News
New Exhibition Focuses on Artists’ Approach to Their Work
CONCORD — A new group exhibition, All in the Approach: Abstract, Allegorical, Analytical, will be on display January 19-March 13 at The Galleries at the Cabarrus Arts Council.
The Galleries are located at 65 Union Street S in Cabarrus County’s 1976 historic courthouse. The group exhibition includes works by 16 artists: Raed Al-Rawi, Susan Brenner, Alex Clark, Chris Craft, Courtney Dodd, Clark Hawgood, Chris Horney, Jennifer Kincaid, Kenn Kotara, Libby and Jim Mijanovich, Alison Overton, Mary-Ann Prack, Tom Stanley, Billie Ruth Sudduth and Tim Turner.
As an artist begins to explore an avenue for his vision, one of these three approaches often presents: abstraction to convey ideas through non-representation, an allegory to use symbols to tell the story or the analytical approach to separate an idea into component parts. The artists in this show use a variety of media in one or more of these approaches.
Several special events will be held in conjunction with the exhibition. A downtown Concord Art Walk, featuring visual art at several locations and entertainment, will take place on Friday, February 26, 6-9 p.m. Three of the exhibiting artists will present free gallery talks: Alison Overton, Thursday, January 14, 7 p.m.; Kenn Kotara, Thursday, February 11, 7 p.m.; and Tom Stanley, Thursday, March 11, 7 p.m. The talks are co-sponsored by the Cabarrus Art Guild.
Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday and the second Saturday of each month. Group tours can be arranged at other times by appointment. For more information, call 704-920-ARTS (2787) or visit www.CabarrusArtsCouncil.org.
Buffalo Creek String Band to Play at the Davis Theatre February 18
The Buffalo Creek String Band will bring its blend of old time songs, fiddle tunes, ballads and hillbilly blues – sung and played with spirit and mountain soul – to Concord’s Davis Theatre on Thursday, February 18.
The show, which is part of the Jeff Whittington Presents… concert series, will begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased in person or via telephone Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Davis Theatre box office, 704-920-2753. Tickets also may be bought online at www.CabarrusArtsCouncil.org. All seats are reserved.
Buffalo Creek continues a musical legacy that dates back to early American music, with roots in Irish, English, Scottish and African folk, at a time when fiddles could be found throughout the Southern Appalachians. Tunes were played in people’s homes – for dances and for pleasure, at community work gatherings and for special celebrations – on string instruments such as the fiddle, banjo, guitar, and bass. Singing was also a mainstay in many of the mountain communities in Appalachia, where it was as common and widespread a tradition as spoken language. Buffalo Creek String Band proudly keeps this vibrant, communal musical tradition alive through their performances and recordings.
Buffalo Creek String Band is fronted by two great female harmony vocalists, Annie Griffey and Joy Moser, singing traditional old-timey country tunes. Think early Hazel and Alice with a heavy dose of Carter Family, Ola Belle Reed and Kitty Wells. They are backed by Alabama state fiddle champion Jackie Burgess and Scott Dixon on banjo. The band has recorded a CD, Weary Women Blues, featuring songs as diverse as “You Don’t Tell Me That You Love Me Anymore” and “Bile That Cabbage Down.”
Whittington, a former staff musician on The Arthur Smith Show who has played on the Grand Ole Opry, will host and play a few bluegrass tunes. You might even see him and Buffalo Creek together on stage!
John Brown Quintet Performance-Cancelled
The snowy weather has made it impossible for the John Brown Quintet to travel to the Davis Theatre, and so tonight’s performance is cancelled.
Arts Council staff are working with the quintet to find a date to reschedule the performance. Once that decision has been made, all ticket holders will be notified.
For more information on Arts Council programs and upcoming theatre events, please check out our website www.CabarrusArtsCouncil.org.
John Brown Quintet Weather Announcement
In light of the weather forecase, the Cabarrus Arts Council wants to make sure that everyone knows the sold out performance Saturday evening of the John Brown Quintet at the Davis Theatre will go on as scheduled.
Arts Council staff will be monitoring the weather and road situations throughout the night and early tomorrow while also staying in contact with our performers who will be traveling from Asheville.
We will also keep our homepage on our website updated, www.CabarrusArtsCouncil.org, as well as the message at our box office at 704-920-2753.
Warm Up with Jazz Saturday, January 30 at the Davis Theatre
The John Brown Quintet, which garnered national attention when its first CD reached number eight on the Jazz Week charts, will perform at the Davis Theatre Saturday, January 30, at 8 p.m.
The award-winning jazz group specializes in playing music from the time-honored Bebop and Hard Bop eras, bringing new life to some of the best-known classics of the Great American Songbook and also introducing original music. The concert is part of the On Stage at the Davis series at the theatre located at 65 Union Street S, Concord, in Cabarrus County’s historic courthouse.
Tickets are $34. Box office hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday. Tickets may be purchased in person or by telephone at 704-920-2753. Tickets also may be bought online at www.CabarrusArtsCouncil.org.
Quintet leader and bassist John Brown is director of the jazz program at Duke University and has also taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Central University and Guilford College. He has performed in the United States and abroad with many jazz greats including Wynton Marsalis, Ellis Marsalis, Delfeayo Marsalis, Elvin Jones, Nnenna Freelon, Diahann Carroll, Rosemary Clooney, Nell Carter, Lou Donaldson, Slide Hampton, Nicholas Payton, Frank Foster, Larry Coryell, Cedar Walton, Fred Wesley and Mark Whitfield. He was nominated for a Grammy for performing and co-writing Nnenna Freelon’s 1996 Shaking Free. He has played at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and at major jazz festivals such as the Montreal Jazz Festival.
The other four quintet members also have impressive resumes. Trumpeter Ray Codrington has performed and recorded with Eddie Harris, the JFK Quintet, Larry Willis, Hugo Montinegro and Godfather II as his career has taken him to the famed Apollo Theater in New York, the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. and festivals and clubs all along the East Coast. Saxophonist Brian Miller performed with the North Carolina Central University Jazz Band twice at the White House for President Bill Clinton, and the band has recorded his original composition, “Desmond Street.” Pianist Gabe Evens has performed extensively in North Carolina, New England and Spain with artists like Nnenna Freeland, the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra and Lois Deloatch. Drummer Adonis Rose, who is one of New Orleans Magazine’s ”jazz all stars,” has played with some of the world’s most esteemed jazz artists, including Wynton Marsalis, Dianne Reeves and Harry Connick Jr.
All of this year’s performances in the On Stage at the Davis series have sold out early, so if you like jazz, make sure to buy your ticket to this show soon!
Concert Featuring Bluegrass, Folk, and Pop Thursday January 21 at Davis Theatre
The next concert at the Davis Theatre on Thursday, February 21, has something for everyone including four of the best musicians in our area!
Part of the Jeff Whittington Presents . . . concert series, the show will begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased in person or via telephone Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Davis Theatre box office, 704-920-2753. Tickets also may be bought online at www.CabarrusArtsCouncil.org. For the first time, all seats are reserved.
Singer-songwriter David Domingo will play an eclectic acoustic set, from pop to new wave, including both covers and original tunes. Domingo, who plays almost every night in the Charlotte area, is familiar to many local audiences because of his many sets at the former Ibis restaurant. He also drew a rapt audience of all ages for his concert on the historic courthouse steps during the August 2009 Art Walk.
Culbreath, who has played several times in the series on the Davis Theatre stage, has performed with bluegrass greats Vassar Clements and Mac Wiseman. A former South Carolina state banjo champion, he will do a set featuring five-string banjo, guitar, fiddle and vocals.
Mike and Gaynell Lambert, who were featured in the Christmas concert in December, will do a mix of vocals with piano, guitar and other instruments as diverse as autoharp and Native American flute. They will perform a variety of styles of music, from John Denver to love songs to old time and bluegrass. Mike also will be guest host for the evening.
This will be the first time that seats have been reserved for this concert series, but I still encourage you to come early – the building doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the theatre at 7 p.m. – and enjoy The Galleries. The new show, All in the Approach: Abstract, Allegorical, Analytical, opens Tuesday, and it includes a spectacular array of big paintings, interesting sculptures and amazing photographs.
Old Courthouse Theatre and Black Box Productions Presents “Countergirls”
Sunday, January 17, 4 p.m., Old Courthouse Theatre, 49 Spring Street NW, Concord.
The third production in the Old Courthouse Theatre’s new “The Living Room Reading Series,” Countergirls is a full-length comedy by Michael Russell, set at the lunch counter of a F. W. Woolworth’s in a small Southern town in 1990. The counter is managed by Lib Stallsworth, whose burgeoning country music career was cut short 20 years earlier when she decide to forego the excitement and glamour of the Nashville music scene to raise a family. Now she is often separated from her husband and son, both of whom are long-distance truckers, and her daughter, who married for money and got “above her raisin’.” To fill this void, Lib has developed a penchant for collecting strays with whom she shares advice that she has cobbled together from her life experience – and Oprah, Readers’ Digest and Redbook. She extends herself and her resources to help Betty Ruth, her best from high school who has recently returned from Texas and the throes of a divorce; Donnie Ray, the mentally challenged orphan son of friend and the janitor and general caretaker of the lunch counter; Lynette, the crusty career waitress who fears growing old; and Janita, a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter with a voice to rival any country music queen and a salty tongue that belies her sweetness and innocence. Produced by Jonathan Ewart, the performance is free and rated PG. For more information, call the theatre at 704-788-2405 or visit www.oldcourthousetheatre.org.
Acting Up Children’s Theatre presents FAME
“You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying.”
“Right here” is the School of Performing Arts in New York City, and the first problem for the hundreds of young people eager to start paying their dues in pursuit of fame in the performing arts is to get accepted. As the play begins, the school is in the midst of auditioning applicants. They’re every size, shape and attitude. They’re scared, they’re brave, they’re rich and they’re poor. They’ve got nothing in common but a compelling dream, and each pursues it in a special way just as each must deal with the special problems of their various lives. The dramatic riches explored and developed in this play as the various students interact with each other and with their teachers – who must present a tough exterior but who care so very much, create an exciting theatrical tapestry in this useful and fulfilling play. Like the School of Performing Arts, this play goes to the essence of young people and of theatre. While this is a play and not a musical, there is some music and some dancing. The show includes high school students from all across Cabarrus County!
January 14, 15, 16 – 7:00pm
January 17 – 2:30pm
Tickets $5.00
The Glenn Center
120 Marsh Avenue NW
Concord NC 28025
704.699.8642
www.actingupdrama.com
Photographer to Speak Thursday, January 14 at The Galleries
Photographer Alison Overton will talk about her work Thursday, January 14, at The Galleries at the Cabarrus Arts Council.
Overton’s free talk will be at 7 p.m. at The Galleries located at 65 Union Street S, Concord, in Cabarrus County’s historic courthouse. It is co-sponsored by the Cabarrus Art Guild.
Some of Overton’s photographs are included in The Galleries’ upcoming exhibition, All in the Approach: Abstract, Allegorical, Analytical, which opens January 19.
A North Carolina native, Overton is a life-long artist who has studied photography with internationally renowned photographer James Henkel at the Penland School of Craft and has a BA in environmental design from North Carolina State University’s School of Design. She was awarded Regional Artist Grants from the North Carolina Arts Council in 2002, 2004 and 2009.
“Making art, in particular photographs that chronicle a moment in a changing landscape, is my passion,” she says. “As a lifelong artist, I strive constantly to explore and expand my definition of the unique and mysterious in life and nature. My hope is, that when a person views my art work, he or she might feel as if they could trade places with Alice of “Alice Through the Looking Glass” – peering into a dreamy world, with a sense of awe and child-like wonder.
“One of the recurring themes in my work is the architectural landscape with a sense of history. My intent in making these photographs is to visually convey the feeling of walking alone among majestic sites, both secular and sacred: abbeys, castles, churches, cemeteries, formal and informal gardens. By combining overlapping exposures, careful cropping and overpainting with transparent oil paints, the finished works reveal my idea of these places as they might appear in a daydream or on another plane of existence, and as if our rules of time, space and perspective did not apply.”
For more information about the talk and other events at The Galleries, call 704-920-2787 or visit www.CabarrusArtsCouncil.org.
DECEMBER 22 LAST DAY TO SHOP FOR SEAGROVE POTTERY AND SEE FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING EXHIBITION AT THE GALLERIES
There are just a few more days to shop for Seagrove Pottery and wonderful Christmas ornaments and enjoy the Figuratively Speaking exhibition at The Galleries in downtown Concord.
Shop Seagrove, Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree and Figuratively Speaking will be on display through December 22 at The Galleries located in Cabarrus County’s historic courthouse at 65 Union Street S, Concord. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays.
The last two days only, Monday and Tuesday, December 21 and 22, there will be a 15% discount on all the wonderful items in the Shop Seagrove and Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree shows.
Shop Seagrove includes pieces from six of the famed North Carolina pottery town’s most prominent potteries: Avery Pottery and Tileworks, Cady Clay Works, Dirtworks Pottery, Chris Luther Pottery, Crystal King Pottery and King’s Pottery. There are vases, pitchers, candlesticks, bowls and baking dishes as well as more whimsical works such as face jugs. This is the third year we have offered Seagrove pottery at Christmas time. We have sold a LOT of Seagrove Pottery this year, but there are still some great items remaining.
The Galleries are partnering with the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree in Spruce Pine, NC, to offer ornaments and other decorative items based on Gloria Houston’s beloved book, The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree. In 2003, Houston gave the rights to the book to Spruce Pine. The town and Mitchell County had suffered serious economic challenges with the loss of textile, furniture and other manufacturing jobs. With entrepreneurial development as its primary focus, The Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree was born. The project has created nearly 100 individual small businesses that produce quality, handmade products based on the book.
Figuratively Speaking focuses on 13 artists’ renderings of the human body and includes beautiful paintings and thought-provoking sculptures.
Upcoming Events
2/11/10 - Gallery Talk by Kenn Kotara
7 pm
The Galleries, 65 Union Street South, Concord NC 28025
Kotara's work is featured in the current exhibition All in the Approach: Abstract, Allegorical, Analytical
2/13/2010 - Second Saturday
10 am - 4 pm
The Galleries, 65 Union Street South, Concord NC 28025
All in the Approach: Abstract, Allegorical, Analytical exhibition open for special hours.