Join us for an Open Mic Night at the historic Murie Ranch as we kick off the summer 2025 Front Porch Series. Gather with friends, neighbors, and visitors on one of the longest days of the year to share stories, songs, and poems in celebration of the Murie legacy—past, present, and future.

Lauren is excited to visit the Ranch as she explores the best format for her presentation. She previously experienced the Ranch during its time as the Murie Center, and one of her children is part of Lamotte School!

THE PARKS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC

Experience music inspired by National Parks from around the world right where it was meant to be heard – in the great outdoors! GTMF violist Rita Porfiris brings this one-of-a-kind program of commissioned works by living women composers to Mardy’s front porch with her duo partner, violinist Anton Miller.

Max has led the Jackson Hole Land Trust’s work since 2020. Max first moved to the Tetons in 2001 to work seasonally for Grand Teton National Park. Inspired by the open views and wild character of Northwest Wyoming, he has dedicated his professional career to preserving the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem ever since. Before the Jackson Hole Land Trust, Max worked at LegacyWorks and Grand Teton National Park. Max holds a master’s in environmental science and management from UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School and a BA from the University of Virginia, with distinction. He is a Switzer Fellow, recipient of the Bren School’s Academic Achievement Award, and a recipient of the Gary Hunt Prize in Environmental Policy. Max enjoys hiking, biking, backcountry skiing, fishing, hunting, and any other excuse to get outside and enjoy the Tetons.

PHANTASMAGORIA

“A sequence of real or imaginary images, like those seen in a dream” – what will YOU see and hear? Join GTMF musicians for a performance featuring chamber music by award-winning jazz/classical composer Meg Okura and other works inspired by nature’s endless groove.

Walker Young is an internationally recognized musician who has played intimate performances and sold-out stadium tours across the country over the past couple decades.

Walker lives here in Jackson Hole with his wife, Brianna and two girls, Lady and Dakota, soaking in the wild frontier spirit of Wyoming. Honored to be sharing his music for the second year on the Murie front porch he will be playing original tunes that blend southern rock, country, and soul music on Mardy Muries very own piano.

THE SOUNDS OF SUMMER

This delightful string quartet program for all ages will have you swaying, tapping your feet, and even singing along! You’ll hear how composers of different eras and styles have put the sounds of summer sunshine into their music.

Sam Singer

Dr. Sam holds a B.A. in Physics and Astronomy from Hampshire College, a M. S. in Natural Science–Environment and Natural Resources by way of the Teton Science Schools and the University of Wyoming, and a doctorate degree in Education from the University of Wyoming. After wrapping up his dissertation he founded a local non-profit called Wyoming Stargazing as a way to further his passion for helping others explore the Universe.

Over the last decade, Dr. Sam has championed local efforts to reduce light pollution and conserve the extraordinary dark night skies in Jackson Hole. More recently, Dr. Sam has become interested in what conservation and ethical societies will look like on other worlds as we become an interplanetary species. 

He’s excited to be co-presenting with Gary Shaw who studies some of the exosolar planets that at some point in the distant future we may call home. Stick around after the Porch Talk for a chance to see some of the stars around which those planets orbit and to find how you can get involved with local dark night sky conversation efforts. 

Gary Shaw

Gary’s been drawn to the night sky since he was 6 growing up in Maine. Looking up from his driveway on a dark Winter night he spotted, with unaided eyes, our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy, a great bright swirl of stars looking down on him from 2.4 million light years away – he was hooked on the night sky forever.

After completing degrees in engineering, he added a graduate degree in Architecture and began a career working with scientists to design research and healthcare facilities across the US and abroad.  Now retired from that, he’s embarked on a new career – returning to his love of the night sky – to work with NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) SG1 Team, to carry out follow-up observations to help confirm or refute ‘possible’ exoplanets that had been identified by the satellite.

As exciting as this work is, Gary especially enjoys talking with others about exo-worlds, what they are, how we look for them and what we’ve found out so far. He and Samuel Singer look forward to providing a stimulating conversation, in the Murie Porch tradition, about these amazing new worlds and our possible futures as we evolve towards a diverse intra-galactic ecology.

Jamie Cornelius is a mother, singer-songwriter and associate professor of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University. She studies how birds cope with unpredictable challenges in their environments and is passionate about ecophysiology, behavior and natural history. Jamie is a 2023 National Geographic Society Explorer and over the past two years she has been chasing wildfire smoke to measure the health impacts of smoke on wild songbirds. She will share her striking discoveries through a dynamic lecture that includes storytelling and music and will discuss the implications of intensifying wildfire smoke for birds in North America. Jamie considers Mardy to be a personal hero and is excited to honor the Murie tradition of biological field research, conservation, music, family and front porch gatherings!