Virginia Film Festival Executive Director Jody Kielbasa and Artistic Director Ilya Tovbis appeared on the Paramount stage on Tuesday evening to announce the 38th Annual Virginia Film Festival. The 2025 VAFF program features more than 120 films from Hollywood giants, Virginia and international filmmakers, plus topical documentaries, and a wide range of special guests across […]
Virginia Film Festival Executive Director Jody Kielbasa and Artistic Director Ilya Tovbis appeared on the Paramount stage on Tuesday evening to announce the 38th Annual Virginia Film Festival. The 2025 VAFF program features more than 120 films from Hollywood giants, Virginia and international filmmakers, plus topical documentaries, and a wide range of special guests across […]
In a performance that combines elements of opera, gospel, jazz, dance, and theater, Victory Hall Opera presents Gullah Meditations—the first significant new arrangements of “unknown” Gullah Geechee spirituals in 100 years. Tenor Victor Ryan Robertson and his collaborator, pianist Adrianne Duncan, produced the new arrangements based on 19th-century spirituals born out of the distinct culture […]
Honky-tonk outfit Ramona & the Holy Smokes light it up with a record-release show for a self-produced, self-titled debut album. Ramona Martinez’s emotionally evocative vocals are backed by a scorching-hot band steeped in classic country of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, with contemporary songwriting that pushes boundaries and connects cultures. Nelson County native Kai Crowe-Getty […]
According to the internet, Bob Mould performed at the Marquee in New York City on March 8, 1991, touring his second solo album, Black Sheets of Rain. As an 18-year-old, I won two tickets to the show by calling into the local Long Island alternative radio station around 2am. Because no one I knew was […]
For a classical strings-meets-hip-hop beats duo, there’s something very unexpected about what Black Violin has become: easy to listen to. That’s both good and bad. Violist/vocalist Wil Baptiste and violinist Kev Marcus have made a choice to evolve over 21 years of fusing disparate styles. But as is often the case, time and repeated exposure […]
When you’re ambitious, you do what you can to chisel out your chunk of fame. So what has Sharon Van Etten been doing? In following a singer-songwriter migration pattern that’s led her to Tennessee, New York, and California, she’s stockpiled her cred in indie circles (note her press release being penned by none other than […]
The Charlottesville Jazz Society presents an evening of bold, straight-ahead jazz with lyrical intensity from the Todd Marcus Quartet. Based in Baltimore—where he exerts considerable influence in the local music scene while also working as an activist and organizer—Marcus is one of the rare jazz artists to primarily focus on the bass clarinet. Eschewing the […]
For those of us who grew up dueling with long cardboard tubes from the center of wrapping paper rolls, our days of swordplay needn’t be over. (My nephew dubbed those tubes “DOOT-da-doos” because they also double as instruments.) In my mid-life renaissance, I’ve leaned harder into my weirdo ways. I play Dungeons & Dragons weekly […]
Charlottesville’s own Chris Martin, founder of bakernobakery, took her pan dulce on the road this Labor Day for a takeover at Del Sur Bakery in Chicago—and sold all 730 pastries in just four hours. Invited by Del Sur’s pastry chef and owner Justin Lerias, Martin called it the biggest bake she’s ever done in a […]
The Women’s Initiative has a new leader: Nicole Thomas, Ed.D. As she stepped into the role of executive director of the Charlottesville org in August, Thomas brought more than a decade of experience in higher education and nonprofit leadership, with a career rooted in equity, wellness, and trauma-informed care. Most recently, she directed UVA’s Contemplative […]