Peter Krebs explores the people and places of Monticello Road

Soul survivor Charles Bradley belts it out along with his Extraordinaries on the Jefferson stage this Friday. (Kisha Bari) Stretching from Moore’s Creek to the foot of the Belmont Bridge, Monticello Road is only a mile long, but it has wound its way through all of Charlottesville’s long history. One of the first paths to […]

UVA brings the music and sounds of early America to life

 It started with an aria. Shortly after arriving at UVA five years ago, music professor Bonnie Gordon was searching for a score to “Cara Sposa” from George Frideric Handel’s opera Rinaldo. Thomas Jefferson’s own copy of the aria, it turned out, was sitting nearby in UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. There was […]

Experts abound at the Virginia Festival of the Book

Author John Casteen IV steps out to read from his latest book, For the Mountain Laurel, on Wednesday as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book. (Photo by Ashley Twiggs) What do a basketball legend, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a bestselling novelist, an acclaimed Mexican poet, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning climatologist and an African […]

Greg Antrim Kelly's Pigeon spreads its wings at VABC

Working at a gallery in downtown St. Louis in his early 20s, Greg Antrim Kelly would watch the pigeons outside. “They were kind of this outlet,” he told us. “Like some sort of direct connection to the natural world when I was in that urban environment.” Greg Kelly draws beauty on the inside in his […]

The Bridge and Light House add some flair to Oscar week

 Trying for an edgier, hipper vibe, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences enlisted young whippersnappers James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host last year’s Academy Awards. They were likely hoping that Franco would jump into his co-hosting duties with the same gusto as his Best Actor-nominated character in 127 Hours. Instead he “treated […]

For those of you about to rock (WTJU salutes you)

Russell Perry remembers WTJU’s first rock marathon. “We were raising money to change the signal from mono to stereo,” the former DJ told us. “After raising the money and making the improvements, we switched over to stereo with great fanfare and inaugurated our new status by playing ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ It didn’t seem like such […]

Zap McConnell ties it all together in "The Unearthing"

"The Unearthing” started with some digging. Last spring, while local activist and artistic educator extraordinaire Zap McConnell was in California for a dance production, she happened to be doing some research on mountain top removal. On the website Ilovemountains.org, she typed in her zip code and uncovered the fact that much of Charlottesville’s power comes […]