Pick: Crozet Winter Brews Festival

Holiday hops: Craft brews and mountain views await at the Crozet Winter Brews Festival, a celebration of dark beers and winter sips from Virginia breweries and cideries. Enjoy toasty stouts, chocolatey browns, crisp ciders, and never-before-seen beers as you relax in a heated lounge. Lord Nelson and Matthew O’Donnell bring the tunes, and a variety […]

Pick: Virginia Women’s Chorus

Hark! Do you hear singing?: Herald in the holiday season with the Virginia Women’s Chorus, the University of Virginia’s oldest women’s music organization. Directed by KaeRenae Mitchell, the group is back beneath the vaulted ceilings of the UVA Chapel for its 38th annual candlelight concert. These beloved performances feature a diverse selection of music, from […]

Pick: Corey Harris

New blues: With imaginative compositions and an eye for eclectic experimentation, guitarist and vocalist Corey Harris has his own vision of the blues. Drawing on his origins as a New Orleans street singer and his travels through the South and Cameroon, Harris takes the traditional blues formula to the next level with influences from reggae, […]

Hands on

By Julia Stumbaugh As any parent knows, kids share more than just toys when they play—so it’s no surprise that a pandemic spells disaster for children’s museums. A century after the 1918 Spanish flu caused health boards to shutter kids’ museums across the United States, the 2020 coronavirus again made touch-heavy exhibits impossible. Satellite branches […]

Sit and stay

While most traditional westerns take place around 1890 or so (when the American frontier was officially no longer deemed unsettled), Jane Campion’s gripping, brilliantly acted The Power of the Dog begins in 1925. We know this because brothers Phil (a mesmerizing Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons) get nostalgic during a cattle drive, and reminisce […]

Galleries: December

Pieced with love “It is a real thrill when someone sees one of my paintings and feels a connection,” says painter and collage artist Scheline Crutchfield. “It’s almost like we were in the same place at the same time.” Like many artists, Crutchfield was missing that connection during COVID closures. “I created a lot of […]

Pick: Mark Nizer

Lasers, comedy, action!: Entertaining family the day after Thanksgiving can be hard, so let Mark Nizer do it for you at a live show like no other. The immersive one-man performance is a sensory extravaganza of world-class juggling (anything from bowling balls to a burning propane tank), lasers, movement, and music. Nizer delivers original comedy […]

Pick: Winter Wander

Starry night: Festive cheer fills the air and twinkling lights blanket the landscape at Winter Wander, an illuminated stroll around Heritage Lake. Walk through a 35-foot holiday tree to begin your journey, and be transported to a world of wonder at Big Boar Ridge, where a massive mama boar is looking for her babies, Sun […]

Pick: It’s a Wonderful Life

Holiday FM: Four County Players return to performing in front of an audience for the first time in two years with It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. This twist on the classic, adapted by Joe Landry, reimagines the family favorite as a live 1940s radio broadcast. An ensemble cast tells the tale of […]

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 […]