ARTS Picks: Gritty City Records

High-energy Richmond hip-hop coalition Gritty City Records featuring nearly a dozen emcees and producers gets real and raw, spitting fiery verse influenced by ’90s artists such as Nas, Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan. The group is joined by socially conscious lyrical mastermind Keese, Alex Brown of extraterrestrial-seeking Friends From Earth and spiritual hip-hop duo Lo$tnFound. […]

Movie Review: Kong: Skull Island stays afloat through visual effects

If you thought the only thing missing from Apocalypse Now was literal monsters, not just metaphorical ones, Kong: Skull Island is the movie you’ve been waiting for. To everyone else, it’s a flick with neat effects and lots of great creature design, spectacular visuals and a bevy of utterly forgettable, interchangeable characters who die with […]

Theater Review: Live Arts’ Peter and the Starcatcher hits the spot

In a new book due out in August, In Search of Stardust: Amazing Micro-Meteorites and Their Terrestrial Imposters, Norwegian musician and amateur scientist Jon Larsen explains how it’s possible for anyone with a microscope to find cosmic debris. He estimates that more than 100 metric tons of alien objects hit our planet every day—and thanks […]

DIY labels are music to our ears

We talk a whole lot about people who make music in this town, and rightfully so—Charlottesville has a robust music scene. Less visible are the people who help musicians make a record of their craft and send it out into the world. There are a number of small and do-it-yourself music labels here that do […]

Victory Hall Opera vocalizes the gay experience in Ghost House

At Juilliard, up-and-coming opera singers learn the art of method acting: channeling their personal experience into the emotions they express on stage. But for mezzo-soprano Brenda Patterson, the acting never stopped. “As a gay person, that’s sort of what you feel like you are doing a lot of the time in real life. You are […]

Arts Pick: Lúnasa

“St. Patrick’s Day is much bigger in America than it is in Ireland,” say the members of Lúnasa, an Irish supergroup who take the stage on Wednesday, for what guitarist Ed Boyd calls “a good night’s entertainment.” The group’s 20th anniversary tour is filled with stories and music, contemporary and traditional, in perfect preparation for the stateside honoring of […]

Musician Lauren Hoffman shares her eating disorder struggle

In 1997, local musician Lauren Hoffman almost had the world in her hands. A three-album deal with Virgin, rave reviews from music magazines, and a growing audience in Europe. Then something went wrong. And when she launched other albums, something went wrong again, despite packed shows on several continents. Now she’s ready to talk about […]

ARTS Pick: Wu Han

In a genre that carries itself with quiet dignity, stars of classical music don’t always cross over to become household names, making it less apparent when a legend is in our midst. In recognition of artistic excellence and achievement, pianist Wu Han and her recital partner, cellist David Finckel, were named Musical America’s 2012 Musicians […]

ARTS Pick: Shakespeare’s Sister

Judith Shakespeare wants to be a playwright. So when her debt-ridden father tries to marry her off, Shakespeare’s Sister flees to London with handsome actor Ned Alleyn, hoping to join her brother and realize her ambition. When she arrives in the city, she finds her brother gone, Ned engaged to another woman and her play declined. […]

#BlackOwnedCville and NEA Big Read connect the threads

Throughout this month, an exhibition titled #BlackOwnedCville by local photographer and filmmaker Lorenzo Dickerson is on display on the third floor of the Central Library. Dickerson says he was moved to pursue the project because, “I was curious myself about African-American businesses here locally. Growing up here I knew of some. Like Mel’s Café on […]