Monterey County Local News: Art, Culture & Media

The City of Gonzales, in collaboration with Gonzales Customs and Street Life Car Club, hosted its third annual Car Show on Saturday in downtown Gonzales.

The California Roots Music and Arts Festival has come a long way from humble beginnings in 2010. “When it first started it was meant to just be your backyard barbecue type of event,” says founder Jeff Monser, who lived in Santa Cruz at the time. He started first with a clothing line, then live music. “It turned into a festival – a lifestyle, you could say.”

Arts Council for Monterey County, along with its partners — San Benito County Arts Council and Arts Council Santa Cruz County — have been selected as one of 36 recipients in a competitive grant program designed to boost economic growth and resilience across the Central Coast.

Monterey Audubon Society has announced the launch of its annual Scholarship Essay Contest, designed to support and inspire young conservationists in the Monterey Bay region.

On March 15th KSQD will celebrate its 6th birthday with a gala fundraiser concert and silent auction. Donations are still coming in!

Thinking outside the box and turning dreams into tangible objects is one guiding principle for artist Mai Ryuno. Now, the artist and educator is combining her skills to create a microschool where high school students can apply what they learn in math, science or English into creative projects at Play Full Ground in Monterey, which Ryuno founded in 2017.

Squid Fest West is shaping up to be one for the records. It's KSQD's Sixth birthday celebration March 15th at The Resource Center for Nonviolence, 1-6pm at 612 Ocean Street in Santa Cruz.

Talk of the Bay's host PK Hattis is joined by longtime Santa Cruz Sentinel photographer Shmuel Thaler. Both Thaler and Hattis, who also works as a reporter at the Sentinel, are mourning the death of colleague Jess York, who died in January after battling a rare form of neuroendocrine cancer for more than four years.

King City High School senior Stephanie Barron-Alcala was accepted into the competitive California Music Educators Association – Central Coast Section’s High School Honor Orchestra.

After 97 years, Carmel’s historic Harrison Memorial Library, designed by famed architect Bernard Maybeck and constructed by master builder Michael J. Murphy, is on track for a major interior renovation to bring it into the 21st century.

A documentary short film set in the Salinas Valley has been officially selected for the prestigious 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and will have its world premiere during the festival’s celebrated Short Film Program.

An hour-long performance that consisted of two one-act plays by Samuel Beckett took place at Carl Cherry Center for the Arts in Carmel and at Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur over the weekend from Jan. 23-26.

The McPherson Art and History Museum has a new director, Ginger Shulick Porcella. She comes with experience at museums big and small, from Arizona to Minnesota, and has big ideas as the MAH approaches its 30th anniversary next year.

Monterey Museum of Art presents its new acquisitions to its vast permanent collection.

Improvisation is at the heart of jazz, something the leaders of the Monterey Jazz Festival have had to practice over the past month, guiding the 67-year-old organization through major changes that bring a new managing director, a new name – Monterey Jazz – and the loss of its artistic director, Darin Atwater, who served in the position for just one festival last September.