Quiet time: Electric violinist and composer David Schulman has several soundtracks to his credit including NPR’s “The Big Listen,” and APM’s “Spectacular Failures.” He is a frequent collaborator with modern dance companies and museum programs, and his extensive musical training has led him to explore and preserve the traditions of charanga and mambo. The Charlottesville […]
Quiet time: Electric violinist and composer David Schulman has several soundtracks to his credit including NPR’s “The Big Listen,” and APM’s “Spectacular Failures.” He is a frequent collaborator with modern dance companies and museum programs, and his extensive musical training has led him to explore and preserve the traditions of charanga and mambo. The Charlottesville […]
Oscar buzz abounds among the spotlight films screening at the 32nd Annual Virginia Film Festival, from the opening night feature, Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan, to writer-director Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story with Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta. VAFF Director and UVA Vice Provost for the Arts Jody Kielbasa […]
Twenty-two years. That’s how long Heron & Crane’s first record, Firesides, has been in the works, whether or not Travis Kokas and Dave Gibson were aware of it. Kokas and Gibson met at a sparsely attended rock show in 1997, while both were students at Ohio State University in Columbus. They got to talking and […]
Devilish details: While it has the best-loved components of most festivals—an extensive list of craft beer offerings and a groovy live music lineup (this one includes CAAMP, Ona, Larry Keel Explosion, Indecision, Gold Top County Ramblers, and Sarah White)—Hoopla goes beyond the party standards to bring all ages together for adventures between sets. A fun […]
Meditative, introspective, and gorgeously executed, Ad Astra is an art film in a blockbuster’s clothing. Behind the hard science fiction, the predictions of how the next generation of space travel will look and operate, and even moon shootouts and space chimp battles are deep ruminations on anger, masculinity, and transference of toxicity from one generation […]
Truly madly creepy: Charming Disaster’s storytelling songs have been described as macabre folk, but there’s light in the darkness for this Brooklyn duo. Racing through themes of love, death, crime, mythology, and the occult, Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris enchant listeners with a combination of folk harmonies, smart lyrics, ukulele, guitar, and a sly sense […]
Mudslinging fun: Back in July, animated anthropomorphic British icon Peppa Pig got into a friendly Twitter takedown with rapper/model Iggy Azalea. When Peppa announced that she’d be dropping My First Album on the same release date as Azalea’s latest, the Aussie singer at-replied, “It’s over for me now.” The Peppa Pig account responded with “Peppa’s […]
Building a groove: Willie DE may be the hardest-working musician in local show biz. As a determined teen he formed his first band, The Wave, at age 13, and busked on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall and in the parking lots before UVA football games. Following his education in jazz guitar at VCU and extensive touring on […]
Lana Del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell! (Universal) Lana Del Rey takes a turn at pillow- soft rock on NFR, the product of a partnership with Jack Antonoff—late of the annoyingly-named fun., and an erstwhile Taylor Swift and Lorde collaborator. The songs here are slow and subdued, dominated by patient piano—they’re well suited for Del Rey […]
The first time Umphrey’s McGee played in Charlottesville—in 2002, upstairs at the old Starr Hill brewery on West Main Street—a few dozen people showed up. The band was in its barnstorming phase, with its six members, fresh out of college, charging around the country in a crowded van. The Starr Hill show was one of […]