Jennifer Mulson

Post-Thanksgiving holiday shows are upon us, with visiting musicians including pianist Jim Brickman, soprano Sarah Brightman and the Irish musicians of the Irish Christmas in America concert. Cirque performers also

Trumpet player and composer Sean Hennessey's life looks like a game of musical chairs. In one moment he writes and performs original music for his jazz sextet The Hennessy 6, made up of mostly world-class musicians from military bands, like the Air Force Academy Falconaires. In the next moment, he performs with and composes for Denver Brass, an elite brass chamber ensemble. And then, it's back to composing musical scores for horror movie documentaries.

Recent Colorado State University graduate and Air Academy High School graduate Caroline Rather competed this summer on "The Price is Right" in Los Angeles. Her T-shirt, advertising that she was a recent college graduate in need of a job and money, is what got her on stage, she thinks. She made it all the way to the Showcase Showdown, where she competed against another contestant for an array of prizes. Her episode airs at 9 a.m. Monday on CBS.

People in Iceland participate in the annual tradition of Jólabókaflód, which translates into Christmas book flood or Yule book flood. It calls for people to exchange gifts of books on

Black Forest and Colorado Springs native Patrick Shearn, whose large-scale, immersive and experiential work has been seen around the world, will have his first gallery show. It opens Thursday at Ent Center for the Arts and feature work inspired by macro photography, which is close-up photos of small subjects.

Grammy Award winners Leon Bridges, Dwight Yoakam and Weird Al Yankovic will play next year at 8,000-seat Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs.

The Fine Arts Center Theatre Company will mount "Disney's The Little Mermaid" Wednesday through Dec. 29. The show will feature a cast of 22 humans and 52 puppets, operated by performers, as the musical, based on the Disney movie and Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, unfolds the tale of a mermaid smitten with a human prince.

Pikes Peak State College will present the Tony Award-winning show "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," its first musical in more than two decades.

Famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will bring one of his favorite talks, "An Astrophysicist Goes to the Movies," to Pikes Peak Center on Wednesday. He'll show clips of popular movies and address what the films got right and wrong about science, and how science plays an important role in storytelling.

Under a hot September sun on the interactive, six-and-a-half-acre farm behind her house, surrounded by a quiet forest, Wells crouches next to Fitz the alpaca and encourages tiny Wilamenah Reszczynski to pet the soft crop of white curls atop his dome.