The Virginia Arts Festival presents a 28th season filled with stunning variety and epic collaborations
Heavy metal will meet ballet, Alice will meet the white rabbit and emerging jazz artists will meet legendary mentors for the 28th season of music and dance offerings being presented by the Virginia Arts Festival (VAF) this spring.
VAF Perry Artistic Director Robert W. Cross says one highlight of the festival is a new production by the Birmingham Royal Ballet that celebrates a rock band that got its start in the company’s home city. Black Sabbath: The Ballet premiered last year in London and Birmingham to rave reviews, and the U.S. debut will be at Chrysler Hall in May, after which the production will head to the Kennedy Center in D.C.
“It’s their fifth visit to the festival, and they’re one of the great ballet companies of the world,” says Cross. “We’re really privileged to have them here in Hampton Roads. There’s a rock band embedded in the orchestra. I think we’ll get our regular dance audience that loves ballet, but I think we’ll pick up some of the folks who are into classic rock.”
Classical music greats Yo-Yo Ma and Renée Fleming will both present performances in June that mingle music and reflections on the world. An Afternoon with Yo-Yo Ma intertwines the cellist’s soul satisfying music with his thoughts on art, human nature and meaning, and Fleming’s performance is inspired by her Grammy-winning album Voice of Nature—her sumptuous voice will be accompanied by a National Geographic film created for the program.
The festival’s director of chamber music, pianist Olga Kern, has curated a series of concerts celebrating Beethoven, and the VAF is co-presenting Mahler’s Ninth Symphony with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. The symphony’s music director Eric Jacobsen call’s the Ninth Symphony “one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity.”
As usual, VAF’s music offerings have something for everyone, with banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck and folk masters the Wood Brothers, among many other talents.
Youth is also on display in this year’s festival, with 25-year-old Grammy-winning jazz phenom Samara Joy coming in June, and 19-year-old composer and conductor Alma Deutcher leading a performance of her opera Cinderella, which she wrote when she was 12. In the opera, the prince has the beginning of a melody, which only Cinderella can finish. The performance will feature high school students from the Governor’s School for the Arts Vocal and Instrumental Music Departments.
“I think one of the festival’s strengths is collaboration, and education and outreach is a big part of what we do,” says Cross. “It’s probably a little more prominent to the audience this year, because we always do a lot of student matinees and workshops, but these are actual productions that will involve young people.”
One of the year’s most exciting collaborations is the HBCU Jazz Residency, presented by VAF and Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis. The storied Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra, with its legendary leader, will perform at Chrysler Hall in April, but they’ll also uplift the next generation of jazz musicians from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
The bands will participate in a three-day residency that culminates in the April performance by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, where the winners of the adjudicated residency will open the show for their mentors.
“It’s truly meaningful,” says Cross. “So far 11 bands are confirmed to be coming in for residencies from HBCUs. They’ll get to experience Norfolk and work side by side with members of Wynton’s band. We’re really proud of that.”
When renowned modern dance company MOMIX comes to present Moses Pendleton’s dynamic Alice, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel, the company will stay for a week to participate in student performances, workshops and master classes for local dancers.
It’s an exciting year for the Virginia International Tattoo, where more than 800 civilian and military performers from around the world will celebrate the 250th birthday of the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps with stirring music and tributes to the service of our troops at Scope Pavilion in April.
But VAF doesn’t only present at huge venues like Scope, Ferguson Center and Chrysler Hall. It gives small, intimate concerts their due, with a Coffee Concerts series of morning chamber music where the audience can mingle with the performers after the show, and events like a performance by the Tallis Scholars, an incredible a cappella chorus from the UK that will perform at Christ and St. Luke’s.
“That venue has really incredible acoustics for unamplified music,” says Cross.
Cross also hopes that all generations of audiences won’t miss the Sound of Music Sing-A-Long in April, which he describes as a PG Rocky Horror, with audiences singing along, participating in the action, and coming decked in costumes—dressed as nuns or wearing their curtains and lederhosen.
Bursting at the seams as it nears three decades of art, the VAF is also growing its Downtown Norfolk-based arts campus, taking possession of the historic building on St. Pauls Boulevard that previously belonged to the Hurrah Players after Hurrah made its move to a new building in the NEON District. The renovation will include rehearsal spaces, dance studios, offices and a small theater.
The festival has put the Coastal Virginia region on the map by becoming a destination for some of the world’s great artists.
“We’re on our 28th season, and we’re at a point now in the festival’s history and track record that we can attract the really important and prestigious artists a lot easier than we could have 25 years ago. The artists and artists’ agents want to come to the Virginia Arts Festival because they know they’ll be treated well by the staff, and they know they’ll get an appreciative audience. To have Wynton Marsalis, Renee Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma and Samara Joy in the same season is a pretty big deal.”
For more information visit vafest.org.
Elizabeth Blachman
