Apotheculture Club's Summer Salon pairs cannabis with classical music

Apotheculture Club is putting the “high” in high culture.

On Sunday, Aug. 3, the club will host its 2025 Summer Salon of cannabis and classical music at a luxurious private home in Santa Fe. The evening will include cannabis-infused beverages by CloudWalker Farm, cannabis-free “upscale munchies” by Wolf and Roadrunner and a live performance by members of the Santa Fe Symphony.

Apotheculture’s cofounder and CEO, James Blaszko, started the club in Detroit in 2023.

“I have since brought the club to different states across the country in an effort to soften the stigma on cannabis consumption,” Blaszko said.

“Cannabis is such a time dilator that it pairs beautifully with classical music, which moves at such a different pace than our everyday TikTok lives,” Blaszko said. “So, the pairing of those two things is actually really useful, which is why we mostly program classical works.”

Blaszko said he is excited to be working with the Santa Fe Symphony again, because they were the first arts organization in New Mexico to partner with him.

“They were right on board from the beginning,” he said. “Emma Scherer is a visionary in her role there (as executive director) and is very much on the same track as I am when it comes to audience cultivation.”

“We had no hesitation whatsoever,” Scherer said. “Being based in New Mexico, where weed has been legal for years, I don’t think we encountered any stigma. In fact, folks enjoy performing arts in any number of ways, in any number of mindsets and settings. And we’re all about making classical music accessible to the community. This is a huge part of that.”

Scherer said their first collaboration was in April 2023, when Apotheculture Club members attended the symphony’s performance of Claude Debussy’s “La Mer” after a cannabis-infused dinner.

“That piece in particular, ‘La Mer,’ is really evocative of the moods and tempestuousness and sounds of the ocean,” she said. “So, it was really a perfect concert for them to experience.”

Blaszko has a classical music background himself. When he’s not organizing Apotheculture events, he directs operas.

“My birth family is from Poland, and my stepfamily is from Pakistan, so growing up, I always knew I wanted to be in the arts, but my exposure to the arts was, like, American Broadway, ABBA and other forms of Euro-pop fabulosity, and Bollywood,” Blaszko said.

Operas, on the other hand, used to intimidate him. That is, until he happened to see one at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City while high.

“I had just been starting to replace my alcohol consumption with cannabis consumption, and I had this eureka moment, sitting in the opera house,” Blaszko said. “I finally got it. I was like, oh, this is the scale of opera. And more importantly, this is the way I needed to listen to this kind of music. I needed to slow down. And it was just euphoric.”

That one post-college experience made him who he is today. It unlocked the world of opera, leading him down the path of directing operas himself. It also inspired him to launch Apotheculture Club so others could experience classical music with an expanded consciousness.

“An important part of the club that I take pride in is that we’re inspiring a group of people who have not often consumed with others that they do not know, and we’re inspiring them to consume at a pace that is sensible and not overwhelming to them,” Blaszko said.

While some people may be used to consuming cannabis in social environments like music festivals, Blaszko said that his events allow for more introspection.

“Classical music is surprisingly not social — in a positive way,” Blaszko said. “The majority of classical music is so tender, and the litheness of it with these unamplified instruments — the vibration of that is a completely different feeling than going to a music festival with a bunch of other people.”

“Making the time to sit with yourself listening to live music without the pressure of social interaction or other stimuli is really therapeutic,” he said.

Apotheculture’s salons are designed to allow people space to be as social or introspective as they want.

“You’ll have people at our salons who are chatting up a storm and having really important, deep conversations about politics or art,” Blaszko said. “And then you’ll have people laying on the grass over there, just relaxing.”

The evening will culminate in a full program of classical music by a string trio.

“Nicole Maniaci, our principal second violin, has been with the Santa Fe Symphony since she was 19 years old,” Scherer said. “She’s a delightful person.”

“Carla Kountoupes is a member of our first violin section. She’s a music educator here in Santa Fe and an absolutely phenomenal violinist,” Scherer continued. “And Melinda Mack is a cellist in the Santa Fe Symphony based in Albuquerque, and she has played with us for a number of years.”

“They have prepared a program of chamber music selections that they knew would lend itself to the intimacy of the performance venue, which, as a salon, is held in someone’s beautiful home,” Scherer said.

Blaszko said a deejay will be spinning very relaxing, chilled-out beats in the beginning of the evening, and that the salon is designed to slowly alter participants’ sense of time.

“It’ll be a slow, beautiful progression back in time,” Blaszko said, “all the way back to the essential live instrumentation of music from centuries ago.”

Blaszko notes that guests are not required to consume cannabis, and some do not.

“Honestly, the sober community who shows up has been the most surprising thing to me,” Blaszko said. “I didn’t expect people who don’t even consume cannabis to show up, but they do. At our Earth Day Salon, someone came up to me and said, ‘I’m just happy to be around people who aren’t drinking.’”

Salon participants need not be music experts, either. All that’s required is an open mind.

“I actually love that the majority of people that come to our events aren’t in the arts,” Blaszko said. “A lot of them are in the professional space, completely outside of the arts, but they find their joy and healing in artistry.”

Apotheculture Club's Summer Salon pairs cannabis with classical music