Running from September 9 through September 23, the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival will present three Sunday afternoon concerts in Old Cabell Hall (on the University of Virginia grounds) and two Thursday evening concerts at The Paramount Theater.

The Festival will welcome one of the most innovative string quartets in the United States: Brooklyn Rider. The Huffington Post recently remarked that “these four young musicians are proving themselves to be among the most fearless in the classical world today.”

Their members include violinists Colin Jacobsen and Johnny Gandelsman, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Eric Jacobsen. Their repertoire ranges from classical to rock. In 2010, NPR’s All Things Considered noted how “Brooklyn Rider wowed a crowd of indie-rockers last month at Austin’s South by Southwest music festival.”

For further informtion, please call (434) 295-5395. Stay tuned for updates early this summer from www.cvillechambermusic.org.

Naomi Chung is a painter and printmaker from Virginia. Chung’s landscapes and florals reflect nature not only as an image but also as an event, in which she is able to find expressive meaning and value in the seemingly random patterns.

She regards the combined colors, textures, and movements of birds, grass and a hurricane wind as a carefully orchestrated yet unrehearsed symphony and gathers characters from the landscape allowing them to interact on the canvas. Chung explains, “Whether it’s something still and serene or overcome by the powers of a storm, I take from the landscape its ability to stir emotions associated with higher consciousness and self-awareness.” Learn more about Chung here.

Warm Springs Gallery is located at 105 Third Street NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902 (on the Downtown Mall) and is open to the public from 11:00am-5:00pm on Wednesday through Saturday and from 11:00am-3:00pm on Sunday. For more information, please call (434) 245-0800.

Noted printmaker and University of Virginia art professor Dean Dass has generously donated an original work titled Two Birds in a Cloud to the Spring For The Arts silent auction. Made with gouache, collage, pencil, and gold leaf, the piece is meditative and pleasing with a central image that almost appears to have bloomed in place.

Dean Dass was born in 1955 during an Iowa blizzard. His grandfather, Virgil Liittschwager, taught him to fish and hunt, and how to paint with oils. He studied art, philosophy and anthropology at the University of Northern Iowa, and then moved east where he earned his M.F.A. in printmaking from The Tyler School of Art, Temple University.

Since 1985 he has taught at the University of Virginia. His works are held in many public collections – from The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Walker Art Center, to The Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä, Finland, and the National Collection of Poland, Krakow. Watch a video of Dass discussing his artwork in 2011 here.

You can bid on unique items like this one at Spring For The Arts next week! Come celebrate cultural life in Charlottesville with us! Tickets to Spring For The Arts can be purchased online.

The Charlottesville Women’s Choir was founded in 1984 with eleven members. Now, twenty-eight years later, it has grown to thirty women and continues its tradition of presenting an annual spring benefit concert. The CWC sings mostly a cappella songs with themes of peace, social justice, equality and environmental issues.

For more information, please call (434) 977-0963.

Much of the action of the play takes us behind the scenes of the circus, as performers (among them trapeze artists, stilt walkers and many clowns) and patrons alike struggle to maintain a delicate balance between the strictures of society and the freedoms of circus life.

Tickets are $14-$24.50 and are available online.

He Who Gets Slapped will be performed on Friday, May 18th and Saturday, May 19th at 8:00pm. There are additional performances through Saturday, June 9th with a Pay-What-You-Can each Wednesday. After the performance on Sunday, May 27th at 2pm, there will be a Q&A about the play.

A sneak preview will be offered on Thursday, May 17th! For tickets to the free preview, stop by the C-Ville Weekly office on the Downtown Mall.

A note from the director: He Who Gets Slapped is a play about a circus, so you might be asking yourself, “Should I bring my children?” Here’s what I’d say to you: While He Who Gets Slapped has almost no profanity and no obvious on-stage physical violence, it’s a dark story with some very adult themes. I would recommend the show for ages 13 and up. For mature, intelligent young people, the play offers a great deal to think and talk about – as with Shakespeare’s tragedies, there is betrayal, jealousy, and untimely death. There are also great moments of comedy, beautiful language, and fascinating, compelling characters and ideas. This isn’t a light comedy, but it is a great play for mature audiences of many ages.

For more information, please visit www.livearts.org or call the Live Arts Box Office at (434) 977-4177 ×108.

Based on a short story from 1942 by Jorge Luis Borges, The Circular Ruins is the sixth annual publication from The Printmakers Left, and that group’s first bound publication. The present exhibition includes unbound excerpts, working proofs, alternative endings, out-takes and debris.

The Printmakers Left is the name of a loose collection of artists born in the University of Virginia printmaking studios and continuing as a creative collaborative for the past decade. Other works by the group have included The Labyrinth, and The End of Language.

Over the past year these artists set themselves a new challenge: an examination of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges’ short story in which the circle figures prominently, The Circular Ruins. The Circular Ruins was a project of some eighteen months, and has resulted in a bound volume of prints, poems and prose of about 200 pages. The work on this project was collaborative in that on many pages two, three or more participants have worked together. Many diverse printing technologies were employed, including etching, lithography, letterpress, screen-printing, and inkjet. These media are layered throughout the leaves of the book, and constitute a veritable history of means and expression. Yet this constructed history of collaboration provides only one approach to the many layers of allegory in Borges’ story The Circular Ruins. For in the end of the story, Borges’ protagonist, who would dream into existence another human, discovers that he himself is already but the dream of another.

Participants included: Adam Wolpa, Akemi Ohira Rollando, Alan Harmon, Anne Beck, Bogdan Achimescu, Chris Pace, Chris Thomas, David Bendernagel, David Swan, Dean Dass, Debra Fabrizzi, Eleanor Hanson, Elizabeth Stark, John Leahy, Justin Quinn, Ken Wood, Lisa Russ Spaar, Maggie Booth, Robert Glasgow, Roland Lusk, Sanghee Yoo, Sarah Marshall, and Thomas Doran.

There will be a live reading of The Circular Ruins and a gallery talk on Thursday, May 17, at 6:00pm. Jorge Luis Borges’s story will be read by storyteller Browning Porter and a discussion with curator Dean Dass will follow. Light refreshments will be served. Please bring a circular snack to share!

We caught up with Ms. McLeod to learn more about Chroma Projects, why she opted to become a curator, and the one local artist you just have to know about.

Read on for the complete interview!

Q: Tell us more about how Chroma Projects started.
Chroma Projects was born a little over two and a half years ago. It began principally because I felt there was a dearth of venues that presented art the way I thought it should be seen – not as filler in a retail or office space, nor as an unintentional or haphazard aggregation of works, but as a conscientious presentation of ideas set in a contemplative environment.

Q: Pick one artist from from the local area that you think our members need to know about.
I’d easily say Millicent Young to this question. Millicent is an exceptional artist – so brilliant in terms of each pure, perfect inventive form she comes up with, so poetic in the intelligence inherent in every thoughtful, careful piece she constructs, plus she is such a sublime craftsperson for whom process involves no shortcuts, ever. Millicent is a bit of a recluse, so perhaps not as known as many local artists.

Q: What does it mean to you to be part of the Charlottesville arts community?
I think it’s absolutely the most important subset of our community. Artists are adventurers, people who extend themselves far beyond the status quo. They teach society how to imagine and how to grow and expand, how to become more and see more.

Q: What events does Chroma Projects have coming up that you are especially excited about?
I’m always excited about every one of our shows!

Q: What’s your background as an individual artist?
I started out my professional schooling studying art. I studied design – graphic, theatre interior and fashion design, sculpture, painting, craft…the whole enchilada…but I felt I wasn’t that driven as an artist, and that the stuff I made was basically average and didn’t acheive enough of an idiosyncratic voice. It’s no ride in the park to be an effective, imaginative artist, so I decided to become a curator instead to explore and celebrate those who do stand out at that.

Q: What inspires your own personal creativity as an artist and a curator?
I tend to be drawn to work that marries the sciences with aesthetics. I like work that withholds something of its message until the viewer has courted it a bit. I like work that is inherently spiritual, but in the absolute most modest sense of that term. I like humor in work, but humor
with some evidence of social concern. I don’t like irony, I don’t like sloppiness, and I don’t like too much hard fact realism. I want to learn of the mind of the artist not be simply confronted by the gist of a subject. I love the beneath and between of art thinking.

Q: Finally, when is the gallery open for people to visit, and do you accept work samples or exhibit proposals from local artists?
Chroma is usually open from 11:00am to 5:00pm Tuesday through Saturday, although for the current (May) show we have evening hours from 6:00pm to 8:00pm while we have an artist living in our window. I do accept proposals from artists, but I have a pretty long waiting list.

Lincoln Perry has been painting murals off and on at Old Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia since 1997. Most are familiar with his first mural finished in 2000. Less familiar are the magnificent murals almost complete in the two stairwells of Cabell Hall. This show will feature the maquettes for these murals as well as other studies and paintings related to them. The exhibit will include recent sculpture as well. There will be an opening reception with the artist on Friday, May 11th from 5:30-7:30pm. This event is FREE and open to the public.

There will also be a Preview and Lunch with the Artist on Wednesday, May 16th at 12:00pm. The cost is $15 per person and reservations are requested by emailing LesYeuxduMonde@aol.com or calling (434) 973-5566. Les Yeux du Monde is located at 841 Wolf Trap Road, Charlottesville, VA. Hours are Thursday through Sunday 1:00-5:00pm and anytime by appointment.

If you are a newbie to attending events hosted by The Garage, audience members typically sit on the hill facing the venue and toss a donation in a jar to support the performing musicians.

While the door is rolled up, wander inside The Garage to check out the current art exhibit on display: “A Visual Exploration of Texture, Tone, and Form” by Pia Donovan and Chad Van Pelt. The exhibit features paintings with vivid colors and lots of texture. The artists’ goal is to challenge the viewer to consider the foundations of painting with new eyes. Read on for the full schedule of concerts.

Tuesday, May 8th – 8:00pm – Kalispell
Kalispell is the songs of Shane Leonard, who lives in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His music is influenced by the old song forms of Appalachia, timeless American songwriters, and contemporary minimalist composers alike. Members of local band The Hill and Wood will be opening the show at 8:00pm.

Friday, May 11th – Tom Tom Founders Festival Showcase
5:30-6:30pm // Ken’s Last Ever (Live, improvised sound collage experiment)
7:00-8:00pm // The Relatives (Brooklyn-based, mellow, melodious indie-jazz-folk)
8:30-9:30pm // The Due Diligence (NYC-based raucous, indie-classic-rock)

Saturday, May 12th – Tom Tom Founders Festival Showcase
5:00-6:00pm // The Spinning Leaves (Philly-based psychedelic-folk)
6:30-7:30pm // Hope For Agoldensummer (Athens-based, soothing and captivating)
8:00-9:00pm // Carl Anderson (a Charlottesville songwriter and live folk act)

Wednesday, May 16th – 8:00pm – Honey Watts with Jonny Miles
Philadelphia-based country-folk songstress Liz Fullerton not only has a voice that can stop your heart, she’s got the songs that can break it. Fellow-Philly songwriter Jonny Miles joins her for this show.

Tuesday, May 22nd – 8:00pm – River Whyless
River Whyless is based out of Asheville, North Carolina and has quickly become known throughout the southeast for their fresh sound and the energy of their live show. With a graduate of Appalachian State’s School of Music and a classically trained violinist, River Whyless combines technical skill with the creative gifts of the band’s co-songwriters Ryan O’Keefe and Halli Anderson to produce an unclassifiable sound.

Saturday, May 26th – 8:00pm – Now You See Them with The Judy Chops
Asheville-based indie-folk, Now You See Them will remind you of Rilo Kiley, Cake, Dr. Dog and The Violent Femmes. With strong harmonies, thoughtful lyrics and catchy instrumentation, the band is both smart and friendly. Local act The Judy Chops play their Garage debut as the openers, starting at 8:00pm.

For more details about these events, please click here or email Sam Bush.

Next Friday, May 18th, WriterHouse is hosting a FREE event: a talk called “Learning How to Laugh” with Jim Minick, the author of The Blueberry Years, (which was called “delicious reading” by none other than Naomi Wolf). Mr. Minick will discuss what he learned about writing humor while toiling away in the field. He will read excerpts from this memoir about one of the first, certified-organic, pick-your-own blueberry farms in the mid-Atlantic. Now that sounds like summer-appropriate literary event.

The day after that, you can opt to attend a workshop titled “Polishing your Prose by Minding Metaphor and Tending Time” led by Mr. Minick from 9:00am to 1:00pm. The cost is $55 for WriterHouse Members and $60.00 for Non-Members. Here’s what you can expect: “In every genre, metaphors sweeten the writing, making an ordinary scoop of a sentence into a deluxe banana split. How do you play with language to find original metaphors and see the world anew? We’ll tackle this question in hopes of finding metaphors wherever we look. Likewise, how do writers ride that horse called time and manipulate it without losing control? The diverse ways prose writers play with time, from the micro-level to the macro, will be explored in this workshop.”

If you have an aspiring writer who happens to be in grades 5 through 8, you can send them to “Stories that Fly,” a summer writing camp. Classes for youth in grades 5 and 6 will happen during the week of June 18th and classes for youth in grades 7 and 8 will happen during the week of June 25th. Scholarships are available for students from low-income families. Full details and enrollment information, please click here.

Finally, have you ever heard those personal commentaries on NPR stations and wonder how it’s done? In “The Art of the Radio Essay,” a workshop led by Janis Jaquith, you can learn the techniques of this performance art. At least two students from the winter-version of this class have already had their essays aired on the radio! The cost is $55 for WriterHouse Members and $60 for Non-Members. The workshop takes place on Saturday, June 23rd from 9:00am to 1:00pm.

Now you have no excuses left – get to writing!