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May Issue 2006

An Appalachian Summer Festival in Boone, NC, Releases the 2006 Schedule

The 2006 season of An Appalachian Summer Festival promises a summer filled with the biggest names in classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, popular, dance and visual arts programming. In addition to this exciting mix, Artistic Director Gil Morgenstern will showcase the exceptional quality of the festival's resident chamber ensemble in the Recital Series, which, along with the notable Works In Progress Series, continues a tradition of patron and artist dialogue rooted in the art salons of the nineteenth century.

Rounding it all out is the much-anticipated outdoor fireworks finale concert, completing a season of arts and entertainment to rival the artistic menus of major cities. Yet, the setting - an art form itself - is far from metropolitan. Nestled in the lovely Blue Ridge Mountains, Boone's cool breezes, starry nights and small-town friendliness offer the perfect stage for an unforgettable encounter with the arts. In July, North Carolina's High Country truly offers "art at a higher altitude."

The Festival begins its Mainstage Series, held in Farthing Auditorium at ASU, on July 1 with a dynamic "bluegrass-meets-newgrass" concert pairing local hero and national treasure Doc Watson with the remarkably unorthodox Sam Bush Band. July 3 continues the holiday weekend of lively entertainment with the Marcus Belgrave Octet's Louis Armstrong Tribute. Belgrave is acclaimed not only for his great technical virtuosity, soulful tone and seemingly limitless improvisational creativity, but also for an on-stage persona that exudes warmth and joy in music-making.

July 8 brings the visual arts to life as the hypnotically unique and progressive Pilobolus dance company performs lively and animated interpretations of humanity and nature that have wowed audiences from coast to coast. The highly acclaimed Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra returns to the Festival in 2006 with two performances that boast superstar guest artist and conductors. On July 9, the orchestra comes to Boone with famed pianist André Watts, and returns to the stage of Farthing Auditorium on July 23 with world-renowned mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. One of America's orchestral jewels, the Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra is the resident faculty ensemble of the nationally renowned Eastern Music Festival in nearby Greensboro, NC, where its members are brought together each summer from the best orchestras across the US.

July 14 brings the José Limón Dance Company to the stage of Farthing Auditorium. Acclaimed for its dramatic expression, technical mastery and expansive yet nuanced movement, the José Limón Dance Company demonstrates both the timeless works of its namesake, José Limón (1908-1972), and the strength of his vision.

On July 15 the Festival will take a trip back to the "good old days" as the legendary Nitty Gritty Dirt Band returns to the stage of Farthing Auditorium after 30 years. The band is known for such classics as Mr. Bojangles, Modern Day Romance, Fishing in the Dark, Fire in the Sky, Baby's Got a Hold on Me, Down the Road Tonight and When it's Gone, but their greatest critical acclaim has been for a 1972 album of country and folk standards, recorded in Nashville in collaboration with more traditional country artists and entitled Will the Circle Be Unbroken.

The North Carolina Symphony, a standard for the Festival, returns to the Farthing stage on July 18 with their well-loved pops concert. Under the baton of the much-admired Resident Conductor William Henry Curry, the symphony will also perform with the university's Hayes School of Music Cannon Music Camp symphonic band and symphony orchestra students in a 12:30pm matinee concert on July 22.

Continuing the season's Saturday night blockbusters is the multi-talented Arlo Guthrie, who will take the stage on July 22 as part of The Guthrie Family Legacy Tour. An artist of international stature who has never had a hit in the usual sense, Guthrie is a natural-born storyteller whose tales and anecdotes figure prominently into his performances. He is the eldest son of America's most beloved singer/writer/philosopher, Woody Guthrie, and Marjorie Mazia Guthrie, who was a professional dancer with the Martha Graham Company. His signature hit, Alice's Restaurant launched him into the public eye, and was later followed by Coming into Los Angeles and City of New Orleans, all of which were largely excluded from traditional radio play.

The season's Mainstage series concludes on July 26 with a rousing evening of Creole dance music performed by four-time Grammy-nominated band Buckwheat Zydeco. Bandleader Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural, Jr. hails from Lafayette, LA, which he describes as "a close-knit community where many black people express their Creole heritage by speaking French and by playing and dancing to zydeco." This hybrid genre blends Afro-Caribbean rhythms and blues with soul, rock, country and the French-rooted Cajun music of the Creole's white neighbors.

The Festival's acclaimed resident chamber group, the Broyhill Chamber Ensemble, will again perform the Festival's Ford Motor Company Chamber Music Recital Serie. Led by Festival Artistic Director Gil Morgenstern (violin), the 2006 season will feature guest artists Edward Aaron (cello), Zuill Bailey (cello), Linda Chesis (flute), Chee-Yun (violin), Jeremy Denk (piano), Andrés Diaz (cello), Rob Falvo (percussion), Jennifer Frautschi (violin), Hsin-Yun Huang (violin), Judith Ingolfsson (violin), Shirley Irek (piano), Mark Kosower (cello), John Leupold (percussion), Kathryn Lockwood (viola), Pedja Muzijevi (piano), Todd Palmer (clarinet), Priscilla Porterfield (mezzo-soprano), Bair Shagdaron (piano), Matt Troncale (percussion), Diane Walsh (piano) and Jay Ware (percussion). The ensemble will appear in concert at Rosen Concert Hall at 8pm on July 2, 6, 12, 19, 24 and 27, and will perform works by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Volkmann, Schumann, Martinu, Schubert and a world premiére by Shih-Hui Chen, among others.

Events designed for a more intimate audience experience include a music-theatre piece entitled The Kreutzer Sonata on July 11. Based on the novella by Leo Tolstoy, it is this year's featured work of the Festival's acclaimed Works in Progress Series, held at ASU's Valborg Theatre. Tolstoy's work, in turn, was inspired by a Beethoven sonata for violin and piano that he dedicated to the preeminent violinist Rudolphe Kreutzer. The Kreutzer Sonata is a staged adaptation written and directed by Margaret Pine. This one-man dramatization features Larry Pine as the narrator Pozdnyshev, with violinist Gil Morgenstern and pianist Shirley Irek performing the adagio and presto of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. Through spoken word and musical interpretation, the writers, director and performers delve into an unhappy marriage rife with suspicion, culminating in a tragic conclusion. In the tradition of the Works in Progress Series, the audience will be invited for a post-performance talkback session.

Other small-venue events include a Gypsy jazz performance at Valborg Theatre starring the John Jorgenson Quintet on July 21. Known as an innovator in the American jazz movement coined "Gypsy jazz" in the 1920s and 30s, John Jorgenson enjoys a varied and continually evolving career. By age 14, he was playing professionally, and his broad musical palette has since enabled him to play with artists as diverse as Elton John, Luciano Pavarotti, Bonnie Raitt and Benny Goodman. The quintet features Jorgenson on lead guitar, clarinet and vocals, Gonzalo Bergara on rhythm guitar, Charlie Chadwick on upright bass, Stephan Dudash on viola and Cesare Valbusa on percussion.

The Festival season will be further enlivened by two educational events, the Belk Distinguished Lecture and the Appalachian Retired Faculty Summer Seminar. Other Festival events include a magnificent Silent Auction and the Festival's Fifth Annual Wine Tasting.

On July 7, the arts focus turns from performing to visual with an opening for three new exhibitions at the university's "place to be" to experience current trends in contemporary art, the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts. In the exhibition Reflections on a Legacy: Vitreographs from Littleton Studios, the Turchin Center assembles an amazing range of prints from a pioneering studio in Western North Carolina. Introduced into modern printmaking by glass artist Harvey K. Littleton in 1974, vitreography has been the focus of creative and technical efforts at Littleton Studios in Spruce Pine, NC, since 1981. Over the years, Littleton has invited painters, printmakers, glass artists and sculptors to create vitreographs at his studios. From this incredible collection, Turchin Center curators have selected works for a luminous and inspiring exhibition to be displayed in the Main Gallery of the Turchin Center's West Wing through Sept. 30.

Of the vitreographs in the Littleton collection, the work of Erwin Eisch attracted the particular attention of the Turchin Center curators, and they created a complimentary exhibition that presents ten works of historical and contemporary significance. Entitled Kristallnacht - Night of the Crystal Death, this portfolio confronts the horror of a nationwide pogrom against German Jews that took place on the night of Nov. 9, 1938. The horrific attack, which was orchestrated by the German government to seem a spontaneous uprising of the German people, portended the Holocaust. Nearly all German synagogues, and many cemeteries and Jewish businesses were destroyed in a few hours, and estimates of up to 2,500 deaths are attributed to the event, either from direct riot violence or the resulting 30,000 arrests and concentration camp internments of German Jews. The name Kristallnacht itself is a source of some controversy, because the term connotes the original sardonic intent of Nazi propaganda to associate the events which, for most Germans, comprise a repulsive piece of history, with a glamorous metaphor. Eisch, who has childhood memories of Kristallnacht, hails from the Eastern Bavarian village of Frauneau, famed for its glass blowing and cutting. Eisch's medium is also glass, and he has created his Kristallnacht portfolio as a means to "relieve some of the clinging shame that weighs down upon us Germans, and to bring courage to all those who oppose hate and violence and the destruction of the environment, today and forever." Kristallnacht - Night of the Crystal Death will be exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery of the Turchin Center's West Wing through Sept. 30.

Also on July 7, Appalachian alumnus Daniel Keeler Kaple will open his exhibit 34 Years and a Wake Up, in which he focuses on landmark moments, people and events from the history of his lifetime as a means of examining how he related to and was directly affected by them. He references history through the personalized lenses of youth, adolescence and early adulthood as a means of exploring the ways in which significant aspects of the past 34 years are connected through media, personal experience and everyday life. Kaple's work will be on display in the Catwalk Community Gallery of the Turchin Center's West Wing through July 29.

The Turchin Center also programs the Festival's popular visual arts workshop series, which will include workshops for art enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels. The summer workshop season runs from June through August. A full workshop schedule may be found at (www.tcva.org).

This year, the Festival is proud to celebrate its 20th season of the Annual Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition and Competition. Made possible by the generosity of longtime festival supporters Martin and Doris Rosen, this national, juried competition continues a long-held tradition of showcasing the best of large-scale, contemporary American sculpture. Works by ten finalists are situated in outdoor, public settings across the campus of Appalachian State University. Each year, the juror leads a walking tour of the exhibition, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of contemporary sculpture from the perspective of a leading expert in the filed. The juror for the 2006 competition and exhibition is Michael Klein, Executive Director of the International Sculpture Center, an organization dedicated to demonstrating the power of sculpture to educate and effect social change. A much-anticipated event for lovers of the visual arts, this year's Sculpture Walk will begin at 10am on July 29, at the Catherine J. Smith Gallery, located in the lobby of Farthing Auditorium. The announcement of the winning artist will immediately follow. Additional information and maps of the sculpture sites may be obtained at (www.rosensculpture.org).

The Festival's culmination, a lively Outdoor Fireworks Concert, held on July 29 and sponsored by Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, will bring an evening of spectacular entertainment to the Boone community at the university's Kidd Brewer Stadium, headlined by country music star John Michael Montgomery. The show will open with a rousing performance by up-and-coming country musicians Cowboy Crush. Quickly becoming known for their high-energy performances, the all-female band members are said to sing like angels, play like demons, and have more fun while they're doing it than anyone you've ever seen onstage.

From his debut album, Life's a Dance, to his latest, Letters from Home, John Michael Montgomery has garnered respect from the industry for his consistent appeal and unrelenting standards of quality. With 15 number-one singles, 16 million albums sold and a line of awards crowding his mantle, he long ago achieved his initial dreams of becoming a country music star.

The evening will conclude with the traditional fireworks display that has become the grand finale to this celebration of the arts.

An Appalachian Summer Festival would be unable to present and publicize its wide range of extraordinary programming without critical private funding sources, including a loyal and generous donor base and a group of outstanding corporate and media sponsors that are dedicated to promoting the arts in our region. Festival sponsors include: Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, SkyBest Communications, Laurelmoró A Ginn Club Resort, Ford Motor Company, Mast General Store, Best Western-Blue Ridge Plaza, Footsloggers, The Inn at Crestwood, Peabody's Wine and Beer Merchants, The Mountain Times, the Watauga Democrat, the Winston-Salem Journal, the High Country News, Mountain Television Network, Charter Communications, MAC 100.7FM, WECR 102.3FM, WETS 89.5FM, WDAV 89.9FM, WFDD 88.5FM, WNCW 88.7FM and WASU 90.5FM.

Tickets for An Appalachian Summer Festival events are on sale now, and are available online at (www.appsummer.org), or by calling the festival Box Office at 800-841/ARTS(2787) or locally at 828/262-4046. Prices range from $5-$25. Subscriptions for both the Mainstage and Recital Series offer preferred seating and a 10% discount. Box Office hours are 10am-5pm, Mon.-Fri., with Sat. hours beginning June 10.

For more info contact Megan Hayes, Marketing Director, at 828/262-6084. x104.

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