While playing a 30-minute set at Lockn’ in 2014, Erin & The Wildfire guitarist Ryan Lipps broke a string on every guitar he brought, so to cover the lag in the “squeeze-in-as-much-you-can-set,” drummer Nick Quillen told a long, drawn-out joke. “It wasn’t exactly the best thing we’ve ever done, but it was certainly memorable,” Quillen […]
When Erin Lunsford is on the road with her band, Erin & the Wildfire, she’s often overlooked. Because she’s a woman, Lunsford says, many assume she’s a groupie—even though she’s the band’s lead vocalist and it’s her name on the bill. Though it’s initially difficult for her to pick just one, Lunsford recalls a particularly […]
Ten years ago, Caitlin Lennon received a job offer from a “small startup.” Emily Hartka and Sara Clayborne, co-founders of what would become the Charlottesville Ballet, asked Lennon to join them as a company dancer. Lennon was training on full scholarship with the Richmond Ballet, had never visited Charlottesville, wasn’t sure about her salary and […]
What do cowboys, farmers and love triangles have in common with the United States of today? To Michelle Krisel, artistic director of Charlottesville Opera, the answer is a lot. That’s much of the reason why Krisel and Charlottesville Opera (formerly Ash Lawn Opera), chose Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! to close the company’s 40th summer season. […]
During his first year at UVA, Louis Smith felt homesick. He missed his hometown, Virginia Beach, and places like Kendall Street, a beach access road where Smith and friends lit bonfires and watched fireworks. Fast forward five years, and Smith, still in Charlottesville, feels right at home. While studying music at the University of Virginia, […]
If Gary Green does his job well at the Paramount Theater, nobody will know. As the theater’s audio production manager, he analyzes how sound waves produced by artists will be affected by rising temperature and humidity as audience members fill the space. He knows how voices sound in each microphone, and where the Paramount’s resonance […]
Photographer Clay Bolt is drawn to species he calls the oddballs and little guys. Working internationally with organizations such as National Geographic and BBC Wildlife, Bolt is a natural history and conservation photographer. “What sets me apart from a ‘nature photographer’ is that a lot of my work records life cycles and tells stories of […]
The Front Porch’s Emily Morrison wants artists of all backgrounds to find peace at the roots music school she founded in 2015. With help from friends, Morrison began the school in a back room in her home and soon moved into a space at Mountaintop Montessori. Last June the nonprofit moved into the old Michie […]
One year ago, Claire Hitchins took a leap of faith. While volunteering on the West Coast, Hitchins sat in her room and recorded her music for the first time, with the help of an old laptop and GarageBand. Within a few months, the award-winning podcast “On Being” featured Hitchins and her music, and her SoundCloud […]
On December 24, 1906, Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first wireless public radio broadcast. It included Christmas songs, stories and, in Fessenden’s words, his own “not very good singing.” Today’s listeners have many—usually very good—derivatives of Fessenden’s holiday work, and here in Charlottesville the programming at local FM radio stations is no exception. “Our perspective is […]