The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - David McCormick And Emily Hartka Joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

David McCormick, Artistic Director of the Early Music Access Project, and Emily Hartka, Co-Director of Charlottesville Ballet, joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc, Castle Hill Cider, and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Alex, this is Xavier. We're very excited to have you join us this morning on a chilly morning here in Charlottesville, Virginia. The sun is out, there's the fresh air, the nice crisp wind. So I said over the last week or so right I've had like three or four conversations with clients and every single one of them has told me that they're beginning to enjoy outdoors again. And just people just love the fact that the the Sun doesn't set as early and comes up a little early. You know just having that Sun out a little longer

in daylight just makes you that energy level just begins to pick up in you. Right? Oh exactly. I think the Sun is a major, for me at least, it's a major factor in my energy level. It's like Superman. He just goes out there, goes like this, and all of a sudden, boom. He's strong again. I'll take that. We all would. So, for me, yes, it's important. It just gives you so much

vibrancy. Yeah, it does. When you open your eyes in the morning and there's some light coming through as opposed to darkness. And then, I think, you know, encourage people to go out, do more, check out some fun things. Always, darkness. I think it encourages people to go out, do more, check out some fun things. Always, yeah. I mean, it's always much more fun when

it's, one, a little warmer in daylight, or even if you get home, it's like, oh, I've got to go out. No big deal. You get home, you change, you do what you have to do, and you go out. In the winter, you get home, it's already dark, it's already cold, it's like, I think I'd rather just cut up on the sofa, read a book, or watch a program, whatever it may be. Exactly.

Yeah, so it's, and you know, I mean, Charlottesville is a place where there's always something knowing on. There's always a lot to go out and do and see. Exactly, yeah. So that's, if there wasn't, we wouldn't have a show. If there weren't a lot of things to do, we would have run out of guests about two years ago or something like that. So we're excited to be here, thrilled, of course, to be on the Alley of Civil Network set with Judah behind the camera. A couple of thanks, of course, to our presenter, Emergent Financial Services, to our great partners, Matias Yon

Realty, Credit, Serious Insurance, Forward Adelante. We appreciate them all tuning in and joining us. We've got some great guests coming in this morning. We're going to be joined shortly by David McCormick for the Early Music Access Project and later in the show by Emily Harker, co-founder and director at Charlottesville Ballet. So I just want to say

one other thing before we get going, right? So my beautiful wife, notice I said you know, the words. I used the appropriate words. I'm getting brownie right? So my beautiful wife, notice I said the words, I used the appropriate words, I'm getting brownie points here. My beautiful wife watches lately a lot of YouTube on things that she enjoys, right? Whether it be cooking or sewing or whatever it may be, right?

And it's funny because no matter what she watches they're always saying, because I know I'm supposed to say they're always saying, and if you like this show and they do this, they go hit the like and share button. Of course, on the TV, there's no like and share button. I guess only on the computer. So I'm watching.

I said, what are we supposed to press? There's nothing to press here, right? But anyway, for this show, please like, share, and subscribe. Yep, exactly. Well, if you're on Facebook, the like button is right there. And actually, it's more important than I think people realize because Facebook is not a super intuitive thing. In other words, if you don't hit like, I can't know that you're watching. It doesn't tell me.

I can see that there's a bunch of eyeballs watching. But if you never click like, when I say that, I mean literally there like a little eyeball symbol on Facebook and it tells me you got like this many people watching but if you don't click like I can't know it's you so I can't give you the shouting you know because I've had people come up to us at events and say oh yeah I watch your show every week

and I sit down and I'm like I don't tell this to them right but I'm thinking I feel bad because I have no idea who you are because you never clicked like because I have no idea who you are. Because you never clicked like, so I have no idea that you've been watching this show prodigiously. And otherwise I'd give you a shout out. I'd be like, you know, this is our fantastic viewer, so and so. So be sure to do that.

This way I can give you a shout out. When you said eyes, I kept thinking the Luis Manuel eye, you know. Oh, the artistic eye is like I think in the Luis Manuel eye, you know. Oh, the artistic eye. You know, I was thinking the old, back in the day before the dot-com bubble, that instead of, because all those companies in the dot-com bubble had negative price-to-earnings ratios, they didn't make any money. Exactly. So they were like, no, no, no, price-to-eyeball is the new ratio.

So even though this company makes no money, it's valued $8 for every eyeball that watches, that visits the Internet. No math. Their website, right? That's right. That didn't work out too well for them. So you should not buy a company based on price to eyeball ratio because that can go bad quickly. That's right. But, oh, double shout out, UVA did win last night.

Oh, they did? Thank goodness. Okay. Nitalis and I, we managed to pull the magic out again last week. Okay.

So are you putting pressure on me or something? Does it mean that I'm on the show and they're playing this week or something? Every time we gripe on the show

that UVA isn't playing well, they come out and then they win again. They played Boston College last night, right? They played Boston College last night and they did manage to pull out the win. But we're still going to gripe that they can play better. This way they'll win again at Duke.

They could play better. We need that. Oh, that's right. It was Duke. That would be nice. That would make our season. So just a little shout-out there. Okay.

And I don't know about you, but I'm excited. I'm very excited. Music, ballet, dance.. I'm very excited. Music. Music, ballet, dance. Some of my favorite things. I love. Talk about something that makes you feel good.

Music and dancing makes you feel just as good. Exactly. And we have two great organizations that are going to be joining us on today's show with upcoming events. So you can. Which is why they're here, I'm sure. Yeah. Well, as you learn about them, I'm sure as you learn about them it's not like you learn about them like oh man I have to wait a year to go

see the next season, no there is some upcoming stuff so we're excited to welcome first to the show this morning David McCormick from the Early Music Access Project, David thanks so much for coming back on it's great to be here again always love having you on for those new to the program I think it's been a little bit, and we've definitely got some new viewers,

tell us a little bit about what, remind us, what is early music access classroom? When people hear that early music, what should they be thinking of? Yeah, you know, a lot of people think that I work with preschoolers. We occasionally do concerts for kids, but actually what early music is is usually it is music of like the medieval renaissance or baroque period and we are playing on reproductions or original instruments of that time to really

recreate that sound world and the project, early music access project is about bringing that music to as many people locally as possible and doing it in interesting ways. We often do collaborations or sort of experimental things, things that you might not get to hear or see other places around town. Absolutely.

I think a great example of this, right, because, okay, you know, you've got, I think people think, sometimes I think people tend to lump all classes of music together, so when you've got, I think people think, sometimes I think people tend to lump all classical music together. So when you tell them, no, there's a difference between medieval and Baroque and like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and later, they're like, oh man, I don't know what that could possibly be. But I think a great example of this is what was recently, one of your recent performances, which was Cupid and Death,

and it's a mask, M-A-Q-U-E. Tell us a little bit about that and what it is and how it happens, because I think that will kind of give people an idea that this is not the same as going and watching a symphony. Yeah, this was really fun. So an English mask is basically opera, but not quite. So it's right before sort of opera had its heyday and there's a lot of spoken dialogue which you don't find in opera and what was really cool about this is that we got to do it at the Blackfriars Theater in Stanton, which is just the perfect venue for an English mask. It's the right time period, it's the right venue, and we really did it up

with full costumes and dancers and actors and singing and a small Baroque orchestra and all of it. It was really fun and it sort of brought. It's a great example of what we do because it brought a bunch of different elements together in collaboration, including the folks at Mary Baldwin University who are studying Shakespeare and performance who were extremely excited about the librettist for this English mask, James Shirley. There were two folks who were like, oh, I know the guy who's working on the complete works, James Shirley, there were two folks who were like, I know the guy who is working on the complete works of James Shirley. I was like, wow, that is even nerdy for me.

So basically it's almost like going to see, because I think people, you think of opera and they sing through the whole dramatic story. But this was almost like going to see a play with music and songs kind of interwoven throughout it, in a sense. Yeah, it's like if Shakespeare wrote musicals. Yes. Yes, like the musicals of today, right? Or not really today, but like the one that the opera had last year. Oh, Serge Viva had last year had the Dyson Dolls.

Yeah, musicals of the 50s, 60s. And then comes music, but only in the antique times, the early times. In a different style. And I love the notion also, I think, of using the period instruments. Because that's underappreciated. I'm surprised there's even instruments that still exist. I mean, are they renovated? I mean, do they restore them?

Or, you know, do they make them from scratch? It takes a lot of love and care to get an instrument from that period into playing shape. But if you think about it, the instruments of Stradivarius are still being played today. A lot of those have been modernized. So if you're hearing Joshua Bell play a Stradivarius, his has been modernized. The neck has been moved,

and different strings have been put on it and all of that. But there are some that are in original condition and those are really fun to play the Smithsonian has a few and I know some of the folks over at the Smithsonian and have gotten to play some of them and it's wild you feel the energy of hundreds of years of really good violinists coursing through the veins of that instrument it's pretty cool and probably and i don't know how it is with violins and so forth but i remember once hearing a uh recording it was

um an album and of a pianist playing beethoven's piano sonatas it was she had all of them on a period instrument and what you realize it does not sound the same. It is a very different... Now, the notes are the same, but the feel of it and just the way the piano worked at the time is a very different feel. There's only so much you can do in volume.

You can't press as hard on an old piano as you can on a new one. And it has a very... It's not a harpsichord, if you know the ding-ding-ding sound of a harpsichord. It's not a harpsichord, but it's somewhere between a modern piano and a harpsichord. And you just get this thrill where you're like, when Beethoven wrote this, that's how it sounded in his ears. It did not sound like you go hear it in a concert hall today. It sounded like that.

And is it similar when you have the, is there a slight difference that you get the sensation of, okay, that's what it would have sounded like at that era as opposed to the modern changed, updated version? Yeah, and it can be shocking. I mean, we think of Beethoven as being bombastic and loud. And he was for his day.

He was maxing out the instruments of the day. I mean, the forte piano of Beethoven's era, I'm sure that he broke more than one. I would imagine. You know, I mean, the way they were doing the violins probably popped some strings every once in a while. Yeah. Well, and it's this change.

As concert halls got bigger, violinists and pianists wanted to reach the back of the hall. And so they were looking for innovations that would make the sound louder. And that's how the instruments changed over time. Absolutely. That's a good point. But I was thinking what you just said, right? I mean, I can imagine because my suspicion is that, you know, the great composers hear what they want to write. It's not like they write and they say, let me see what it sounds.

And that's not good, right? They hear what they want. So they're hearing it based on what is available at the time, right? And so you're right. I mean, so it's interesting to be curious to, like, how did those, you know, piano concertos or violin concertos, you know, how did they sound at that time versus what they sound like today? But David's right. I mean, at that time, probably the halls were, you know, you could fit maybe 100 people. And now it's like, you know, you've got more than hundreds of people in these huge halls.

And you have to, you know, the guy in the back has to be able to hear it, too. Yeah. But the first time I touched a Baroque violin and just heard the sound of the Baroque bow hitting the organic strings, the gut strings, I was like, oh. It actually, you start to understand immediately what the composers were trying to say. It sometimes doesn't make sense on the modern instruments. You're like, well, this sounds good,

but I'm not really sure why they wrote that. and you immediately get it and then um there are all these treatises that composers and theorists were writing about how music should be performed and those are really interesting sometimes you actually find out by the way that someone complains about something that they're really both things were happening right like some people were using this much vibrato and some people were using this much vibrato the fact that somebody complained about it means that the other thing was happening well sometimes you'll read like the composer's like in his notes you'll see his complaints like ah i can't reach this note with this instrument so i have to use a different one and so you see and then it makes you wonder

well would he have used today's modern instrument for that note and he just couldn't or would he have still stuck with what he ended up deciding on so it's just fascinating to think about it and just to go and experience what you bring in early music

access project that you can kind of go back in time a little bit and and listen to both the interesting part obviously this was an older piece so this was a piece um the um cupid and dead was a mask written at that time for those instruments but i know upcoming is going to be a new piece written in the style of that but with some modern twists. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, this is where I start to lose people.

They get a little confused. Wait, you're doing old music and you're doing new music? I even had somebody at the National Endowment for the Arts say to me, you're going to have to really explain that to us. And I thought, okay, maybe I've gone too weird. But it's really fun to

work with living composers because you can ask them questions. And so for this project, James Dargan has written us a new Latin mass. So it's taking these ancient texts and some of the ancient techniques of setting these texts, but definitely putting a modern twist on it, taking advantage of the qualities of our old instruments, but really speaking to today. And James is someone who grew up in the black church tradition. His father was actually a scholar of black church music. He went around with his father doing field recordings of historic black churches. And so this mass is infused with those sounds and with sort of the theology of the black church. How interesting.

So that kind of spiritual gospel tradition melded with techniques and forms that date from medieval times. And we are combining this new work with some old works of Bach and Bux De Huda to kind of tie it all together and to make it make a little more sense, what we're doing. And so the new and old will sort of speak to each other in that way. Will those words be interspersed within or kind of bookending the Latin mass? They're going to be interspersed.

It's a technique we sort of developed a couple of years ago. We did a concert of music from Monticello, sacred music from Monticello, and we took the Pergolesi Stabat Mater that was in Jefferson's collection and interspersed it with spirituals that would have been heard in Charlottesville and at Monticello at that time and we liked that technique

so much of melding new and old or different styles that we kept it for this project. It's the same musicians actually and the same musicians, actually, and the same composer. James actually did the arrangements of the spirituals for us two years ago. Oh, okay. Oh, that's interesting.

That's amazing that he was able to come back and now compose a brand new work for you guys. And who found the text? For the mass? So that is the traditional Latin mass text. Although I will say there are a couple of surprises. I'll just say that, you know, the sort of the, you know, the shout of glory that you hear in a black church, the Gloria has a bit of that in it. And there's a couple of other moments that are not exactly what you would expect from the

Latin Mass text. That is an old and greatly appreciated setting for music. I remember that Midless actually told me this once, that when the Catholic Church changed from the traditional Latin Mass in the 60s to the new De Novo's order that they changed the way that the Mass was one of the greatest outcries

there was actually a letter, a petitionary letter for them not to do this signed by not who you would expect, tons of artists and writers and musicians but as they said, we have been writing music for this text for hundreds of years and we want to continue doing it. Please don't change it. And they

changed it anyway for what you do in the Sunday Mass. But there are still people like Arvo Part was the Oratory Society last year. There are still composers who will write music who since then have continued to write a setting for the Latin Mass, even though when you go to Mass on Sundays, that is not typically the Mass that you hear anymore. But I mean, it dates,

I think it dates at least to the 1400s, portions of it probably even earlier. But it's always the same with, there's a couple changes here and there about how you can bring out certain elements of it. I think every composer puts a little bit of a stamp on it. Beyond just their musical setting, they will find elements of the text

or add some text in it to make it relevant to the time that they're in. Exactly, yeah. To connect people to it, especially since it is in Latin. So it has that, you have to get over that little hump and just appreciate the

music more. What are some of the instruments that, what's the arrangement that people can kind of expect? So we have three amazing vocalists, excuse me, two violinists, Viola de Gamba, which is like a cello, but has six strings and frets. So it's like the best of a lute and a cello kind of put together.

It's a gorgeous sound. And then we have a violone player, which is like a double bass version of that so it has the frets as well and organ and organ yeah we have an amazing organist she is newly part of the faculty at university of michigan she's coming for this performance and she'll be playing a beautiful small chamber organ at christ episcopal church but also the big organ at christ oh there will be both yeah oh yes i mean for people who have never it is a pleasure that i mean it's it's i think a unique thing that you can do that you're hosting this at christ episcopal church that is that's where it's being performed because i think one of the experiences people very infrequently have is the a large organ because most of the time if you're going to a concert hall

and it doesn't have an organ built into it, what you're going to hear is the chamber organ, the smaller one, which is still a beautiful sound, especially when it's in the background. But you don't quite get the force of someone pressing on an actual real organ. So the fact that you can do this in a setting with a large organ, I think people will attend.

They're going to get a real treat out of that. It's definitely an immersive experience. It's coming at you from all angles. It fills the church with music. And every organ is designed for the church that it's in to fill that space. One of the coolest experiences I've had is hearing the organ at Duke Chapel, which is an enormous building.

And that organ has been designed to fill that space. Wow. And the organist is almost disconnected from the sounds that are coming out of the pipes. They have to kind of play ahead of what's happening in the room. Yes. Great. Well, that's a talent of great organists. You have to be able to, you're

actually slightly off from the rest of an orchestra when you play with them. So you have to be slightly ahead of them because there's a slight delay of what you can hear versus what you're playing. Which is always always a fascinating aspect of it and i believe the now is the uh did i read it right that the composer is also singing yes yeah he's yeah one of the three vocalists yeah he's um the baritone soloist for this concert he's a really fantastic singer um and i asked him to

write for himself um it's really it's And I asked him to write for himself. It's really fun to have composers write for themselves because they know exactly what they can do. I would hope so. Although the funny part is he's been having a lot of back and forth conversations with the other two vocalists. And I think in some ways he's challenging

them to go beyond slightly what they might be comfortable with. And he's probably written himself the most comfortable part. Sorry, James. That's the advantage of being the composer, right? Ultimately, you're kind of in charge of how the notes are going to look on the page. So the three vocalists are baritone and what are the other two? We have a soprano and a countertenor.

Countertenor? That's a new word for me. So this is a male singer who is singing basically mezzo-soprano parts. Interesting. Yeah. It is meant to sort of emulate the castrato sound of the Baroque era. Okay, yes. It's not the same.

There is no substitute for that horrible practice. Yes. It created voices that had enormous range and enormous depth. And that is not the sort of falsetto range. The falsetto male range doesn't have that depth but actually Patrick Daly is one of the most rich countertenor voices I've ever heard

and he will be here for this concert and it's he has made me believe in every word he's ever sung that's beautiful that you can do it. And I think that's another, I think,

thing that people would appreciate when they attend something put on by early music. At this project, sometimes it's not only that you will hear older versions, like antique versions of instruments that you're familiar with. You will hear instruments and voices that you just don't hear anymore.

In other words, most modern pieces, even if you went to go hear tenors, if you went to the opera, you're not going to get a lot of counter tenors that are playing, that are in the opera. Most of the time I think what used to be the castrati is now a female singer. They'll use a mezzo soprano or something in the opera for what used to would have been a male part right we don't do that

that is changing at places like the Met they are hiring countertenors now if they do baroque operas that's fantastic I'm glad to hear that and then you'll also hear instruments like the viola da jamba and so forth that almost are never by the time you get to your most famous classical works they're not being written

for yeah so you don't often hear those instruments so it's a great way to experience you know i've you know when i when i've listened to someone say wow i've never heard that sound before in my life because you just how often do you hear that instrument which no longer is in the modern repertoire and as we know listening live is so much different than listening like through a cd or or your you know phone or whatever people listen these days right because i know when we go to the symphonies it's just you hear you hear everything you just partly maybe because visually you're also looking and you're hearing how that instrument sounds,

but there's nothing like it. So when you're able to do something like this and listen to these old instruments and these voices, it's got to bring you back. And these instruments really are made for spaces like this. I always use the word organic when I'm describing like a Baroque violin because it's got the sheep gut strings and everything is wood or horsehair or whatever and there's not a lot of like metal and so forth on these instruments and it really resonates in rooms like at Christ

Episcopal where there's wood and stone. Those are the spaces, the kinds of spaces those instruments were designed for and they're just really happy there and they resonate there was a trade off here we got louder instruments but that resonance, that sort of beauty of sound there is no replacement for that

we just have to play in halls that make sense for that, for those instruments. I love that's what you're able to do. It's not like it's a tiny church, but you're bringing a sense of intimacy, I think, sometimes when you do it in a setting that's not a massive

concert hall. You feel a little closer to the music and to the musicians that are playing or singing in this case. Yeah. I personally, it's a non-sustainable model, but I always love playing for just like 10 or 20 people in a house and you can see every person's reaction to every note you play. It can be intimidating, but it's also just the most beautiful thing to just understand immediately the reactions and the impact that your music's having.

Absolutely. I agree. David, what else is, I mean, anything else that people should be aware of that's new or happening or that they should be looking forward to with early music? Well, I will just mention, it may be a few months before this comes to fruition, but last year, or back in June, we did a concert in the Rotunda of music from Monticello, which was all fiddle music from Monticello, from the black fiddlers who lived and worked there, and we recorded

that concert. Virginia Humanities gave us money to turn that into a documentary, so that is coming. I don't know when. It's going to take a while to kind of finish up a few interviews and then edit it and put it all together and get it distributed. But people can look out for that. It's an opportunity for anyone, anywhere, to see what we do.

It's a really beautiful project. We got to play in the Rotunda with the planetarium lights on the ceiling. The visuals are really stunning, and the music is great. We had experts in fiddling come and work with us. It's just a whole new skill set. Yeah. Elevated skill set that is just amazing when you can see what they can do with a fiddle. Yeah.

That's going to be really neat. So people should keep an eye on the documentary sometime in the next few months especially if you missed the Fiddler concert last year as I did sadly keep an eye out for this we were only able to squeeze in about 150 people to that concert because of the size of the rotunda

and the size of the chairs at the rotunda. They're a little oversized. So at any rate, it'll be an opportunity for folks to hear that. Absolutely. That's going to be fantastic. And I just want to shout out about Cupid and Death. I almost forgot to do this.

Because Charlottesville Ballet is here, we had a dancer from Charlottesville Ballet in our production. We had two dancers and they were brilliant and it was just really great to be able to collaborate in that way and I'm just so thankful that we have dance in this community. I am a former dancer. I danced here in Charlottesville as a kid in the Mickey List Dance Company. It's really cool to see that dance is still really a vibrant part of the

community. It is a beautiful thing. It's something we have here that not every city of our size can say that they have this quality like Charlottesville Ballet has of dance here that you can experience. That's a great, helpful set-away for us. That's what I'm here for,

to help you. We said, how can we set-away to Charlottesville Ballet? Well, let's just have David come on. But David, where can people, really important, because I know the mass is coming up on Sunday, March 10th.

Are there still tickets available, or do people need to look for at-the-door tickets? We have online and at-the-door. EarlyMusicSeaville.org is the website for that. All of our social media is Early Music Seaville. So we're easy to find. Tickets are definitely still available and we would love to have people come out. I just want to reiterate, this is a concert of sacred music, but it's not a church service. So you don't have to feel like you have to believe every word that's being said.

Please just come and enjoy the beautiful music regardless of your tradition. It's going to be a really phenomenal concert. Yeah, when you listen to a traditional Latin Mass, you do not have to go up and get communion. They don't actually do that part. It's just the music. There's no sermon. Yes, there's no sermon.

All right, there you are. Well, David, thank you so much again for coming on. Always love having you and learning about our lives. It's always fun to be here. Thank you, guys. Thank on always thank you absolutely having you and learning it's always fun to be here yeah thank you guys thank you thank you and be sure to check out a mass on sunday march 10th at 7 30 at christ episcopal church early music seville.org that's great i mean just that you know the thought of that organ in that church yeah i mean i just i just i love i mean there's been a couple of times where I've had the opportunity to listen to an organ in a particular church,

and it's just the older the organ, the more you realize how powerful these instruments are when you're there. You just sit there and go, wow. Exactly. And so we'll go ahead and transition here. By the way, when you were in Germany, did you not? I did. I experienced an organ in Germany. I was lucky enough, I was fortunate.

So my beautiful wife's uncle is an organist. He is the music director and organist. I mean, he plays like five instruments, but the organist for her local church in Bavaria. Yeah, I remember you told me that. We were lucky enough that we attended Mass there the morning before we had to leave. And he let us sit in the choir loft. Oh, okay.

And I mean, just the power that you feel when you hear the Ordinance right next to you. I know. It's just an amazing, amazing experience. And he was really nice about it. He had found out from us what song, what hymn they had played when Elizabeth walked down the aisle in our after party.

Oh, okay. And he played that song as the, not the entrance, but the exit hymn. Okay. As soon as the service ended, he played that song. He knew it. He knew how to play it on the orchestra.

That's a ringtone on your phone, isn't it? It is. Okay, that's why she calls. That's how I always know. Just for your wife. Exactly. Just for my wife. Exactly.

It's my wife's ringtone. No, no. That's how I know she's calling. Exactly. A couple shout-outs here. Linda McCormick, thanks for watching this morning. David Wood, Catherine Miranda, Enrique Reynosa, Bill McChesney, Terry Tidner, Mike Romaine, Bill Stewart, thank you all

so much for tuning in this morning. And I believe Provi Garcia Sedara from Spain watching this morning. So we have muchisimas gracias. So we've got all the way from Spain viewing us this morning. Love when we have our international audience. Absolutely, no doubt about it.

Always an exciting moment. And another exciting thing is to take up David's fantastic segue. We are really happy to bring on to the show this morning Emily Harker. She is co-founder and one of the directors at Charlottesville Ballet. Emily, thanks so much for coming on this morning. Thanks for having me. Con mucho gusto. I'm going to give you this.

We can talk in Spanish now. Maldísima. No, no, no. Careful, David will do the whole interview. No, no, no, please don't. My au pair, Susana, is from Colombia. She is my teacher, but I'm a terrible student. That's all I got.

We'll leave it at that. I've been so excited to have you on. I was lucky enough to serve with Sarah, one of the other co-founders for CIC, Community Investment Collaborative. Always wanted to have you guys on because I'm a big fan of the Nutcracker, and you put that on every year and did a beautiful job this past December. But I said, you know what? Let's find a time when we have a lot of things coming up. And I know you have definitely some things coming up to perform that's just coming up with Charlottesville Ballet.

But maybe for those who are kind of new to the program, maybe haven't been to the Nutcracker yet, maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and how you and Sarah founded Charlottesville Ballet. Sure. Well, Sarah and I, this is now our 16th season. We are co-founders and directors. We founded, I was like 20 when we founded this company and our whole mission is health and wellness. It is national, it's eating disorders awareness week. So that is happening 26 through March, March 3rd. So I struggled with 10 years of that. And we, you know, multiple ankle surgeries and injuries are so common because

this field, yes, it's the arts, but they're also athletes. And so we wanted, this has been a grand journey to see, could we make a healthy ballet company? And now 16 years into this grand experiment, we have, gosh, a $1.6 million dollar organization we have a professional company of dancers from all across the world that's why sarah couldn't be here today she's auditioning candidates for next season um and then in addition we have extensive community work so we have a school now with 700 students ages one and a half to 92. And then in the public schools, we're back now with Chance to Dance. We have a Movement for Parkinson's class.

We do a Silver Swans with the Center at Belvedere. Oh, that's wonderful. And we're now back touring with libraries and community centers, and all of our CB moves is the free engagement programs that we do across the state of Virginia. So it's a big, you know, tendrils of programs.

Well, I think that's one of the things I loved best about it, is that it's ballet, right? And so you have the professional ballet. Like the Nutcracker. Yeah, exactly. But you do a lot to say, all right, how can we bring in the community and introduce them to dance and ballet

without all the pressure that comes with, if you think about the big famous ballet companies, that no ordinary person could ever access that. Well, right, that's the whole mission. The ballerina does not have to be a skinny, white woman. That is their history and that's, again, that is the beautiful heritage that we have. But we wanted to say, how can we challenge that and bring it to modern day so that, you know, the normal people, the civilians are like, oh, I love the ballet. And that we see different, you know, body shades and sizes and shapes. And that's really what we're all about is community building through ballet. The other thing I like about it, so, you know, I was very fortunate because my parents worked in that field when they were in New York.

So I got to go to operas and ballets, right? And the nice thing about, I like operas, but I like ballets even better, only because when you're, especially when you're young, right, you, you know, the opera can sometimes be a little overwhelming. There's just a lot of singing, a lot going on, and they don't speak your language. So you've got to be reading a libretto, and it's like, felt like homework more than enjoyment sometimes, right? However, when you go to ballet, you're actually watching people dance, right? But the thing that I thought always was intriguing to me,

or what I liked about it was, I enjoyed the music, right? So in the background, you listen to this beautiful music, but you're watching people dance, right? So I always said that ballet is a great introduction, in my opinion, right? To classical music, to allow people to say, hey, let's go watch this performance. It's people dancing and, I mean, they're beautiful. I mean, this ballet is

wonderful dancers, right? And what they do is, like, most people just can't do, right? And so you watch this tremendous athlete's dance, right, but you're also listening to this classical music and it just gets you into, like, you know, like Alex, I mean, what is your favorite ballet of all? Swan Lake

I have an annual ritual at least twice a year I don't even need to be watching when you were young it seemed like every week there was some piece of Swan Lake being played absolutely I agree completely it's that beautiful combination of the visual

with the musical together. And accessible is true. You don't need to know a foreign language. It's universal. To comprehend it. Absolutely. So you mentioned it, some of the groups that Charlotte's Relay serves in the community. What are different ways that

people get involved and connected? I think our education programs are the biggest thing. So we now, we've been up Route 29 North Studios there and we expanded to, I walked here, from Ix Art Park, we have a studio there. So that's been a big opportunity for expansion. We have over

150 classes a week. So that's been a huge entry point. Like, yay, come see the Nutcracker and then sign up for the adult ballet class. Or, hey, my dad just got diagnosed with Parkinson's like I'm going to come to that Friday afternoon free class so we have a lot of people that come see a performance and then they're like oh wait

let's engage with these other educational offerings and then we're doing a lot of work again in the community so we're going to the public schools we're at the libraries we're doing a collaboration with Tom Tom and then this upcoming outdoor series that we'll chat about is a wonderful thing. So, Sarah, this is the second annual year.

Not second annual. Second time. We did it in 2022 during the COVID era, right? We were all coming out of COVID, and we said, we're making dance happen. We're going to do the outdoor series. And this was Emily's crazy brain. It said, let's bring's bring like all these arts partners the symphony the opera the oratorio society and let's bring them outside because

nobody wants to have fear like I gotta take my kid to daycare I can't risk getting sick but we are gonna make the arts happen so it was super family friendly like have there's wine bring the dog it was perfect so Charlottes. And we basically constructed an outdoor venue hosted at Mary Mill Farm and Vineyards. The Pelley family, they're students, and they are hosting the second 2024 outdoor series. That will be April 26th through 28th. So tell us what can people expect? I mean, talk about collaboration. I mean, it is yourselves.

I know it's Charlottesville Symphony, Charlottesville Opera. Wow. From Ports, UVA Chamber Singers, Oratorio Society in Virginia. Is this like continuous for three days? You just keep going? Yep, it's a bunch of shows. It basically starts Friday night at 7 o'clock

with the ballet and songs. So that'll be the Front Porch and the Oratorio, UVA Chamber Singers. So again, this is our vision of collaborative performances, kind of like David was saying. Let's get the dancers, let's get the singers, let's get all these different people together and creating some commissioned works,

some new works that tell the stories of our time, not just the beautiful. The Swan is lovely, but what are some of these unique programs that we can commission composing and singing and dancing all together. So it'll start Friday night at 7 o'clock. There's a show Saturday morning.

We're actually partnering with UVA's Accessible Theater Project. We'll have a free sensory-friendly show of our Snow White, which is really important to us to make sure that we're doing that kind of work. And then 3 o'clock will be a ballet plus symphony. So that's all the other collaborators, including we missed Hi-Fits over the mountain. Hi-Fits Institute will be collaborating with the youth orchestras of central virginia and there's everything from like a bassoon ensemble to tap dancing to you name it there's wow so it's kind of like a series of shorter

yep about an hour-long concert and it's programmed we're working on some of those collaborations nailing them down now to say hey opera, opera folks, what do you guys actually, now that you have your singers booked and flying them in from New York or wherever they're flying in from, and what can our audiences expect to see from each person? Each group will have their own version of the, you know, 10 minutes of their own material.

And then these curated collaborations with different groups from all directions. That's pretty neat. Yeah. That's a good idea. It's been really fun, and I think one of the pieces is called Sorrowful Songs. It's a Heinrich Gorecki score that our pianist,

her name is Catherine Nee, she's worked with us for 10 years. Yes, we've had her on the show actually before. So Catherine has created, this has been five years in the making, it premiered back in February, and it'll be hosted outside, but it'll be her creating a

five-minute, basically, score condensed from a full symphony with Christina Fleming as the soprano. So she's taken the Polish text from what was written on a Gestapo prison cell. So it's this beautiful blending and basically

condensing down into the Sorrowful Songs project that one of our dancers, Catherine Tokar Conley, has made a beautiful work. It's a soprano, a pianist, and a dancer that are telling this story. It's one of those. It makes me tear up just thinking about it. These are the types of collaborations and things we always love to do, and then having commissions and arts partners that help present those to

our audiences that's amazing that really is yeah i just i love the idea you can experience and it's a good way i think a good introductory way for people maybe who haven't gone to a full-fledged performance to get a taste of everything this is a little bit of what opera might be like exactly my husband's like i'm not an opera guy. I'm like, come and if you get these little bite-sized things and then now he's like, yeah, you know what? I do like opera.

So I look at that and I'm like, okay, I don't know much about the Oratorio Society but then you see them. You see they're 55 singers with this beautiful

outdoor thing, you know, with wine and the dogs and the kids and it's like, okay, I've been to this and now I can go see more.

I can seek out more in my community. Absolutely. It's a good way to get a sense for like you said bring the kids so that they can experience if they have it before it's a way for them to experience it for the first time yes you're not worried of like you know we gotta quickly exit the paramount because my three-year-old might have a meltdown like you're outside just go to the tasting room and you can you can still hear the beautiful symphony playing. You can hear those musicians. And like you said, you get a taste of everything.

They'll see some dancing, some singing, and some piano. That's just great. That's a great idea. One of the things happening on Sunday is going to be a Snow White at the Vineyard? Yes, we'll be doing an abridged version. So we'll have the full production of Snow White.

We'll be at the Paramount on May 4th. So we'll do, we're calling it At the Vineyard to give folks a clue. It'll be about an hour long, abridged version. Typically, we'll have over 100 kids performing in the full production, but we can't fit them on the outdoor stage or house them at the beautiful vineyard. So we'll have a, it'll be an abridged version, not as many 100 children partnering along with us, but it'll be bridge version.

And it will include at the beginning or the end, we'll have a little, you know, lecture demonstration where everyone will get to stand up. You'll learn something like this is first position. This is plie. This is releve. So again, everything we do, we really do have the education to say like,

hey, get up, grandpa, get up and learn how to do this position and getting the ideas of here's what it takes to create these productions and having people have that physical kinetic experience. So that'll be all inclusive, about an hour. That's the Snow White at the Vineyard. And wine is included for parents. Oh, there you go. There you are.

That'll make you dance. Yes. If nothing else, wine and some little lect you go. That'll make you dance. If nothing else, wine and some little lecterns to learn some dancing. My non-profit experience with Charlottesville is usually wine included gets people out of Charlottesville. I have to say it is a useful tool.

Yes, and they'll be awesome. Mary Mill now has Feast. They purchased Feast and so they have amazing food. You can order anything, bottle service. So Mary Mill, if you have not been, it's just a lovely venue. It's so whimsical, and it'll be the perfect venue to host these eight arts parties. Yeah, beautiful place to put it all together. And just a question.

So on May 4th at the Paramount is the full version of, and there's 100 kids? There are 100 children in cities from Culpeper to Lynchburg to here. Wow. That are part of the full cast. Yes. And in addition to our dancers, there's 22 dancers from across the U.S. and around the world in the company and the training program. That would be interesting. It is a large operation, and we have amazing staff and supporters.

I can imagine. I'm guessing it's not 100 professional kids. Do you bring in from the children that learn from you and the lessons help them to audition to be part of it? Two cities. They happened in January. We had to shut down the audition. Same with Nutcracker. They happen usually in August or September and we have hundreds of kids audition for limited parts and we try every year to accommodate and get

as many kids because that's how they get hooked and that's how we all learn to appreciate the arts. I think it's 97 students in this production of Nutcracker. Not all of them are in every show because again the Paramount's only so big. There's a cast of 97 that will this production of Nutcracker. Not all of them are in every show because, again, the Paramount's only so big. Sure, exactly, yeah.

But there's a cast of 97 that will be performing alongside the professional company in various casts in various shows. So it'll be amazing. And it's the beautiful production. Our ballet master, his name is Vadim Bertschu, he's from the Republic of Moldova. He created this production for us back in 2013. And so this will be the third year that we've produced it

and making changes every time, little tweaks. And this year we have to tweak to make more parts for kids. Absolutely, absolutely. Who wrote, who's the... The composer is a Hungarian. I'm going to botch his name, but it's a Polish or Hungarian composer. It starts with a B, and I will have to follow up with you.

Okay, you know... The music, it's not Tchaikovsky. Okay, yeah, so I was like, I know Tchaikovsky did two fairy tales, but I don't think he did... No, I didn't do Snow White. Snow White. Postpartum brain, I can't figure... I don't know if I can see it.

But it is not commonly performed in the U.S., so, you know, it's not like you're Swan Lake, you're a nutcracker. But we love... It's such a beautiful production because it's... know, it's not like you're Swan Lake, you're a nutcracker. But we love, it's such a beautiful production because it's, yes, there's a romantic love story, but there's so many animals and the dwarves are hysterical.

Like, you know, everybody knows the story of Snow White. Absolutely. And it's a really nice connection to say like, oh, I've seen the Disney. It's not too far off

from the Disney story. Some of the ballets are quite different. You know, the kids come and they're like, where are the three fairies at Sleeping Beauty? And you have to explain to the children, actually, this was written way before Disney.

So it is very similar. It follows kind of that same trajectory and similar characters. You'll see all the highlighted characters that you love and expect. Which will make it easier for people to follow, too. There's no, you don't have to figure out what's happening. Yes, yes. But it's still, you know,

there's no words. And we have kids who are like, why didn't they talk, Mama? But it's this beautiful thing where they can follow the story. Even the two-year-olds are like, I want to meet Dopey. It's like, okay. So there's a lot of, you know, the storytelling is there. We all know and love the story,

but then how it's shown on stage is just a beautiful production. That's going to be fantastic. And at the Paramount for that one in May. And then we are actually the resident dance company down in Lynchburg at the Academy Center of the Arts. So we'll take it on tour for May 11th, which will close our season for 23-24.

For 23-24, wow. Our 16th anniversary season. So close to the season. When does the season begin, though? We will begin. Yes. Well, good question. When do you get a week off? Yeah, it never really ends, right? With non-profit life. But we will, we typically open, the dancers will come back in August for pre-season training. So our medical director, again, health and wellness, we try to bring in our artists, have a whole pre-season conditioning because they're athletes. And then we'll usually start around October, November. We're still planning that right now for next season but that's wonderful I like the health

of wellness for just I mean sometimes you you you hear when you read the history of ballet just how badly bodies were damaged by the time they were done with their careers so it's nice that you're like the goal is to have them still doing ballet at 92 not that you're burned out at 30 and several hip surgeries later, but yes. Yeah, I mean, that is why Charlottesville Ballet exists today. So Sarah and I really wanted to see. And it's been, you know, we're a nonprofit. There's not always the services.

We have great in-kind donors and, you know, trying to get them as much cross-season and training. But it is changing hearts and minds. You know, ballet, especially our older generations, that you came up, you do ballet a certain way. You know, when you rotate your feet out, it has to be 180 degrees. So perfect line. And all of the science that we know now with, you know, PTs and doctors say only 1% of the population actually has hip sockets that do that. 1%. So we are in our school of 700 kids. You can do the math. How many actually had the capacity to do ballet as it was stated?

So that's really our whole vision and it starts with the little kids in the parent in me class that, I'm a ballerina now, all the way up to the 92 year olds in the professional company. Yes, this is your body, what can your body do to execute this beautiful art form? How can we respect the art form

but also not cause you to have a hip replacement at 40? Exactly. Yeah, but it's changing hearts and minds. I mean, we still have dancers that are, you know, dancing right now in the studio that say, this is how I trained, this is how I grew up, and changing that narrative of what does ballet look like

and what can we do? This is how Charlottesville does ballet. There you go. Absolutely. So remind us again, so the outdoor outdoor series tickets i'm guessing are still available they are on sale they're the free performance is almost maxed out so and we've still got our partners with via and the other folks to work with so um tickets are on sale charlottesvilleballet.org slash tickets it's probably your best very easy and it's april 26th

through 28th um there is a rain plan, because everyone's asking me. Tickets, if we do rain out, we will have all tickets to the entire weekend will have an open performance on Friday night, May 3rd, at the Paramount. So if you buy your ticket to the Ballet Plus song and it rains out

on Friday night, you can come the following Friday to the Paramount. Oh, okay. Perfect, perfect. Your ticket doesn't go to waste. If it rains out, you can go to the Paramount. And if you can't use it, give it to your neighbor and they can come see it at the Paramount. So you'll get to see the Snow White production at the Paramount regardless of rain.

Lots of people are like, well, I'm not buying tickets so we look at the weather. I'm like, buy your ticket and then. Because all of us, you plan. It's so last minute now these days right yeah exactly so yeah so friday yeah you know friday april 26th at 7 looks like saturday april 27th you got 11 a.m for the sensory friendly sensory friendly and then at 3 p.m and then you got 2 1 p.m and 4 p.m on the 28th so i mean you have three days but there's a bunch of performances yeah you can

game the nap time. You can game the sports events. You can game all the things you need to. Nap time, yeah. And we're so excited to present that with our partners. So not just come see the ballet, but come see all of our arts partners at the Outdoor Series. That's going to be wonderful. That's fantastic, yeah.

And then people can find out more. What's the best place people also are interested in finding out more about classes and things you do all just our general charlottesvilleballet.org is the the home page you can see all about charlottesville valley academy for education programs cb moves all the community work that we do in the free free community engagement programs charlottesville ballet.org okay charlottesville ballet.org and spell it all out it's not simple charlottesville ballet and all of our handle we're charlottesville Ballet. We're Seville Ballet. All the socials as well. Fantastic. Well, Emily, it's been such a pleasure.

I've been looking forward to having you on. I'm so glad we did. It's exciting. Thanks for having us. And thanks for all you do in the community. Appreciate it. Give our best to Sarah. We will do.

All right. So as we go ahead and... Wow, a lot of stuff going on. I know. See, I mean, this is what happens. It's like spring comes, right? And all of a of a sudden boom all these things are available i thought you were talking about the energy the excitement yeah all right uh i thought that collaboration was fantastic the idea oh yes i mean so you go there you get to see some singing and some dancing and

some you know piano playing or whatever else they're going to do i mean that's that's a great way to really expose anybody to different parts of the arts. Well, I mean, think about it. You like bringing your family outdoor to a beautiful place like Mary Mill and now you can do so in a way that introduces them to... Sometimes, you know,

you don't know where your kids might gravitate to. You might have someone who likes ballet, but not opera. You might have someone who likes... who's bored by. You might have someone who likes a kid who's bored by opera, but for some reason, like our cousin in New York is fascinated by opera. He loves his opera. So there's all those different

variations so they can try to see where they may fit in the arts and experience what is a fantastic tradition of music that has been passed down from so many generations. Very well said. I love it. A couple more shout outs.

Frances Perry, thanks for watching the show this morning. Dr. Elizabeth Irby, thanks for watching the show this morning. She liked the talk about the time in Germany. So that was a beautiful time. I enjoyed it as well. No, I can imagine. Like I said, I just remember you did that and just a few times that i

think one was in spain i think it was the other one was where i just heard an organ play it's like wow and i was at a place like i said it was just i didn't even know there was an organ or something the organ starts playing it was like so beautiful oh man yeah it's nothing quite like it nothing quite like it there's many opportunities now to experience it here. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, from March all the way through May, you now know what you can enjoy. And I'm sure there will be more.

I know we're going to have soon, in the next few weeks, I think, in the show, we'll have Oratory Society of Virginia will be coming on to talk about their May concert. And then there's the opera. Charlottesville Opera's going to be coming on to talk about their new season. So it's quite a bit. Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, I always said that, for a small there's the opera. Charlottesville Opera is going to be coming on. Talked about their new season. So it's quite a lot. I always said that. For a small city, which Charlottesville is compared to most other cities,

the ability to really capture so many things that people may like, whether it be, again, you've got UVA sports. If you like baseball, basketball, football, you've got that. So you can have that. The music, the ability to listen to different, you know, to see ballets, operas, symphonies, you know, which we have. It's just you can, you live here, you feel like you live in a big city without the traffic, without the hassles, and you can enjoy life so much more. Not that I want everybody to move to Charlottesville because I like the fact that there's not a lot of people. I'm not trying to make it up. This is not a sales pitch to move to Charlottesville, because I like the fact that there's not a lot of people. I'm not trying to get out of here. This is not a sales pitch to move to Charlottesville.

I'm just saying it's a great place, but don't come. No, don't come. To live. This is fantastic. Just stay away. Don't come. I don't want 4 million people in Charlottesville. But, yeah, we're blessed to be here.

That's why we love doing it today, Manana. We get to experience all this. Absolutely. Next week, we're going to have on Adrienne Strawn from the Daines Group who's going to be joining us. So looking forward to that. Some more fantastic small business, I believe, here in Charlottesville. So we're looking forward to that.

And, yeah, we'll be seeing everyone then. I don't know. It might not be Xavier. I'm not here next week. It will probably be Michael and myself. So be sure to look forward to that. Michael's with me. Oh, Michael's with you. So it's going to be the one and only Nick.

The one and only Nick Erpie is going to be joining us next week on the show. So be sure to look out for that. You're going to get all his fans saying, great, I can come up to the show next week. Now I can watch it. Not that guy, Xavier. We appreciate

the opportunity to be here on the ILO Civil Network set. Appreciate Judah behind the camera doing all the great work. Xavier and I look good. Our guests always look good, but Xavier and I need a little work. And then, of course, many thanks to Emerging Financial Services, to Matthias Yon Realty,

Credit Series Insurance, Forward Adelante. We appreciate all of you. We look forward to seeing you next week. Do your best to stay warm. Enjoy the warmth of spring that is on its way. We look forward to seeing you then. But as we like to close it out on the show, hasta mañana. Ciao, boys. Hasta mañana.