{"id":54533,"date":"2013-04-25T23:06:36","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T05:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pelon-brings-global-flair-to-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:15:00","slug":"pelon-brings-global-flair-to-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pelon-brings-global-flair-to-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelon brings global flair to Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lauren
Lauren Pelon, a traveling musician, is coming to the Cortez Public Library on Sunday to play her collection of U.S. and world instruments.<\/span>Courtesy Photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mastering a single instrument is a feat to be proud of. How about 25 different ones?<\/p>\n

Lauren Pelon is a musical polymath. She is the epitome of versatility \u2014 her skills transfer seamlessly between stringed, wind and electronic instruments, and a couple of oddball ones that defy conventional categories. Her instruments transcend genre, but also time periods and national borders.<\/p>\n

With Pelon, you never know what you\u2019re going to get.<\/p>\n

One minute she\u2019ll serenely pluck an archlute, a large, stringed instrument popular in 17th century Europe. The next she\u2019ll trill a delicate melody on the gemshorn, a Renaissance-era flute made of ox or chamois horns. After that, she might brandish another wind instrument, but then plug it into an electric synthesizer with thousands of sounds to choose from.<\/p>\n

Pelon will appear at the Cortez Public Library this Sunday at 2 p.m. to talk about her instruments, play them and sing along when the instrument allows. Her show is called \u201cThe Living Roots of Music.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been on the road, hauling myriad instruments, playing these mini-concerts, for 40 years, ever since she finished college at Western Michigan University. She majored in music and literature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started performing and accumulating instruments right out of college. Some I\u2019ve collected during travel, some were given to me, some I\u2019ve purchased from stores or (craftsmen),\u201d Pelon said.<\/p>\n

She rarely stops in a new place without browsing the locally-made instruments. And often, she drives away with a new one.<\/p>\n

In Oklahoma, for example, a Kiowa man brought her a cording flute, made of cedar wood and inlaid with silver. While touring in Oregon, someone gave her a handmade Eldeberry flute.<\/p>\n

Pelon\u2019s husband, Gary Holthaus, is a writer \u2014 and former University of Colorado professor. Occasionally, they perform together, mixing her musical arrangements with his spoken words.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lifestyle not unlike that of the troubadours and trobairitz \u2014 as the women were called \u2014 of medieval Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful way to make a living,\u201d Pelon said. \u201cAlmost everywhere I go, I\u2019ll play an instrument nobody\u2019s seen before. They get to see and hear something new to their senses, and it\u2019s moving. I appreciate getting to share the healing power of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelon admits she must sacrifice some degree of mastery for sheer quantity.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning (successive instruments) gets easier as you go. But you can never become a virtuoso on that many different ones,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When playing an instrument, Pelon tries to reflect origins \u2014 when and where the piece came from. But she delights in \u201ctaking some liberties\u201d and putting her own spin on it. Most of her songs are original compositions.<\/p>\n

Pelon\u2019s favorite part of her work is the variety and diversity.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s visited remote Inuit tribes in Alaska, performed at the Qurmanghazy National Conservatory in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and lived on a sailboat off the coast of British Columbia, floating among the islands and playing music for passengers who ventured aboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my line of work, I can pretty much live anywhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Spoken like a true trobairitz.<\/p>\n

lukeg@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traveling trobairitz to show off instrument collection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[246,559],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-54533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-general","tag-music"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63177,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54533\/revisions\/63177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54533"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=54533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}