No Drought of Sound in the Desert
Photos by Alycia Calvert.
By Alycia Calvert
People are always surprised when I say I live in Las Vegas, like every time. People see Las Vegas as a one-stop shop for entertainment and excitement, and for the most part they’re right.
We’ve got the lights, gorgeous hotels, roller coasters, and high-end dining, drive through wedding chapels, immersive art installations—oh and gambling if that’s your thing—all within walking distance. While locals may be involved with these elements in some form or another, especially those who work on The Strip, most locals don’t live this experience. The suburbs of Las Vegas (Henderson, Summerlin, Mountains Edge, etc.) are peopled by families, singles, students, and professionals. The one reliable constant for desert dwellers, aside from the knowledge that sunset’s brilliant tones will fade stark mountain geometry into a comforting neon glow, is our unconquerable desire for sound. We are drawn to music and have been lucky enough to host an extreme amount of talent.
Music in the valley is a family affair, especially when one begins tracing the lines connecting performers and venues. My oldest daughter’s flute teacher, one of the best teachers in the valley, also sometimes performs with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, is part of a harp flute duo whose gigs can also be heard with various celebrity guest artists, runs a home school ensemble and a flute choir, helps to proctor annual music exams, is married to a fantastically talented trumpet player who composes, teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, played with Celine when she was here, and tours annually with a pretty prolific horn ensemble. All the musicians I have met in Las Vegas are working this way, and most have played together. I won’t extensively trace the musical lineages that my or my children’s various music teacher’s share. Just know that, could I draw the diagram, it would more resemble a tangled but fertile sagebrush than a well-ordered tree. The one thing that is clear in observing these relationships is that the roots of music in the valley run deep.
One of the coolest parts of being a contributor to this collection is that it feels so personal. When I write about the “you” who grew up loving music and struggling to identify as a musician, those notes were played in this place. Other artists, who write about breaking up the band, plunking away at the piano, or jumping into their first mosh pit, have found their voice for the intimate experiences here, perhaps under the shade of a desert willow or in the backstage area of a hotel-casino stage production
More than anything else, contributing to this project has given me some moments to reflect on the nature of the arts in this strange, inhospitable place. A desert that seems an unlikely, even comically underrated, place to yield more than a shallow dive let alone the depth of cultural quality and breadth afforded by venues such as the Smith Center for the Performing Arts and the House of Blues and a wedding hall. Yet Las Vegas is composed, more than anything, of a little group of big-talent people. There are active writing groups, arts initiatives, entertainers, instructors, performing arts programs, and community events. From our first artist in residence, Liberace, to more recent stars like John Legend and Adele, one thing has always been clear, Las Vegas is a good place for some great music.
Not bad for a little town founded in 1805 by the Mormons, prospered by gaming, and upheld by entertainment.
Alycia Calvert is a participating author in Las Vegas Writes: Neon Riffs and Lounge Acts. Click here to RSVP for the Las Vegas Writes: Neon Riffs and Lounge Acts book launch and conversation with the authors on Thursday, October 20, 7-8 pm PDT, at the Clark County Library Theatre (1401 E. Flamingo Rd., Las Vegas, Nevada).
Copies of Neon Riffs and Lounge Acts will be available soon at The Writer’s Block in Las Vegas and Sundance Books and Music in Reno.
Photo courtesy of Alycia Calvert.
Alycia Calvert has lived in the Las Vegas Valley for the past 30 years. Her writing has appeared in Hecate Magazine, Boulder City Review, and most recently in the Las Vegas Writes Anthology. She spent the summer in residency at La Maison Verte in France before completing her Creative Writing MFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is now working on her PhD in fiction and looking to publish her first collection. Her favorite moments are spent hiking, and traveling with her family, and capturing those memories with her camera. She is also a participating author in Las Vegas Writes: Neon Riffs and Lounge Acts.
Click here to RSVP for the Las Vegas Writes: Neon Riffs and Lounge Acts book launch and conversation with the authors on Thursday, October 20, 7-8 pm PDT, at the Clark County Library Theatre (1401 E. Flamingo Rd., Las Vegas, Nevada).
Copies of Neon Riffs and Lounge Acts will be available for purchase at this event and at the Nevada Humanities Program Gallery in Las Vegas.