From my inbox to you:

Ferrum Colleges Announces New Blue Ridge Performing Arts Series

The College continues the tradition of providing quality, family entertainment to the region.

 Ferrum, Va. – Ferrum College announced today that it will continue the tradition of providing quality, family entertainment to the region with the new Blue Ridge Performing Arts Series. The 2013 Series begins this summer in partnership with the Virginia Commission for the Arts. A variety of talented, professional performers are booked throughout the next year with the first event, a performance by Larnell Starkey and the Spiritual Seven, slated for June 15, 2013.

In the storied tradition of the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre (BRDT), food, fellowship, and education will be featured in the College’s new performing arts venture. The BRDT, which made its home at the College for more than 30 years, closed its doors at the end of the 2012 season when its founders Rex Stephenson and Jody Brown retired.

“We look forward to greeting our loyal Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre audience members this summer and to welcoming newcomers to the inaugural season of the Blue Ridge Performing Arts Series at Ferrum College,” said Ferrum College President Jennifer Braaten.

Former BRDT volunteers are also invited to return this year. “As a non-profit community outreach program, Blue Ridge Performing Arts Series will welcome community volunteers to help implement the performances. Volunteers were part of the heartbeat of the BRDT and we invite them to return to support the new Series,” said Series Coordinator Brooke Gill.  For volunteer information, call 540-230-6600 or email brpas@ferrum.edu. Read more »

AFTERNOON UPDATE: I’ve received more photos from the South Korean delegation’s visit to Local Colors, courtesy of photographer Bruce Muncey.

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Roanoke Valley Sister Cities representative Mike Liew sent along the photos below of a delegation from Wonju, Korea, one of Roanoke’s Sister Cities, performing at Local Colors this past Saturday.

From my Inbox to you. RSO Marketing Director Rodney Overstreet informs me that:

Of the 13 who will receive contracts as a result of this audition, 11 are new contracted positions, and 2 are replacing previously contracted musicians.

The number of musicians on stage at any given concert is dependent on the program/repertoire. With the 2013-2014 season, the maximum total number is now 83.

The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra announces the selection of thirteen new musician members. Auditions took place on Monday, May 6, 2013 at the RSO’s location on East Campbell Avenue in Roanoke. Sixty-five, out of more than one hundred applicants, were invited to audition. Applications came from across the U.S. and as far away as Europe for three Principal positions and ten Section positions.

Music Director & Conductor David Stewart Wiley commented, “In my 17 years at the RSO, I have never been as impressed as I was this week with the artistic level of our Strings auditionees.  Their great artistry, diversity, and a vast range of professional experience bodes well for the continued artistic growth and versatility of the RSO. We welcome these new colleagues and raise the bar of what we can achieve as a stable and innovative regional orchestra.”

Matvey Lapin, currently of Gosport, Indiana, was selected by the RSO to fulfill the position of Principal Second Violin. Lapin earned his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia. Previous performance experience includes positions with the Columbus (IN) Symphony Orchestra, Terre Haute Symphony, and St. Petersburg String Quartet, among others. Lapin was the 2006 winner of the Indiana University Jacob School of Music Concerto Competition.

Kathleen Overfield-Zook of Harrisonburg, Virginia was selected for the Principal Viola position. Overfield-Zook earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from University of Michigan. Her performance experience includes Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, and The Bloom Trio, among others. 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.

Did you see Opera Roanoke’s “The Pirates of Penzance”? Do you agree with reviewer Michael Saffle? Let us know in the comments.

Courtesy David Clark. Pirates seize the Major General (John Dooley) while daughters Kate (Tara Sperry) and Edith (Chelsea Bonagura) react.

‘The Pirates of Penzance’ blends music, comedy
by Michael Saffle

Friday night’s sold-out Jefferson Center audience lavished laughter and applause on Opera Roanoke’s production of “The Pirates of Penzance.”

Created by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, “Pirates” opened at London’s Opera Comique in April 1880. The show is known as a “Savoy Opera,” after the Savoy Theatre where later Gilbert and Sullivan hits were first performed.

Gilbert created a saucy, satiric libretto, for which Sullivan composed music occasionally as lovely as Mozart’s. The perennial problem is how to combine musical loveliness (and wit) with low puns and lots of on-stage joshing.

Roanoke Symphony conductor Scott Williamson and his minions let the music speak for itself. Several cast members, on the other hand, kept the audience laughing with their lively antics. When they also sang and danced to Williamson’s baton, things went swimmingly.

John Tiranno played Frederic, a young pirate-apprentice who falls for Mabel (played by Ariana Wyatt ), one of the aging Major-General’s pretty wards. John Dooley shone as the Major-General, while Bradley Smoak proved a dashing Pirate King.

Click here to read the rest of the review.

“The Marvelous Wonderettes”
Where: Trinkle Main Stage, Mill Mountain Theatre, Center in the Square, Roanoke
When: 7:30 p.m. May 1; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 2; 7:30 p.m. May 3; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 4; 2 p.m. May 5; 7:30 p.m. May 8; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 9; 7:30 p.m. May 10; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 11; 2 p.m. May 12
Cost: $27; students, $25
Contact: 342-5740; millmountain.org

Theater reviewer Nona Nelson loved Mill Mountain Theatre’s “The Marvelous Wonderettes” and its trip down memory lane. Have you seen it yourself? What do you think?

Mill Mountain Theatre’s ‘The Marvelous Wonderettes’ a musical delight
by Nona Nelson

Shake and shimmy your way down a musical memory lane with the newest production at Mill Mountain Theatre, “The Marvelous Wonderettes.”

The musical opened to a nearly sold-out theater on Wednesday, and the lighthearted show filled the stage with plenty of favorite old songs and laughs.

The show kicks off Mill Mountain Theatre’s first full season since 2009. “Wonderettes” is the nonprofit’s first Equity production since “Greater Tuna” in 2012, and the first on Trinkle Main Stage since Center in the Square began renovations on its Campbell Avenue building in 2011.

The first act of the play, with book by Roger Bean and music from 1950s and early 1960s girl groups and singers, features four best friends filling in as last-minute entertainment for their 1958 senior prom at Springfield High School.

The all-girl quartet, calling themselves the Marvelous Wonderettes, serenades the audience with a dreamy version of “Mr. Sandman” as the opening number. From there the songs flow smoothly between snippets of dialogue that reveal the friendships and tensions between Cindy Lou (Rebecca Russell), Betty Jean (Katie Emerson), Missy (Jessi Tidwell) and Suzy (Andrea Dotto). Most of the story is communicated through the song lyrics and the physical interaction between the four characters.

We learn that sultry Cindy Lou has been up to no good with spitfire Betty Jean’s boyfriend Johnny (“Lipstick On Your Collar”) and that sweet Suzy is crazy in love (“Stupid Cupid”) with Richie Stevens, who is running the lights for the show. We discover shy Missy’s secret crush on the music teacher through “Born Too Late” and “Teacher’s Pet.”

The second act is set in 1968 at the Springfield High 10-year class reunion, which also features a reunion of the Wonderettes, who have gone their separate ways in the decade since graduation.

Click here to read the rest of the review.

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.

Click the picture to learn the details:

‘The Marvelous Wonderettes,’ by Roger Bean

Where: Trinkle Main Stage, Mill Mountain Theatre, Center in the Square, Roanoke

Dates and times: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. April 28; 7:30 p.m. May 1; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 2; 7:30 p.m. May 3; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 4; 2 p.m. May 5; 7:30 p.m. May 8; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 9; 7:30 p.m. May 10; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 11; 2 p.m. May 12

Tickets: $27; students, $25

Information: 342-5740; http://millmountain.org

STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS | The Roanoke Times. Andrea Dotto (center) rehearses Friday for the musical production of “The Marvelous Wonderettes” on the Mill Mountain Stage with Matthew Glover (from left), the associate artistic director; Jessi Tidwell; Rebecca Russell; Katie Emerson and Peppy Biddy, the artistic director. The show marks MMT’s return to the Trinkle Main Stage at Center in the Square.

“It’s my party,” wailed New York actress Katie Emerson, “and I’ll cry if I want to.”

As Emerson bawled and flailed her arms across the stage, the rest of the cast tried to console her character, who has just spotted her husband flirting with another woman. She stomped off Mill Mountain Theatre’s Trinkle Main Stage and up the aisle between the empty seats, still singing and sobbing.

MMT producing managing director Ginger Poole laughed at Emerson’s antics. Back on the stage, Peppy Biddy, the co-director of MMT’s newest production, “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” asked the cast to start the scene over. “Let’s take it from the ‘Waaaah!’ ” he said.

Mill Mountain is hoping its return to its big stage won’t be cause for tears.

“We’ve developed this new business model. It’s got to work,” Poole said. “Here’s the test — is this show going to stand on its own?”

The region’s only Equity theater, Mill Mountain has been plodding along the comeback trail since mounting debt forced the cancellation of its regular season and the dismissal of almost all of its staff in early 2009.

The nonprofit has never gone away. Its education programs continued under Poole, who for a long time was the theater’s only employee. The theater put on children’s plays tied to the education program while its board worked to get a reported $750,000 in debt paid off or forgiven. The stripped-down theater had resolved its debts by May 2010, and put on its first Equity production since going dark, “Greater Tuna,” in March 2012.

Click here to read the rest of the story.