Three blonde sisters from Nashville by way of small-town Georgia perform neotraditional country music as The Castellows. Though they’re related, Castellows isn’t their last name; it’s Balkcom. The Instagrammable young ladies carry three-part harmonies through the voices of two of three triplets Eleanor (guitars) and Powell (banjo), while their younger sister—not one of the triplets—Lily […]
Three blonde sisters from Nashville by way of small-town Georgia perform neotraditional country music as The Castellows. Though they’re related, Castellows isn’t their last name; it’s Balkcom. The Instagrammable young ladies carry three-part harmonies through the voices of two of three triplets Eleanor (guitars) and Powell (banjo), while their younger sister—not one of the triplets—Lily […]
Hailing from North Carolina, four-piece Americana act Mipso traffics in expressive vocal harmonies, stellar string-playing, and the musical traditions of its home state. Featuring fiddle player Libby Rodenbough, mandolinist Jacob Sharp, guitarist Joseph Terrell, and bassist Wood Robinson, the band is known for pushing acoustic instruments to the limit in service of creating spacious arrangements […]
The new season at Live Arts begins with an ending. Sort of. Airline Highway opens at a funeral for Miss Ruby, a former burlesque performer and club owner who hasn’t died yet. That doesn’t stop a colorful cast of drag queens, poets, strippers, and hustlers from celebrating her with a living funeral in the 2015 […]
Friday 10/3 through Friday 11/21 Second Street Gallery presents two new exhibitions exploring the passage of time and its effects on aesthetics and materiality. In the Main Gallery, “Time and Again” features mixed media and installation pieces by JMU professor Corinne Diop, who works in photo-based processes. In the Dové Gallery, “What Remains” features mixed […]
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 […]