Sixty years ago, on February 15, 1957, Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner arrived at the University of Virginia to assume his role as the first Balch Writer In Residence. Strolling through the Academical Village in his patent overcoat and collegiate tweed suit, the Mississippi gentleman smiled quietly at the throng of officials, cameramen and students, […]
Thursday 3/23 & Friday 3/24 George Eliot’s novel arrives on stage as Middlemarch in Spring, a chamber opera that premiered in 2015. The musical treatment (part of the Virginia Festival of the Book) offers humor, passion and political upheaval, while serving to commemorate Ash Lawn Opera’s 40th anniversary as it relaunches as Charlottesville Opera. “We’re […]
Throughout the ’70s and ’80s Stevie Nicks reigned as a musical goddess. Her mystical words, gypsy attire and bewitching voice made an indelible mark on rock history, and her trail of hits with Fleetwood Mac are rivaled only by the legacy of her solo material. Pair Nicks on tour with Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders, […]
Diseased Earth, Vomiting Dinosaurs and Dreaded may sound like Cretaceous period climate change warnings, but they are in fact perpetrators of modern angst that support the lineup at the second annual Winter’s Ruin Metal Fest. Heavy metal assaults, brand new evil and foreboding of cataclysm are the descriptors that run through the bios of Harrisonburg’s […]
Performers from the Blue Ridge Irish Music School grab their tin whistles and fiddles and lace up their ghillies for Irish Night at the Coffeehouse with traditional music, song and dance to benefit the nonprofit school. There will be kids’ activities and storytelling, too, because what’s a celebration of Irish tradition without folklore and fairies? Saturday, […]
When 79.5 founder and frontwoman Kate Mattison started her band in 2012 she didn’t envision playing gigs in a setting that looked like something straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. But, three years later after adding five new members to the band, including vocalists Piya Malik and Nya Parker Brown, guitarist Matty McDermott, bassist […]
The idea of a live-action remake of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is no better or worse than any of the mouse’s many examples of mining its own vault for new material, yet from the moment it was announced, it was met with over-excitement and unnecessary scorn. The cast, the songs, the very concept were […]
Pop music critic Jack Hamilton didn’t listen to much pop music growing up in the 1980s and ’90s. His parents had a few Beatles albums and one Supremes record, but they mostly played classical music and show tunes in their suburban Boston home. He can’t recall exactly when he heard The Jackson 5’s “I Want […]
The programming of the annual Virginia Festival of the Book—now in its 23rd year—always seems to strike a beautiful balance of gravity and levity, tragedy and comedy, difficult reality and the dream of a better future. The organizers draw from a vast array of writers with different lived experiences and this year is no exception. […]
Talk about Bryan Cranston and the conversation inevitably turns to his leading role in “Breaking Bad” as the high school chemistry teacher-turned-drug-lord Walter White. But Cranston’s career has many layers, as detailed in A Life in Parts, his autobiography published in 2016. Many of his early gigs were comedic roles, as on “Seinfeld” and “Malcolm […]