3 Questions with Apotheculture Club co-founder and CEO James Blaszko

The Detroit-born arts organization Apotheculture Club’s forthcoming April 21 cannabis-inclusive food and music event misses the 4/20 “holiday,” but it still goes down during the lead-up to Earth Day—and flower and/or music fans don’t have to miss the party. Imagine gathering at a private residence to enjoy a cannabis-infused Salvadoran-inspired luncheon prepared by chef Nestor Lopez of Albuquerque restaurant Gobble This, then being whisked away to the opening performance of the Santa Fe Symphony’s Oceana by Native composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (Chickasaw Nation) at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. But what precisely is Apotheculture Club? In 2016, co-founder and CEO James Blaszko found himself in an orchestra seat at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City and just a little too stoned before the curtain rose. Having already worked as a freelance opera and classical director for a couple years at the time, Blaszko was no stranger to those worlds, but then came the aha moment: Cannabis, it turned out, helped Blaszko receive the art in a brand new way, leaving him to hang on every breath and note as time slipped away. Now, he returns the favor at events around the country, including safe transportation to and from the venues for those who partake in that sweet, sweet cannabis. Tickets for the Santa Fe event (1-6:30 pm Sunday, April 21. $250; the address will be revealed to ticket-holders 24 hours prior) are available through Eventbrite. The following interview has been edited for clarity and concision. (Heidi Fillingim)

What is Apotheculture Club’s origin story?

I have, for the longest time, been working with many other early career artists in classical music to find ways to introduce and inspire a new audience to the music. It was actually through my passion and enthusiasm for cannabis that I started to experience classical music in a really different way and in a way that excited me. What I found was my contemporary pace, you know my little Tik Tok brain, as it were, is moving so quickly. So in some ways, this culture of music speeding up is so counter to what classical music tries to show, which is beauty in expansion and extended lines and time dilation that is so currently not mainstream culture.

I found when I consumed cannabis, my mind and my ears and my spirit were distorting my sense of time enough to really flow with the sound of classical music. It was this beautiful way to unlock a pace of listening and perceiving art. So, in March 2023 I was hired to direct a production of Xerxes at the Detroit Opera House by [Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director] Yuval Sharon, who is known for disrupting the field. I said, ‘I have this idea and I want to see who will come. I have a theory that we can get people to come to this opera house who may have never set foot in here before through this other thing that they’re really excited by that they don’t know pairs perfectly with this experience.’

He was so happy to let me try this out. We really curate the entire experience around everyone’s collective enthusiasm for cannabis and draw the connections to art for them so that by the time they feel the effects, which is about the time they hit dessert, we transport them to the opera house or the symphony and they experience a live arts performance stoned. We never infuse our desserts because we want everything to be front loaded.

What drew you to theater and opera?

My dad took on a second job as a concert security guard. When I was 8 or 10, he had scored house seats for me to see the first touring production of the Phantom of the Opera. I sat directly underneath that chandelier that iconically rises over the entire overture and then comes crashing down at the climax of the show. My little heart was bursting. Literally from that day forward I was like, ‘this is what I’m doing for the rest of my life.’ I had just seen The Phantom of the Opera, so I was like, ‘I will be the phantom of the opera.’

What do you enjoy most about the creative process?

The collaboration. I enter any creative process with a passion. I will do everything in my power to work on projects that I’m passionate about and not just do something for a check. If I can do that, I can sustain a life as an artist—salary be damned. When I find collaborators who share that passion, it just fills me with such love and joy that I’m like, let’s do everything we can to make that happen. It’s really feeding off of the collaborators that I work with.