Song and social advance

There might be a few local residents who haven’t yet heard of Victory Hall Opera. But rest assured that opera aficionados nationwide—from the Deep South to the Pacific Northwest—have begun to take notice of the Charlottesville-based company. Victory Hall is turning heads thanks to its embrace of cutting-edge productions, like its latest, a world premiere […]

Next act

Susan Evans knows nothing is permanent in the theater. Nor should it be—theaters must evolve to stay relevant, says Live Arts’ artistic director. “A successful theater is a theater that never stops examining itself,” Evans says. “I think that many theaters get stuck. And it’s easy to get stuck because of money.” Evans got her […]

Prime location

New weddings-and-more venue The Bradbury is open for business on the Downtown Mall—and the team behind the new spot is a who’s who of weddings and events experts: Harvest Moon Catering’s Mark Hahn, Ken Notari, and Anne Peterson, photog Sarah Cramer, Just a Little Ditty’s Dickie Morris, and Second Line Business Management’s John Spagnolo. The […]

Poppin’ bottles

Springhouse Sundries springhousesundries.com Relative newcomer Springhouse Sundries focuses on the accessible—wines at a reasonable price we can all wrap our minds and taste buds around. Springhouse is a side project of the Wine Guild of Charlottesville, so it comes with some serious cred. Industry insiders Priscilla Curley and Matt Hauck pick the poison and offer […]

Crush a lot

Vincent Derquenne has been at the center of Charlottesville’s fine-dining universe for nearly 30 years. And certainly wine service has been somewhere in his orbit over the decades. Now, he’s bringing it closer than ever with the launch of Crush Pad Wines, a bar and bottle shop across the Downtown Mall from Bizou, the restaurant […]

Any way you slice it

If you want to make Neapolitan-style pizza in Charlottesville and you’re not from Naples, being from Lampo is probably the next best thing. But let’s back up. Aaron Hill’s pizza-making days started well before he served as the Belmont restaurant’s sous chef from 2016 to 2019. His first serious dough-flinging foray was at another member […]

Bake it till you make it

How many badass bakers can one modest hamlet support? Seems Charlottesville is determined to find out. Christina Martin comes to Charlottesville trailing a wake of Michelin-starred experiences by way of the West Coast and Chicago. She most recently wrapped a short stint at The Inn at Little Washington. Now, Martin’s putting out pastries under her […]

Sit, don’t stare

Tate Pray doesn’t consider furniture art. But that doesn’t mean his work isn’t artistic. The classically trained painter, sculptor, and tireless maker began working as a carpenter after earning his art degree. He moved to Charlottesville in 2005, transitioned to concrete formwork and stuck with that for more than a decade.  In 2019, Pray returned […]

Sights and sounds

Charlottesville music scene photographer Rich Tarbell’s new book of portraiture is a no-filters cross section of local singers, songwriters, and industry supporters, and it’s a should-have for any Charlottesville audiophile. But let’s get to the part you’ve heard before: The project, like so many other artistic endeavors, was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. We all […]

Granular on granola

Brian Nosek is into numbers. He’s also into breakfast. Nosek, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, is a well-known champion of “open science,” a movement to make academic research and its findings accessible to everyone. “A lot of the public perception of psychology is about treatment and management of wellbeing,” Nosek says. “But a […]