Piedmont Arts

In addition to the challenges of the pandemic, Theatre Charlotte suffered a difficult loss when their building caught fire in December 2020. Despite the set-back, they managed to continue with their season, and this year they are embarking on a new season of productions that will be staged at venues around Charlotte. Acting executive director, Chris Timmons, talks about the many ways Theatre Charlotte is adapting to changing circumstances and some of the unanticipated opportunities that last year’s catastrophe created.

The NoteWorthy concert series is presented by WDAV in partnership with the FAIR PLAY Music Equity Alliance . The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community building music. Karen Poole, a singer/songwriter and contemporary gospel artist, is joined by trumpeter Keenan Harmon, one of the classical musicians who perform with her in the  NoteWorthy  concert series. They speak about their different musical backgrounds and what it was like to come together to perform Karen’s original songs. Karen Poole Keenan Harmon Transcript: Frank Dominguez : This is Frank Dominguez for WDAV’s Piedmont Arts. On Wednesday, September 1st at 7:30 p.m., WDAV continues the NoteWorthy virtual concert series presented in partnership with the FAIR PLAY Music Equity (Initiative). The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community-building music. Next in the series, we feature singer-songwriter and contemporary gospel artist Karen Poole and joining in support of her terrific talents are a trio of classical musicians including violinist Alice Silva, trombonist Brent Ballard, and trumpeter Keenan Harmon, who joins me now via Zoom along with Karen to talk about the concert and their own musical journey. Welcome, Karen and Keenan. Karen Poole : Thank you.  Frank : Karen, I noticed from the bio information at your website that like a lot of gifted musicians, you were born into a musical family, so tell me a little bit about them and what you learned from them.  Karen : Yeah, absolutely. I was the baby of the family, so I got the opportunity to watch my parents as soloists and some of my older siblings just navigate, moreso in the gospel of church scene. So we were very, very heavy into the music department of our church, and I just had the opportunity to learn just standing up on people’s shoulders and looking, watching. (I’m) very blessed to have a front seat experience into this. (On a) typical day in our home, you’d hear about three or four songs singing at once. (Laughs) That’s what that was like. Born into it.  Frank : And what about a formal education in music of any kind? What was it like for you? Were you exposed to that? Karen : I did some... I want to say not formal, but more so informal training. I’ve had very great mentors throughout the years who’d sit down with me (and) teach me theory and things of that nature. I actually don’t - I’m not very fluent at reading charted music, but I have very strong ear training, and I can read some chord charts as well. But in that regard, no, I never had formal training, it’s all natural giftings that I had.  Frank : And that’s nothing to be sneezed at, of course. You know, one of the things that I've discovered over and over again in these conversations, whether it's about NoteWorthy or if I'm interviewing Black classical artists who are singers or instrumentalists, is just the amazing conservatory that's provided by the Black church music tradition. There’s so much inspiration there.  Keenan, what about you? What was your coming up like? Did it include a lot of music? Keenan Harmon : My family - I wouldn't say that my family is very musical, but [they’re] music lovers. And that’s, to me, part of the human condition. So, I rarely run into people that don’t have some affiliation with music or some love for it. But in all reality, I kind of discovered or felt that I was heeding this call from a very young age, and my parents had kind of a little bit of a diverse music taste. I mean it was kind of old school eclecticism, so I grew up around Motown, church music… I, too, am the youngest like Karen, so my brothers were really into popular music at the time, which was kind of the early hip hop scene.  And what ended up happening is [that] I felt really drawn to being a trumpet player, and then more or less, I stumbled on some recordings at a very young age that impacted my life. When I was about eleven and I started playing, I was able to hear a classical CD, it was a mostly Baroque type of thing and had a lot of trumpet on it, and likewise my mother had bought this Miles Davis CD, and at the time I knew nothing too much about it.  You know, she had been familiar with Miles. And it was actually the Live at Montreux album that was done in the last year of his life. And not knowing any of that, I asked her could I open the CD and listen to it, and here I am listening to the CD, and I thought, “My goodness, as a trumpet player I could play something like this. Something Baroque, and I could play something like this, something that’s jazz.” And so that’s kind of how… that spearheaded what I’ve been drawn to in my career as a musician.  Frank : Karen, talking about those wide ranges in sound, your sound is a good example of how eclectic contemporary gospel music can be. I think people hear that and assume it’s going to sound a certain way, but you have a very eclectic and versatile sound. What are the sources and the elements that go into your music?  Karen : First of all, I'm glad you recognize that. The best way I can describe my music is gumbo: it’s like a little bit of everything. I would say I listened to a lot of traditional gospel growing up, but definitely (was) introduced to more of a jazzy sound probably in my late teens. I started being introduced to Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, that kind of sound, Yellowjackets… and I’m somewhat of a late bloomer because we had a very strict household growing up, so it was only gospel music that I was allowed to listen to. So I was a late bloomer being introduced to other styles. And still to this day, I’m still grasping a lot of the classic tunes out there. I’m still evolving musically because of that, so I’m actually grateful for it.  And then I’d listen to more of the contemporary Christian music, like Matthew West and Lady Antebellum, stuff like that, just kind of listen to those songs, and they’re very pure sounding. And I love, actually, country music - just the way it tells a story, and the sounds from the violins and strings, all those things. Alice actually played on that (in) the performance we did, she played the violin parts for (one of my) song(s). And it was just amazing to be able to partner with (the classical musicians) and have a range of sounds that they could dig into with me, so I was excited about that.  Frank : I really noticed that, in the little bit of the sessions that I've been able to hear, that it was just incredibly eclectic. And your description of gumbo, I don’t think could be more apt. As a former Louisiana resident, that takes us to the tastiness of gumbo and the tastiness of your sounds, because I really hear that country and all of those various influences in there. It's really wonderful.  Keenan, as a working musician, versatility is pretty much a requirement for you. I mean you've been able to play all sorts of music, and you have to in order to put together enough gigs to make a living. So what are some of the disparate events that you play regularly - the kinds of places where you bring your talent to bear?  Keenan : I’ve done a lot of shows. There was a time where I'd done quite a bit of opera orchestra stuff for a while. Shows tend to run longer and pay more, so I would do that.  Frank : By shows, you mean Broadway shows? Keenan : Musicals and such, yes. On top of that, a lot of chamber music stuff. Some friends of mine and I started to do a lot of collaborations and just be on each other’s radar always to at least be available for performances and various things, and then there’s also recording work that I’ve been known to do. There was a short time - well, I say short, it was about four and a half years - [when] I worked with some guys out of Nashville. They had been in this area and they were bringing a lot of musicians in from the Nashville area, and so I got to work and collaborate and do concerts with them as well. It’s kind of like Karen had said, it’s an evolution on a continuum, and so you try to stay ahead of that and you make sure you’ve got a good namesake, you’ve got a good reputation and like you had said, versatility is the key.  I’ll put it to you like this. I tell people oftentimes that musicians, particularly in the freelance community, have to practice music like an attorney practices law, like a doctor practices medicine. I am continually studying, because authenticity is very important to me. Being genuine. Whenever I’m playing something, if we go back to Baroque or classical, [making sure] that my ornaments are proper when I’m ornamenting the music. And similarly, that I’m very fresh on ideas if I’m doing something that’s jazz.  The pandemic put a different dynamic on that, but what I found more or less is that I worked. You know, I look at last year and I worked fruitfully. One show got cancelled, one musical. Other than that, some of the concerts that I would normally do at certain times a year, like towards the holidays, they went on. So it’s a testament that people really wanted to experience some normalcy, so live music was a part of that. And then on top of that, it was just the fact that it was the determination of the musical community to try to make that happen. And so that's really how you can make (a) living. You’ve just got to persevere through it and stay fresh.  Frank : Karen, you touched on this in one of your answers earlier, but I want you to go a little deeper into what it was like collaborating with the musicians in this NoteWorthy session that folks will be seeing on September 1st. What was it like working with them, and what did they bring to your songs that you had already written and created to give them a different sound or a different life, if you will?  Karen : It was inspiring in a lot of ways. For example... the first song we did that night, “High Praise,” when I produced the music, I had recorded keyboard horns on it and while they sound good, it’s nothing like having a real horn player on it. So, I sent the music and I let [the classical musicians] know, “Hey. I don’t actually have this charted out, but if you can try to follow this pattern, that would be great.” And Keenan was so, so easy to work with. He said, “Okay, we’ll get it. We’ll figure it out.” At our first rehearsal, he had it charted out for him and Brent [Ballard], and they nailed it. It was just very minor little things that we had to adjust here and there, little nuances like something is staccato, not legato, but very, very minor.  They brought my song to life, and it was amazing to hear music that I had created live that way. It was just amazing. And then on top of that, to build a relationship with them to where even beyond this NoteWorthy performance, we can still collaborate on some other things, I can refer him for some things and vice versa, and bring him on for other shows that I might have. And now it’s forced me to have my music officially charted out. So, moving forward, I will always have this thanks to NoteWorthy. I’m grateful - amazing experience working with them.  Frank : I have a last question for the both of you, and that's what would you like to see more of in the Charlotte live music scene? What's missing right now that you think would take it up a notch and make it a better scene for both musicians and audiences? Keenan : For Charlotte, it’s really that connectivity of having people both aware of what goes on musically in Charlotte, because that’s not always the case, and then on top of it, it's to build that culture. Right before the pandemic, I was in Chicago, and I’d gone to see a couple of different performances while I was there and what amazed me - because it had been a long time since I had been to Chicago - it was just being an audience member. That was the most awe-inspiring thing was to watch how audiences were connected and interacted with various music, whether it was a classical or a jazz thing. You just had that community. So in the Charlotte area, there’s a thirst for it, I think. It’s just a matter of that connection that’s there. Having Charlotte have enough room for music is kind of the big goal because we’re making room for a lot of things in this area. Lots of things. And music, I feel like, has always been here. It’s just the awareness is the thing, I would say.  Frank : Karen, you’re here a little more recently. What have you observed in your time here? Karen : My answer may not be what you expect, but honestly, in my time here - it's been about four and a half years - I’m actually quite pleased, because the first couple of years of me being here, I was not very well-known. I made some connections with some individuals in the music scene here, like I met Tim Scott, Jr. once on a show, I think it’s called the Soulful Noel, that they do at Christmas time every year, put on by Quentin Talley. I met some folks who said, “Hey, we need an extra background singer, can you come on.” So, by me being there, I made some small networks there, and just earning my place, if I can say that. They got a chance to see how I flowed in the background.  And somewhere around the middle of 2019, I was offered an opportunity to do my own show. I had my own set. It was just a small acoustic session put on by Arsena Schroeder, and that was really exciting for me because I hadn’t performed my music at all since I’d moved to Charlotte. I’d put out a couple of singles working with a great producer, Johnny Abraham, who was also playing keys on the NoteWorthy performance.  When I did that show, people were like, “Wow, we need to see more of this.” And so that really opened up opportunities for more performances. I didn’t do very many, but the ones I got were impactful. I think that was in July of 2019, and somewhere in September, I had the opportunity to open for a major artist, Tweet, and then from there, it built the energy to say hey, I’m going to go ahead and try to finish my album. I had never put out a full length album. Yes, the pandemic hit in 2020, and I had plans to do a small live recording... we did it in February of 2020. The plan was to do that and then work on a few more, and I was going to have an album done, ready to release it on Easter of 2020. But we shut down.  Even despite that, though, I’ve just got to say it catapulted me, because I got all the tools I needed to finish recording at home. Folks around here in the music community were very much on board to work with me, and we got the album done, and I put it out in February of this year. So, even in the course of that time, I was able to do a few virtual shows, we did some shows with John Tosco. Although we were shut down, I think Charlotte did a great job of keeping us busy. As a newcomer, I’m impressed.  Frank : Well, I'm impressed with both of you, and I'm so excited from these conversations that I've had with NoteWorthy artists to see what this music scene’s going to be like when we get back to being able to comfortably perform in person, and it just seems to me like the talent that's going to be showcased is going to surprise a lot of people. So I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. My guests have been two of the performers of the next virtual concert in the NoteWorthy series from WDAV and FAIR PLAY Music Equity Initiative, singer-songwriter and contemporary gospel artist Karen Poole and trumpeter Keenan Harmon. The concert streams on Wednesday, September 1st at 7:30 p.m., and it will also feature violinist Alice Silva and trombonist Brent Ballard. You can get more information and find a link to the Facebook Live and YouTube event at NoteWorthyClassical.org . Thank you so much, Karen and Keenan, for speaking with me. Karen : Thank you.  Keenan : Thank you.  Frank : For WDAV’s Piedmont Arts, I’m Frank Dominguez. 

The NoteWorthy concert series   is presented by WDAV in partnership with the   FAIR PLAY Music Equity Alliance . The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community building music. Singer, songwriter, guitarist and community organizer, Quisol and Charlotte Symphony musicians Kari Giles (violin) and Jeremy Lamb (cello) speak about the pleasures of collaborating across genres, and how creativity is linked to activism. Quisol Kari Giles Jeremy Lamb

Since 1958, the Arts and Science Council (ASC) has been a driving force in the cultural life of the city and Mecklenburg County. In recent years, in an effort to live up to its promise of “Culture for All,” the ASC put together a Cultural Equity Report that is drawing attention. ASC President Krista Terrell speaks about the importance of cultural equity, and how the ASC is working to assure it. Related: Arts & Science Council Cultural Equity Report Blog: The Uncomfortable Truth ( Americans for the Arts ) Video: Beyond the Sound Bites Pictured: Krista Terrell, President, Arts and Science Council.

The NoteWorthy concert series is presented by WDAV in partnership with the FAIR PLAY Music Equity Alliance . The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community building music. Grammy Award winner Greg Cox, who blends hip-hop, R&B and Gospel in his music is joined by two veteran classical musicians from our area, violinist Jane Hart Brendle and violist Matt Darsey to talk about being a part of the concert series. Greg Cox Jane Hart Brendle Matt Darsey Transcript: Frank Dominguez : This is Frank Dominguez for WDAV’s Piedmont Arts. On Wednesday, May 26th at 7:30 p.m., WDAV continues the NoteWorthy virtual concert series presented in partnership with the FAIR PLAY Music Equity [Initiative]. The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community-building music. Next up, we’re thrilled to offer a concert headlined by a GRAMMY Award winner and overall renaissance man. Greg Cox blends hip-hop, R&B, and gospel in his music and infuses it with his own Southern soul. He’ll have recording artist A$H. as his special guest, and they'll be joined by two veteran classical musicians from our area, violinist Jane Hart Brendle and violist Matthew Darsey. Greg, Jane, and Matthew are joining me now via Zoom to talk about their NoteWorthy program. Welcome, everybody! Greg Cox : Hey, Frank! Frank : Greg, I’ll start with you. We often distinguish classical musicians from artists in popular music like you by talking about the rigorous training classical musicians get in conservatories and the like, but then looking at your background, it strikes me that you came up in a fairly rigorous family conservatory of sorts and learned a lot from touring with some pretty top-notch gospel musicians. So, tell us a bit about your musical journey. Greg : Yeah, so starting in church is definitely something that I was fortunate to experience. Not much lesson - they just throw you in the fire there. When you’ve got musicians who are top notch since age 12, you're going into some proteges, some child legends. In Black church, you learn! You learn how to literally score what the preacher is preaching. It’s like scoring a movie as he’s going. And then touring with my dad, and touring with a few other artists, you bump into some of the best musicians in the world.  So I wouldn't say I'm up there with them, but what I would say is we can eat lunch at the same table and hang out. If there was anyone who - you don’t have the money to throw your kids into phenomenal teaching (or) rigorous training, just drop them off at church. They’ll be fine. Frank : And when you consider how many wonderful musicians have come from the Black church tradition in this country and the influence its had on all sorts of genres, there’s definitely something there. Greg : There’s something the water, man. There’s something in the atmosphere. Blends of jazz, blends of blues, blends of old Negro Spiritual songs - it’s very, very unique music to learn how to play, and I’m very, very fortunate. Some of the best ever, right? Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Jennifer Hudson, the best vocalists ever come from the church. So it’s just something in the water and something in that community. Every week, it’s growing. So even if it's not as formal, you definitely learn things you can’t learn anywhere else. Frank : Jane, I've had the pleasure of hearing you play in a variety of concerts, including a Klezmer-infused program the Charlotte Symphony presented about music of the Holocaust, so I know you’re versatile, but I'm not sure I ever imagined you collaborating with a hip-hop artist like Greg Cox. What was that like? Jane Hart Brendle : It was so much fun! It was really way beyond what I imagined. I had so much fun, and Greg was so easy to work with. He just made it - it felt so natural to play. He just told us what he needed, and he had the parts written out, and it just felt great. Frank : And Matthew, even though you're a trained classical musician, I sort of expect you to be adventurous because I know you have a passion for contemporary music - and did that focus help you in any way for approaching this collaboration with Greg? Matthew Darsey : I think it does. You know, when you play a lot of contemporary classical music, your ears have to adjust to a different way of hearing music. And when you're playing in a genre that you're not really used to, your ears have to work fairly differently as well.  The harmonic language isn't necessarily the same as it is in Brahms. So, in a certain sense, I’ve even trained my ears out of the classical years because I'm used to playing atonal music or music that doesn't really fit in with what we’re used to from Western classical music. So, when you're coming to someone like Greg, who’s so intuitively exacting in what he wants, it was just incredible.  You sort of just - you almost lose control, or not lose control, but you let go of that really analytical part of your brain and just ride the wave that he gives to you, because it's such a powerful wave that if you just give in to it, then it sort of lays itself out there for you. Frank : Greg, talk about that a little bit. What was it like for you knowing the background of these musicians and coming together with them to work with them? Greg : Ah, man. Absolutely magical. So, classical musicians are literally like ninjas to me. Where do they hang out? Where do they, like... what do they eat?  It's like when you go to a Broadway show and you try to go down and talk to (the orchestra), they just disappear. Like it’s a smoke bomb, and they’re just gone, or they’re in the lobby in the hotel. So, I've always wanted to have friends who were in that world.  So, to be thrown into this environment, and to see that, “Oh, crap! They're human, they're just in different pockets.” It’s a different pocket. You figure out where they hang out at. “Oh, they’re at the Panera Bread!” “Oh, I need to go over to this side of town to see where they’re hanging out at.” So, it was beautiful to kind of pull back the curtain on that cultural demographic, and I was very fortunate to have the introduction that I did have through this organization. And they got it! I was very nervous going into it because I was like, “I hope I can speak their language.”   (I had to) be overprepared. We had a little funny story of - the printer didn’t work. And sheet music without a printer, forget that. But thankfully, they had iPads, and they understood my chicken scratch and my little notations of what I was trying to communicate to them. They weren’t hard to work with at all. They didn’t use their knowledge to puff up, to make me feel inferior. They welcomed me. They spoke my language, and it was a humbling, humbling experience that I wish more musicians would get to experience. Frank : You mentioned that you were a GRAMMY winner. How did that accolade come about? What were you involved with that resulted in that? Greg : There’s this icon by the name of Kirk Franklin who just decided - woke up one day with his team and decided to have me be a part of this amazing, phenomenal album Long Live Love. I’m on a song called “Strong God” that he wrote and produced and had me feature as a vocalist in 2020. That album won for Gospel Album of the Year; therefore, I'm a part of that album and contributed to it, so anyone who is a part of the album gets a GRAMMY. It’s like going to the NBA and playing with LeBron (James). You gotta know that if you’re on LeBron’s team, you’re going to get a ring. You know what I mean? So I got a ring because LeBron was in the game. And I might have shot a few 3’s, I might have passed LeBron the ball a couple times, but it definitely was, on the back, carried by the LeBron James, Kirk Franklin. Frank : Jane and Matthew, when we were talking about the attitude you you brought to this project, I couldn't help but think back, because I've been in this classical music radio business for so long, to times when classical musicians in orchestras were perhaps a little more unbending - you know, who weren’t quite as open to collaborations like this in the past - and that seems to have really changed in recent years, I guess because there's new generations of classical musicians in orchestras. Am I right about that? Would you confirm that perception? Matthew : I think that's a very big trend right now. Especially, you see it with a lot of the younger composers that are coming up. Caroline Shaw, for instance, does a lot of genre bending. She’s from Raleigh, I think, too. And I think it's a really beautiful thing for the field because, for so long, classical music has been so very structured within its Western European roots. And you of course see that with the music itself, in terms of the Classical era music, was obviously very, very structured within its own form, but then the social structures of it have been very narrow as well. And then there’s something that I think that we’re - it's almost like if we’re afraid if we expand that, then classical music disappears, which I think is a very paradoxical way of going about it, because if you build a wall up around something, then it's no longer - then it it does disappear, because there's nothing to let it thrive.  So I think that it's a really beautiful thing for Western European music to really open up itself to exploring what it can do with and for other genres, because if you don't grow, you're going to die. And so there’s a lot of really great younger performers that are breaking that mold, because we grew up with being very affected by music that wasn't necessarily, you know, classical music.  And then we're wanting to combine all of that into something that is more personal to us, maybe, and not so much meaningful to the older generation, or the ones that came before us, but it's still a very powerful way for us to express ourselves as a musician in the 21st century. Jane :  I think that we have definitely - in the recent years, we have started to branch out and look for many new ways to include all sorts of music, and it’s been a great adventure, and I’m so glad that it's finally open. It feels like it’s opening up, and it’s not just a token here and there: “Let’s play this piece by a woman composer because she's a woman composer.” It’s just opening up, and it doesn't matter anymore. We're just including all people and all types of music. That’s what it feels like. Frank : Greg, I'm going to give you the last word here. Hearing the three of you speak, I know I'm looking forward to hearing you all perform. What else can you tell listeners to this conversation to whet their appetites for the program you’ve prepared? What should they be expecting? Greg : They should be expecting White Sexual Chocolate. That's what they should expect. That's the name of the band that I gave them, and they put beautiful, sugary, milk white chocolate on my music, and it definitely embellished all the songs - every song that I perform normally. I feel really good about (the performance). They just added a different sauce. Frank : Do you think you'll - having done this now, do you think you'll consider doing something like it again, either in the recording studio or when in-person performing becomes commonplace again? Greg : I’m changed forever through this experience. I've always wanted to be involved with film, watching Disney growing up, (and) seeing Randy Newman, who is my favorite composer, just compose the crap out of string arrangements and provoke emotion in that way, I always wanted to be a part of it. So my next album actually is going to be very, very influenced by this experience (with) classical string playing throughout the entire album now. So it’s very much now a fiber, a part of who I am through this experience. I’m very affected by it, and very thankful for the organization again. Frank : I am so looking forward to hearing how that turns out, and I'm really excited for you. My guests are the performers for the next virtual concert in the new NoteWorthy series from WDAV and FAIR PLAY Music Equity Initiative, singer-songwriter and rapper Greg Cox, Charlotte Symphony violinist Jane Hart Brendle, and violist Matthew Darsey.  The concert streams on Wednesday, May 26th at 7:30 p.m. You can get more information and find a link to the Facebook Live event at noteworthyclassical.org . Thank you all for speaking with me. For WDAV’s Piedmont Arts, I’m Frank Dominguez.

Since 1950, the Symphony Guild of Charlotte has been supporting the Charlotte Symphony and Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestras and promoting interest in symphonic music in the Charlotte region. Both the Symphony Guild and the CSO are working on strategic plans which prioritize inclusivity. Debbie Abels, president of the Symphony Guild, and David Fisk, CEO of the Charlotte Symphony, talk about their two organizations' symbiotic relationship and the ways they want to reach new audiences and serve all members of the community. Pictured: David Fisk, photo credit Keitaro Harada.

The NoteWorthy concert series is presented by WDAV in partnership with the FAIR PLAY Music Equity Alliance. The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community building music. Singer-songwriter Arsena Schroeder talks about the concert and collaborating with pianist Leonard Mark Lewis, violinist Lenora Cox Legatt, and guitarist Chris Suter, who also join the conversation. Arsena Schroeder Lenora Cox Legatt Leonard Mark Lewis Chris Suter Transcript: Frank : This is Frank Dominguez for WDAV’s Piedmont Arts. On Wednesday, April 14 at 7:30 PM, the NoteWorthy concert series debuts on Facebook Live. It’s presented by WDAV in partnership with FAIR PLAY Music Equity [Initiative] and brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-bending, community building music.  The first concert in the series features singer-songwriter Arsena Schroeder with musical guests pianist Leonard Mark Lewis, violinist Lenora Cox Leggatt, and guitarist Chris Suter. All of them are joining me now via Zoom to talk about the concert. Welcome, everybody. Great to have you all here!  Arsena, I'll start with you. Your music is influenced by R&B, pop, and folk, and it's been described as tackling topics of personal healing and empowerment. I’m curious about how you arrived at your sound in general and those particular themes. Arsena : That's a good question. Well, I actually started music kind of late in college. I had a friend who asked me to sing on a project of his, and I thought, “I don't sing.” That’s what I told him, and he said, “You do.” So, that was my first time writing and recording, and I fell in love with it. And then shortly after, I got a hold of Lauryn Hill's MTV Unplugged performance, and it was very ‘singer-songwriter’ - her, her guitar, and storytelling - and I thought, “Oh, if I can do it that way, then I do sing, and I can do music.” So, I kind of just pull from inspiration that is soulful, but still very simple and self-reflective in content. Frank : Mark, let me ask you about your work. You’re a composer as well as a pianist, and your works have been commissioned by orchestras such as the Charlotte Symphony. How did you get involved in this particular project, and what's the collaboration been like? Mark : I was super pumped, because initially I wasn't even going to be involved. I found out that I was going to be involved three hours before the first rehearsal. I was told, “Oh, you have to be at this rehearsal.” So I [thought], “Where’s a keyboard?” So I drove around trying to find a keyboard and drive to Arsena’s loft. I had heard her music before, and I probably got involved because I told the person in charge [of recruiting the classical artists], who happened to be my wife, “I love this music. I want to play with her.” And so, that’s probably how it happened. It’s been a wonderful experience. It’s so musical and lyrical and rhythmic and lush that it was easy - I just came in and did my thing, and [Arsena] was open to new ideas and all those things, and it’s been wonderful from start to finish. Frank : Lenora, let me ask you: you have ties to the Charlotte Symphony, too, as a violinist in the orchestra. Apart from the stylistic differences, how is working with Arsena in this concert different from the classical fare that you normally rehearse and perform? Lenora : I’m used to somebody writing my notes for me, and I work hard at that, and I’m good at that, so just having to go with my own instincts was a new experience. And it was really exciting and really fun and I really enjoyed it, mostly because Arsena just made it so easy and relaxed and she was open to any ideas I wanted to try, or not try, or just explore, and she just made it. Frank : Arsena, let me go back to you for a moment and ask if there was any kind of trepidation - especially now that I've learned that you came to music rather late in life - about heading into this project with classically trained musicians such as Mark and and Lenora. Arsena : Yeah, I mean, in the back of my mind, I’m like, “I don't know how this is going to work,” because we come from two different worlds. I come from the world of improv, just going with what feels good, just kind of playing it by ear, and then also just not having that formal training and being self-taught. And knowing from experience that it normally can take months or years for a band to gel well, I’m going to have to have chemistry, and so I think we kind of hit the jackpot and it worked. But I did think, “We’re really rolling the dice here. This could either go really good or really bad.” [laughs] Frank : Well, I saw a little bit of the rehearsal, so I can attest to the fact that it's going really well. Arsena : Yeah, it went really great.  Frank : Chris, let me bring you in on this and ask how you came to work with Arsena. Chris : I’ve known Arsena for a few years now. She worked with a friend of mine on, I think, one of her earlier EPs, and then long story short, he kind of stepped out of the engineering game and recommended me. We talked and seemed to have a good rapport and seemed to work together, and it just kind of all fell into place from there. Frank : It sounds as if many of our listeners might be surprised at just what an active music scene there is in Charlotte. Chris : I think you have to maybe look for it a little bit, but once you do discover it, you can find that there's a pretty lush community of musicians and artists all kind of working to help each other out. I think because it is a little bit it - it can be a little bit of a struggle, so you kind of find that when you do discover and break your way into the music scene, that everyone is really, really open to helping each other out and working together. Frank : That's great to know. This next question is really for all of you. I'd be interested in your individual thoughts on this. Genres, such as classical or pop or R&B, are handy things for recording labels (and for radio stations, I’ll admit). But what do you, as musicians and creatives, think of that term, “genre”? Arsena, let’s start with you. Arsena : I hate it, because I want to play them all, but I do understand, having a business mind, that marketing-wise, it’s helpful for the audience to know if they're going to be drawn or attracted to what you create. But I mean, I pull from so many different aspects, and one song could be one genre, and another song can be another genre when you’re creating freely, so I don't necessarily care for that label. Frank : Mark, how about you? Mark : I agree with Arsena. Postmodernism is alive and well, and I don’t think there’s any one particular music that stands above another, and it’s all there for the exact same reason. Frank : Lenora? Lenora : I don’t mind it. I like the idea of blending genres more than anything. Composers have always borrowed from each other, and I think exploring and being open to new genres is important. I have students that I was telling them - well, somehow it came up that they don’t think a violin would go in a rock band, and I said, “Actually, I’m playing in a rock band next week.” [Arsena   laughs] Lenora : They were so excited by that. And so I think exploring new genres is important, and I have experience with that, mostly because my husband’s a rock musician, and my son is 9 and he’s always showing me new things to listen to on YouTube. So it helps to explore. Frank : And Chris, what's your experience been with that term as a working musician here in town? Chris : It's kind of a love-hate relationship. I mean, it obviously works and it has its purpose, but one of the most frustrating things is when you're working on an original project and then someone asks you, “What kind of genre is it?,” and it's like, “I don't know, I haven't thought about it. Now let me try to force it into this box.” Into, “Oh, I guess it's rock, but it's also kind of pop,” and then it can give people the wrong or right idea. So it has its utility, but it definitely kind of forces you think in a weird way sometimes. Frank : Arsena, I’m going to give you the last word and ask you to tell me a little bit, or give the listeners a little bit of an expectation of what they can encounter when they tune in for this concert stream. What’s the program going to be like? Arsena : I feel relaxed. Kind of like Mark said, it’s pretty relaxed. I do some storytelling in between the songs. We’ve got some solos, everybody gets a little solo and a moment. I think it’s something that you might find interesting and pleasing to your ear, just because we’ve got the violin, which I’ve never had. Now I feel like I need violin on every single one of my songs moving forward, so Lenora, I’ll be hitting you up. And we’ve got Chris on electric, and I pulled Chris in because we’ve been playing together for years, and I felt like he could fill in some of the areas that I couldn’t. But I go from electric guitar to acoustic guitar to tambourine, Mark is on electric piano and grand piano, so we really get a really good palate of music for your ears, I think. Frank : That sounds very tempting, and I know hearing that, a lot of folks are going to be interested in checking it out. My guests have been the performers for the first virtual concert in the new NoteWorthy series from WDAV and FAIR PLAY Music Equity Initiative. Singer-songwriter Arsena Schroeder (whose latest release, [Unplugged+Live: Remixed & Remastered], is available for download at arsenamusic.com), pianist and composer Leonard Mark Lewis, violinist Lenora Cox Leggatt, and guitarist Chris Suter.  The concert streams on Wednesday, April 14 at 7:30 PM, and you can get more information and find a link to the Facebook Live event at noteworthyclassical.org. Everybody, thanks so much for speaking with me! Arsena : Thank you for having us. Frank : For WDAV’s Piedmont Arts, I’m Frank Dominguez.

Timothy Redmond, artistic director of the Winston-Salem Symphony, talks about the symphony’s new on-demand concert Center Stage . The concert features Lukas Foss's Renaissance Concerto and Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto . Redmond discusses the many ways the orchestra has had to adapt and change this year -- everything from producing videos to performing while keeping musicians six feet apart. Pictured: Tim Redmond; courtesy of the Winston-Salem Symphony.

Normally during the spring of the year, Charlotte Ballet would be presenting their Innovative Works series which brings in outside guest choreographers. Due to the ongoing pandemic, that wasn't possible this year. So instead, they're presenting the work of Charlotte Ballet staff and artists in a specially renamed series called Works: Direct from the Lab . Artistic director Hope Muir explains the personal nature of these locally created works and how they connect to the Charlotte community.

Cynthia and Bill Lawing have crafted a program spanning the centuries as part of the Music at St. Alban’s series in Davidson, NC. The husband and wife duo, which has extensive performing experience in the Charlotte area and around the country, has crafted a diverse program of music for trumpet and piano that ranges from Scarlatti to Ginastera. They talk about the concert, their year navigating COVID, and share the story of how they met as conservatory students many years ago. Learn more about Music @ St. Alban's and WDAV present Cynthia and William Lawing