The author of poetry collections Poems for the End of the World, A Gospel of Bones, and Thirteen Descansos, Suzi is also a singer-songwriter, playwright, and multi-disciplinary creative. Currently, she is Affiliate Faculty with Regis University’s Mile High MFA, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and DU’s Prison Arts Initiative, as well as the [margins.] Conference Director for The Word. She also serves as a community representative on the Denver County Cultural Council.
Cherokee Social
Bio coming soon
Pulling inspiration from many corners of the rock world, Cactusheads’ music is filled with infectious hooks, gritty guitars, and adrenaline-fueled rhythms à la Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and The Strokes, to the modern psychedelic sounds of Ty Segall and punk rockers Parquet Courts.
Their debut single, Fresh Meat, is a high-energy, garage-born tune that’s sure to get your heart pumping and your feet moving. Both Fresh Meat and Shoot It Down are self-recorded and self- produced and it’s only a taste of what’s to come. Cactusheads are ready to bring their music to ears across Colorado and beyond.