Dispatches from the University of Virginia….

By Bonnie Gordon It’s getting really noisy here.  In a few days local and national news cameras will capture pictures of a large Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Right-wing spokesmen say they demonstrate against a City Council vote to move two statues of confederate generals. But really, the demonstration will transform generalized white resentment […]

Ring of freedom: UVA acknowledges its past with slave memorial

At the same time Charlottesville has faced controversy over its decision to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the University of Virginia has approved a memorial—with nary a peep of protest—to the enslaved workers who built and maintained the school. “I don’t think it’s coincidental,” says Frank Dukes, a member of the […]

Power players: the ones making the biggest impact

It’s the time of year C-VILLE editorial staffers dread most: landing on the final names for our Power Issue, followed by the inevitable complaints that the list contains a bunch of white men. Sure, there are powerful women and people of color in Charlottesville. But when it comes down to it, it’s still mostly white […]

ARTS Pick: Robert Dick, Stephen Nachmanovitch and Robert Jospé

A solo set by Robert Dick, Stephen Nachmanovitch or Robert Jospé is dazzling in its own right, but combine these talents into a trio and you’ll witness something musically supernatural. Presented by WTJU and the Charlottesville Jazz Society, the evening features Dick on the flute and bass flute, Nachmanovitch singing and playing the violin, viola, […]

UVA’s Kate Tamarkin takes her final curtain call

When Kate Tamarkin was an undergraduate at Southern California’s Chapman University, orchestra conductor was not on her list of career choices. “As a female back then, it never occurred to me to even want to [do that],” the music director and conductor of the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia says. But she was […]

In brief: Curated club, ‘miscreant lefties’ and more

Common sense Things looked dire for Common House last year, when the roof of the previous social club that occupied 206 W. Market St., the 1913 Mentor Lodge, collapsed. But like the “movers and doers” Common House hopes will call the club their home away from home, founders Ben Pfinsgraff, Derek Sieg and Josh Rogers dusted […]

ARTS Pick: Paul Lewis

As a child in a working-class English family with no musical background, Paul Lewis borrowed books from the library and taught himself to play classical piano while his father worked the docks in Liverpool. Now, at 44, Lewis is one of the leading musicians of his generation, known for his mastery of Beethoven and Schubert, […]

Faulkner left his mark on UVA

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, […]

In brief: Library shocker, UVA’s $9 million plane and more

Busy as a bookworm Here in the digital age, one relic from our printing-press past is defying obsolescence: the library. The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library saw its busiest year ever in 2016, with its newest Crozet and Northside libraries contributing to the boom, according to director John Halliday. It’s not just books that account for the […]