April 2023 Veer Magazine

Festival Guide

Virginia Arts Festival presents Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

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City of Light—and Warmth

By Tom Robotham

Paris is so very beautiful that it satisfies something in you that is always hungry in America. – Ernest

Hemingway

In May of 2016, VEER publisher Jeff Maisey and I flew to London and spent the next 10 days touring Great Britain. It was my first trip abroad since 1999. Why it took me so long to return, I can’t exactly say. Lack of money was certainly one of the reasons, but that’s not the whole story. The truth is, I’ve often had a tendency to postpone things, and when you’re young, that’s easy enough to do: you live with the illusion that you have all the time in the world to fulfill your dreams.

Although I was just shy of 60 back then, the illusion remained strong. Fortunately, though, I didn’t put off another trip. The following summer, Jeff and I ventured to Paris. I’d been there once before, but only for a couple of nights, so I hadn’t really gotten a sense of the place. This time, I fell in love with every aspect of it, from the architecture and history to the wide variety of people we encountered. Indeed, everyone we met, from waiters and hotel clerks to strangers in cafes, was warm and welcoming, and ever since then I’ve been utterly baffled by the widespread notion in the States that “the French are rude.”

In 2018, my love of travel having been reawakened, Jeff and I planned yet another trip. There were any number of places that interested me. I’ve always wanted to go to Florence, for example, but have never gotten round to it. We finally settled on Amsterdam, another city I’d never visited, and it was a delight. But I’d been so smitten with Paris that I wanted to return there as well, so after five days in the Netherlands, we took the short flight down to the City of Light yet again, and by the end of the second week abroad my love for it had deepened all the more.

The following year, I remained stateside because money was particularly tight, but that December Jeff and I planned a trip to Rome, a city neither of us had visited, for March of 2020.

Then Covid hit.

I managed to avoid infection, through a combination of precaution and luck, but as I look back on the lockdown, I realize that it had a deeper psychological impact than I recognized at the time. At 64, and living in isolation, I was finally beginning to feel old—and one of the symptoms was a lack of motivation. Day after day, week after week, I was content to sit at home in my easy chair and read, listen to music, or watch TV for hours on end.

Imperceptibly, bad habits set in. I got little exercise, ate poorly and drank too much—but for a long time I was content with that lifestyle. Thus, late last year, when Jeff proposed a March trip back to Paris, I felt ambivalent. I still loved

the idea of being in Paris, but the thought of getting there filled me with dread. Travel can be stressful and tiring even when you’ re young, but now that I was feeling chronically run down and vulnerable to various anxieties, I hated the thought of going through security, sitting in a cramped airplane seat for nine hours, getting grilled by customs agents and hauling baggage through vast airports.

I told Jeff to count me in, nevertheless, because I understand the importance of getting outside your comfort zone. But in the weeks leading up to the trip, I had real doubts about whether I’d be able to make it. One physical ailment after another popped up, and with them my anxieties worsened. Among other things, I worried that being stuck on a plane would bring on severe claustrophobia and a full-fledged panic attack.

Fortunately, I fought back. In hopes of combating my anxieties, I cut way down on my alcohol intake and began eating better. To further allay my fears, I asked my therapist to write me a prescription for Xanax. I’d never taken one before, but I figured it would be comforting to know that they were in my carry-on bag. I also bought some nicotine gum to help with my cigarette cravings during the flight.

WHEN OUR DAY OF DEPARTURE finally arrived, and we boarded the plane, I was relieved that I felt no immediate anxiety. Midway across the

Atlantic, I had one piece of nicotine gum and was surprised by how effective it was. As for the Xanax, I never felt the need. I was uncomfortable in the tiny coach seat, to be sure, and I’ve never been able to sleep on planes, but that wasn ’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

I was exhausted, though, when we arrived at our hotel, but it was too early to check in, so we parked our luggage and ventured into the streets. Aggravating the fatigue was the fact that it was cold and cloudy, and at 9 in the morning hardly anything in Paris is open—not even a place to get coffee. I’d always found it charming that Parisians leisurely roll into work around 10 or so, but at that particular moment I was slightly annoyed.

Our hotel was close to Notre Dame, so we wandered down in that direction, then over to the nearby Shakespeare & Company, the legendary English-language bookstore. Fortunately, it opened soon thereafter, so we were at least able to find some warmth among the books. That said, I couldn’t help wondering if the magic of Paris had worn off.

It hadn’t.

After finally getting to our rooms and resting for an hour, we met back up in the hotel lobby, chatted a bit with the friendly and helpful desk attendant, and wandered back out into the neighborhood: the Saint Germain district, which has always been my favorite area of the city. Within minutes, I felt a strange sensation: Although it had been five years since my last visit, it seemed somehow that I had never left. I felt every bit as much at home there as I do in New York ’s Greenwich Village, and a lot more at home, believe it or not, than I do in Ghent, pleasant as my Norfolk neighborhood is.

The next morning, after a great night’s sleep in my small but clean and comfortable room at Hotel Eugenie—a relatively inexpensive place that I highly recommend—I felt thoroughly rejuvenated. Not that I had the stamina that I’d had in 2016, when we’d hit the ground on no sleep and walked nearly 10 miles across the city. This time, I noticed that after about an hour, my lower back was bothering me as we wandered around the Latin Quarter near the Sorbonne. It was nothing, however, that a rest at a café couldn’t fix, over a couple of pints of Pelforth, my favorite French beer. The afternoon was further enriched by visits to a variety of charming shops and an outdoor market, spiced with brief conversations with various people we encountered.

My study of French on Duolingo notwithstanding, I’m still unable to speak the language at length, but I took pleasure in using what little I know—and when I didn’t feel up to the task, but needed to ask a question, I always opened with, parlez-vous Anglais? In contrast to my experience during previous visits, I encountered

Tom Robotham, Diane Catanzaro, Chris Jones, Jerome Langston, Marisa Marsey, Jim Morrison, Montague Gammon III, Betsy DiJulio and Jim Roberts, Kate Mattingly, Joel Rubin, Mark Edward Atkinson

Brenda Mihalko, Giorgio Valentini

Welcoming in every way: Au Vieux Paris d ’Arcole

(continued from page 6)

a lot of people who did not speak English, but it wasn ’t hard to find people who did. Either way, they were friendly. Indeed, during the entire week that we were there, I didn’t encounter a single instance of rudeness—a rather remarkable thing, it seems to me, given that Paris is such a big city. As a native New Yorker, I always push back when people say New Yorkers are rude. But the fact is, I always run into some rude people in the Big Apple. In Paris, even the taxi drivers we encountered seemed courteous, patiently stopping for pedestrians and bicyclists without leaning on their horns the way drivers in New York and many other cities tend to do. That sense of feeling emotionally safe and welcomed only increased during the week, and it didn’t matter whether we were in some downto-earth pub or a more upscale restaurant. At one of the latter, Les Editeurs, where we went for drinks on three separate occasions, we encountered a host of upper-crust Parisians, finely dressed, and formally-clad waiters. We were dressed in jeans and black leather jackets— slobs by comparison—but were treated with the same regard and courtesy as the wealthiestlooking patrons were.

The same was true of Le Procope, a fine-dining establishment founded in 1686, which once was a favorite haunt of Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and other luminaries. It’s so good that we had dinner there on three separate evenings, and were treated like royalty. On the third evening, we even requested a specific table that we’d had on the second evening—a semi-private setting in a quiet corner, with leather armchairs that looked as if Napoleon—another of the restaurant’s former patrons—might have used. Moreover, in spite of all its elegance and the first-rate quality of the food, it is very reasonably priced. None of my meals cost more than 30 Euros.

AS WE HAD SEEN so much of Paris on previous trips, we skipped the big tourist attractions like the Louvre, although we wandered around the outside, which is always a pleasure in itself. One attraction we did revisit, however, was Père Lachaise Cemetery, a 110-acre burial ground that is home to the tombs of scores of famous people, from Chopin and Balzac to Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison. It ’s an exhausting walk, as it ’s quite hilly, and was all the more so for me because of the recurring lower-back pain. Moreover, finding the graves of specific people is a challenge, given the cemetery’s size and confusing layout. I went looking for Gertrude Stein’ s, for example, without any luck. I was pleased, on the other hand, to pay my respects to Oscar Wilde. (We’d seen Morrison’s famous grave before, so we didn’t bother to try to find it again.) Overall, it was well worth the time and effort. Another highlight was a show—free of charge, with just a one-drink minimum—at the Sunset Sunside Jazz Club, one of the best in Paris, a city that has a long jazz tradition. The featured ensemble was a French trio—piano, bass and drums. I had never heard of them, but they did terrific renditions of the great jazz standards in the style of the great Bill Evans trios. The evening was enhanced, once again,

by social warmth, thanks to a great host and a friendly couple who sat behind us and engaged us in interesting conversation while we waited for the show to start.

I don’t have the space to go into detail about all of the other highlights of the trip, from meditative moments in beautiful churches to browsing excursions in old bookshops. Suffice it to say, they will reside in my memory with deep fondness.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t mention the last evening we were there. Earlier in the week, we’d stopped at a small and very old restaurant called Au Vieux Paris d ’Arcole, an eclectically decorated space built in 1512 as the home of the Canon of Notre Dame. I’d not been there before, but the charmingly flamboyant manager—a man named Frederico who favors a red silk smoking jacket and loves to start singing operatic arias at random moments—remembered Jeff from a previous visit. After a late lunch on our last day, we stopped by there for a drink, and Frederico not only greeted me by name—as if we were old friends—but remembered how many ice cubes that I preferred in my whiskey. Soon other regulars started stopping by, along with a lovely family from Brazil. What had been planned as a quick cocktail stop

turned into a five-hour affair, a delicious dinner of boeuf bourguignon, and the most delightfully festive group conversation with Frederico and friends. It was the only night there that I overdid the drinking—Frederico kept pouring me whiskies unsolicited, like an effusive host at a private dinner party—but it was well worth it. I suspect that the next time I return, he will remember me instantly. I’m sure, at any rate, that I won’t forget him, his hospitality, and his sincere love of people.

The next morning, remembering that evening, made the melancholy of leaving all the more pronounced. To make matters worse, my back was bothering me on the long trip home, and when I got up from my own bed the next day, it was really sore. I didn’t grumble about feeling old, though. On the contrary, I woke up feeling inspired to get back into travel-shape. I no longer live with the delusion that I have all the time in the world. But I want to spend whatever time I have left with a greater sense of joie de vivre—hopefully, some of that time in Paris: the most beautiful city I know—and contrary to popular notions, one of the friendliest.

Tom Robotham can be reached at tomrobotham@gmail.com .

The flamboyantly gothic Church of Saint-Séverin

Commemorating NATO ACT’s 20th Anniversary, 70 Years of Norfolk NATO Festival

By Jeff Maisey

This spring Hampton Roads will celebrate two significant events: the 20th anniversary of NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and 70 years of the Norfolk NATO Festival.

It is perhaps worth noting each organization has experienced change.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed in April of 1949 with its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium in the aftermath of World War II for the collective defense of its member states against the potential threat posed by the Soviet Union.

In 1949, NATO was comprised of 12 founding member states: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, and

the United States. Today, with the addition of Finland on April 4, NATO is 31 nations strong.

In 1952, NATO established Allied Command Atlantic in Norfolk, Virginia with the primary mission of safeguarding the important lines of communication under the Atlantic Ocean connecting Europe with the United States and Canada.

The next year, a recently created springtime event called the Norfolk Crape Myrtle Festival decided to include a salute to the allied forces stationed in Norfolk and rebranded as the International Azalea Festival.

In addition to incorporating Norfolk Botanical Garden, a parade with floats for each NATO nation and marching bands were part

of the festivities. Local society ladies insisted on a Queen Azalea and a tea party full of pomp and circumstance. Foreign dignitaries and US presidents were often on the invitation list. Each year a Most Favored Nation was named and its culture celebrated.

All of this changed 20 years ago.

In 2003, NATO restructured the mission of its Norfolk headquarters with the formation of Allied Command Transformation in 2003. ACT would look to the future to determine potential threats and opportunities. NATO would have to innovate and adapt to combat everything from Artificial Intelligence, piracy, climate change, space warfare, cyber crime, terrorism, and hybrid warfare.

In fact, it was General James Mattis, while serving as Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (2007-09), who foresaw the use of hybrid warfare as evidenced in 2014 during Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula with unmarked soldiers described by US General Philip Breedlove as “little green men.”

Following NATO’s lead in adapting to the future, in 2003, then Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim persuaded the longstanding Azalea Festival to change its name to the more relevant Norfolk NATO Festival.

The Festival, which is largely run by a

WELCOMING FINLAND INTO NATO: (L-R) French Air & Space Force General Phillip Lavigne (NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation), Admiral Rob Bauer of The Netherlands (Chair of the NATO Military Committee), Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Photo courtesy of NATO.

decorate in style

(continued from page 10)

committee of community volunteers under the management of the Virginia Arts Festival, would focus entirely on events spotlighting the Alliance through the Model NATO Challenge (held in February/March each year), Norfolk NATO Festival Flag Raising Ceremony (April 20, 5 PM, Scope Plaza), the Parade of Nations (April 22, 10 AM, Downtown Norfolk), and NATO International Village (April 22, 11:30 AM, Town Point Park).

In advance of this year’s commemorative celebrations, I reached out to current NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation General Phillip Lavigne of the French Air & Space Force for comments.

Also included are General Jim Mattis, US Marines (ret), NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (2007-09), and the 26th US Secretary of Defense; General Denis Mercier, French Air & Space Force (ret), NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (2015-18); and Vice Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt, United Kingdom Royal Navy, NATO ACT Chief of Staff (2011-13), currently Master of The King’s Household in London.

VEER: What has been the significance of NATO’s mission at Allied Command Transformation (ACT) HQ in Norfolk and how has its mission been of vital importance in addressing the needs for the trans-Atlantic Alliance today (and the future) regarding potential threats arrayed against the West from a growing axis of adversaries?

Lavigne: When ACT was created in 2003, it was a recognition that our security environment was changing and that to succeed, NATO would need to transform and to adapt.

NATO’s added value is Interoperability, the ability of different military forces to work together effectively, even if they come from different countries or organizations.

Interoperability is critical for NATO’s ability to respond to security challenges and threats effectively. It allows member states to pool their resources and capabilities and to act as a unified force, strengthening NATO’s collective defense and deterrence posture.

One aspect of ACT ’s work has been, and continues to be, looking out ahead to ensure that the gap between what we can do and what we will need to do does not grow to the point where NATO loses its edge and can no longer deter its potential adversaries or carry out its essential mission of ensuring the collective defense of almost a billion people.

After identifying future threats and challenges, NATO Allies will need to develop the necessary tools, capabilities and forces. Here too, ACT plays an important part in capability development and through the NATO Defense Planning Process.

Mattis: As NATO’s primary think tank, ACT is staffed by many of the Alliance’s “best and brightest” thinkers. Supreme Allied Command Transformation has delivered top-notch guidance as a thought-leader helping to build the necessary consensus across the nations. It had done so by dint of its relevant, persuasive vision for keeping NATO fit for the purpose of protecting our democracies. Often tested but never caught short, NATO owes much of its effectiveness to ACT’s anticipatory leadership and the intellectual rigor it brings to bear in the cause of peace and protection of our way of life.

Mercier: The creation of Allied Command Transformation came at the end of the Cold War, as this command was previously dedicated to the protection of sea lines of communication in the North Atlantic area. NATO reorganized its missions after the fall of the Berlin Wall and considered it vital to maintain Allied Command Operations, in charge of current operations, but also to have another operational command, in charge of future operations. This is what Allied Command Transformation has been doing for the past 20 years: understanding the trends that will lead to crises, the inflections they will bring to future operations, taking into account technological disruptions, analyzing how the Allies are preparing for the future to ensure their interoperability, and continuing to develop partnerships with many other nations and organizations around the world. Let me emphasize one fact: Allied Command Transformation is an operational command. In a century when it has become impossible to predict the future and where the geo-strategic environment is increasingly uncertain with a multiplication of threats of various kinds, it gives NATO the operational capacity of anticipation that is essential to maintain the agility necessary for our forces to succeed, by relying on the formidable power of an Alliance that has been able for more than 70 years to establish and constantly modernize a command and control structure capable of leading all types of coalition operations by combining the skills of each. And to maintain a strong and indispensable transatlantic link, this strategic command had to be in the United States.

Johnstone-Burt: Ever since its creation 20 years ago, ACT has gone from strength to strength.  I first became aware of ACT ’s work in practice when I was on operations in Afghanistan in 2011 just before I became ACT ’ s Chief of Staff, and was extremely impressed by the huge amount of work underway in developing military capability for NATO across all the member nations. This proved even

BDI Milo Table

more important as ACT also led the initiative to create Centres of Excellence right across the Alliance, as well as organizing operational training, developing strategic thinking, and codifying NATO doctrine and concepts. All of which have enabled NATO to remain at the cutting edge of technology, experimentation and transformation, both conceptually and practically. All this hard work has paid off as we pull together to navigate safely through the very choppy waters of this decade, with ACT at the helm. It’s a tremendous achievement and a great credit to all those who’ ve served ACT so faithfully for so long.

VEER: Would you comment on the city of Norfolk’s dedication, aided by the Norfolk NATO Festival, in maintaining a friendly and supportive relationship with NATO personnel and families for 70 years?

Mattis: Norfolk and the NATO command are key partners in sustaining the trans-Atlantic Alliance. The Tidewater’s welcome of the NATO military personnel and their families is warm and heartfelt. The command adds an international tone that enriches the social and educational opportunities across the community, a city that is proud to host the sole NATO headquarters on American soil.

Johnston-Burt: Over the last 70 years, Norfolk has been extraordinarily kind and generous to successive generations of NATO personnel and their families.  The experience has created a bond which has transcended time and space, and enabled those relationships to endure across the Atlantic over the decades, as well as binding those with the same experiences together in the UK and the rest of Europe and the world. It was a formative and joyous experience for the whole of our family and one which they will never forget. We all owe Norfolk and its wonderful people a deep and lasting debt of gratitude for the way in which it embraced us all so warmly and without any preconditions.  We shall never forget you, Norfolk, and can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done for our families and the NATO Festival.

Mercier: Allied Command Transformation is staffed by personnel from all NATO nations and many partner countries who bring their families to Norfolk. The welcome they receive from the city of Norfolk and the entire Hampton Roads community is remarkable in every way. It reflects the transatlantic bond between our nations. The local community, with the help of the Norfolk NATO Festival, makes it possible for this international community to feel at home very quickly. I can attest to the fact that great friendships are made. It is a

privilege to have such a friendly and supporting environment and we must commend the local community for the efforts they continuously dedicate to ensure that the personnel of the “NATO’s home in America” can carry out their missions in complete serenity.

Lavigne: The Norfolk NATO Festival is the only one in the USA celebrating NATO, but it is truly unique across the entire Alliance.

I can tell you that my staff, their spouses and children return, after their tour of duty here, to their respective nations having experienced a truly transformative experience… The ability to live the American Way of Life, to make lasting connections and friendships with their American neighbors is one that they will never forget. We really think of Norfolk as NATO’s home in North America. And we hope through the Festival, that our American hosts will also get a little taste of the variety of cultures that contribute to the strength of our great Alliance.

VEER: Any additional thoughts to share regarding these two significant anniversaries?

Lavigne: It’s actually a triple celebration this year! With Finland joining NATO on April 4th on the 74th anniversary of the signing of the Washington Treaty, while we prepare for ACT ’s twentieth.

Anniversaries are always a good time to think about how we got here and where we are going. It’s a moment to celebrate achievements, big and small, but also to think about current and future challenges as well as pause to mark sacrifices made, including those in the ongoing and brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Mattis: Now in its 74th year, we can see in the face of Russia’s savage aggression against Ukraine why NATO continues to be critical to our collective security. If we didn’t have the Alliance today, we would have to create it. Nations with allies thrive, and Norfolk’s Supreme Allied Command Transformation stands as a reminder of that reality.

Mercier: I have wonderful professional and personal memories of my time at ACT and Norfolk, and I wish the next generation of military and civilian personnel who will work in this HQ the same joy. In the face of the many threats that lie ahead, we need a command that coordinates the preparation of the future for the Alliance and always looks ahead. As a U.S. Secretary of State for Innovation at the Department of Defense in Washington once told me, we need to continue to innovate to meet new threats and stay ahead, and we need to do it with our Allies. Fortunately, we have Allied Command Transformation

Chris Thile, mandolin with Virginia Symphony Orchestra MAY 19-21

Chicago The Musical - In Concert with Virginia Symphony Orchestra MAY 6

Kenny Loggins JUNE 17

Olga Kern, piano MAY 7

Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer with Rakesh Chaurasia MAY 3

Julia Bullock, soprano Five Freedom Songs JUNE 14

The Wood Brothers JUNE 16

Mo’ JUNE 18

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New Grant Funding Model Aims to Help Hampton Residents Fight Shoreline Erosion

By Charlie Paullin

A new Hampton program aims to help residents address shoreline erosion by allowing some funds to be provided upfront rather than solely requiring them to pay for improvements themselves and then seek reimbursement.

The funds are available through the state’s Virginia Conservation Assistance Program, which traditionally distributes money to multiple soil and water conservation districts — the regional divisions charged with protecting land and water.

But this year the state allowed Hampton residents to avail themselves of the funds through a partnership with the neighboring Colonial Soil and Water Conservation District, which serves York, James City, New Kent and Charles City counties.

Under the partnership, up to 10 Hampton property owners could be eligible to receive reimbursement for up to 80% of the costs of installing a living shoreline from the state. Awards can’t exceed $30,000.

What’s also new is that property owners can receive funding for up to half of the costs of installing a living shoreline upfront, not to exceed $15,000.

Sometimes, property owners can’t pay for projects upfront or have to take out loans to cover them, acknowledged Robyn Woolsey, an urban conservationist with the Colonial Soil and Water Conservation District.

“ That can often be a really huge barrier for property owners who want to install living shorelines and go that route,” said Woolsey.

Living shorelines are manmade but mimic natural resources like marshes to provide stability of coastlines against waves through the strategic placement of plants, stone and sand. The shorelines’ absorption of the waves’ impact prevents further erosion of land and keeps sediment from entering waterways while also providing a more natural habitat for wildlife such as oysters, which naturally filter water.

Owners of shoreline areas that are susceptible to too much damage from waves are required by state law to install more stable structures like rip rap or piles of rock, explained Olivia Askew, a resiliency specialist for the city of Hampton. That’s the case for many areas around Hampton, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay.

But in areas with less risk of wave destruction, that state law requires the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to permit only living shorelines for shoreline management “unless the best available science shows

that such approaches are not suitable.” When the exception is granted, the VMRC must require permitted projects to include “ to the maximum extent possible, elements of living shoreline approaches.”

“ The benefits to that are the ecosystem that it provides,” Askew said. “ Rip rap and hardened shorelines sometimes does effectively control erosion. Living shorelines do that as well, but have these added benefits of creating habitat, filtering out pollutants that may get into our waterways by stormwater runoff. Also people find that they’re a beautiful habitat to look out over.”

The state law to require living shorelines received pushback from many of Virginia’ s coastal residents, as estimates for living shorelines can sometimes reach about $70,000, the Bay Journal reported. A Maryland law similar to Virginia’s allowed residents to seek a waiver under certain conditions.

Nevertheless, Virginia has stuck with the 2020 law, and with climate change leading to rising sea levels and increasing stormwater runoff from heavy rainfalls, the city of Hampton has already begun work to install living shorelines.

In October 2021, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation awarded Hampton about $126,000 for its Mill Point Living Shoreline, which will be built along a park and residential area and include an oyster reef. The funding is coming from revenues generated by the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

The $126,000 will go toward preliminary engineering for a 2,100-foot-long living shoreline along the Hampton River by using an existing shoreline sill, or shelf. The city also recently received $1.5 million from the Department of Environmental Quality’s Stormwater Local Assistance Fund to cover the rest of design costs and almost completely fund construction of the estimated $2 million project.

The oyster reef  “will grow on the sill to help the sill rise with rising seas levels and provide an efficient filtering capacity to the Hampton River,” Hampton City Manager Mary Bunting wrote in her application for the funding. “ This holistic system will be adding storage, reducing runoff, treating runoff, and providing community amenities while demonstrating living with water is an essential resilience strategy in coastal Virginia.”

This article is republished courtesy of VirginiaMercury.com

Chrysler Museum Names Director of Curatorial Affairs

By Jordan Fontenot

Following a national search, Castro was selected to oversee the Museum’s Curatorial, Conservation, and Collections & Exhibitions divisions, as well as serve on the Senior Leadership Team. In this role, which begins April 17, he will help to shape the institution’ s overall artistic program, aligning it with the Museum’s strategic priorities and mission. Working collaboratively across the Museum as both a manager and curator, Castro will creatively utilize the Chrysler’s collections and exhibitions to engage, educate, and expand visitor participation, with the objective of enlivening the institution’s offering and enhancing its reputation locally, nationally, and internationally.

“ Mark brings considerable expertise to the Chrysler Museum based on his work at two of America’s great museums, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art,” said Erik H. Neil, Macon and Joan Brock Director of the Chrysler Museum of Art. “ I look to working closely with him to shape the future of our wonderful institution.”

In fact, Castro brings to the Chrysler Museum more than 18 years of dynamic curatorial experience with an emphasis in Latin American Art. Most recently, Castro was the Inaugural Jorge Baldor Curator of Latin American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, where he curated a diverse array exhibitions, including Flores Mexicanas: Women in Modern Mexican Art (2019), Frida Kahlo: Five Works (2021), Devoted: Art and Spirituality in Mexico and New Mexico (2021), and Octavio Medellín: Spirit and Form

Hermitage Expands Capital Needs

Due to inflation and other construction cost overruns, the Hermitage Museum and Gardens is seeking additional funding from local donors and supports of the picturesque museum for its visual arts school refurbishment and expansion.

“Our original financial projection was $3 million and we surpassed that late last fall,” said Ashley Magard, the Hermitage Museum’s Director of Development. “Our new goal is $3.5 million, and we have about $165,000 remaining to get to that goal.”

The public can help close the funding gap by contacting the museum directly at thehermitagemuseum.org/capitalcampaign or 757-423-2052.

The grand opening of the art school is still schedule for late summer. Programming for locals wishing to take classes will be enhanced

(2022). Castro previously held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he was involved in numerous exhibitions, including co-curating the internationally acclaimed Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950 (2016). Castro holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in art history from Bryn Mawr College, and a B.A. in Archaeology and Studio Art from Hamilton College. In 2022 he was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.

“

The Chrysler Museum of Art is an incredibly vibrant institution,” said Castro. “ It has a rich history of producing dynamic exhibitions and engaging deeply with its community. I am thrilled to be joining its team and looking forward to working with my colleagues to continue the museum’s amazing work.”

to include graphic art design and other technology-driven art as well as traditional painting, drawing, and pottery-making.

Virginia Opera Season Announced

Virginia Opera will present a quartet of opera for its 2023-24 season at the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk. These include Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried” (September 29 & October 1), Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” (November 3-5), “Sanctuary Road” (January 26 & 28), and “Madama Butterfly” by Puccini (March 8-10).

“Sanctuary Road” is most notable as it brings to light the writings of William Still, an abolitionist, historian, and conductor of the Underground Railroad. Music for this work was composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec. Tickets at 866-673-7282.

Mark Castro is the new Chrysler Museum of Art’s Director of Curatorial Affairs

Game Changing Move for Brothers

By Jeff Maisey

Tony Brothers has called a brief timeout for his namesake fine dining restaurant and entertainment space on Plume Street in downtown Norfolk, and will reopen midApril on the first floor of MacArthur Center in the spot where Kincaid’s and most recently a Brazilian themed food establishment operated.

For Brothers, the pivot should be a slam dunk and for downtown a game-changer.

Most people know Tony Brothers as the longtime referee (1994 to present) in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Television footage of Brothers’ unflinching command of the court in the face of impassioned pleas from the likes of Lebron James, James Hardin, and the late Kobe Bryant are easy found on Youtube. His job is to make the right call, not friends in the game.

Tony Brothers, who was raised in Norfolk, graduated Booker T. Washington High School and Old Dominion University, said he always wanted to have a jazz club.

“Brothers opened in January of 2020 during COVID,” said Tony. “At that time I had a partner and we were going to open a fine dining restaurant with an entertainment component.”

Brothers, with the tagline Chops | Seafood | Spirits, was born and received rave

reviews from patrons. The restaurant operated on the first floor of a building previously used as a nightclub. The second floor — up a steep flight of steps — housed the long, somewhat narrow space for jazz music. Local groups such as RaJazz, Duane Smith Quartet, and bluesman Jason Cale played the stage, but the real draw and mission for Brothers were national smooth jazz recording artists. The likes of Rick Braun, Jonathan Butler (six performances in three nights), Paula Atherton, Nick Colionne, Jackiem Joyner, and Brian Simpson performed a series of shows.

After each performance, jazz fans in attendance had an opportunity to meet the artists, pose for photos, and get autographs.

“These are things you can’t get at a jazz festival,” said Brothers. It is an unparalleled intimate experience.

While the live music aspect was inspirational, Tony Brothers became aware of his small kitchen, lack of refrigeration and storage space not being able to keep pace with demand on busy evenings with a soldout crowd in the house.

It was clear he needed to up his game so patrons could have the complete experience Brothers desired to bring. That’s when he was offered the opportunity to take a

chance at MacArthur Center. He signed a 5-year lease with an addition 5-year option. The restaurant space at the mall came with two complete kitchens, several walkin freezers and refrigerators, ample dry

storage, dishwashing stations, and a readyto-serve bar. It’s a night and day difference in terms of operating capacity.

The new location will be dazzling with palace-like pillars and an artistic explosion of colors with Chihuly-inspired overhead light-fixtures, splashed-paint floors and table tops, a wall-length mural of Norfolk’s greatest people and places, and seating for 250 patrons.

A state-of-the-art sound and lighting system have been installed as well as a newly built stage for the recording artists to perform.

Smooth jazz saxophonist Najee is scheduled to perform May 19. Comedians are also being considered.

Brothers will approach concert/event nights like a dinner theater performance. One set price covers the concert and dinner. Drink will be a separate charge, and Tony Brothers promises a first class menu of rare, hard to find bourbon whiskies — his drink of choice.

Brothers, while known for jazz music, will enhance its live schedule offerings too.

“What we want moving forward is expand into Latin music, blues, and all types of things,” he said. “I believe there are two things that bring people together: music and food. If we can find enough diverse entertainment and give consideration to people and their cultures, I believe Brothers will be that thing that can help bridge that gap here in Norfolk.”

Brothers new exterior on Monticello Avenue.

Kimberly and Tony Brothers at Brother's former location on Plume Street. Photo courtesy of Tony Brothers.

Smooth jazz saxophonist Najee will perform May 19.

FRIDAY JUNE 23

7:30PM

ANTHONY HAMILTON TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE

STEPHANIE MILLS

JONATHAN BUTLER

SATURDAY JUNE 24

7PM

CHARLIE WILSON CHRIS BOTTI AVERY*SUNSHINE

THE CHUCK BROWN BAND

SUNDAY JUNE 25

2PM

FANTASIA BABYFACE KENNY G

PETER WHITE

2023 Spring & Summer Festival /Event Guide

Compiled By Staff

This year promises to be one of the most fun for festival-goers whether you’re a local or tourist. For a region our size, there’s a lot going on in the 757. Here’s our list on must-attend festivities, literally something for everyone.

26th Annual Virginia Arts Festival

April 14-16, Philadelphia Ballet: Swan Lake, Chrysler Hall

April 20-23, Virginia International Tattoo, Scope Arena

April 24, Calmus, Christ & St. Luke’s Church

April 25, Alvin Ailey American Dance Company, Ferguson Center

April 28-30, Alvin Ailey American Dance Company, Chrysler Hall

April 26, David Russell, guitar, Hixon Theater

April 27, Mames Babegenush, Perry Pavilion

May 2-7, At The Illusionist’s Table with Scott Silven, Cavalier Resort

May 2, “All Things Equal - The Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Attucks Theatre

May 3, Bela Fleck/Zakir Hussain/Edgar Meyer/ Rakesh Chaurasia, Perry Pavilion

May 5, Ballet Hispanico, Sandler Center

May 6, Chicago The Musical in Concert, Chrysler Hall

May 7, Olga Kern, Sandler Center

May 7, Josh Ritter, Perry Pavilion

May 10, Dali Quartet w/Olga Kern, Hixon Theater

May 10, Leyla McCalla, Perry Pavilion

May 11, Dali Quartet w/Olga Kern, Norfolk Academy

May 12, Dali Quartet, St. John’s Episcopal Church

May 13, Mark Morris Dance Group in “The Look of Love,” Sandler Center

May 14, Colin MacKnight, organ, Christ & St Luke’s Church

May 15, Emerson String Quartet, Hixon Theater

May 18, Sierra Hull, Perry Pavilion

May 19, Chris Thile World Premiere, Ferguson

Center

May 20, Chris Thile World Premiere, Chrysler Hall

May 21, Chris Thile World Premiere, Sandler Center

May 21, Smokey Robinson, Chrysler Hall

May 23, Evening Chamber, Hixon Theater

June 1, American Aquarium, Perry Pavilion

June 7, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players, Hennage Auditorium

June 7, Valerie June, Perry Pavilion

June 8, Over The Rhine, Perry Pavilion

June 9, Bria Skonberg, Perry Pavilion

June 10, Alisa Amador, Hixon Theater

June 14, “Five Freedom Songs,” Attucks Theatre

June 16, The Wood Brothers, Lawn of the Museums of Colonial Williamsburg

June 17, Kenny Loggins, Lawn of the Museums of Colonial Williamsburg

June 18, Keb’ Mo’, Lawn of the Museums of Colonial Williamsburg

June 17, A Musical Tribute to Luther Vandross, Attucks Theatre

More info at vafest.org

LAVA MiniFest

April 15 Toast

An indie pop music festival featuring The North Country, Berries, The Warm Hug, Drook, Prabir, and more.

Revolutionary Beer Festival

April 15

Khedive Shrine Center

645 Woodlake Drive, Chesapeake 757.482.4480

Celebrate amber suds with historical reverence as we pay tribute to the history of beer! Enjoy unlimited samples of 30+ craft beers and ciders

from 15 breweries, food trucks, live music featuring the Kershaw & Foutz, artisans, more. 1-5 PM.

Phoebus Spring Fling & Beer Fest

April 15

Mellen Street

phoebusva.com

Taking it to streets — a beer, craft, and food festival with live entertainment in historic Phoebus. 10 AM to 6 PM.

Norfolk NATO Festival Flag Raising Ceremony

April 20

Scope Plaza

vafest.org

You’ll only experience this in Norfolk. See all 31 NATO Nations represented in patriotic fanfare with speeches and a military aircraft flyover. 5 PM. Free admission.

Norfolk NATO Festival Parade of Nations

April 22

Town Point Park

www.vafest.org

Marching bands, various motor vehicles, and floats representing all 31 NATO nations parade down Waterside Drive and up Granby Street in Downtown Norfolk. The only one of its kind in the world. 10 AM. Free to attend.

Norfolk NATO Festival International Village

April 22

Town Point Park, Norfolk

vafest.org

Visit tents of 31 NATO nations, sample foods, and engage in conversation with Europeans and Canadians. Learning French or German? Try it out on the friendly soldiers and their family members. There’ll be live entertainment, food trucks, and beer. A truly unique experience.

11:30 AM, Free admission.

She-Crab Classic

April 22

24th Street Park @ Oceanfront beacheventsvb.com

The competition will feature regional restaurants vying for the title of Best She-crab Soup. Attendees sample and vote for the People’ s Choice Awards while regional cuisine experts serve up Critics Choice Awards.

Don’t miss the opportunity to sample some the best She-crab soup on the East Coast from the following restaurants: Atlantic Pints, Beach House 757, CP Shuckers, Entre Nous, Fusion, Irwin’s Pharmacy, Lendy’ s, Pirates Cove, Rockafeller’s Restaurant, Shadowlawn Eats, Waterside Seafood Company, Wickers Crab Pot Seafood, and Yiannis

Hampton Mosaic Festival: A Celebration of Culture, History and the Arts

April 22

Mill Point Park

hamptonhistorymuseum.org

A celebration of art, music, dance, history and more.

NOCO Spring Wine Fest

April 22

Hank’s Filling Station nocowinefest.com

Come check out some unique wines not found on the grocery store shelves. Buy bottle to take home for conversation. Noon to 5 PM.

Gongstock 4/20 Festival at Benchtop

April 22

Benchtop Brewing Company benchtopbrewing.com

Celebrating our Hazy Gong Series with a two-day

Ballet Hispanico performs May 5 at Sandler Center as part of the Virginia Arts Festival

Pharrell Williams brings his SOMETHING IN THE WATER festival back to Virginia Beach April 28-30

Artists and customers mingle at Stockley Gardens Arts Festival

Named one of the top food and drink festivals in the nation by Business Insider, the 15th Annual Spring Town Point Virginia Wine Festival is one of Hampton Roads’ most anticipated wine festivals. Held on Saturday & Sunday, May 6 & 7, 2023 at Town Point Park along the Downtown Norfolk Waterfront, the festival showcases more than 25 of the Commonwealth’s top wineries in a picturesque setting along the Elizabeth River, to go along with gourmet foods, specialty merchants, live music, and much more!

FREE SUMMER CONCERT SERIES

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fest packed with live music on stage, multiple food trucks, market vendors, and special Gong release. Noon to 10 PM.

Chesapeake Spring Arts Festival

April 22-23

Chesapeake City Park chesarts.com

Over 100 visual artists will sell their works, plus activities for kids, food trucks, craft beer and wine, and live music. The Deloreans play on the Sunday. Free admission.

Williamsburg Craft Beer Festival

April 23

Lawn of the Museums of Colonial Williamsburg williamsburgcraftbeerfest.com

An afternoon of regional craft beer, local food, and music from The Chong Band. Noon to 5 PM.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER

April 28-30

Virginia Beach Oceanfront somethinginthewater.com

Pharrell Williams brings his massive music and culture festival back to his hometown. While the performance schedule is not yet available at time of press, groups to appear include Clipse, Wu-Tang Clan, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Flo, Kamasi Washington, Chika, Polo G, Grace Jones, Lil’Wayne, Mumford & Sons, Machine Gun Kelly, Jay Pharoah, and many more.

25th Anniversary of St. George Brewing Company

April 29

St. George Brewing Co. stgbeer.com

Live music, games, food trucks, and a crazy amount of craft beer. 10 AM to 8 PM.

Brill Music & BBQ Fest

April 29

Jamestown Beach Event Park culture-fix.org

Spend the afternoon listening to great country music while sampling pulled pork from over 50 BBQ teams who competed that morning in a KCBS sanctioned competition. All part of this great event and you get to vote for your favorite. At 5PM, see who gets crowned BBQ Champion. Live music by Mason Brown & The Shiners, Johnie St. Clair, Drew Pace, and more. 1 PM to 7:30 PM.

Hilton Village Spring Festival

April 29

Warwick & Main, Newport News hiltonvillagemainstreet.com

Over 75 vendors, live music, food, and an outdoor beer garden. 11 AM to 5 PM.

14th Annual Taste of India

April 29

Chartway Arena @ ODU tasteofindia.org

Enjoy food, Bollywood and classical dances, fashion, shopping, and more for an authentic taste of India. 11 AM to 8 PM.

Israel Fest

April 30

Sandler Family Campus

jewishva.org/israelfest

Celebrate modern day Israel’s 75th Anniversary with authentic food, Israeli art, beverages, camel rides, and more from noon to 4 PM. Free to attend.

Blues, Brews, & BBQ

May 6, 2-6pm

400 Water Street, Yorktown villageevents.org

Sample more than 30 craft beers, dig into some amazing BBQ, and listen to some of the best Blues musicians in Hampton Roads. Proceeds Benefit Sister Cities Yorktown and the York Foundation for Public Education, Inc

Atlantic Coast Kite Festival

May 6-7

Between 16th & 18th Streets @ Oceanfront beacheventsvb.com

Open to the public, show off your favorite kite and compete in the Best Kite Contest. Plus kitemaking workshops and more.

15th Annual Spring Town Point Wine Festival

May 6-7

Town Point Park festevents.org

Spend a spring weekend on the Downtown Norfolk Waterfront in Town Point Park, sampling a variety of over 200 wines from Virginia’s premier wineries!  Named one of the top food and drink festivals in the nation by Business Insider, the 15th Annual Spring Town Point Virginia Wine Festival is one of Hampton Roads’ most anticipated wine festivals. Music by Mike Proffitt (Saturday) and Brandon Bower (Sunday). Participating wineries include Zoll Vineyards, Williamsburg Winery, Mattaponi Winery, Barboursville Vineyards, AmRhein Wine Cellars, Chateau Morrisette, and more.

Virginia International PANFest

May 12-13

24th Street Stage @ Oceanfront vafest.org

All ensembles have the opportunity to perform in our Virginia International PANFest competition that is free and open to the public. We will be celebrating this incredible art form with live performances that will feature 15 – 20 minute long live

(continued on page 26)

Produced by

Cha Wa may not be the headliner, but their live performance is not to be missed during the Bayou Bon Vivant at Town Point Park in Norfolk

Friday: 12pm – 10pm

Saturday: 12pm – 10pm

Sunday: 12pm – 6pm

Indulge in the flavors of New Orleans at the Bayou Bon Vivant, a three-day celebration of the tastes, tunes, and traditions of the Crescent City. From juicy handfuls of crawfish to world-renowned N’awlins jazz musicians, the Bayou Bon Vivant captures the vibrant spirit of Louisiana and transforms it into a weekend-long party Friday-Sunday, May 19-21, 2023 at Town Point Park along the Downtown Norfolk Waterfront! A wide-ranging and fun experience for the entire family, the Bayou Bon Vivant also features an Arts Market featuring dozens of New Orleans crafters, reptile exhibits, mouth-watering Cajun dishes such as beignets, gumbo, etouffees, and jambalaya.

Admission: 1-Day Pass: $10 in advance; $15 day-of, 3-Day Pass: $20 in advance; $30 day-of

#Festevents #BayouBonVivant @FESTEVENTS

For more information call 757-441-2345 or visit festevents.org

April 22-23, 2023

Over 100 Artists • Craft Beer & Wine

Food Trucks • Kid Friendly Activities

Bring the family out for a weekend full of fun, art, great food, and live entertainment featuring

(continued from page 24)

performances of steel bands from across the US, ending the day with performances from headliners Hells Gate Steel Orchestra with Jesse Chong Band (May 12) and Hells Gate Steel Orchestra with Jonathan Scales Fourchestra (May 13).

Beach Music Weekend

May 12-13

30th Street @ The Oceanfront beacheventsvb.com

Beach Music Weekend features bands on the beach with dancing under the stars for a jampacked blast from the past! The top Beach Music bands from up and down the East Coast descend on the Virginia Beach oceanfront in a nostalgic salute to the “good old days” of hot tunes and cool times.

Friday, May 12

7:30pm: The Swingin’ Medallions

Saturday, May 13

Noon: Bill Deal ’s Original Rhondels

3:20pm: Gary Lowder & Smokin’ Hot

7:30pm: The Catalinas

Chesapeake Jubilee

May 18 - 21

Chesapeake City Park chesapeakejubilee.org

The Jubilee finally returns with an amusement park, Shrimp Feast (May 18), Fireworks (May 20), and lots of live music.

Suds & Buds

May 18, 5:30-8:30pm

Norfolk Botanical Gardens

Sunday, April 23!

Chesapeake City Park, 900 City Park Drive

6700 Azalea Garden Road, Norfolk sudsandbuds.org

Tickets include garden admission and features food from area restaurants, craft beer, wine, and live music by David & Gabe. Proceeds benefit Norfolk Botanical Garden and the Rotary Club of Norfolk.

Bayou Bon Vivant: Cajun Music, Food & Art Festival

May 19-21

Town Point Park festevents.org

Indulge in the flavors of New Orleans with this three-day celebration of the tastes, tunes, and traditions of the Crescent City. From juicy handfuls of crawfish to world-renowned N’awlins musicians, the festival offers a fun experience for the entire family. Plus, there’s an Arts Market featuring 30+ New Orleans crafters, mouthwatering Cajun dishes, and an upgraded VIP tasting experience.

Friday, May 19, Main Stage

3:30 PM: Amanda Shaw

6 PM: Honey Island Swamp Band

8:30 PM: Blues Traveler

Friday, May 19, Crescent City Stage

2 PM: Hot Gumbo Brass Band

5 PM: The Rumble

7:30 PM: Big Sam’s Funk Nation

Saturday, May 20, Main Stage

3:45 PM: Bonerama

6 PM: Big Sam’s Funk Nation

8:30 PM: Anders Osborne

Saturday, May 20, Crescent City Stage

1 PM: Erica Falls

2:30 PM: Eric Johanson

5 PM: Geno Delafose

7:15 PM: Cha Wa

Sunday, May 21, Main Stage

12:30 PM: Cha Wa

2:15 PM: Kings of Brass

4:30 PM: North Mississippi Allstars

Sunday, May 21, Crescent City Stage

1:30 & 3:30: Terrance Simien

Neptune’s 18th Annual Spring Wine Festival

May 20

31st Street Park @ Oceanfront neptunefestival.com

31st Street Park is transformed into a hub of tasting stations from around the world with over 70 wines from 8 countries, each featuring blends and styles that are sure to ignite the traveler in you.

Each tasting ticket includes a commemorative wine glass, unlimited tastings, live music from two bands, and the ability to purchase food from two local food trucks.

Common Grounds: A Collaboration Beer Fest & Camp Night

May 20

Holiday Travel-L Park, Virginia Beach commongroundsfest.com

Sample beers collaborated on by regional breweries for a unique experience. The night culminates with a huge bonfire. Camp overnight and stay safe.

Stockley Gardens Arts Festival

May 20-21

Stockley Gardens/Ghent hope-house.org

A beloved neighborhood outdoor art show featuring over 100 regional artists, plus live music, food and drink.

31st Annual Portsmouth UMOJA Festival May 26-28

Festival Park @ Atlantic Union Bank Pavilion umojafestportsmouth.com

A grand celebration of unity at Portsmouth ’s Annual African American culture and heritage celebration promoting cultural diversity and unity. Bring the entire family to enjoy all the fes-

The world of Caribbean steel drum music is presented at PANFest

tivities including live music, kids’ activities, international foods and so much more. Live music includes Boyz II Men (on the big stage), plus RaJazz, New Sisters in Christ, 2nd Wynd, Ricky White and The Believers Kamp, and the Tidewater Chapter of GMWA Choir.

Memorial Day Salute to Summer

May 26-28

17th & 24th Street Stage @ The Oceanfront www.beacheventsvb.com

Enjoy the cool sounds of summer as the season of sun and fun kicks off on Memorial Day Weekend. Music starts at 7 PM. Free admission.

Friday, May 26

17th Street Park: Cultivated Mind

24th Street Park: Buckshot

31st Street Park: School of Rock

Saturday, May 27

17th Street Park: Wonderland

24th Street Park: 5Starr

31st Street Park: Brasswind

Sunday, May 28

17th Street Park: Chong Band

24th Street Park: The Deloreans

31st Street Park: Rocky 7

Patriotic Festival

May 26-29

Scope Arena & Town Point Park patrioticfestival.com

May 26: Walker Hayes

May 27: Sam Hunt w/Jordan Davis

May 28: Cody Johnson w/Randy Houser

139th Annual Memorial Day Parade

May 29

High Street, Portsmouth portsvaevents.com

Portsmouth tradition since 1884, the annual Memorial Day Parade salutes the service and sacrifices of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and celebrates Portsmouth ’s proud military heritage.  Enjoy floats, marching bands, and lots of excitement. The

parade travels on High Street from Peninsula Avenue (at I.C. Norcom High School) to Water Street. Starts at 10 AM.

Newport News Greek Festival

June 1-4

Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church

newportnewsgreekfestival.org

A celebration of Greek culture through food, dance, and traditional music. Opa!

Portsmouth Pride

June 3

Atlantic Union Bank Pavilion portsvacation.com

From 11 AM to 6 PM, enjoy music, dancing, food, beverages, and a large variety of venders will be available. Walk through or stay all day, just come out and show your PRIDE.

Clean The Bay Day

June 3

Chesapeake Bay Shorelines

Pitch in for 2023’s Clean the Bay Day and help ensure the health of our beautiful Bay. The main event will be held on Saturday, June 3, but we know not everyone will be able to make it which is way we have a DIY Week! Clean the Bay Your Way gives you the option of cleaning-up when you want with friends, family or by yourself! You’re able to conduct your own cleanup effort on smaller sites like your private property, school, workplace, or anywhere else you have permission. Registration is open now! Visit www.cbf.org/clean to learn more. For any questions contact ctbd@cbf.org

2023 Hampton Black Beard Festival

June 3-4

Mill Point Park visithampton.com

Pirate re-enactors take over the downtown Hampton waterfront with period vendors, crafts, history stories, musical entertainment, and more. A must-do for families.

44th Annual Seawall Music Festival

June 9-10

Olde Towne Portsmouth Waterfront portsvaevents.com

Two days (June 9-10) of great food, local and national entertainment as well as Saturday night fireworks show at 9:30 p.m. Children’s Activities on Saturday, 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. (Bounce Houses and Games).

Friday, June 9

6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Janitors (R&B, 60’s Soul, 70’s Funk, Country, Classic Rock, Top 40)

7:45 p.m. - 9:15 p.m. FUZZ Band (R&B, NeoSoul, 80’s, 90’s)

9:30 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. The Original Rhondels (Beach, Rock, 70’s, 80’s)

Saturday, June 10

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Sam Floyd Band (Classic Rock)

3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. Calden and Company (R&B, Jazz)

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. 6Ways2Sunday(Classic Rock, R&B, Blues)

5:45 p.m. - 6:45 p.m. Seamless (Jazz, Soul, Pop, Rock)

7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. BrassWind (Beach, Pop, R&B, Motown, Rock, Blues, Funk, Soul)

8:15 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. 2nd Wynd (R&B, Reggae, Jazz)

Norfolk Harborfest

June 9-11

Town Point Park festevents.org

America’s largest, longest-running, free maritime festival, Norfolk Harborfest celebrates all of the elements that make Norfolk and Hampton Roads a historic maritime and naval community. Featuring the annual Parade of Sails featuring international tall ships, one of the largest fireworks shows on the East Coast, a drone show, interactive family games and activities, Navy exhibits and demonstrations, artisan foods and beverages, live entertainment, and more.

New this year is a special celebration of the 40th anniversary of The Boathouse.

Bluegrass & Brew Festival

June 9-11

The American Theatre

Enjoy a cold pint of regional craft beer while checking out some stellar bluegrass from Daily & Vincent (June 9), the dynamic Steep Canyon Rangers (June 10), and the roots rockin’ Carbon Leaf (June 11).

Pride in the ViBe

June 11

ViBe Park

vibecreativedistrict.org

Enjoy an afternoon for camaraderie and show your Pride. Music, drinks, food, and more.

La Fiesta Virginia Beach

June 16-17

29th Street Park @ The Oceanfront beacheventsvb.com

La Fiesta Virginia Beach possesses the key ingredients of authentic food, colorful cultural costumes, and high-energy national Latin music. Latin Grammy Award nominees and winners headline concerts on the Beach stage at 24th Street each night.

Authentic Latino and Hispanic food vendors as well as retail vendors round out the festival experience.

Friday, June 16

5 pm: DJ

7:45 pm: Diveana

9:30 pm: Jose Alberto “ El Canario”

Saturday, June 17

4 pm: DJ

5 pm: Ballet Folklorico Mexican Tradition of Julio Ruiz

5:30 pm: Eddy Kbrera

6:30 pm: Ballet Folklorico Mexican Tradition of Julio Ruiz

7 pm: Wanda Lopez

8 pm: La Banda Blanca

9:30 pm: Rubby Perez

Celebrating Juneteenth

June 17

ViBe Creative District Outdoor Stage virginiabeach.gov/culture

Join folks from the Virginia African American Cultural Center in the ViBe for storytelling, music, dance and more from 9 AM to noon. Free admission.

Juneteenth in the Park

June 17

Town Point Park festevents.org

A celebration marking the arrival of Africans to North America. Music, education, and more.

Chalk The Walk

June 17

Between 16th & 18th Streets at The Oceanfront Boardwalk beacheventsvb.com

(continued from page 26) (continued

Chalk the Walk takes over the Virginia Beach Boardwalk as artists gather to turn the boardwalk into an impromptu canvas of color!

At Chalk the Walk, participants draw four by four-foot chalk drawings for three blocks along the boardwalk.

Competitors will complete chalk drawings to be evaluated by a panel of judges. Judges will score the drawings according to criteria such as composition, use of color, adherence to theme, and creativity. There will be three competitive divisions: Amateur, Professional, and Youth. The Youth division will be for ages 12-16.

All participants must register by 12:30pm to qualify for the competition and drawings must be completed by 3:30pm to be eligible for prizes. Registration is free, and all participants should bring their own chalk.

Trophies and cash prizes will be awarded for each division. Winners will be announced at 4:45pm on the boardwalk at 17th Street.

Miranda Lambert headlines the Beach It Country Music Festival in June at the Oceanfront

Keiko Matsui is one of many excellent players on the schedule for the Town Point Virginia Jazz Festival in August

Sponsored

Irene O’Brien Financial Advisor

Bobby Lawrence Berkshire Hathaway

(continued from page 28)

Israel Fest Israel Fest

SUNDAY, APRIL 30 12:00 - 4:00 PM

SANDLER FAMILY CAMPUS

5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Virginia Beach

Celebrate

Israel

@

75 with

authentic Israeli food, adult beverages, Israeli art, camel rides, and more!

JewishVA.org/IsraelFest

FREE to attend, tickets are required for food and some activities.

2nd Annual Lawnmower Beer Festival

June 17

St. George Brewing Company stgbeer.com

Some 20 regional craft breweries compete for who has the best crisp, light lager. Sample and vote for your favorite. Noon to 5 PM.

Ghent Pride

June 20, 6-10 pm

The Palace Shops & Station, Norfolk ghentnorfolk.org

Live music, cocktails, food and more. Benefits LGBT Life Center, Hampton Roads Pride, and the Ghent Business Association.

Beach It: Country Music Festival

June 23-25

Virginia Beach Oceanfront beachitfestival.com

The lineup includes Miranda Lambert, Thomas Rhett, Luke Bryan, Alana Springsteen, Lily Rose, Brothers Osborne, Rilet Green, and more.

10th Annual Pride Block Party

June 23

The NorVa hamptonroadspride.org

The fun, day before party like it’s 1975.

Hampton Roads Pride Fest

June 24, Noon to 8 pm

Town Point Park, Norfolk hamptonroadspride.org

Entertainment, music, vendors, food, drink, and activities. Plus the not-to-be-missed Boat Parade.

Totally Tribute Music Fest

June 30 to July 2

17th & 24th Street Stages @ The Oceanfront beacheventsvb.com

This high-energy, part-serious, part-camp, but pure performance weekend of tribute bands guarantees something for everyone.

Friday, June 30

17th Street Park: Nirvanna (Nirvana)

24th Street Park: 84 (Van Halen) with special guest Excitable (Def Leppard)

Saturday, July 1

17th Street Park: Heartbreaker (Heart)

24th Street Park: The Four Horsemen (Metallica)

Sunday, July 2

17th Street Park: Badmotorfinger (Soundgarden) and Badmotorfinger (Audioslave)

24th Street Park: Nightrain International (Guns N’ Roses)

Fourth of July Great American Picnic & Fireworks Celebration

July 4, 5-10pm

Town Point Park, Norfolk festevents.org

Relax on the lawn and enjoy an evening of AllAmerican fare, including hot dogs, hamburgers, barbecue, seafood, cotton candy, and much more, along with live musical entertainment from military brass bands! The night is capped off by the sensational fireworks show high above the Elizabeth River, beginning at 9:30 pm.

Stars & Stripes Celebration

July 4

17th, 24th and 31st Street Parks @ The Oceanfront beacheventsva.com

Multiple live performances on oceanfront park stages will attract thousands of visitors and residents of Virginia Beach to a “star-spangled ” salute to this great country of ours at Stars & Stripes Celebration.

Shaggin’ 4th of July Celebration

July 4

Olde Towne Portsmouth Waterfront portsvaevents.com

A Beach Music party on the 4th of July to show

(continued on page 31)

Nansemond Indian Pow Wow is a showcase in local culture and history

Fashionable dancers pose during Taste of India

Tuesday,

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(continued from page 30)

off your shag stepping.  The Original Rhondels play beach music from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. with a follow up performance by the Tidewater Concert Band playing patriotic music from 8:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.  Fireworks show at 9:30pm - visible from the north end of the seawall.

Norfolk Latino Music & Food Festival

July 22, 5-10pm

Town Point Park, Norfolk festevents.org

Featuring explosive live music performances, an eclectic offering of Latin cuisine including tacos and empanadas, fun family-friendly activities, authentic dance lessons and performances, and much more.

Virginia Symphony Orchestra Concert in the Park

July 23, 8-10 PM

Town Point Park, Norfolk festevents.org

V irginia’s pre-eminent professional symphony orchestra will appear in concert for a free evening Downtown Norfolk Waterfront.

35th Annual Nansemond Indian Pow Wow

August 19-20

Nansemond Indian Nation

Two-day Native American cultural celebration, including music, dance, food, and crafts. The pow wow is located at the end of Pembroke Lane, which runs off Godwin Boulevard (across from Oakland Elementary School) in the Chuckatuck Borough of Suffolk. 10 AM to 5 PM. Free admission.

39th Annual Norfolk Waterfront Jazz Festival

August 18-19

Town Point Park, Norfolk festevents.org

A two-day festival featuring world-class smooth jazz artists.

Friday, August 18

5:30 PM: Kim Waters & Kayla Waters

7:30 PM: Keiko Matsui

9:30 PM: Gerald Albright

Saturday, August 19

5:30 PM: Kandace Springs

7:30 PM: Jazz Funk Soul featuring Jeff Lorber, Everette Harp & Paul Jackson

9:30 PM: Dave Koz

Virginia Beach Funk Fest Beach Party

August 25-26

24th Street Park @ The Oceanfront beacheventsvb.com

A throwback party featuring funk, R&B, and gospel music from the 1970s and ‘80s. Bands to be announced by early summer.

Seawall Art Show

August 26-27

High Street Landing, Portsmouth portsvacation.com

The 51st Annual Seawall Art Show returns to High Street. If you want to find that one-of-akind gift for someone special or a signature piece for yourself, then come to our show, located on in Portsmouth, Virginia’s historic downtown. You

will find a little of everything from wood carving to oil painting, handwoven clothing to art glass, fine jewelry to pottery and more. 10 AM to 5 PM.

7 th Annual Neptune’s Coastal Craft Beer Festival

August 26, 1-6pm

31st Street & Oceanfront, Virginia Beach neptunefestival.com

Enjoy over 65 beers from across the Commonwealth and beyond, live music, food trucks, and more! Each ticket includes a commemorative beer glass and tastings throughout the day. Tickets starting at $40.

Suffolk Plein Air Festival

September 5-10

Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts

SuffolkPleinAir.org

Professional Plein Air artists are traveling from across the US and as far away as the Netherlands to paint Suffolk, Virginia. They are coming to capture the beauty of Suffolk ’s waterways, landscapes, and cityscapes, compete for prizes, and sell their artwork. Seeing our city through the eyes and talents of others is a highlight of this week-long outdoor painting event. On Friday, September 8 from 6-10 PM, artists and patrons will gather for the much-anticipated WET PAINT SALE & SOIREE’. On Saturday, September 9 from 12- 2 PM, in conjunction with the annual ‘ Taste of Suffolk ’ Downtown Street Festival, children, students, and adults are invited to paint outside, ‘en plein air’, during the “Quick Draw” event.

Neptune’s 25th Annual Fall Wine Festival

September 16-17, Noon - 5 pm 31st Street Park @ The Oceanfront neptunefestival.com

The weather is delightful for this 2-day celebration of international wine, food, and tasteful music.

NashFest 757

September 16, 12-8pm Town Point Park, Norfolk festevents.org

Hot chicken, hard drinks, and Music City sounds! Celebrating the iconic culture and cuisine of Nashville and featuring national and local recording artists, mouth-watering hot chicken, barbecue, line dancing, craft beer & whiskey tastings, and much more.

An artist at work during Suffolk’s Plein Air event in September

Up coming Performa nces

ARTURO SANDOVAL

MAY 6 AT 8PM

DESIREE ROOTS: CELEBRATING NANCY WILSON

May 13 at 8PM

May 14 at 3PM

BLUEGRASS & BREW FESTIVAL: DAILEY & VINCENT

June 9 at 8PM

For Ticket s V isit t heamericant heat re.org or The American Theat re Box Of fice Two Hours Prior to Show t ime!

BLUEGRASS & BREW FESTIVAL: STEEP CANYON RANGERS

June 10 at 8PM

BLUEGRASS & BREW FESTIVAL: CARBON LEAF

June 11 at 3PM

Relatable to the Future: Khalia Campbell and Patrick Coker Discuss Alvin Ailey’s Legacy

By Kate Mattingly

In a recently posted video that’s part of Katie Couric’s “ Thank You Notes” series, Judith Jamison, director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) from 1989 to 2011, listens to AAADT dancer Khalia Campbell thank her for her support. There was a time when Khalia was unsure of her abilities and artistry, and often stood in the back of a dance studio.

Ms. Jamison, with her regal voice and astute insights responds, “ We already did the back of the bus. Come on now: You’re not in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to run that trip again. You are here to shine!”

“Shine” is a verb that encapsulates Khalia’s radiant dancing, and it’s hard to fathom that there was ever any doubt about her capabilities. From April 25 to 30, Hampton Roads audiences have a chance to see Khalia and all 32 of the AAADT dancers in events that are part of the Virginia Arts Festival.

Asked about her prior self-doubts, Khalia explains, “I started in a little dance school called Uptown Dance Academy, and at about the age of nine, I started to really take dance seriously and realized I could actually do this as a profession.”  Khalia’s teachers were

Hanan Hameen and the academy’s founder/ director Robin Williams.

“They trained us to be able to do everything,” says Khalia. “Classes were a fusion of things like ballet and jazz mixed together. When I got to LaGuardia High School, I was introduced to more styles of dance that I had not practiced growing up. I think that’s where the insecurity started because I was put into the highest level for the freshmen. But deep down inside, I was like, ‘Whoa, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here.’ So, I found my place in the back of the class because that’s where I felt safe. I felt like if I messed up, no one would see.”

In 2015, when Khalia was a student in The Ailey School, Ms. Jamison saw her perform at SummerStage in The Wiz, created by George Faison. Khalia was performing the role of the Eye of the Tornado and remembers, “Ms. Jamison told me she saw a side of Khalia that was missing in classes. She was kind of like, ‘This doesn’t make any sense’ because Alvin Ailey created a space for me, for a woman of color, to thrive and really be in our glory.”

Khalia credits her success to Ms. Jamison

and a pantheon of teachers (who are also great choreographers and performers): William Isaac, Sarita Allen, Darrell Grand Moultrie, and George Faison. Khalia says, “ They spoke life into me, reminding me of what I have.” Khalia adds she’s Christian, “I allow Him to tell me who I am, what my worth and my value are, and what a gift He has given me.”

Speaking about the repertory that will be performed at the Ferguson Center and Chrysler Hall, Khalia says music plays a huge role: For Four, choreographed by AAADT’s current director Robert Battle, is set to music by Wynton Marsalis. Survivors, choreographed by Ailey with co-choreographer Mary Barnett, evokes the story of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, and is set to music by Max Roach. Are you in your Feelings?, which Khalia describes as “a celebration of Black culture,” is choreographed by Kyle Abraham and has “a mix-tape” of music that includes The Flamingos, Lauryn Hill, and Drake. Revelations, the dance company’s signature work, is performed to Negro Spirituals.

Asked if she ever doubts her abilities today, Khalia says she has overcome those

insecurities. Part of the journey toward trusting herself has been letting go of the “perfectionist” mindset that thinks “I don’t want to mess up.” When she’s in this headspace, she realized she’s actually focusing on other people (not herself) and wondering if “they are judging me.”

Today, she reminds herself, “ You’re human, and this is what being in a process is all about. It’s about making mistakes, and inspiring other people to make mistakes, in order to grow into who we’re meant to be.”

One reason why AAADT performances attract huge audiences around the world is the phenomenal versatility of the dancers, who are exceptional in choreography that demands jazz, ballet, modern, and hip hop techniques. Khalia says this range of vocabularies comes from Ailey’s belief that “dancers are able to do everything. He wanted dancers who can do whatever is thrown at them. We do choreography that is ballet, and we do dances of the African diaspora.”

Asked how she maintains these different techniques, Khalia says, “I do my research, and I credit my upbringing, which valued different styles. I also know, if I’m doing an Alonzo King piece, I have to be in ballet class. That’s my research. Plus, I’m watching old videos, and asking for notes from the rehearsal director. That’s the work.” This also helps shift the “perfectionist” mindset and embrace the uncertainty and vulnerability of learning new skills.

In many ways, Ailey was a visionary who advocated for dancers to possess a range of styles during a time when other modern dance companies, like those of Martha Graham and José Limón, primarily performed one technique. Khalia says this range “helps us to not become complacent. It feels exciting to travel from style to style, and it expands our artistry. Plus, we live in a world where you kinda have to be able to do everything.”

Ailey was not only ahead of his time in creating this multifaceted company, but he was also thoughtful about the future of dance. As Khalia explains, “If I do ballet and there’s a little Black girl who sees me and wants to be a ballet dancer, she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh! I can do this.’ If there’s another Black girl who’s training in West African dance, and I come out and do African techniques, she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ This versatility helps us to be relatable to the future.”

Patrick Coker, an AAADT dancer, echoes this idea during an interview in late March. “ We’re not only relatable to the future, but we’re also anchors for our histories. Our past both grounds us and propels us forward.”

Patrick will dance both new and historic choreography when AAADT performances include DUET, made by Paul Taylor in 1964. The piece was staged by an acclaimed dancer, Carolyn Adams, who performed with the Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1965 to 1982, and is now a mentor for Robert Battle, AAADT’s artistic director.

“Carolyn and Alvin Ailey had a special relationship,” explains Coker. “Carolyn never danced in the Ailey company. She was a Black woman in a predominantly white company, but she and Alvin crossed paths, and she told us that Alvin once said, ‘I respect the work you are doing and I really commend you.’ That moment gave her a sense of purpose because she felt seen. So, to learn this piece from her was a full circle moment: she set a work that she danced with Paul Taylor for the legacy that Alvin has built.”

For Patrick, the Virginia Arts Festival is also a full circle moment: he grew up in Chester, Virginia, and has a beautiful cat named “Chester” who made an appearance during our Zoom interview. As a student of Sandra Balestracci, who directed the Eastern Virginia School of Performing Arts, Patrick performed in  The Nutcracker at the Ferguson

Center when he was in high school. He also made special appearances as a very young dancer—around age 11—during half-time shows for basketball games at Christopher Newport University. “My grandfather was a professor at CNU and lived in Newport News,” says Patrick. “My grandparents were huge basketball fans!”

He’s excited that family members, and Sandra Balestracci, can come to the shows and see him dance both  DUET and Kyle Abraham’s Are you in your Feelings?  “The process of working with Kyle meant so much to me and my peers” explains Coker. “Kyle came in and trusted everyone, and had a clear idea of what he wanted to say. He talked about how this work was his love letter to Black culture. This piece truly exemplifies the power and beauty of the community that is our company, and I feel really honored to take part in bringing Kyle’s vision to life.”

dancer is the range of choreography: within a given week, within a given day, within a given show, I am asked to do work that spans from Revelations  [1960] to Are you in your Feelings? [2022]. For me, the commonality between Kyle’s work and the Paul Taylor piece is that both processes were really inspiring, really fulfilling.”

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Tuesday, April 25 Ferguson Center for the Arts, 7:30pm Friday and Saturday, April 28 to 29, Chrysler Hall, 7:30pm Sunday, April 30, Chrysler Hall, 3:00pm VaFest.org

A note that Carolyn Adams gave Patrick when he first performed Taylor’s  DUET noted his distinguishing characteristics: “a very specific work ethic and the care you bring to your work as a dancer, and the people that you dance with.”

tion to my Asian ancestry, and she passed as I began rehearsing work, like Revelations, that is guided by history and that brought up deeper curiosities about my heritage. I think my identify informs my work as a dancer because this repertory asks you to share who you are and where you come from. Our individuality is timeless, and I’m grateful to be a part of this community that celebrates all aspects of the Black experience and the human experience simultaneously.”

Patrick pauses, then adds, “One of the things that I love about being an Ailey

This quality of caring permeates our conversation, which spans from dance in Virginia, to the AAADT repertory, to Patrick’s work as a choreographer: the thoughtfulness that Patrick brings to each topic is extraordinary. Reflecting on his Japanese ancestry, Patrick describes how he lost his grandmother just after he was invited to join AAADT, “ What’s interesting is that she was my living connec-

While AAADT’s performance this month present a great spectrum of choreography, one thing that’s notably missing is women as choreographers. While Robert Battle has commissioned terrific additions to the company’s repertory, women have not been invited to choreograph as often as men. This is especially noticeable when many skilled women, like Jennifer Archibald, whose choreography was recently enjoyed by Hampton Roads audiences, are making work that speaks to wide audiences and highlights dancers’ prowess. Hopefully AAADT performances in the Virginia Arts Festival are enjoyed by sold-out audiences, and the company decides to make another visit with new repertory soon.

who receives support through residential services

For Michael who receives in-home support our services

For Michael who receives in-home support through our residential services

For Kyle who gets to in his community programs

For Kyle who gets to engage in his community through our day programs

For Anna who gets to work through our division

in-home support through our residential services engage in his community through our day programs work through our Community Employment division

For Linwood who gets to work through our Community Employment division

For 65 years, Eggleston has been serving the Hampton Roads community by providing adults with disabilities employment, training and education services. In addition, the organization has grown its programs to support both residential living and day services across the continuum of care throughout the region.

For 65 has been serving the Hampton Roads community by adults with disabilities and education services.

years, Eggleston has been serving the Hampton Roads community by adults with disabilities employment, training and education services. the organization has grown its programs to support both residential day services across the continuum of care throughout the region. Eggleston is looking for hard working, caring individuals who want to make a difference in their community.

In the has grown its programs to support both residential living and services across the continuum of care the region is looking for hard individuals who want to make a difference in their community

For 65 years, Eggleston has been serving the Hampton Roads community by providing adults with disabilities employment, training and education services. In addition, the organization has grown its programs to support both residential living and day services across the continuum of care throughout the region.

Eggleston is looking for hard working, caring individuals who want to make a difference in their community.

Eggleston is looking for hard working, caring individuals who want to make

For Kyle who gets to engage in his community through our day programs

For Linwood who gets to work through our Community Employment division

and Make a Difference

The Look of Love, Sound of Bacharach

By Jerome Langston

“Everybody knows at least some of his stuff just subliminally, if you’re in America 5 minutes...in the last 50 years,” says Mark Morris, the highly acclaimed choreographer and dancer, who is referring to the legendary songwriter and composer, Burt Bacharach. Morris is currently at his New York City office, inside of the cavernous dance center that houses his highly successful namesake dance company, the Mark Morris Dance Group. Reached by phone, he tells me that his new evening-length work, The Look of Love, which will be performed at Virginia Beach’s Sandler Center next month, was never meant to be some posthumous tribute to the pop icon. “It’ s a living thing that came from him, and we’ re happy about that,” he says.

The Look of Love, which was co-commissioned by the Virginia Arts Festival, features original choreography by Morris, along with new musical arrangements by his frequent collaborator, Ethan Iverson. The ten company dancers are supported by live musicians, who provide musical accompaniment via drums, trumpet, bass and piano—along with two back-up singers, and lead vocals provided by the exquisite Marcy Harriell, a note-worthy singer and actress. There are over a dozen Burt Bacharach hits

performed in sections, without an intermission, and though there is no theatrical storyline Morris tells me...the sequencing and song choices do capture the scale of Bacharach ’s near peer-less body of work, which of course he shares with his musical partner, the great lyricist Hal David.   Generation defining classics like “Alfie,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “What the World Needs Now,” and “ Walk on By,” are performed within The Look of Love, as well as a couple of more obscure choices. Harriell provides most of the vocals to these classic hits, and she clearly captures the vocal elegance of Dionne Warwick, Bacharach ’ s musical muse, whose understated yet brilliant vocal artistry, is largely responsible for the success of so many of these classic compositions. Songs written by Bacharach and David for artists like Warwick defined much of the popular music blasting from radios and record players during the latter part of the 20 th century, especially from the sixties through the 1980s. As a songwriting duo, they won Grammys, Academy Awards, and many other career recognitions. Their songs have been recorded by a ton of artists from various genres, which has resulted in a massive amount of chart hits here in the

states, as well as abroad.

The idea to create an evening-length work that interprets through dance, the music of Burt Bacharach, was discussed by Morris and Iverson many years ago, but the decades long success of Mark ’ s career as a choreographer, which has resulted in over 150 works created for his namesake dance company, sort of got in the way. So following the success of Pepperland , their hugely successful and commissioned, Beatles collaboration that celebrated the 50 th anniversary of the iconic band ’ s Sgt. Pepper’ s Lonely Hearts Club Band , and which premiered in 2017...they decided to turn their attention to the music of Bacharach.

then made it clear that he enjoyed it. And of course, the work wouldn’t even exist without the support and applicable permissions provided by the musical legend, who did provide input and was excited about the possibility of Mark ’s work. Sadly, Burt Bacharach passed away this past February, at the remarkable age of 94. “Now of course it’s become dedicated to him in a different kind of way than it was before,” Mark adds. “It’s not like a jukebox musical with a cover band. That’s the ‘kiss of death ’ if you ask me,” the choreographer and Seattle native would later say, referring to the   the work. “So it’s imaginative, there’ s variety...It’s really interesting.” One of the company dancers who performs in the show, chatted with me a few days later. Mica Bernas was born and raised in the Philippines, but moved to NYC back in 2006, after college. Her parents put her in dance classes as a way of coping with a hyperactive child, but she fell in love with it as a young kid. Mica joined Mark Morris in 2017, after prior stints with notable companies like Carolyn Dorfman Dance and the Connecticut Ballet. She says that the work is “very emotional, but also not campy...not overly dramatic,” which is a quality that Mark stresses. “Burt’s music is just very complicated. You’d think it’s easy, but there’ s many sub-rhythms to his music,” she adds.

Mica’s favorite sections within The Look of Love, include “Don’t Make Me Over” and “Anyone Who Had a Heart.” For the latter work, which features three of the female dancers—she says that “ to me it feels like we ’re each telling our story of how we’ re experiencing this music.” As one of the featured dancers throughout the work, she admits to being surprised at where audiences have found humor in the piece, or just what sections they’ve responded to the loudest.

Dance Group: The Look of Love

Music by Burt Bacharach  Virginia Arts Festival May 13  Sandler Center for the Performing Arts  vafest.org

Mark assures me though, that creating this work wasn’t part of some artistic march through nostalgic music, but that the opportunities simply presented themselves. What’s touching is that Mr. Bacharach was able to attend an early dress rehearsal of the work, which premiered just last October in Santa Monica, and he

During the latter portion of my chat with Mark, he shares that he’s soon headed down to Philly to attend a performance of The Philadelphia Orchestra and will meet up with friends...in the “City of Brotherly Love.” He’s also looking forward to his company’s return to Hampton Roads, and notes that they’ve performed often as part of the Virginia Arts Festival. Plus, their performance calendar is much busier now, in this post COVID-era. “ We’ re thrilled for every gig we have. We’re delighted...and not just to get out of town, but to do what we love to do, and do well.”

Mark Morris

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All Things Equal

Virginia Beach native shares in success of RBG play

By Jim Roberts

The playwright Rupert Holmes and actress Michelle Azar are sharing universal acclaim for “All Things Equal—The Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” a one-woman show that began a national tour in 2022. But if all things are indeed equal, director Laley Lippard deserves much of the credit for its initial success.

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“I had an audience member say to me, ‘I felt like I was there. I felt like she was talking to me, and no one else was in the room,’” Lippard said. “That’s exactly what I wanted to give the audience because that’s what it felt like when I read the play. It felt like she was coming back in a time of difficulty and fear to speak directly to me, and that’s special.”

Lippard lives in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Virginia Beach and graduated from the Governor’s School for the Arts, so bringing the show to Norfolk as part of the Virginia Arts Festival is also special.

“It’s a beloved space for me,” she said. “I grew up going to poetry readings and film festivals and plays at Old Dominion and Virginia Stage Company and touring shows. I think the Hampton Roads area is just steeped in art and culture, and the community is so smart and so ready for the kind of stories and artistic practices that live at a national level.

“I can tell you that being a part of the Virginia Arts Festival is such an honor,” she added. “I’m so excited to share in that celebration of art and culture.”

In fact, Lippard landed the “All Things Equal” job because Mark Paladini, the casting director, had seen “Grounded,” a one-woman show she directed at the Virginia Stage Company.

“When Mark and the producer, Scott Stander, were discussing possible folks to direct the piece, he tossed my name in,” she said. “He

spoke very highly of that work that he’d seen. I just had a single conversation—talked about my vision—and the producing company went with me. So having been in D.C., having lots of experience with one-woman shows, I think there was a natural fit there.”

Lippard cast Azar as Ginsburg after a series of Zoom auditions during the pandemic. Azar, who has worked steadily on TV shows like “JAG,” “ER” and “Criminal Minds” over the last 25 years, brought the character to life in a matter of weeks and is the only woman to play the role so far.

“I’m lucky enough to say such a thing!” she said. “It’s very humbling. I’ve been an actor since I was a kid, but to play this role—I’m still very speechless about it. … When I’m not on stage with her, I feel a little empty.”

Lippard said working with Azar is “one of the biggest joys I’ve had in the theater.”

“Michelle is an incredibly intelligent, heartfelt actor,” she said. “It’s rare to have those two things in spades—equally working in ferocious concert. Learning from her and being in conversation with her around the art was a dream.”

Azar has some advice for those who are lucky enough to have scored tickets for the May 2 performance at the Attucks Theatre in Norfolk.

“A lot of information is going to come at you in the play,” she said. “Buckle your seatbelts and hang on. If you find yourself being overly concerned that you didn’t understand one moment … it all kind of comes together in the very end. The intention is really simple and really beautifully revealed.’”

The Virginia Arts Festival will present “All Things Equal—The Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 2 at the Attucks Theatre in Norfolk. At press time, only a few balcony seats were available. For tickets, visit vafest.org.

Michelle Azar stars as Ruth Bader Ginsburg Photo courtesy of Bay Street Theater.

England’s Star Shines in Henry V at Virginia Stage

By Montague Gammon III

The greatest coach-to-underdogs pregame speech the world has ever heard, or can ever expect to hear, is part of what makes Shakespeare’s c. 1599 history play, Henry V (more formally titled The Chronicle History of [or The Life of] Henry the Fifth) great.

It has “probably the earliest example of ‘Undercover Boss’ in literature,” noted director Tom Quaintance, in a person-to-person chat about the upcoming production at the Virginia Stage Company, where he is Producing Artistic Director. It’s the only play in which “Shakespeare wrote scenes in French,” Quaintance pointed out. (Since those are love scenes, they’re easy to follow without knowing the exact words.)

As if to counteract that non-Anglo interpolation, there’s an uncommon amount of English prose in the script, which makes the play all the more accessible.

“ We’re just people,” is an unspoken message Quaintance felt when he first encountered the play in Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film version.

For all its presentation of titled and royal characters, there’s another, contrasting, important element of this timecondensed recounting of a bit of the Hundred Years’ War, that on and off 1337-1453 broil between England and France, when the Kings of England also claimed the French throne.

with Quaintance. Stockard is, Quantance explained in a later email, acting as a coach and mentor for his students and alums..

Stockard said, “A king could be a common man…It is the people who are the heroes. They are the ones who are contributing significantly.. There’s so much humor, there’s so much love in what is usually the tense war struggle, the power struggle, and it is unique in that way.”

Henry V is, most especially, a “celebration of what makes theatre a unique experience,” Quaintance noted. “ The coming together, the action between the audience and the performer,” enables the transmutation of huge real world events, such as the clash of battling armies, into events that fit the small space of a stage.

“Dynamic story telling,” is a feature of Henry V, Stockard said, in explaining his affection for the play.

“It’s just a beautiful language,” Stockard said. ”It’s an intense experience when actors build the bridge of understanding and paint the images for the audience… There’s something about [using] language to transport instead of spectacle…”

Henry V by William Shakespeare April 13-30

Presented by Virginia Stage Company and Norfolk State University Theatre Company Wells Theatre

757-627-1234

www.vastage.com

That element is “How much care Shakespeare pays to the everyday soldier and the people whose lives are on the line,” noted Quaintance.

Shakespearean trained Anthony Stockard, head of the Drama and Theater Program at Norfolk Stage University, whose students and alumni turned professional actors are prominent in this co-production of VSC and Norfolk State University Theatre Company, was included in that chat

Henry V admits in a Prologue (one of the few instances where, perhaps, Shakespeare the author himself speaks) that the audience must use its “imaginary forces” to visualize great events, to “piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.”

Central to the play is the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, where Henry’s army, tired, ill, short on supplies, faced off against a fresh, eager French army, supplied with healthy fighting men numbering many times the force of the English.

Henry, disguised, walks though his camp the night before the battle, anonymously interacting with his soldiers, who are aware of the fearsome odds against them.

In the morning Coach Henry speaks to those who wish for a larger force, and proclaims in ringing tones that their very disadvantage makes their struggle a source of greater honor. Henry uses humor, even getting laughs, “ to rally his men,” Quaintance said, while vowing that he, the King, and they are fighting side by side as “ this happy few, this band of brothers,” promising that in future days those who survive will have a special place in history “ to the ending of the world.”

It’s not only the greatest pep talk ever, but acknowledged as one of the greatest speeches Shakespeare ever wrote.

The play does not reveal that the historical Henry probably knew what elements of strategy were on his side in a case of “ They have us right where we want them”, in modern lingo.

They faced the French from a position bounded by forest, which narrowed the front as the French knights charged them. The French cavalry would be charging across a muddy field that would further sap their momentum as they rushed into a lethal hail of arrows from the English archers, whose longbows fired far faster than the French infantry’s crossbow. It was the equivalent of automatic AK-47’s against bolt action, fire and reload and only than fire again, Mausers.

In what was apparently a novel defense, the English archers had build a barricade of sharpened stakes stuck in the ground and pointed at the mounted French attackers.

French casualties outnumbered English losses on such an unimaginable scale that Henry and his nobles were assured that God had fought on their side.

Henry is then free to woo Princess Catherine of France, to further secure his claim on the French throne. There’s even a bit of bawdy humor arising from her mistaking innocent English words for similar sounding but very improper French words.

Of course, subplots abound, grounding historically important events in the lives of the foot soldier and the citizen at home.

The production features non-period costumes by Jeni Schaefer, and a stage that thrusts out into what is usually audience space.

Henry V closes with the Chorus – a role Quaintance and Stockard play in alternate performances – proclaiming that: “

Our bending author hath pursued the story,

In little room confining mighty men, Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.

Small time, but in that small most greatly lived

This star of England.”

Christopher Marquis Lindsay as Henry V. Photo by Matthew Omilianowski of TOC Creative.

“No Fear and Blues Long Gone: Nina Simone”

May 10-14  Virginia Stage Company  Wells Theatre  VaStage.org

Essential Nina Simone Albums

If you are curious about hearing more of Nina Simone’s music, we encourage you to seek out these vinyl albums when visiting your local record store.

Actress/singer Yolanda Rabun portrays Nina Simone

The Embodiment of Nina Simone

By Jerome Langston

“ She truly embodies Nina Simone,” says actress/director Kathryn Hunter-Williams, during a recent phone chat, in anticipation of the play with music that she’s directing for the Virginia Stage Company in May. The actress, who previously starred in last season’s excellent, Every Brilliant Thing, is referring to powerhouse singer Yolanda Rabun, who portrays the iconic singer/songwriter/activist in No Fear and Blues Long Gone: Nina Simone, a season extra show that closes out VSC ’s current 44th season. Written by Howard L. Craft, the play imagines Nina Simone having returned to these current times and imparting some much-needed wisdom upon the audience.

The play features some of Simone’s bestknown songs within her musically expansive catalogue, including “ Feeling Good” and “ Young, Gifted and Black,” as well as a few obscure gems for good measure. Yolanda performs the songs as Nina and is accompanied onstage by a talented cadre of musicians. “ Yolanda’ s an amazing jazz vocalist,” raves Hunter-Williams. “ She’ s just got this incredible voice.” The one-woman show runs about ninety minutes without an intermission and has earned critical praise since it first premiered back in 2012, as a much smaller piece that was commissioned to accompany a dope exhibition of the cultural icon’s personal letters, and other rare personal items...at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in the very small town of Tryon, North Carolina, on February 21, 1933. Her family was quite poor—and she was one of eight kids, but she was also encouraged and supported by them to pursue a career as a concert pianist. Simone was quite a prodigy on piano, and her musical talent would eventually lead to her first album release in 1959, Little Girl Blue. She’d become Nina Simone a few years earlier to keep her deeply religious family from knowing that she was playing the “devil ’s music” at an Atlantic City bar.

Over the next several decades, Simone would record for numerous labels, and explore an impressive range of musical genres; including jazz, classical, gospel, R&B, and others... while also gaining global attention as a civilrights activist, who wrote and performed protest music during the tumultuous sixties. The gifted singer/songwriter experienced both racism and sexism, which in part led to many years living abroad, in places like Paris and Liberia. She passed away at her home in France, in April 2003 at the age of 70. Since her passing, Simone has received many posthumous honors, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. She is often cited as a major influence by a wide range of popular music artists, and she’ s

also been the subject of recent film projects about her fascinating life. “ I think about the remarkable journey of this black woman, who came from this teeny tiny town, but was a prodigy,” says Hunter-Williams, when asked how she regards the legend. “ So for me, she represents both courage and vision.”

Later in the day, I reach out to Yolanda, and we chat about Nina’s influence upon her as an artist, and what the journey has been like portraying her in this show. “She was a messenger,” says Yolanda. “It is one of a griot, a storyteller. The beauty of Howard Craft and what he did with the script, is that he allows anything to happen.”

“ He’ll take a lot of the common things that are happening currently in life, from recent history, and allow Nina, the character, to deliver the message. And that ’s the true beauty of this role,” says Yolanda, who remarkably is not only an Equity actor, but is also a recording artist and licensed corporate attorney, with a Juris Doctorate from Boston College Law. Regarding the songs that are performed, Yolanda tells me that they “introduce some tunes” from Nina Simone that were lauded, but not necessarily known by many. That creative decision, which was a choice made by Howard—has allowed the actress and singer to forge a deeper bond with the music. And soon, that music will likely be released in some capacity, as the show’ s songs

have been recorded for an upcoming project.

The award-winning attorney has been with the show since its humble beginning back in 2012. And after being remounted in 2018, which allowed it to largely grow into what it is now, Yolanda has discovered how to embody Ms. Simone, while allowing her own vocal artistry a safe space to live and grow. She credits her director with helping her to further develop the character of Nina Simone.

“

She is brilliant...just amazing,” says Yolanda about Hunter-Williams. “ There’s so much respect I have for her, as an artist, and as a director.” The two have developed a shorthand now, where they understand what the other is feeling regarding the work. “ I speak to the audience... She’s just given me a lot of room to play, and a lot of room to deliver this message. And it ’s a beautiful message.”

artist and patron. So, visitors will encounter evidence of Richard’s legendary sense of humor, as well as the couple’s commitment to the aforementioned medical philanthropy in a piece such as Luke Jerram’s glass interpretation of Swine Flu, part of the artist’s ongoing investigation of infectious diseases.

Monumental pieces by powerhouses like William Morris and Howard Ben Tr é confront viewers at the entrance to the exhibition giving way to Tiffany on the left and French florals and more Art Deco-leaning designs to the right. Then its on to mid-century modern Italian pieces, Japanese work, and the American Studio Glass Movement where, as executive director Charlotte Potter Kasic puts it, “artists got hold of glass.”

Gaining Glass Art Perspectives

By Betsy DiJulio

In 2022, Eddie and Brad Waitzer, directors of the Leah and Richard Waitzer Foundation, together with their brother Scott, generously bestowed upon the Barry Museum of Art their late parents’ collection of works in glass. Not only does the gift pay tribute to the deep friendship between the Waitzers and museum founders, Carolyn and Richard Barry, but it nearly doubles the size of the museum’s glass holdings, helping enable the institution to fulfill its mission of collecting, displaying, interpreting, and researching significant works of art in ever more meaningful ways for generations to come.

Barry founding executive director, JuttaAnnette Page, Ph.D., agreed to emerge from retirement to research and curate the exhibition and author the accompanying hardbound publication. In her introduction to the richly illustrated book, she writes of how the couple used their passion for collecting modern American painting and international glass sculpture in the service of their philanthropy by transforming their home into a showcase where they hosted events in support of causes ranging from medical research to social activism. A photo mural of the work in situ serves to help viewers understand how the Waitzers physically integrated their ever-expanding

collection into their suburban home.

Page’s thoughtful and insightful entries for piece after piece in this collection represent a pinnacle of scholarship in the field. In accessible, erudite entries, she creates linkages between and within cultures and canons. Her incisive writing illuminates the artists’ biographies, their processes, and their influences: technical, formal, and conceptual. By probing these artists’ careers and surgically, yet artfully, teasing out key aspects, she reveals deep connections between their art forms and other interests from science and mathematics, to engineering and technology, to anthropology, architecture, and art history. In Page’s adept hands, the story of glass is revealed to be the story of human evolution, shaped as it is by geography and natural resources, economics, politics, philosophy, religion, and, of course, sexuality.

The Waitzers’ immersion in glass collecting was nurtured at the Chrysler Museum which has, since 1971, been home to an internationally acclaimed glass collection. Walter Chrysler, though, was no fan of American studio glass, leaving a hole in the collection that the institution began assiduously working to fill in the 1980s, collecting, educating, and lighting a fire, if you will pardon the pun,

under the public and a growing group of patrons in this community. Over the ensuing years, this molten movement catalyzed the Perry Glass Studio at the Chrysler, with the ground recently broken on its major expansion, as well as two major region-wide glass exhibitions ( Art of Glass 1 and 2), The Glass Art Society’s international glass conference at the Chrysler, and other academic, artistic, and commercial offshoots.

PERSPECTIVES:

Among those patrons were the Waitzers who began collecting work ranging from that of Louis Comfort Tiffany at the turn of the 20 th century to the present day, and from the East to the West Coast of the US, as well as internationally. The couple took educational tours organized by the Chrysler and traveled on their own with fellow collectors to visit museums and artists in their studios, often returning home with new pieces for their collection, as well as personal connections: a wealth of new knowledge coupled with rich memories.

An art collection is a hybrid organism of

Names like Harvey Littleton and Ginny Ruffner will be familiar to many, with a household name like pioneer Dale Chihuly wellknown to legions more. There are too many highlights to name, but certainly the work of Murano, Italy’s, Lino Tagliapietra, is unsurpassed when it comes to Italian glass-working techniques. Through the maestro’s teaching, his approach to complex, layered patterning and resplendent color has made its way around the globe where it is universally revered. Clean, crisp, contemporary, and highly formal, the Barry is an elegantly modern, light-infused context for viewing art or simply moving through space. Claude Fixler, exhibition designer at the Toledo Museum of Art and Page’s longtime collaborator, teamed up with his former colleague to carve out stunning integrated spaces with vivid jewel-toned walls in which to peruse just over half of the 165 objects donated to the Barry. To bring the rest of the Waitzer Collection into public view will require a redesign and reinstallation of much of the rest of the museum, a forthcoming project relished by Kasic. For glass neophytes, a single-fold museum guide explains a dozen glass processes from cameo and caning to sand casting and slumping, each illustrated with an example from the works on view, as well as a baker’s dozen of line drawings and descriptions of tools used by glass artists. Just outside the gallery, a handsome timeline situates the current evolution of glass within its long history with a process sensory station nearby. And in a curved, sunlit space adjacent to the gallery visitors will find the museum’s stylish new Student Lounge and BAM Book Nook whose clean, uncluttered aesthetic is conducive both to solitary research and small meetings.

April 27

A Seat at the Table: Arts & Culture Experience

The Urban League of Hampton Roads and Virginia MOCA partner to kick off the Something in the Water Festival. Buy tickets at ulhr.org/seatatthetable

May 11

Lecture: Valerie Cassel Oliver on Kara Walker

Award-winning curator Valerie Cassel Oliver will discuss Kara Walker, her work, and her impact on the contemporary art world.

June 8

Imagine Isabella: A Solo Performance

Written, produced, and performed by Julianna Siddiqi

Learn more about the exhibitions and related programming at virginiamoca.org

LaToya M. Hobbs, Erin and Anyah with Hydrangeas, 2023. Acrylic and collage on carved wood panel, 48 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist

This spring Virginia MOCA presents Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, LaToya M. Hobbs: Flourish, and an artist residency program and exhibition featuring Amber Pierce, Poetry Jackson, and Nadd Harvin. Engage with the exhibitions through a series of expansive community programs inspired by the work in our galleries.

2200 Parks Avenue, Virginia Beach, VA | 757.425.0000

757.892.6366

ARTSCALENDAR

Visual Art Highlights

Listings Compiled By Staff

“Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight”

Through June 30

Chrysler Museum of Art chrysler.org

Through an immersive, multi-sensory experience, “Raven and the Box of Daylight” takes visitors on a journey of transformation from darkness to light. In addition to Singletary ’s striking glass artworks, the exhibition features storytelling combined with original music, coastal Pacific Northwest soundscapes, and projected images

Preston Singletary’s work fuses time-honored glassblowing traditions with Pacific Northwest Indigenous art to honor his ancestral Tlingit heritage, a tribe in southern Alaska. Tlingit culture and oral tradition has a rich history of pairing objects with foundational stories and histories of tribal families. By drawing upon this method of visual storytelling, Singletary’s art creates a unique theatrical atmosphere in which each object follows and enhances an unfolding narrative.

Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick

Through June 11 Virginia MOCA

www.virginiamoca.org

Kara Walker’s reputation as one of the most important artists working today is undisputed. Her self-proclaimed uneasy relationship with her own imagination is similarly solidified.

Walker is best known for ambiguous, but hard-hitting, tableaux rendered in her iconic large scale black paper silhouettes, a reinterpretation of the popular 18th and 19th century cutpaper craft. Created between 1994 and 2019, the

83 works in this exhibition are from the collections of the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation. Representing the artist’s prodigious output in a range of media—prints, sculpture, film, and more—the exhibition originated at the Frist Museum of Art in Nashville. There it was co-curated by then Executive Director, Susan H. Edwards, Ph.D., and Ciona Rouse, the latter of whom is also serving as co-curator with Heather Hakimzadeh for the exhibition’s run at MOCA.

“Low Stakes: Everyday Comix and Plywood Cutouts”

Through May 6

Gordon Art Galleries @ ODU

This whimsical exhibition features some 70 sculptures made from salvaged wood by artist Sam Bartlett. Bartlett is also a musician and author, and his recorded music accompanies the exhibition.

“Installation/Works on Paper 2023”

Through June

Linda Matney Gallery

Curated by John Lee Matney and Isabella Chalfant, this exhibition will feature new paintings on a variety of paper surfaces.

“Walk on the Wild Side”

Through May 13

Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts

This juried exhibition will specifically showcase drawings, photographs, paintings, wood carving, and sculpture inspired by the creatures inhabiting the Great Dismal Swamp.

“From the Sea to the Stars”

April 22 through June 17

Charles H. Taylor Visual Arts Center

Hampton, the coastal town formed on July 9, 1610, has a multi-generational legacy of history and culture. With the title taken from the city’s motto, this exhibition will showcase how our region’s talented artists interpret From the Sea to the Stars in their artwork. Works by twenty five artists will explore motifs from the representational to the abstract including paintings, sculpture, glass, photography, and mixed media. This exhibition celebrates how the simplicity of a city motto can reach across geographical and artistic boundaries to touch on the economic, creative and place-making impact Hampton offers to all of Coastal Virginia.

35th Annual Spring Juried Show

April 28

Commune NFK

The visual art students from the Governor’s School for the Arts display their recent works in this exhibition.

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU

“ SalmonWoman” is part of the exceptional “ Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight” exhibition at Chrysler Museum of Art.

Olga Kern Leads Rachmaninoff 150 Year Celebration

By Jeff Maisey

This year, the Virginia Arts Festival will pay homage to Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff ’s 150th birthday as part of its Chamber Music Series of concerts.

Front and center for most of these performances is the phenomenal, often animated pianist Olga Kern.

Kern will perform in solo recital May 7 at Sandler Center, and then with the Dali Quartet at Norfolk Academy (May 11), and with a quartet of top notched players in Tianwa Yang (violin), Sterling Elliott (cello), Debra Wendells Cross (flute), and Darrin Milling (trombone) on May 23 at Hixon Theater.

These performances will be complimented with an additional morning-time (10:30 AM) schedule known as the Coffee Concert Series at Hixon Theater (May 10), St. John’s Episcopal Church (May 12), Ohef Sholom Temple (May 25), Williamsburg Library (May 26), and Hennage Auditorium at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg (June 7).

I recently spoke with Olga Kern by phone from her home in New York City. Following is an excerpt from our conversation.

VEER: I understand you have a family connection to composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Would you share that part of your family history?

Olga Kern: Rachmaninoff was a good friend of my great grandmother ( Vera Pushechnikova). She was a mezzo-soprano. They performed together quite a lot. He was accompanying her, so that was very special. In two of Rachmaninoff ’s memoirs she is mentioned and there are the dates that they played.

Every time I perform Rachmaninoff ’s music I feel her spirit is with me.

VEER: When you were 17 years old, Olga, you won first prize in the first Rachmaninoff International Competition. Do you recall which piece of music you performed, and given your age and family connection to the composer, what did that award mean to you?

Olga Kern: That was a really important competition for me. I was so much into Rachmaninoff ’s music. This competition was all Rachmaninoff music.

It was two solo recitals and chamber music. I played Rachmaninoff ’s cello sonata. The final round was Rachmaninoff ’s 3rd piano concerto with an orchestra.

I was just 17. Being into Rachmaninoff ’s music; I read about his life. It was such an amazing experience for me. It helped me to grow up and understand his ideas and his compositions.

VEER: As you grew as a pianist and gained more experience as a performer, learning the works of many other composers in the process, what would you say is Rachmaninoff ’s brilliance as a composer? What set him apart from others?

Olga Kern: He knew exactly how to write for piano. If you look at his scores you’ll see it’s almost black sometimes — it’s that many notes.

At first it’s scary when you are reading it, but then it feels comfortable because he knew exactly what the piano can or cannot do.

He really put the piano in a special place — the same as Chopin and Beethoven. He made the piano very special in all his compositions for piano.

In other compositions for symphonies are absolutely

amazing. The harmonies, the language he used…it’s just very romantic.

Knowing that so many Hollywood movies took his wonderful melodies for their introductions and music background. He was a really incredible melodist.

The voice is very important. He loved working with singers. It shows in his solo piano compositions. He was such a genius composer for the piano.

Being in the United States, he also learned so much from jazz. It was very exciting for him. He was excited about new harmonies. You can hear the influence of Gershwin on his late compositions.

It was very unique for him to merge what he was doing with this new modern language from the United States.

He was such a great musician so he could adopt all of these things in his music. The last solo piece he wrote you can hear this incredible admiration for jazz and blues — all from American culture.

VEER: Your first performance this year is solo at the piano. What can you share about the repertoire you’ve selected?

Olga Kern: It is a total homage to Rachmaninoff

I will honor his name not just as a great composer but also as a great pianist.

I decided in the first half to do a set of Rachmaninoff, but then I’ll play two composers which were very important in his life. I’ll do Schumann’s “Carnival” because Rachmaninoff had the most incredible recording of Schumann’s “Carnival.” This recording inspired many, many pianists, including me.

I heard this recording many times and I must say that it is unique in the traditions of Schumann.

Then I will finish the first half with Gershwin because as I already mentioned Rachmaninoff really admired Gershwin and he was really sad that Gershwin passed away that soon. I will play Gershwin’s “Prelude.”

The second half will be all Rachmaninoff, from his early opuses to his compositions for solo piano.

I wanted to give a fuller range of him as a musician, not just a great composer.

I think it’s a wonderful program.

VEER: Have you ever considered composing a piece of music in the style of Rachmaninoff, and then release it as a new recording?

Olga Kern: (laughing) It’s a very difficult to compete with such a genius composer.

I already wrote a few pieces: a piano sonata. I started to write a piano concerto. I have a few piano and voice songs. But I feel I’m not ready to show it to my public.

I think I need to have a few more years to really revise this and see how I feel about it, and maybe one day perform it and maybe record it.

I think every musician at certain times in their careers… we should all try to compose something because it is part of music making. It is very important.

Pianist Olga Kern

Classical Calendar

Compiled By Staff

“ Romantic Meltdown”

Presented by Virginia Symphony Orchestra

April 21, Ferguson Center

April 22, Chrysler Hall

His Symphony No. 1 was reportedly Tchaikovsky’s own favorite piece. Like Tchaikovsky, composer Anna Clyne, an inventive collaborator once described by NPR as “ fearless,” always tells a story with her music to create a very distinct sound and color. Also on the program is the piece lovingly called “ Rach 2” by its legions of devotees – the ultimate piano thrill ride. Eric Jacobsen conducts with Gabriela Martinez on piano.

2023 Spring Choral Fest

April 23

Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts

The Spring Choral Fest welcomes the Chowan University Singers under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Thorburn, Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music at Chowan University. This community event will also feature Suffolk Public School’s Center for Performance and Production Arts choral ensembles.

Calmus

Presented by Virginia Arts Festival

April 24, Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Norfolk

What can’t this internationally renowned ensemble sing? In programs that leap from the Renaissance to the Romantic periods, with side journeys into pop, folk, and jazz, “they infuse their singing with wonderful lyricism and exquisite expressiveness they, quite simply, bring whatever they sing to glorious life” (Deseret Morning News).

“ The Game of Pairs”

Presented by Norfolk Chamber Consort

April 24, Chandler Recital

Hall @ Old Dominion University

ODU professors Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn give their final 2022-23 season performance.

David Russell, Guitar

Co-Presented by Virginia Arts Festival & Tidewater

Classical Guitar

April 26, Hixon Theater

Classical guitarist David Russell is world renowned for his superb musicianship and inspired artistry, having earned the highest praise from audiences and critics alike. In 2005, Russell won a Grammy for his album “Aire Latino.”

“ The Music of Star Wars”

Virginia Symphony Orchestra

May 4, Ferguson Center

Guest conductor Anthony Parnther leads the symphony through the dramatic film scores of the “ Star Wars” movies.

Dalí Q uartet

Olga Kern, piano

Presented by Virginia Arts Festival

May 11, Norfolk Academy

When this internationally renowned quartet performed with pianist Olga Kern at the 2019 Virginia Arts Festival, the Virginia Gazette praised their “stellar, captivating performance … They offered a big sound and big rewards in coordinated, extremely artistic, and panoramic sounds that brought the crowd to its feet in spontaneous applause.” In 2022 they recorded an album of Brahms and Shostakovich together that drew raves.

“From the Silk Road to The Planets”

Presented by Virginia Symphony Orchestra

May 12, Chrysler Hall

May 13, Ferguson Center

May 14, Sandler Center

The VSO welcomes three members of the legendary Silk Road Ensemble: cellist Karen Ouzonian, the world’s leading virtuoso on the tabla, Sandeep Das, and composer Kayhan Kalhor. Music Director Eric Jacobsen takes us all on a journey from the farthest reaches of our universe to the most joyous human dance imaginable, an accessible emotional bridge to one of the world’s most ancient cultures.

Colin MacKnight, organ

Presented by Virginia Arts

Festival & Tidewater Chapter of The American Guild of Organists

May 14, Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Norfolk Discover one of the most extraordinary of the new generation of organists. Named one of the top “ 20 under 30” eminent young organists by The Diapason magazine, this gifted young player has performed at such famed venues as New York ’s St. Patrick ’ s Cathedral and The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Emerson String Quartet

Presented by Virginia Arts

Festival & Feldman Chamber Music Society

May 15, Robin Hixon Theater

For more than four decades, this legendary quartet has reigned as one of the world ’s premier chamber music ensembles, inspiring awe and ovations. With more than 30 critically acclaimed recordings, and nine Grammy Awards including two for Best Classical Album, they have earned their place in classical music royalty. Their performances are spellbinding, marked with “easy virtuosity, precise sense of ensemble, rhythmic vigor and rich polished tone” (The Washington Post). Hear one of the greatest classical music ensembles of all time.

All That Chicago Jazz

By Jeff Maisey

Fresh on the heels of last year’s “The Sound of Music” in concert, the Virginia Arts Festival presents “Chicago The Musical” in concert May 6 at Chrysler Hall.

For audiences, experiencing Broadway musicals in a concert setting is both unique and enjoyable, especially given the quality of the songwriting, familiarity of the work, and personal connection to either the film version or on-stage musical theater production.

Broadway conductor Rob Fisher will once again lead the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and has arranged for an A-list of vocalists who are Broadway regulars such as Bianca Marroquin, Lana Gordon, Lewis Cleale, Tari Kelly, and Matthew Deming.

“Chicago The Musical,” as you likely know, has been the longest running American musical on Broadway in history. It has scored countless awards and audiences simply love the show tunes such as “All That Jazz,” “Razzle Dazzle,” “Cell Block Tango,” and “When You’re Good to Momma.”

Since 1996, Norfolk-raised Rob Fisher has been the music director of the musical as well as its worldwide touring productions.

I recently interviewed Fisher at the Arts Festival headquarters to learn more about the concert.

VEER: Can you remind us how the City Center Encore organization came about and how “Chicago” came to debut in 1996?

Fisher: Encores was a mutual idea between me,

Judith Daykin, and Ted Chapin, who ran a Rodgers & Hammerstein organization at the time.

Judith and I had done concerts together at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Ted Chapin and I had done some concert musicals in the 1980s with the New Amsterdam Theater Company.

Judith had just come to City Center and wanted musical theater to have a presence there because it was an important component in the 1950s and '60s. We decided concert musicals would be the way to go.

By the third season (1996) it was doing really well and it is going gangbusters now.

“Chicago” didn’t actually fit with our mission, which was performing neglected musicals that you wouldn’t hear otherwise.

Our artistic director, Walter Bobbie, who directed the show, had decided he was going to leave after two years — he did the second and third season — so this was his going away present to himself — to direct this (“Chicago”).

At that point we didn’t think of anything we were doing as potentially having an extended life. I’ve known (composer) John Kander for a long time. He and (lyricist) Fred Ebb came to our first dress rehearsal. They were supportive and let us do whatever we needed to do; turn it more into a concert. They were as blown away as we were when the crowds went crazy at the beginnings of numbers and standing ovations at the end. I’ve never seen anything as consistently emotional as that was. People were really hungry for it.

The luckiest producers in the world showed up and decided to move it to Broadway that fall.

Even then we thought maybe it will make it to the Tonys next May.

It was a concert version of a musical.

At that time we were still living in those imported musicals like “Phantom” and “Les Miz” that were very much about the set and the cast could be interchangeable. Ours didn’t have a set and was very much about the individuals in the cast. John and Fred built the show so the characters could engage with the audience.

Celebrity getting you off the hook for criminal activities never goes out of style, and it’s very much in style now.

When we opened it was around the time of the OJ Simpson trial. There’s always someone trying to use their celebrity to get above the law.

It’s still doing incredible business this year on Broadway. We have our first drag queen Momma Morton, and people really want to see that.

VEER: Can you share some of the differences between the Broadway musical version of Chicago verses the concert? Are there short skits and dancing as part of the concert version? Costuming of the lead characters/singers?

Fisher: There’s no dancing. We don’t have the rights to the dancing.

That was one of the things just to differentiate it.

performance done in two acts?

Fisher: Yep.

VEER: Who is playing or singing the part of Roxy?

Fisher: Bianca Marroquin. I can’t remember if she’s done it (“Chicago”) more than 5,000 times. She’s a bilingual girl from the border with Mexico. She grew up south of the border, but went to school everyday in the US. Brilliant dancer.

There was that miniseries about Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon a couple of years ago. She played Cheetah Rivera in that series. She’s at that level. She’s actually on Broadway at the moment playing Roxy, but she’s going to come to us for this.

Lana Gordon, who’s going to play Velma, was doing “Chicago” on Broadway last week and has gone into “Hadestown” this week. She’ll be taking time from that to come see us. Lewis Cleale has not done the show except for me in these concerts. He has this gorgeous rich baritone voice. He’s been in “Book of Mormon” since the very beginning, so they’re giving him time off to see us.

Chicago The Musical in Concert

May 6

Chrysler Hall vafest.org

This is such a different experience. It’s really the score played by a symphony orchestra, and that’s the big thing nobody can touch but us.

We very much had the input of John Kader in how we put it together. It is his wishes. He always thought it would benefit from the symphonic treatment. And we managed to make it so five singers could represent the show. And they are amazing. They have to back each other up sometimes.

It’s somewhere between a radio show version; an oratory version. But the full story is there. It’s slightly different storytelling.

Momma Morton does a lot of the narrating to get us from place to place, but it’s the whole score.

The audience goes crazy. They’re often singing along. And they know what’s coming, and it is a new way to hear it.

VEER: Are the songs in chronological order as they are in the theatrical work and is the

Tari Kelly: I’ve done work with her on several shows. We did a show with the (Virginia) Symphony 10 or 12 years ago when the tall ships were coming in. She has often played Velma in our concerts, but is going to be Momma for us in this one.

Matthew Deming is one of the few humans in the world that can sing both Mary Sunshine and Amos Hart. He has a beautiful baritone and soprano. There aren’t many of them.

VEER: The most famous song from “Chicago” is “All That Jazz.” What in your view makes that such an outstanding melody for a Broadway musical?

Fisher: It’s unusual in that there’s a gap in each phrase that can be moved around. Nobody has the right term for it.

“You’re the Top,” the Cole Porter song, starts with a little gap.

Some of it is harmonic.

He (John Kander) leaned into the 1920s for this (“Chicago”). He leans into some Kurt Vile references, and those are both real earcatching ways to go.

It’s also the way its structured and delivered in the show.

John Kander is famous for his vamps. People have made fun of the vamps; they’ve done whole skits about the vamps. But this show has a bunch of great ones, and that is a great vamp.

Baianca Marroquin and Lewis Cleale

Ghent – One of the 2018 Great Neighborhoods named by The American Planning Association. With its unique blend of fine restaurants, boutiques, cafes, specialty stores, hip salons & spas, and professional services, Ghent is truly a diverse urban destination. And, remember, buying from locally owned businesses, not only supports the local economy, but it also supports your friends, neighbors, and the community as a whole.

World of Music Speaks Universal Language

By Jeff Maisey

Banjo legend Béla Fleck has been keen to expand the boundaries of his instrument, composing, performing, and exploring the realms of acoustic music in jazz, Western classical, bluegrass, and within the complex world of classical Indian.

Together with classical upright bassist Edgar Meyer, Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, and flutist Rakesh Chaurasia, Fleck and friends have produced a new album — “As We Speak” — of work that brilliantly weaves various genres and influences into a rhythmically pleasing psychedelic kaleidoscope of pure joy.

In 1979, Fleck debuted as a solo recording artist with the album “Crossing The Tracks,” and he’s been crisscrossing the musical landscape ever since with collaborative releases such as “Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3, Africa Sessions,” “The Melody of Rhythm,” “Perpetual Motion,” and last year’s “My Bluegrass Heart,” as well as three albums with Abigail Washburn, and a trio of Flecktones records including “The. Hidden Land.”

With “As We Speak,” Fleck returns to the fascinating soundscape of blurring the lines of World Music.

In advance of the group’s short two-week tour, I caught up with the ultra-busy Béla

Fleck to get some insights into the making of the new album.

VEER: On March 3, “Owl ’s Misfortune” was the first song released from your upcoming album, “As We Speak,” a collaboration with Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, and featuring Rakesh Chaurasia. There’s a lot going on within this piece where the musical styles of each player are clearly definable, and yet it flows so well and is in sections reminiscent of cross-cultural music like the Silk Road Ensemble’ s “ New Impossibilities” album, Jai Uttal ’ s “ Footprints,” and some of Ian Anderson ’s (Jethro Tull) solo recordings. Did you feel this particular song best represented the collection of material composed for “As We Speak” ?

Bela Fleck: This is one of many diverse pieces on the album and not intended to represent the whole album, but rather a first foot in the water. Hopefully it is warm enough that you’ll want to jump in!  We had to start somewhere, and this felt welcoming...

VEER: Which songs from “As We Speak” came from ideas resulting from live improvisational moments from previous tours

with Meyer and Hussain?

Bela Fleck: I wouldn’t say that is how these pieces were created, although our time performing together certainly informed us of the potentials and possibilities that the combination could embody. Each of the three writers write differently. I usually write with my instrument in hand, inspired by the sound, digging out tunes and lines. Zakir conceptualizes and then sings to us his compositions, while Edgar tends to spend a lot of time sculpting a composition either on paper or at a keyboard, and more rarely on the bass itself.

creates. Generally speaking Zakir and I tend towards leaving a lot blank for the others to fill in naturally, while Edgar is more likely to suggest exact notes or rhythms.

VEER: What have you learned about the complexities of traditional Indian music in working with Zakir?

Bela Fleck: Wow — how awesome it is? I literally pinch myself to realize I am really playing with Zakir. Edgar I also revere but we are pals for so long, I got over that! Rakesh is mind bogglingly great as well, and helps bring more light to the incredible Indian musical cosmos, as he is so uniquely different from Zakir. Ed and I are highly inspired by their math, melody and groove, and try to bounce our own ideas off of them to see what splatters!

VEER: What are your thoughts on the tonality of these acoustic instruments and how they can compliment each other when interwoven into new compositions?

Bela Fleck: It helps when all the musicians are masters of their tone. Each person puts a lot of attention into the sound they are putting out, and so they tend to blend beautifully. The fact that we are all acoustic musicians, playing at a relatively low volume makes the balance come together rather naturally.

VEER: As a string instrumentalist have you explored the sitar?

Bela Fleck: I have sat with a sitar long enough to know that messing with it will destroy my fingers. These guys have to have ridiculous calluses to play that instrument. But I maintain my commitment to the banjo’s sound, and learning new music on the banjo. When I was a kid people would ask me, why don’t you learn to play the guitar or saxophone if you want to play jazz, and I realized that I experience music through my banjo. That’s my voice and that’s the instrument I want to learn new language on.

As We Speak: Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Zakir Hussain, featuring Rakesh Chaurasia

Presented by Virginia Arts Festival

May 3

Perry Pavilion VAfest.org

VEER: In the composing phase of these 12 tracks, is it the preference to write songs together “in-person” or via electronic music track sharing for convenience (time and expense)?  What is that process like?

Bela Fleck: We send each other things to hear, whether its a VM of me or Zakir singing or playing something, or a midi file that Edgar

VEER: The group is touring for one month in advance of the full length album becoming available. Will you be selling CDs exclusively at these concerts as an “opportunity” for those who attend to obtain the new work before anyone else, or was the tour in support of the album scheduled due to each of your other projects/obligations?

Bela Fleck: We do expect to have CDs and LPs for sale at the shows. They just showed up and look great.

Sponsors:

Ghent – One of the 2018 Great Neighborhoods named by The American Planning Association. With its unique blend of fine restaurants, boutiques, cafes, specialty stores, hip salons & spas, and professional services, Ghent is truly a diverse urban destination. And, remember, buying from locally owned businesses, not only supports the local economy, but it also supports your friends, neighbors, and the community as a whole.

Grand

(rescheduled date)

Open

For

Loss and Pandemic Reveal Another Side of Josh Ritter

By Jim Morrison

For Josh Ritter, the journey to his new album began with a family road trip from Brooklyn to his boyhood hometown in Idaho, where his mother was in the final steep decline of ovarian cancer.

It was death in the time of COVID. There was no vaccine. His partner, novelist Haley Tanner, and their daughters, then eight and three, drove a few hours a day and stayed in ghostly hotels, emptied by an unholy virus.

“It was absolutely psychedelic at this time, trying to get out to Idaho,” he recalls.

Though it seems ridiculous now, he wondered why he couldn’t write during those days. Why is nothing coming to me? he thought. Why do I not hear the voices?

“It’s taken so long to realize that was a time when all of us were being attacked,” he says. “And the idea of making art in the middle of being attacked is hard to hard to countenance. It took a little while then I started to realize the enormity of things. “

The enormity of things was the impending death of his mother seven years after

she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He was prepared. He knew from the beginning she would not escape.  Returning home also offered a bittersweet window into his childhood for his daughters. They trudged through the snow at the playground. They explored the town. He remembered and then questioned those remembrances.

“I was profoundly lucky for my own personality to have grown up really in the woods, really out there,” he says, remembering the scale of the logging roads and equipment and the nowhere of the woods.

“It was wonderful and mythic and giant.”

For his children, it was foreign, expansive in an unaccustomed way. “I wanted them to see this giant place because their giant world is the city,” he adds. “I wanted them to see mine and when we got there, it was mixed with just such tragedy. It was winter and the pandemic had everybody inside. The town felt rundown and tired. And the woods, we couldn’t get back there.”

“It was a funny thing because I was

forced to see a whole other side and feel like, okay, what was the place that I grew up? Was it this same place? And how have I changed? Am I the same as this town? You know those crazy deep rabbit holes you go into in your travels? And maybe that’s why they’re such special places for good or bad.”

He wrote the first song for the album, “For Your Soul,” in that hometown, Moscow, Idaho. Like much of the album, it’s more atmospheric, more about feelings, than about the characters and narratives that often appear in Ritter’s albums. “It came to me while I was looking in the mirror,” he says. “I remember a lot of mirror time during that period looking in the mirror and saying ‘Are you worthy of this experience? Are you ready for this experience that’s about to overtake you?”

That experience coupled with a reunion with producer Sam Kassirer, a longtime collaborator, created “Spectral Lines,” an album showcasing Ritter digging deep, revealing a side he’s kept to himself. The

sound is often atmospheric, otherworldly.

“I chose songs that feel like they came to me more in a visceral way, then say, well, I’m sitting down to write a longer narrative,” he says. “I wanted them to feel and come across as emotions. And so those ones are spookier.”

The album opens with a spoken-word hymn, “Sawgrass,” followed by “Honey I Do,” where he sings about being broken and “all blues.”

The song stuck with him, even though it appeared in just minutes. “I had a message that I wanted to put out there, which is like, listen, I feel this way, too, sometimes, “ he explains. “I knew I didn’t want to elaborate on it. I didn’t want to mitigate the statement...I thought if I can use this moment when I’m feeling this way and use it for something that’s reaching outwards, maybe that’ll turn it into a positive.”

While the album is not focused on loss, Ritter says his mother’s death pushed him to unveil another side. “With each new stage of life you go through, we all have to kind of reorient ourselves a little bit and with the death of somebody like a mother, I was forced to realize there is a side of my personality that is aw-shucks and happygo-lucky.  But I tend to protect people from the other side. And that other side can be a very, very strange and cold, lonely place,” he explains. “This is not a grief-filled record, but I definitely pay credence to that and pay credence to the idea that I sometimes have longed for communion with people that I can’t spend time with.”

Ritter brings his Royal City Band to the Perry Pavilion’s North Shore Point Downtown series with the Virginia Arts Festival on May 7. Rising songwriter Adeem the Artist opens. Ritter’s show is part of a series that also features Leyla McCalla, Sierra Hull, American Aquarium, Valerie June, and Over the Rhine.

He says growing up in Idaho the only thing he was good at was reading. That led to songs and songwriting, but it was something he did solo, a refuge and a language of his own.  Ritter left for Oberlin College, a creative incubator for artists like Rhiannon Giddens, Liz Phair, Ed Helms, Lena Dunham, Bobby McFerrin, and Karen O.

There, he says to graduate he created an independent study program on the confluence of Christianity, industrialization, and narrative folk music. He became fascinated by the sturdiness of a line in a song like “Silver Dagger” that was passed down through the generations and recorded by

Josh Ritter opens the Virginia Arts Festival’s Perry Pavilion series.

many, including Joan Baez. He realized that he wanted to write that kind of song, songs with characters and stories that listeners would carry with them over the years.

He recorded his first album, “Josh Ritter,” in a studio on campus. He knew he needed to move to a big city, but he feared New York. So he moved to Providence and worked temp jobs for two weeks at a time, then stopped for two weeks to live on ramen and book shows. Every Tuesday and Wednesday he finished his temp job, usually hospital filing, and drove into Boston to play open mics.

“It was my job,” he says. “You had to get in early to get your name in and all that stuff.  But, it was absolutely the most important stage of my artistic life because I went from playing the songs for myself in my bedroom to learning how to play them live, to learn when an audience wouldn’t want to hear something and needed a song that was lighter than the guy that came before me because he had just ruined the vibe.”

He met Glen Hansard of The Frames one night when he came in to sing with a friend. They got to know each other a little, leading to an invitation to open for The Frames in Ireland. It was before 9/11. Flights were cheap. He’d go back and forth between Boston and Ireland, where he still has a devoted fanbase. “Me and Jiggs” from his debut became a hit there.

Jim Olsen of the boutique label, Signature Sounds, remastered and released his debut. “It’s funny at the time, my relationship with that was well, of course, course, this would

The

happen,” he says. “Now, I see how fortunate many capricious things happened and the generosity and trust that was placed in me, at a time when I was basically just an explosion of a human being. I’m so indebted to all those people who gave me my chance.”

A string of critically-acclaimed albums followed including “Golden Age of Radio,” “The Animal Years,” “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter,” “Sermon on the Rocks” and “Fever Breaks,” produced by Jason Isbell. Stephen King raved about Ritter’s songwriting in an essay. Paste magazine named him one of the 100 best-living songwriters. The hit-series, “Billions,” featured “Homecoming” on a show.

Meanwhile, the restless Ritter branched out into painting and writing. He’s published two novels, including the most recent, “The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All,” told from the perspective of a 99-yearold who is among the last of the lumberjacks in an Idaho timber town.

Ritter notes that the wheat fields of Idaho and Washington become depleted after time and need to be recharged with the plantings of legumes and other crops. Songwriting is his wheat field. Novels and paintings are his legumes.

“ Writing for me and painting is a perfect way to let my songwriter brain, which is always going, turn off for a little while, just shut up for a little while. I love writing songs, but it gets very tiring. So writing prose and painting are their own art forms. They’re giving me the time I need away from my songs so that I can write better.”

May 7 - Josh Ritter with the Royal City Band

May 10 - Leyla McCalla

May 18 - Sierra Hull

June 1 - American Aquarium

June 7 - Valerie June

June 8 - Over the Rhine

For info at VAfest.org

Virginia Arts Festival with North Shore Point Downtown at the Perry Pavilion

Leyla McCalla performs May 10 at Perry Pavilion tent.

Let’s Boogie with Little Feat

By Jeff Maisey

Thank Frank Zappa for Little Feat.

If you search Wikipedia for how Little Feat hit the pavement as a band back in 1969, you’ll read of three wild stories. But which is true?

“It was the summer of 1969 and we were in Los Angeles,” said co-founding keyboardist Bill Payne. “Lowell (George) presented Frank Zappa the song ‘Willin’,’ and Frank said it had drug references in it. Frank was not enamored with that. He thought Lowell was talented and should form his own group.”

At the time, guitarist/singer Lowell George was a member of Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. He took Frank Zappa’s advice and formed Little Feat with Payne.

Zappa is credited with helping Little Feat get a record deal with Warner Brothers, and in 1971 debuted with its self-titled album that included the song “Willin’.”

For a follow-up album the next year, the band’s “Sailin’ Shoes” put Little Feat on the map and began a string of career-defining popular recordings considered the “classic era” of the group. The album included a reworked, slower version of “Willin’” that most people are familiar with today and a rendition Payne preferred as the “most honest” and true to its roots arrangement.

“Sailin’ Shoes” also established the band’s eclectic sound mixing country, rock, New Orleans jazz, blues, and funk, thus making them hard to pigeonhole as a genre. And, California in the late 1960s, psychedelic rock played an influential role in Little Feat’s sound. They were one of the founders of the funky-jammy styles of some of today’s bands.

“That’s a very good point,” said Payne. “On our second album that we did, “‘Sailin’ Shoes,’ a lot of people thought that our sound was developed. That’s when Lowell took a more active role — the lead — in creating our music. By the time we did “Dixie Chicken” we had brought in three new players. In that sense, a sound was solidified by the inclusion of those three new players.”

Little Feat

April 24 Sandler Center sandlercenter.org

On “Dixie Chicken,” the band members were expanding their scope of instrumentation. Lowell George began incorporating slide guitar. Bill Payne added a synthesizer while in the studio. “I had never played a synthesizer before,” Payne recalled. “I had to learn how to create sounds. At first I thought, ‘I’m not sure if I like this or not.’ Not long after, Payne got the hang of the mini Moog and enjoyed in the creative process of soundwave manipulation.

“The scene back then was when all that stuff was going (on),” said Payne. “Now its reborn with a whole lot of groups, and why not?”

And, yet, Little Feat is different from most.

“I think the thing that distinguishes Little Feat from a lot of bands is the fact that our music isn’t easy to play,” Payne said. “There are a lot of musicians who say, ‘Ah, man, I was learning your song.’ And I say, ‘It was harder than you thought?’ And they’d go, ‘Yeah.’ We weren’t doing that to throw anybody off, but it was just that we would detail stuff, which was rhythm changes.”

In 1973 — 50 years ago — Little Feat released “Dixie Chicken,” the album that really pulled all of the musical elements of the band onto one outstanding album and honed in to their sound.

“Dixie Chicken” as an album was also a point where the band’s swamp boogie-meets-blues vibe came into play as a nod to New Orleans culture.

Payne and George were influenced by Crescent City blues thanks to a short lived blues club in Los Angeles. That’s where Payne met Taj Mahal for the first time, and a whole cast of musicians passing through town from the Big Easy.

“That’s what began to perk our ears as to what New Orleans was,” said Payne.

Little Feat’s “Boogie Your Spring Away” Tour will include the group’s popular tunes as well as deep cuts.

Little Feat now features Bill Payne (keyboards, vocals), Kenny Gradney (bass), Sam Clayton (percussion and vocals), Fred Tackett (guitars and vocals), Scott Sharrard (guitars and vocals), and Tony Leone (drums).

Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” was released 50 years ago

-CORRUPTING MINDS SINCE 1987-

Thoughts on Record Store Day

By Jeff Maisey

Record Store Day is Saturday, April 22, and I hope many of you will seek out your local independent record shop and make a purchase, whether it is an official merchandise item tied to the special day or a used vinyl album. Just do it.

On occasion, I’m asked what is my favorite album of all time or what I believe to be the best records ever released.

Like a painting, music is in the ear of the beholder.

Certainly, the consistent songwriting and quality of material of The Beatles is undeniable as was the body of work composed by Johan Sebastian Bach in the Barque period. I have relatively complete bodies of each in my personal collection, but admittedly rarely listen to them on even an occasional basis. They are part of my music library.

Over the course of my life I’ve had many “favorites” depending on where and when I was in the cycle of existence.

Some of my favorite, in-the-moment albums have included David Bowie “Diamond Dogs,” Alice Cooper “Billion Dollar Babies,” Sex Pistols “Never Mind The Bullocks,” The Cure “Pornography,” Dead Can Dance “Into the Realm of a Dying Sun,” Kiss “Alive,” and Sigur Ros “().” Like the wind, I shift at will without notice or reason. For various weeks, I couldn’t resist hitting the repeat button on Abba’s “Greatest Hits,” Pink Floyd “Wish You Were Here,” Radiohead “Kid A,” Siouxie & The Banshees “Juju,” New Order “Low Life,” Neil Young “Live Rust,” Grand Funk Railroad

“Caught in the Act,” Elvis Costello & The At-

tractions “Imperial Bedroom,” or Jethro Tull “Songs From The Wood.”

Each of these albums helped guide my mental wellbeing through many a day, but I also feel I rarely need to play them ever again as they are literally etched upon my mind.

What were the best or personal favorites? Depends on the circumstances.

While I have many “trophies” in life, remembrances, and collections of meaningful books, art, record albums, and the like, I generally live in the now and look to what’s next. Regarding music this doesn’t necessarily translate into what’s new. I think more about what I’m listening to now.

A lot of people I see at local record stores are searching through the used vinyl bins. Folks of all ages.

I’ve witnessed a teenager delight in finding a “dad rock” album — “Wings Across America.” I’ve seen an aging hippie clad in tie-dye settle on a Misfits record. Say, what?

Here are some older albums I find myself revisiting on a semi-regular basis. Should you spy one in the used album bin, consider taking the risk. I hope you won’t be disappointed.

• Yann Tiersen, “Amelie Soundtrack”

• Kraftwerk, “Radio Activity”

• David Bowie, “Heathen”

• Various Artists, “A Golden Treasure of Elizabethan Music”

• Einstrurzende Neubauten, “Perpetuum Mobile”

• Kate Bush, “Aerial”

• Kate Bush, “50 Words for Snow”

• Beach House, “Depression Cherry”

• The Hope Blister, “Smile’s OK”

• Jai Uttal, “Footprints”

• The Mission UK, “Children”

• New Order, “Low Life”

• Chameleons UK, “Script of the Bridge”

• Peter Gabriel, “Passion”

• Peter Gabriel, “Peter Gabriel 3: Melt”

• Sigur Ros, “The Raven”

• Miles Davis, “In a Silent Way”

• Squonk, “Bigsmorgasbordwurderwerk”

• Orchestra Maneuvers in the Dark, “Dazzle Ships”

• T-Rex, “The Slider”

• Nick Cave, “Murder Ballads”

• Yes, “Relayer”

• Yes, “Symphonic Live”

• Earth, Wind & Fire, “That’s The Way of the World”

• Dead Can Dance, “Aion”

• Kansas, “Song For America”

• Queen, “II”

• Phillip Glass, “Violin Concerto No. 2”

• Yo Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble, “New Impossibilities”

• Uriah Heep, “Wonderworld”

• Utopia, “Adventures in Utopia”

• Sly & The Family Stone, “Stand!”

• Roxy Music, “For Your Pleasure”

• Roxy Music, “Avalon”

• John Coltrane, “A Love Supreme”

• Elton John, “Made in England”

• Mike Oldfield, “Five Miles Out”

• Supertramp, “Even in the Quietest

Moments”

• Stevie Wonder, “Songs in the Key of Life”

• Eels, “Beautiful Freak”

• Ray Lynch, “Deep Breakfast”

• Thin Lizzy, “Johnny The Fox”

• Robert Glasper, “In My Element”

• Todd Rundgren, “Todd”

• Edgar Winter Group, “Shock Treatment”

• Black Sabbath, “Heaven & Hell”

• Spacehog, “The Chinese Album”

• Steely Dan, “Aja”

• Peter Frampton, “Frampton”

• ELO, “Time”

• Bad Company, “Run With The Pack”

• Rod Stewart, “Atlantic Crossing”

• Jethro Tull, “Benefit”

• Dionne Warwick, “The Very Best of”

• Wardruna, “Runaljod - Gap Var Ginnunga”

Go Different

Check Out Portsmouth, VA

Headliners

April 27

April 28

April 29

April 29

The Bodacious Comedy Tour

Chester Gregory

Runnin’ Shine

Mannie Fresh

May 6 Chan Hall

May 12 Dali Quartet

May 17

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

Local Music Highlights

April 14 Wonderland

April 15

April 20

April 21

April 22

April 23

April 27

April 27

April 28

Champagne Band

Good Shot Judy

Soul Intent

Better By Tuesday

Schooner or Later

Mocean

Jason Cale Band

The Deloreans

Museums and Events

I Am A Man: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement 1960-70

Picture This: A Photographic Journey Through Portsmouth

69th Annual Portsmouth Invitational Basketball Tournament

Busted Knuckle Stunt Bike Tour

90th Annual Historic Garden Week Tour

Movement and Light: The Barrier Islands of Virginia

Steeple to Steeple Historic Church / Synagogue Tour

Find location, tickets, details and more at portsvacation.com/upcoming-events

SEE ALL EVENTS

Music Series Are Heating Up

By Staff

Summer is a ways off but music series events are already setting their schedules. Here’s an early list of what’s happening.

Braun @ Harrison Opera House

Towne Bank Jazz Series @ Sandler Center

4/20 - Janis Siegel of Manhattan Transfer

5/25 - “A Nod to Sinatra, Bennett, Martin & Darin”

8/10 - Tidewater Drive Band

8/17 - The Appeal

8/24 - Blackwater

8/31 - RaJazz Brothers Concert Series

5/19 - Najee

Lewis

7/27 - Living Colour

8/10 - Bumpin’ Uglies

Oceanfront Concert Series

24th Street Park

6/7 - The Marshall Tucker Band

6/15 - Proyecto Uno 6/21 - DJ Jazzy Jeff

6/22 - “The Modernists”

7/20 - “The Originals”

8/17 - Lori Williams

9/14 - “Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn”

Sunset Thursdays

Festival Park @ Atlantic

Union Bank Pavilion

6/15 - Soul Intent

6/22 - Champagne Band

6/29 - The Detonators

7/6 - Seamless

7/13 - The Original

First Fridays in the Courtyard Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center

5/5 - The Tumbleweed Brothers

6/2 - The Band Vontrelle

First Saturday in the Courtyard Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center

5/6 - Chan Hall

LAVA Rooftop Series

C hurch Street Jazz Series

5/6 - Kirk Whalum @ Harrison Opera House

7/15 - Richard Elliot & Rick

Rhondels

7/20 - Elements Band

7/27 - Brasswind

8/3 - Calden & Company

Location: Assembly

4/18 - Alex Silva/Karacell/ Bl_ank/Holy Love Incorporated

Punk/funk rockers Fishbone will play on the lawn at New Realm Brewing Company in Virginia Beach on April 20.

Something In The (Beer) Water

By Staff

Whether you plan to attend the SOMETHING IN THE WATER pop culture festival in Virginia Beach or stay home with a Spotify playlist featuring the tracks from some of Pharrell and friends blasting out your backyard sound system by the pool, be sure to serve up these brews produced in collaboration with the big event.

New Realm Brewing Company

Peaceful Groove

Virginia Beach

New Realm recently unveiled its Peaceful Groove in collaboration with Pharrell’s big event. The tropical wheat ale made with passionfruit and pineapple will be available at the brewery on draft and 16-oz cans.

Smartmouth Brewing Company

Slo-Fi

Norfolk & Virginia Beach

In collaboration with SITW, Smartmouth thinks “beach party” by brewing a low ABV (4.8%) lager featuring smooth Enigma hops and what team Smartmouth describes as “subtly fruity and floral..with notes of raspberries and red currants.” Should be a crowd pleaser on a warm afternoon.

O’Connor Brewing Company

Issa Vibe Norfolk

Inspired by the classic cocktail Cosmo, O’Connor will unveil this light, berryforward yet tart fruited sour ale on April 21 at the brewery in 16-oz cans and draft. The cartoonish artwork ties in nicely with the festival’s theme. 5.8% ABV.

Returning

TALBOT PARK FARMERS MARKET

Elation Wins Green Brewery of the Year

By Jeff Maisey

In late March, the Virginia Green Travel Alliance announced Norfolk’s Elation Brewing at the Green Brewery of the Year across the Commonwealth. The annual awards are presented to Virginia’s greenest tourism operators and partners for their outstanding commitments to sustainability and contributions to green tourism in Virginia.

“Our Virginia Green Travel Partners are conserving natural resources, engaging customers, and working to increase sustainable tourism business in Virginia. The Virginia Green Travel Certification program works to support and promote those businesses that are committed to reducing the environmental impacts of their operations,” says Tom Griffin, the Executive Director of the Virginia Green Travel Alliance.

“ The Virginia Green Travel Star Awards recognizes the ‘greenest ’ businesses and individuals that have demonstrated outstanding commitments to the environment in the past year. We are proud to recognize these businesses as they are true partners in our efforts to promote sustainable tourism in Virginia!”

Runner-up in the brewery category was Stable Craft Brewing in Waynesboro.

Secretariat Reserve Bourbon

EAST BEACH FARMERS MARKET

Other 2023 Virginia Green Travel Star Award winners from Hampton Roads included Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center (Green Attraction of the Year), The Nature Bus (Green Eco Tour of the Year), Virginia Living Museum’s Lakeside Litter Cleanup (Most Innovative Green Projects), and Centerplate-Sodexol Live at. Virginia Beach Convention Center (Green Caterer of the Year).

Kimberlee Dobbins of Virginia Beach Convention Center was recognized with the 2023 Green Team All-Star Award.

HARVEST MARKET AT OOZLEFINCH

On April 22, Virginia bourbon fans can can gallop over to their nearest ABC store for a limited release (1 bottle per customer) of Charlottesville-based Ragged Branch Distillery’s Secretariat Reserve Straight Bourbon.

The special whiskey was produced in honor of the 50th anniversary of the horse’s 1973 Triple Crown.

Secretariat was bred and trained in Caroline County, and this new bourbon’s mash bill includes grain at Meadow Event Park located within the Northern Virginia county that gave birth to the greatest horse to run the track — still the fastest time in each of the races — Belmont Stakes, Preakness, and Kentucky Derby.

Secretariat Reserve (100 proof) is distilled from a mash of rye, malted barley, and corn.

Bier Garden Tours

Stefani Osfolk Brown of The Bier Garden restaurant in Portsmouth reports she is in the beginning phases of launching a travel agency focused on tours of European beer experiences in destinations such as Belgium, the Bavarian region of Germany, the pilsner territories of Czech Republic, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

Each tour will vary in duration and include a mix of breweries, renowned pubs/cafes, and beer gardens.

Stay tuned for updates.

Red Wine Boldness

Wine Folly recently published a helpful red wine boldness chart that might be helpful to the average consumer.

The chart notes warmer climates produce bolder flavored reds while cooler environments yield lighter varietals.

Topping the most bold styles are Tannat, Sagrantino, Petite Sirah, Touriga Nacional, Mourvedre, and Petit Verdot. Others in the bolder category include Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Nebbiolo. These are perfect with a steak dinner.

For medium level boldness, look to Sangiovese, Barbera, and Merlot. Pair these with red sauce pasta dishes and bison.

On the lighter side of reds: Pinot Noir, Gamay, and Schiava. Serve with that tuna or salmon dish. Try also with a fresh fruited salad.

Two glasses of red wine per day are said to benefit your health.

Consider it done.

Cheers!

Elation Brewing owner Kenny Van Hook (pictured center with hat) accepts the Green Brewery of the Year award in Virginia Beach.

Veteran-Owned Chesapeake Bay Pedal Club is Back on the Water for 2023

This will be the floating pedal pub’s third summer in business

By Dana Nichols

It’s hard to miss the lively turquoise and lime green paddle boat cruising Rudee Inlet: the vibe is energetic, music is playing, passengers are smiling or dancing — sometimes in matching outfits or costumes — and they’re bicycle-pedaling in order to human-power the large, brightly hued paddle wheel. On the Chesapeake Bay Pedal Club paddleboat, whether it’s rented for a private party or one of the regularly-scheduled public cruises, participants always find a friend, says Kalven Klovas, a retired Navy chief who co-owns the boat with his friend and active duty Navy chief Joe Maloney. Unlike being in a bar, passengers share the unique experience of an hour and 45 minute excursion on the water. “People end up having something in common, whether it’s music, or drinking, or just doing an outdoor activity,” says Klovas. Starting April 21, 2023, the boat will be back in Rudee Inlet five days a week for its third summer season of pedal-powered booze cruising.

Since 2021, the Chesapeake Bay Pedal Club, Hampton Roads’ only pedal cab boat, has introduced an active way to experience Virginia Beach. The 36-foot-long boat is popular with bachelorette parties, birthdays, engagements, office parties, brunch cruises, sunset cruises, and more. There’s a motor, so pedaling isn’t required. “ Most parties pedal for fifteen or twenty minutes before they decide to just enjoy the ride,” says Klovas. “ Some really motivated groups have pedaled the entire cruise.” Passen-

gers almost always take turns pedaling, since the boat has 10 cycle stations with adjustable resistance levels, as well as space for 10 more to dance or lounge in the seating area up front.

The cruise makes a loop, first exploring Lake Rudee, then going under the bridge and into Lake Wesley, cruising near Croatan Beach, and then going back toward the nature preserve area and aquarium. Sightings of bald eagles and osprey are common, and they ’ ve seen sea turtles, dolphins, and even a manatee.

To participate in this bicycle-powered, BYOB and BYO-eats cruise, guests start by greeting their captain and first mate at the Owl ’s Creek Boat Launch near the Virginia Beach Aquarium. They are welcome to bring their own drinks, snacks, and playlist. If it’s a brunch cruise, they might pick up a croissant platter from a local bakery and mimosa fixings. If it’s a sunset cruise, they might grab a charcuterie picnic basket and their favorite merlot. Some groups keep it simple and bring pizza and beer.

Klovas and Maloney are themselves beer lovers who were inspired by trolley pubs, aka “bike bars,” in cities like Charlotte and Nashville. “ We said, well, we’re familiar with boating, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a boat version of a trolley pub?” explains Klovas. “And once this pedal boat idea came about it was just full speed ahead.”

The pair have been friends since 2011 when deployed together on the same team in Iraq. Once

they had the idea, they found a boat-builder who could customize a paddleboat with bicycle seats, a bathroom, and their signature bright colors. They have built a loyal following in just three seasons thanks to word-of-mouth, and are looking forward to their best summer yet. “More people know about us. I feel like more people are getting out and interested in activities like this too,” says Klovas. Future plans might be to expand with another boat, or cover more area, or both.

Chesapeake Bay Pedal Club public cruises are scheduled five times daily on weekends through the spring, summer, and fall, starting with a brunch cruise at 11am, a lunch cruise at 1pm, and an afternoon cruise at 3 PM; evening sunset cruises are at 5:45 and 7:45pm (the actual time of the sunset, as we know, varies throughout the year). The two evening cruises will also be offered on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. $43 per person (taxes, fees, and gratuity not included); parties of 10 or more are encouraged to reserve a private cruise; private cruises are $700 for up to 20 people. Military and first responder discounts are available. Kids are allowed; keep in mind a height of 54 inches is required in order to reach the pedals; call for kids’ life jacket requirements and details. Owl ’ s Creek Boat Launch is located at 717 General Booth Blvd., Virginia Beach, VA 23451. 757-9325390 or book online at www.cbpedalclub.com. Reservations are required.

A fun day on the Inlet. Photo courtesy of Chesapeake Bay Pedal Club

Sauvignon Blanc For Spring

By Jeff Maisey

Now that much warmer weather is settling in this seems like a great time to switch up on your early evening wine preferences and explore some crisp, delightful vino that pairs well with garden salads, fresh seafood, or sitting on the patio with friends. Here are three refreshing Sauvignon Blancs I found priced under 15 bucks.

King Maui

Sauvignon Blanc

Marlborough, New Zealand

This cellar reserve version is named for the fishermen said to have discovered New Zealand many ages ago. Of course, New Zealand is also famous for its Sauvignon Blanc grapes grown in the Marlborough region, and King Maui delivers another excellent choice with passionfruit and nectarine notes. Refreshing.

Singerstone

2022 Sauvignon Blanc

Casablanca Valley, Chile

$13.99

As I was looking over the many Sauvignon Blanc options on the shelves of Total Wine & More in Ghent, a sales associate asked if there was a particular profile I preferred.

“Less grassy, more citrusy,” I replied. Without hesitation he suggested this 2022 bottle from the coastal region of Chile, and the advise is well appreciated.

Singerstone yields a crisp lime and grapefruit taste.

The label artwork depicting a mermaid holding a trident seems very Hampton Roads.

It’s a winner.

Kiaora

Marlborough,

$14.99

Here’s another solid varietal from the dramatic land way down under with bold grapefruit characteristics. Like most southern hemisphere wines, New Zealand experiences low levels of air pollution and high levels of UV light that combined bring forward the flavors of the grapes. Roughly 90% of the country’s Sauvignon Blanc comes from the Marlborough region on the north side of the south island. Kiaora is such a classic example.

2022 Sauvignon Blanc

New Zealand

We are re-locating our original Mermaid Winery location from Ghent to 101 Granby Street in Downtown Norfolk. Our new home in Norfolk is both a registered National & State Historic Landmark on the corner of Main & Granby Street. The building is a Beaux-Arts Neo-Classical style and was built in 1908 as a bank. The building’s exterior is made of limestone and has stately, massive columns. The interior is spectacular with intricate ornate plaster. The beauty of this building is truly unparalleled.

Norfolk Wine Club Members: you will be able to pick up your April wine at our Virginia Beach location or we can hold it for you until we open Downtown. All members will receive grand opening celebration invitations coming soon.

Run for The Roads…

By Marisa Marsey

Michael Baldwin, who recently opened The Roads Bistro, radiates joy. Even over the phone, you sense he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, reveling in this new adventure. He looks like he could be a rock or movie star, a Russell Brand type, but he’s not fixated on fame or fortune. His success metric: “I want my staff to be as happy to come to work here as I was at Abbey Road and Pacifica.”

He started as a teenager at the former, thunderstruck that he could go to a job and hear live music every night. He matured into a professional tending bar over a dozen years at the latter, the last of Chris Glover’s epic Little Bar Bistros standing.

Now, pushing 40, he’s glad his wife goaded him into heeding his restaurateur calling and heaps praise on Glover. “Chris has been so helpful,” he gushes. “There are so many ideas that I learned at Pacifica.” And, in the sincerest form of flattery, he admits to stealing, er imitating, some of them.

Little Bar Bistro fans will recognize the hours (7 days a week, 5 p.m.-midnight) and the menu of Americanized cross-cultural hot and cold tapas (scallops with Thai crispy rice and orange-braised fennel; curried cauliflower steak; pot stickers; hummus du jour). Roads’ chef, Dion White, another Pacifica alum, augments the lineup with a couple sandwiches and freewheeling specials.

…and the Roses

Heading to Derby Day, my fancy races to mint juleps and the bourbon that braces them. (Of course, my fancy races to bourbon many a day, anyway). A good bet for those juleps – if you want to stay true to Virginia while toasting Kentucky – is Filibuster, founded in Northern Virginia a decade ago by Siddharth Dilawri.

An Indian immigrant, Dilawri couldn’t land a tech job when he first arrived in America, so he took one at a liquor store. Even after finding his footing in IT, the spirits moved him. He met with experts at Four Roses and other industry powerhouses

But where the LBBs were in hip, happening zones like Ghent, Downtown and the Oceanfront, Roads resides in a suburban strip mall near Tidewater Community College’s Virginia Beach campus.

Baldwin points to establishments nearby including Mannino’s and Bangkok Garden and, a bit further afield, Heirloom, noting that this unpretentious neighborhood offers a critical mass of good eats, an emerging restaurant row.

Roads reinforces it with a cozy sophistication of white butcher paper topping black tablecloths in a dining room that seats 54, a convivial center bar and a lounge-y area complete with fireplace and comfy couches for lingering over conversations that the garrulous Baldwin likes to instigate between strangers (aka new friends).

Harkening back to Abbey Road, there are guitars perched above the bar, a groovy coffee table by locally-based Funk Yard Designs incorporating vinyl that Baldwin inherited, and a weekly live jazz duo.

“I’m not a good guitar or mandolin player, but I play every day,” Baldwin shares his passion with unbridled exuberance. “Nothing brings people together like music, food and drink.” On the website he expands that thought, “Unfortunately, we suck at making music so we chose to start our business around the things we ARE good at.”

The “we” refers to his partners Dan Cunningham, a motorcyclist, and Art Marks, whom he met biking; hence their bistro’s bicycle logo. “It’s a Penny-farthing,” Baldwin explains. “A crazy dangerous bike to ride that evolution steered in a better direction.” It’s doubly meaningful, he continues, as they’re not out to reinvent the wheel, just make it more fun. And to embed their bistro as a locals’ hangout, they chose the name Roads, a cool rendering of Hampton Roads. Returning to his goal of a happy staff, he shares that Roads’ focus is classic cocktails, not obsessively crafted ones. “Many places are doing craft cocktails well, but I feel that there’s some small French village that’s

been making liqueurs for 100 years that contain all that’s going into them,” he says. So while he encourages his mixologists to experiment with the more than 100 bottles in stock, he wants them to have time for whatever they’re into outside of work, too (the way he likes to dote on his daughters), “not have to come in here two hours early to mix tinctures.”

Just like Roads’ logo reminds, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just enjoy the ride.

3809 Princess Anne Road, #123, Virginia Beach. 757-904-1566. Nightly 5 p.m.-Midnight. theroadsbistro.com

who helped get him on track to becoming a distiller. He named his operation Filibuster because of its locale in the long shadow of the U.S. Capitol, as well as the long-winded conversations whiskey fuels.

And Filibuster is, indeed, something to talk about. The first barrel he distilled in 2014 won a double gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Today he produces a variety of bourbons (as well as gin), sourcing his corn, rye and barley from Shenandoah Valley farms and racking up more double golds.

“We love Filibuster,” declares Sandy Schmidtmann of Simple Eats on Shore Drive in Virginia Beach, known for keeping

it local. “ We’ve been carrying it for a while and customers keep asking for it.” While most order it on the rocks for dinner, it’s also prominent in cocktails including the Gold Rush, composed of Filibuster’s Boondoggler whiskey laced with honey lemon syrup.

A kind of rye-bourbon hybrid, Boondoggler, blended in five different casks (New American white oak, red and white French oak, and Fino and Pedro Ximenez sherry) lends itself to four seasons of cocktails. Last summer, Whiskey Kitchen, also in Virginia

Beach (tagline: “Locally Brewed, Grown and Owned”), fashioned a fresh peach old fashioned with it. And when sweater-weather returns, what could be more fitting than the coincidentally-called Filibuster, a drink that riffs on a whiskey sour by swapping maple syrup for simple syrup, featuring –you got it – Filibuster bourbon.

Blackened yellowfin tuna over cauliflower rice risotto, spinach, citrus gremolata and orange hoisin served up at The Roads Bistro. Courtesy photo.

Filibuster whiskeys are growing in popularity with local restaurants like Simple Eats and Whiskey Kitchen in Virginia Beach.