Stories

A Holiday Concert for 2020, from the University Singers and Charlottesville Symphony

The University Singers and the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia have lifted their voices – virtually – for a season-brightening 2020 Family Holiday Concert, remarkable for its beauty and for the technical coordination needed to put on the production. President Jim Ryan shared the concert with the University community, along with his best wishes for the holiday season and gratitude for all of the work that students, faculty, and staff put in this semester. “Every year, the Family Holiday Concert touches our hearts and unites our community. This year is no exception,” Ryan said. “While the program, like many things in 2020, is a bit different, it is just as heartwarming as ever, and it showcases the remarkable talent and resilience of our students and our neighbors in the Charlottesville community.”

Time for a Steam: UVA Alumni Help Meticulously Restore Carrara Marble Capitals

The moment had come for Leigh Hassler to remove a painstakingly constructed steam chamber created to surround one of the ornate Carrara marble capitals that adorn UVA’s Pavilion VIII. During the building’s original construction, Thomas Jefferson ordered these capitals from Carrara, Italy – the same source as the recently replaced capitals that front the Rotunda. Hassler and her team were six hours into an intense paint-removal process. A palpable sense of anticipation hung in the air. As the team got down to business, briskly removing the chamber’s box around the capital, steam rose into a crisp, blue fall sky.

Ghostly Forests on Eastern Shore Have a Story to Tell

The term “ghost forests” might sound like something from a Halloween movie, but these ghosts actually exist along low-lying shores, where rising seas infiltrate coastal forests. Trees in areas along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico are dying due to the increasing salinity of the groundwater, and the landscape is slowly transitioning to salt-tolerant marshland. University of Virginia environmental scientists, who study this interaction between sea and land and how it affects broader ecosystems, are taking on a new project: they are collaborating with artists on the Eastern Shore to reveal the phenomenon of ghost forests, to showcase their eerie beauty and to raise awareness of our changing coastal environments.

Professor Rita Dove’s Playlist for the Apocalypse Nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry

A New Home for the Arts at UVA: $50 Million Gift Sets Stage for Performing Arts Center

UVA President Jim Ryan announced at a Board of Visitors meeting a $50 million lead gift from Tessa Ader for the building of a performing arts center at the University.

Brighter Together: Beginning Friday, Pop-up Art Will Light Up Grounds

The Projection Mapping shows are part of a project called “Brighter Together,” presented by UVA Arts, the Office of the Provost and Vice Provost for the Arts, and the Division of Student Affairs.

Virginia Commission for the Arts Announces $30,000 in Artist Fellowship Awards Including Two UVA Professors

The Virginia Commission for the Arts has named six Virginia poets to receive Poetry Fellowships in 2022. Fellowships are awarded annually to artists residing in Virginia in recognition of creative excellence. Among the awardees are UVA Professors Debra Nystrom and Kiki Petrosino, along with MFA program alumna and Virginia Tech Professor Erika Meitner.

The Dirt: A review of “The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse”

By UVA Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History Grace Elizabeth Hale. This is a review of “The Dirty South” at the VMFA where it originated and hung until September 6, 2021. The show is now on view at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, through February 6, 2022, and images in this feature are courtesy of that museum. Later, it will travel to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, March 12–July 25, 2022; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, September 2022–February 2023. Please note that the installations will vary in each location.

On the shelf: New reads from alumni and faculty

From academic research to rollicking fiction, UVA alumni and faculty members have been churning out books on a variety of topics. Here’s a look at some of them.

Quick on Its Feet, the UVA Dance Department Continues Their Renowned Programming in Difficult Times

In a year that was particularly hard on best-laid plans, Head and Artistic Director of Dance at UVA Kim Brooks Mata and her colleague Katie Baer Schetlick delayed an official celebration of the milestone 15th anniversary of the UVA Dance minor. However, that certainly didn’t mean they sat idly by during the pandemic. In fact, Brooks Mata and Schetlick were as busy as ever, if not more so, with a spring chock full of performances, guest artists, and rare opportunities for students to see the inner workings of some of America’s finest choreographers and companies.

WTJU's Jazz at 100 Receives a $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts Grant

From 2017 to 2019 WTJU jazz expert Rus Perry took on a rather formidable task. While receiving important technical support from his station colleagues, he was the unstoppable one-man force behind Jazz at 100, a series of 100 hour-long episodes that covered the history and celebrated the centennial of America’s homegrown cultural treasure.