From my Inbox to you:

The Vocal Arts and Music Festival returns for a fourth year in Blacksburg, bringing a mix of returning favorites and exciting new offerings, including master classes with some of the biggest names in opera, chamber music celebrations, and solo and group performances spotlighting the festival’s talented singers.

Rising stars and internationally recognized opera legends, coaches, and instrumentalists bring world-class performances to Blacksburg

BLACKSBURG  – On June 6-22, the Vocal Arts and Musical Festival (https://tickets.artscenter.vt.edu/Online/vocalarts) returns to the Virginia Tech campus for three weeks of performances and master classes featuring opera legends, up-and-coming opera stars, and a cadre of talented musicians from across the globe. Presented by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech  (http://www.artscenter.vt.edu/), in partnership with the International Vocal Arts Institute, the festival returns for a fourth year in Blacksburg, and is one of only three institute programs in the world.

With a mix of returning favorites and exciting new offerings, each day of the festival will feature special events, including master classes with some of the biggest names in opera, chamber music celebrations, solo and group performances spotlighting the festival’s talented singers, and new events that embrace community voices.

At the core of the festival is a group of young singers  handpicked by International Vocal Arts Institute  (http://www.ivai.org/) founders Joan Dornemann and Paul Nadler, both of the Metropolitan Opera. These professionals come to Virginia Tech for three weeks of unparalleled access to top opera teachers. They are immersed in rigorous training sessions and rehearsals with the festival faculty  from morning to afternoon, where they will work on vocalization, language, and staging, and perform with festival instrumentalists and pianists each evening.

Two special guest artists join this year’s schedule — renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw and preeminent American operatic composer Carlisle Floyd. Upshaw will lead a master class, where she will share her musical insights with selected singers and perform in an evening recital, where she will present a diverse repertoire of selections from Claude Debussy, Olivier Messiaen, Charles Ives, and William Bolcom. Upshaw has made nearly 300 appearances since her career began in 1984, performing opera and concert repertoire ranging from the sacred works of Bach to new works. Read more »

David Stewart Wiley is the artistic director of the Virginia’s Blue Ridge Music Festival, a part-time position he’ll hold in addition to his regular duties as music director and conductor for the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the Long Island Philharmonic.

The Virginia’s Blue Ridge Musical Festival in Floyd starts May 30. It’s  a week-long program of classical music concerts and classes helmed by David Stewart Wiley of Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. The festival is selling passes for $99 until Wednesday, after which the price goes up to $110. For students the cost is half-price.

Read more about the festival here.

Check out the schedule here.

The festival’s orchestra will be comprised of master musicians and apprentices who are themselves accomplished players.

This isn’t the first event like this to be held in Floyd. The organizers of the National Music Festival came to Floyd in 2011, presided over a two-week festival that summer, but left that winter after determining the funding wasn’t available to support their salaries.

Photo courtesy Colleen Redman. Wiley and Akemi Takayama perform at a gala held at Floyd EcoVillage.

Wiley said the National Music Festival showed there’s enthusiasm in Floyd for classical music. The new festival, which shares some of the same board members, has a smaller budget and realistic financial goals, he said, with a year’s worth of fundraising undertaken beforehand. About $50,000 has been raised to support the festival’s $88,000 budget.

The programming will include a reprise of Jeff Midkiff’s “From the Blue Ridge,” debuted by RSO in 2011, and the debut of a composition by Steven Brown, “Fanfare for Floyd.”

Though concerts will happen in venues all over Floyd, the Floyd EcoVillage has served as the festival’s home, Wiley said.

Composer Philip Glass and his orchestra, the Philip Glass Ensemble, will kick off the Center for the Arts’ first season held in its newly-built home.

The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech will open its first full season in its new home with a performance by a legendary American composer, end with a multimedia theater performance for children by an Italian troupe, and in between will host professional dance companies, experimental plays, a popular NPR host, a bluegrass festival and even a Pops performance by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.

Executive director Ruth Waalkes has said one of the goals of the new $100 million institution with its state-of-the-art 1,260-seat performance hall has been to complement, not duplicate, the programming that already exists in the Roanoke and New River valleys . Sure enough, the lineup of 21 acts sports little overlap with the Jefferson Center’s jazz offerings or the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre’s comedians and Broadway in Roanoke shows.

The acts are also chosen based on their potential to involve community members and create opportunities for educational programming, Waalkes said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Cara Ellen Modisett tells me that this is the successor to the late night classical music salons that were known as Music After Midnight, though now they’re being held at a more reasonable hour of the day. Details swiped from Facebook:

6 p.m. Friday

Do you write, compose, play music? WVTF will be hosting a salon on Friday, April 26, as the final event celebrating Public Radio Music Month. It’s planned as the first in a series, and we invite our listening audience to join us for this evening of art, music, words and conversation. Come by at 6:00. If you’re interested in reading or playing, contact Cara Modisett through the station.

From my Inbox to you:

Colorado Quartet returns to Blacksburg

BLACKSBURG – The popular Colorado Quartet  (http://www.coloradoquartet.com/CQ/Home.html) returns to Blacksburg to perform two all-Beethoven concerts on Saturday, April 13, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 14, at 3 p.m. in the Squires Recital Salon on the campus of Virginia Tech.

The concerts are part of the University Chamber Music Series presented by the School of Performing Arts and Cinema and the Department of Music.

This will be the quartet’s fourth visit to Blacksburg over the past four years, and will be a culmination of their performances of the complete Beethoven string quartets at Virginia Tech.

Among their many accolades, the ensemble is the first female string quartet in history to perform the complete Beethoven quartet cycle in Europe and North America. Their performances are noted for musical integrity, impassioned playing, and lyrical finesse.

Their weekend in Blacksburg will feature two concerts, each with a different program:

*   Wednesday, April 13: Quartet in F major, Opus 18 No. 1; Quartet in E flat major, Opus 127; Quartet in C major, Opus 59 No. 3

*   Thursday, April 14: Quartet in A major, Opus 18 No. 5; Quartet in D major, Opus 18 No. 3; Quartet in B flat major, Opus 130 with Grosse Fuge Read more »

From Sunday’s column:

American pianist Jeremy Denk will present a program featuring the works of Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, infused with his fresh interpretation of the classical pieces. (Photo credit: Samantha West)

The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech continues its 2012-13 season with a performance by classical pianist Jeremy Denk at The Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg. The performance happens 8 p.m. March 24 and will include compositions by Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms.

As well as one-man concerts, Denk has performed with chamber music ensembles and as a soloist with orchestras from Los Angeles to London.

His playing racks up rave reviews in The New York Times the way LeBron James racks up slam dunks during a Miami Heat pre-game. (Full disclosure: my thanks to Sports Editor Steve Hemphill for his assistance in the construction of this metaphor.)

Denk’s profile has been raised further by his popular blog, Think Denk (jeremydenk.net/blog/), on which he shares thoughts about music, life and the music life.

Here’s a sample of how a New York Times critic painted him in 2010: “There is nothing generic about this adventurous musician. His vivacious intellect is manifest both in his playing and on his blog, Think Denk, an outlet for astute musical observations and witty musings, whether a lament about inedible meatballs or a spoof interview with Sarah Palin.”

In 2009, when I attended the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera in New York, I had the opportunity to hear Denk perform some of American composer Charles Ives’ incredibly difficult piano compositions during a broadcast by New York Public Radio station WXQR.

Not having a background in music, I lack the vocabulary to articulately describe Denk’s playing other than to say it was an amazing experience. He also had a great rapport with his audience, explaining the pieces to us and helping us to pick out motifs.

Admission is $30 , senior citizens and Virginia Tech faculty and staff $24, and for students and youth 18 and under $10. For more information, call 951-4771 or visit www.thelyric.com/.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

REBECCA BARNETT | The Roanoke Times. Violinist Benedict Goodfriend, pianist Elizabeth Bachelder and cellist Alan Weinstein — the Kandinsky Trio — practice in Bachelder’s Salem home.

SALEM — The Kandinsky Trio have played together for 25 years, and known one another longer.

Ask their ages, though, and they get a little coy.

“I did move here in my 20s,” said cellist Alan Weinstein, a remark that causes his fellow musicians to laugh uproariously. He points to violinist Benedict Goodfriend and says, “Bendy was 14.”

“And I was 3,” pianist Elizabeth Bachelder interjects.

And how do those 25 years together feel?

“Like 50,” says Bachelder.

“Like 80,” retorts Weinstein.

The trio has been a mainstay of the Roanoke Valley art scene since 1987, playing four concerts a year in Roanoke College’s Olin Hall – a remarkable achievement in a time when chamber music struggles to find an audience.

“I think we built a fan base. That really helps,” Bachelder said. “We do see the same faces at most of our concerts.”

Fans of Roanoke College’s resident chamber music trio know that the comedic banter and the expert musicianship go hand in hand. The trio’s brochures have reflected the same sense of humor, starting with its 15th season, when the three posed for photos dressed as 15-year-olds.

“We haven’t progressed since,” Bachelder said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

From Sunday’s column:

The still-under-construction Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech continues its 2012-13 season with “Lucid Possession.”

A multimedia theater production by New York digital artist and experimental theater pioneer Toni Dove, “Lucid Possession” combines live action and robotics with video projections.

Musicians, a video DJ and lighted costumes all figure in the mix. Center executive director Ruth Waalkes describes the show as a “contemporary ghost story about a young woman whose head becomes clogged with tweets and video streams, and the mysterious journey she takes with her avatar,” and suggested it will come across as a cross between the films “The Sixth Sense” and “The Matrix.” The show provides a preview, as “Lucid Possession” officially opens in Brooklyn, N.Y., in April.

The show is co-presented with Tech’s Department of Theatre and School of Performing Arts and Cinema. Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. March 17 in Theatre 101 on College Avenue in Blacksburg. Admission is $20, senior citizens and faculty and staff $16, students and children $10.

Dove will also give a free ArtsFusion talk at 5 p.m. March 18 in Theatre 101, presented by the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology.

For more information, call 231-5615 or visit www.studentcenters.vt.edu/tickets/events.php.

Cara Modisett with St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church informs me that tonight’s concert by The Rainier Trio has been postponed until April 2 because of the severity of tonight’s weather forecast.

Van Cliburn in 1962. Photo courtesy WikiMedia Commons.

The Associated Press has reported that American pianist Van Cliburn (born Harvey Lavan Cliburn Jr. in 1934) passed away Wednesday. The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music describes him as “one of the most accomplished classical musicians America has ever produced.”

News researcher Belinda Harris alerted me that the Texas musician, famous for his victory in a 1958 Moscow competition, has a couple of Roanoke connections. Not long after his nationally-celebrated victory, he was booked to play at Jefferson High School in Roanoke as part of the Thursday Morning Music Club concert series. He was expected to play on March 6, 1959 but had to cancel to have finger surgery. Cliburn kept his commitment, though, eventually performing in Roanoke on March 18, 1960 at the American Theater.

Only 25 at the time, he received the sort of giddy coverage you might expect for Taylor Swift today. Roanoke Times reviewer George Kegley called the 1960 concert “near flawless” and added that Cliburn’s “shock of wavy hair remained intact through all his exertions.”

Fifteen years later, on March 10, 1975, he performed at the Roanoke Civic Center with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra in a show that sold out a couple months prior. Specifically, he played Brahms’ “Piano Concerto No. 2 in B Flat.” The newspaper cranked out feature stories, interviewing his mother, who traveled with him, and chronicling his trip to Roanoke and his stay here. (Notoriously absent-minded, he flooded his room in the Hotel Roanoke when he left the water in the bathtub running while practicing.)

More about Cliburn below, from the Associated Press. Read more »