Italian Street Painting Marin (ISPM) has landed a new executive director, tapping longtime arts leader and Mill Valley resident Kevin Marlatt, most recently the arts program coordinator for Mill Valley Recreation and an events producer for the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce's annual Wine, Beer & Gourmet Food Tasting and its annual Winterfest celebration.

Marlatt steps in as the organization gears up for its major event of the year, the 2016 Italian Street Painting Marin, themed Ciao Bella Roma, in downtown San Rafael on Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26. Italian Street Painting Marin, a program of EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases, showcases the fine art of street painting and supports arts-based programs and experiences for underserved students.

Founded in 1994 by Mill Valley residents Sue and Joe Carlomagno, the organization has relied on a growing community of dedicated volunteers and small part time staff to produce the annual June event in recent years. Sue Carlomagno received a Milley Award in 2011.

"(Kevin) will be an effective leader and is a passionate advocate for the arts and arts education and will help to direct our growth," says Sue Carlomagno. "We’re excited to have him join the team and to help ensure that this high-quality, captivating community event continues to flourish in years to come.”​

Marlatt began his arts career at the New England Foundation for the Arts in Cambridge Massachusetts, moving to the Bay Area in 1990 and working at a number arts organizations, including San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Performances, Stanford Lively Arts and the Oakland School for the Arts. Marlatt also directed the development of the Arts Education Master Plan for the San Francisco Unified School District and served as the executive director of the Blue Bear School of Music in San Francisco where he led the significant growth of the school’s enrollment, outreach programs and fundraising efforts. 

“The respect and good will that ISPM has established and built upon to further the art of street painting has been incredible," Marlatt says. "Throughout my career, I’ve believed in the power of arts education and the many ways the arts serve to strengthen community and help people to connect. The arts also have a tremendous capacity to help heal, and being connected to and having the support of the EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases makes for a very special collaboration."

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Acclaimed German ensemble known for its spectacular and inventive musical palette, performs in concert for the next Mill Valley Chamber Music Society concert on Sunday, March 13.

The Mill Valley Chamber Music Society continues its 2015-16 season on March 13 with a concert from the Morgenstern Trio, an acclaimed German ensemble known for its spectacular and inventive musical palette, at the Mt. Tamalpais United Methodist Church at 5 p.m.

The group, pianist Catherine Klipfel, violinist Stefan Hempel and cellist Emanuel Wehse, will perform a concert program including Germaine Tailleferre: Trio; Pierre Jalbert: Piano Trio No. 2 (2014); and Ravel: Trio in A. The trio first met while studying at Folkwang Conservatory in Essen, Germany. They formed in 2005 with 19th century poet and humorist, Christian Morgenstern, serving as inspiration for the trio's name.
 
It wasn't long before they achieved professional accomplishments and critical acclaim.
 
After only two short years, the Morgenstern Trio emerged on the German music scene after receiving top prizes and awards. After receiving the prestigious Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio Award in 2010, they gained attention in America and were engaged to perform at top concert venues including the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. They also performed in other venues in New York and in cities including Chicago, Detroit, Kalamazoo, Carmel, Louisville, Lexington and Palm Beach. The Morgenstern Trio traveled to the West Coast to perform for the Mill Valley Chamber Music Society in November 2013.
 
After performing at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in 2012, Robert Battey for the Washington Post applauded the Morgenstern Trio for its polished technique and musical imagination and wrote “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard so many of the string colors and sound effects in the Ravel Trio — certainly not in a live performance. Morgenstern’s clarity of musical detail and technical excellence made this a night to remember. This was one of the best concerts I’ve heard all season."
 
The trio established the Morgenstern Festival in Germany in the summer of 2014, offering eclectic programs with featured guest artists. More recently, the Morgenstern Trio was selected by the European Concert Hall Organization for the “Rising Star Series,” providing for debut concerts on important stages throughout Europe. The Germany’s national program for young musicians and the "Best of NRW" Concert Series has provided the Morgenstern Trio a noticeable platform with numerous concerts across Germany and live radio appearances to showcase their already consummate musicianship.

The 411: The Morgenstern Trio performs at 5pm on Sunday, March 13 at the Mount Tamalpais United Methodist Church, 410 Sycamore Ave. Tickets are $18-$35 via Brown Paper Tickets, at 1-800-838-3006 or at the door.

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​In the months before he goes back out on the road with fellow Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir as part of Dead & Company, drummer Bill Kreutzmann has lined up a series of dates for his Billy & The Kids project, including a show on April 8 at Mill Valley resident Weir's Sweetwater Music Hall. 

Kreutzmann will be joined by guitarist Tom Hamilton, bassist Reed Mathis and keyboardist Aron Magner, as well as special guest guitarist Eric Krasno of Soulive fame. The group are set to play the next night at The Warfield in San Francisco with soul-funk legends The Greyboy Allstars opening.

As Kreutzmann describe son his website: "Music is an adventure. Jams are a journey. And my new band, Billy and The Kids, will take you there ... So get in the groove and let the good times roll!!"

More info.

The grocery store that Tam Valley residents have been seeking for more than five years officially has a "born on" date: March 9, 2016.

Good Earth Natural Foods will open its Tam Valley store at 201 Flamingo Road at 11am that day, thrilling a community that has seen its biggest building sit vacant since December 2010, when DeLano's IGA Market closed the week as part of a series of closures for the grocery chain. Marin County Supervisor Kate Sears will be on hand for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Fairfax-based organic foods market Good Earth confirmed their intent to open a store in Tam Valley in September 2014 and worked with Santa Cruz-based C/D/M Crocker-Fry, which designed and built Good Earth's 22,000-square-foot Fairfax store, on a "total renovation and aesthetic transformation of Shoreline Shopping Center’s grocery building."

The company's decision to open in Tam Valley capped a turbulent run for the former Delano's space, one that included plans in 2012 by San Jose-based retail chain Orchard Supply Hardware to move in, an effort that was ultimately thwarted by a petition drive against it. One year later, Sprouts Farmer Market had a deal in place to move in but that fell through.

Good Earth's Madeline Ross says that while the decision to open a second store was based on increasing demand for Good earth's products and services, it's also about the larger movement to avoid GMOs, reduce the use of pesticides, and promote sustainable practices by supporting organic farmers and local producers.

"The driving force of this new store is to continue to spread our mission," she says. "We're doing this to inspire and encourage more people to eat organic and non-GMO foods, and we're hoping to spread our influence and push other stores to go all organic. We believe we can affect even more change, and Tam Valley is our perfect market to do so."

Good Earth first opened in 1969 at 123 Bolinas Avenue in Fairfax, moving in 2000 to 1966 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. and then opening its flagship store at 720 Center Blvd. in February 2012 "to meet the needs of our customers who requested a larger store with more selection store-wide, wider aisles, additional check-out stands, and indoor seating."

Co-owner Mark Squire played a pioneering role in the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), one of the first independent organic certifiers in the country. He helped craft many of the original guidelines still in use today by the USDA National Organic Program. In 2007, along with two other retailers, Squire was instrumental in the creation of the Non-GMO Project, which provides retailers and consumers with third-party verification to enable people to safely select foods that are free from genetically modified organisms.

The new store will have approximately 175 employees, making it one of the largest employers in southern Marin. “Along with meeting the additional market demand for what we do, it brings me great pleasure knowing our staff will continue to grow too – this opportunity represents real leadership growth opportunities for many current Good Earthlings,” says co-owner Al Baylacq says.

Good Earth officials note that the new store was "created with the earth in mind," with drought tolerant native plants as its landscaping, up-cycled reclaimed wood from the 50-year-old barrel roof for re-use throughout the project, artisan tiles made from 70 percent locally sourced recycled materials, LED lighting in the store governed by an energy management system with motion and light detection, 400 square feet of skylights to maximize natural light within the doors. The building also features solar panels and solar thermal for energy conversion. 

Squire says that while Marin County requires a rate of at least 50 percent rate of re-used and recycled materials, the Tam Valley store achieved a rate of 80 percent.
​
“At Good Earth, respect for the Earth is what we are all about, so we go out of our way to reduce our footprint whenever possible,” says Mark Squire, Partner.

Former San Francisco Chronicle photojournalist Frederic Larson is one of the most heralded photographers in the Bay Area.

But for his exhibit at the at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton) throughout March with a wine reception on March 1 (6–8pm) as part of the Mill Valley Arts Commission's First Tuesday Artwalk, Larson is diving into mixed media with a series he's calling "Romantic Rebound."

Larson, who won a Milley Award for visual arts in 2010, is using some of his renowned photos as the basis for the new work, but mixing in the use of paint, epoxy resin, metals and pieces of found art to create something else entirely.

"It's been really fun to 'rebound' with some of my old photos and create something new," says Larson, widely known locally as a longtime Mill Valley Little League coach and father of two sons who attended local public schools. 

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1949, Larson grew up in the Chicago suburbs and graduated with a degree in radio and television from San Francisco State University in 1975 where he would later teach a course in photojournalism. For four years after graduation, Larson was a freelance photographer for United Press International in San Francisco. He served six years in the U.S. Naval Reserves.

Larson moved to Mill Valley in 1981 and for more than 30 years was a photographer Chronicle. Over the course of his career, Larson garnered more than 50 photography awards. In 1988, he was the first photojournalist to win the Hibakusha Travel Grant Program to photograph the WWII atom bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The photographic material from the Hibakusha story was a finalist in the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.

Larson was named twice Photographer of the Year for 1989-90 from the California Press Photographers' Association and 1991's Photographer of the Year from the Bay Area Press Photographers Association. In 1988 he was awarded the Associated Press Sweepstakes from the News Executives Council of California and Nevada. In 1987 and 1990 he was elected to the Photography Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, for best and second best sports feature photograph.

He is published in over a dozen books including Mystical San Francisco, which he created with former Chronicle Publisher and former Mill Valley resident Phil Bronstein and published in October 2006.

The 411: Frederic Larson exhibits his 'Romantic Rebound' mixed media work Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center, 85 Throckmorton Avenue, throughout March. The First Tuesday Artwalk receptions are Tuesday, March 1, 6–8pm. First Tuesday Artwalk Guide with venues and a map.

Grilly’s, one of Miller Avenue’s most longstanding businesses, turns 25 this year, and has given itself a multi-faceted makeover to celebrate the occasion.

Regular customers and neighbors of Grilly’s have likely noticed that the popular Mexican restaurant now has a new, modern patio. Owner and Mill Valley resident Jim Revoir says he’d been wanting to give the patio an overhaul for quite a while.

“We’re very much part of that streetscape and there is so much activity and shops and restaurants around us that I really thought it was important to give it an updated look, make it completely accessible and weather-ready,” he says, noting that local architect Barbara Chambers and landscape architect James Bradanini spearheaded the overhaul.

The modern, corrugated steel look of the patio also provided an opportunity to give Grilly’s logo and branding a refresh as well. To do so, Revoir turned to Mill Valley graphic designer James Van Kriedt, who has drawn rave reviews for his work for both Shoreline Coffee Shop in Tam Junction and Iron Lion Gym on Miller.

“We just felt that with the new patio, it was time to change the branding around it, and time to update our menus and visuals, including our website,” Revoir says. “We’re extremely happy with the change and James did a great job.”

The Mill Valley Philharmonic (MVP) is turning its attention to the "father of the symphony" for a trio of free shows in March.

In its "Haydn’s Reach - Haydn to Ives" shows, which begin March 11 at the Mt. Tam United Methodist Church, the local award-winning community orchestra providing dedicated volunteer musicians the opportunity to rehearse and perform orchestral repertoire is diving into the compositions of Franz Joseph Haydn.

Widely known as “the father of the symphony,” Haydn had an enormous influence on composers from the 18th century onward. MVP explores Haydn’s impact on Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ives in a program featuring Haydn’s Symphony No. 94, The Surprise; Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, The Classical; Stravinsky’s Ode: Tryptichon for Orchestra; and Ives’ The Unanswered Question. Conductor Laurie Cohen includes commentary and orchestral demonstration to enhance the audiences’ enjoyment of the music. All MVP concerts are free, with walk-in seating.  Everyone is welcome.

A central feature of Joseph Haydn’s symphonies is the development of large musical structures out of short, simple themes.  “The symphony is like a story.  Characters are introduced and then their interactions create a larger drama,” says Cohen. Like the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, Classical symphonic form depends on symmetry and rhythmic balance, but lest that sound too formal, Haydn was known for his sense of humor.  His Surprise Symphony has hiccups and laughing motifs – and of course, surprises. Cohen says, “Haydn does something really unusual at the end of the Andante (the movement whose theme we can all sing.)  He takes it into a harmonic structure that had never been heard before in a symphony. It’s subtle, and fantastically creative. There are other surprises, but we don’t want to give them away and spoil the pleasure of the audience.”​

The rest of the program was chosen with Haydn’s influence in mind. While obvious choices might have been Mozart or Beethoven, Mill Valley Philharmonic is taking a more adventurous approach with Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ives.  Cohen says she hears Haydn’s influence most strongly on Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, a symphony most audience members will recognize. The musical hiccups and laughing lines prevail.  Was Prokofiev stealing from Haydn? “Great composers take ideas and themes from composers that have gone before and rework them in their own voices. I don’t think of it as stealing. The composer hears something that affects him and internalizes it, creating something new.”

Stravinsky wrote Ode: Tryptichon for Orchestra during his Neo-Classical period. “The dissonant harmonies are a challenge and will stretch the audience’s ears.  They’re certainly stretching the orchestra’s ears,” explains Cohen. She selected Ives’ The Unanswered Question, as the “anti-Haydn.”  

​“For my final choice, I was thinking, Okay, where shall we go? Mozart? Beethoven?” Cohen says. “Then I thought, what is a kind of anti-Classical form? And that’s when I chose Ives, the perfect, anti-Haydn composer.”
 
Dates, Times and Venues for Haydn’s Reach - Haydn to Ives
Friday, March 11th  at 8:00 pm, Mt. Tamalpais United Methodist Church, 410 Sycamore Ave., Mill Valley
Saturday, March 12th  at 4:00 pm, Mt. Tamalpais United Methodist Church, Mill Valley
Sunday, March 13th at 1:00pm, Angelico Hall, Dominican University, 50 Acacia Ave., San Rafael.
For more information go to www.millvalleyphilharmonic.org or call 415.383.0930.

The replica Gravity Car that since 2009 has linked downtown Mill Valley to its storied railroad history will be removed from its location at the south end of the Depot Plaza on February 17 for some major repairs, City of Mill Valley officials said this week.

The replica Gravity Car is a reproduction of the open-air cars that were used to shuttle up to 30 people down Mount Tamalpais in the heyday of the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway between 1896 and 1930. 

The repairs are expected "to take some time since most of the floor boards are rotted and many pieces have broken off from people climbing on it," according to the City. In doing the repairs, "consideration is being made as to how repairs to the Gravity Car will allow it to better withstand weather damage and young climbers."

The City doesn't yet have a projected completion date because it hasn't yet determined the full scope of the repairs. In the meantime, the Gravity Car will be moved to the City's corporation yard, under cover, to protect it from winter weather conditions.

City staff is in conversation with the Town of Ross’ historian Richard Torney, who is an expert on local rail car history, as well as former Mayor Mill Valley Garry Lion, who worked to have the replica Gravity Car relocated to the Depot Plaza from its former home in Old Mill Park in 2009. Fred Runner, historian of the West Point Inn, will weigh in on the repairs as well.

The City of Mill Valley will provide updates to the repairs and estimated completion date as more information is made available.

The wooden, 10-by-12-foot structure had been at the Old Mill Park playground since its debut at the 1990 Memorial Day parade. The car was last repaired by the City in 2008 after years of deterioration from the park's damp conditions and repeated acts of vandalism.

Starting in 1896, the Mill Valley & Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway made the eight-mile trip up to the East Peak of the mountain several times a day. In 1907, a spur line opened up that took passengers down to Muir Woods, and the name was changed to the Mount Tamalpais & Muir Woods Railway. Known as the "Crookedest Railroad in the World," the steam train took about one hour to travel eight miles up the steep slopes of Mount Tamalpais, by way of 281 hairpin curves. The ride from Mill Valley took a little over one hour to reach the top, winding through groves of redwood forests before coming out into the open high country of Mount Tamalpais.

After a trip up the mountain, visitors had the option to coast down into Muir Woods or back to Mill Valley in a "Gravity Car," an open-air train car manned by the "Gravity Man" working the brakes and powered solely by gravity. 

Another replica gravity car is kept in a Gravity Car Barn and museum that was spearheaded by the Mount Tamalpais Interpretive Association (MTIA) at the East Peak of Mount Tam. The Gravity Car Barn opened in May 2009

Questions about the repairs? Contact the City's Operations Superintendent Denise Andrews at (415) 384-4708 or dandrews@cityofmillvalley.org.

​Here's some footage of the old Gravity Car:

And here's one of the many reasons the Gravity Car is need of repairs:

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