Heart of grass: Celebrating banjos in bluegrass might be too conventional for Béla Fleck, who’s spent his career breaking musical barriers, from classical to pop, once winning Grammys for both country and jazz in the same year. But the banjo player comes full circle on his latest album, My Bluegrass Heart, a reference to Chick […]
Heart of grass: Celebrating banjos in bluegrass might be too conventional for Béla Fleck, who’s spent his career breaking musical barriers, from classical to pop, once winning Grammys for both country and jazz in the same year. But the banjo player comes full circle on his latest album, My Bluegrass Heart, a reference to Chick […]
Between the stripes: In his most recent book, Spanish poet Fernando Valverde turns his eye to the United States. Valverde’s America “deconstructs the legacy of empire,” as he explores the country he’s called home since 2014. The former foreign correspondent for El País, now a visiting professor at UVA, unflinchingly tackles legacies of greed and […]
True blood: After a year of outdoor and virtual productions, Blackfriars Playhouse roars back to life with Macbeth at the center of its fall season. Shakespeare’s renowned drama dives into the dark underbelly of politics, war, and ambition, plus a coven of meddling witches whose incantations have caused centuries of thespians to consider the play […]
Sitting on the back deck at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, Christina Wagner carefully measures out tea leaf with her fingers. “Tea is a great place to exercise intuition,” she says. Laid out on the table before us are the elements of a Chinese gong-fu tea ceremony. There’s a metal teapot filled with hot water […]
Navigating the corn-ers: There’s no better way to kick off the spooky season than by getting disoriented in five acres of corn. Test your navigational skills (and sanity) with a walk through the Blue Ridge Mountain Maze, and when you reach the other side, fall-themed activities await, from a pumpkin patch and petting zoo to […]
Lasting laughs: Funny lady of NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!,” Paula Poundstone earned her chops in the OG comedy clubs of ’80s L.A. before landing TV appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “The Late Show with David Letterman.” Poundstone came into her own as a trailblazing political comic in 1993 when she […]
Heavy meta: Do you struggle to avoid touching the art in museums? Welcome to MetamorphIX Art Fair, a hands-on experience, where you can get down and dirty. Paint murals, sculpt, and participate in performances alongside more than 40 visual artists while enjoying live music from Swan Song, Bristol of New York, and more. Your ticket […]
Tim Reynolds is busy these days. He’s shredding on tour with Dave Matthews Band while playing Dave & Tim shows in between. He’s dabbling in livestreams, and is only two years removed from his last TR3 album. But when his old Charlottesville friend, Michael Sokolowski, called during the pandemic last year, Reynolds freed up some […]
Early on in Yakuza Princess, it becomes clear that crafting a story around generations of warring crime bosses, an amnesiac hitman, and a mourning granddaughter is a little too much for co-writer/director Vicente Amorim to juggle. There’s plenty of good here in the new film, but not enough awareness of what that good stuff is. […]
By Megan Irvin At first, produce distribution might not sound all that exciting. But imagine a world where your favorite restaurants don’t have the fresh lettuce, sweet corn, and tangy tomatoes they need to create their specials—it’s a dark image. For 20 years, Denise and Steve Yetzer have kept that from happening. The pair runs […]