Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 11, 1994 TAG: 9402140322
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Donna Alvis Banks
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Radford University will celebrate the traditions of the Appalachian Mountains today with the annual "Appalachian Awareness Day" in the Cascades Room of Heth Hall. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and features these local singers, musicians and yarn spinners:
10-10:50 a.m. Appalachian storyteller Chris White presents "Quilted Memories" and other tales.
11-11:40 a.m. June Draper plays guitar and sings traditional country music.
11:50 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Radford University students read and perform Appalachian music.
12:30-1:20 p.m. Nero's Night, a group featuring Keith Webb, Lisa Webb and James Grubb, plays progressive acoustic music.
1:30-2 p.m. Readings and musical performances by Radford University's own.
2-2:50 p.m. Traditional and contemporary bluegrass music by Crossties.
3-3:50 p.m. The Appalkids of Pulaski County High School entertain with storytelling and old-time music.
4-4:50 p.m.f-b Kanawha Tradition, featuring the best old-time fiddler in West Virginia, plays classic mountain music.
Today's events coincide with other activities at the university honoring Appalachia, including a quilt exhibit in Flossie Martin Gallery and evening performances of "Appalachian Voices" in Preston Auditorium.
Admission to all of today's events in Heth Hall is free.
A WISH FOR MOUNTAIN HARMONY: oThe Blacksburg Jewish Community Center, along with several other community groups, will sponsor an evening of foot-stompin' fun Saturday in an effort to raise money for a national Hillel response for humanitarian aid in Bosnia. The mountain music concert and square dance runs from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the Wesley Foundation in Blacksburg.
Tim Donley is the master of ceremonies. Performers include The Part-Time Pickers, Shay Garriock, The Hoorah Cloggers, Becky Barlow and Jack Hinshelwood, Nero's Night, Margaret Branch and The Brush Mountain Sandsifters.
Storyteller Chris Saunders will be there, along with Dean O'Donnell of Virginia Tech's history department. Square dance callers are Bob Wright and Bill Richardson.
Tickets are $5 per person or $10 for a whole family. Free baby-sitting will be available at the Wesley Foundation. The concert will be held in the upstairs auditorium and the square dance will be held in the multipurpose room downstairs. The Wesley Foundation is at Roanoke and Otey streets.
Rabbi Bonnie Margulis of the Blacksburg Jewish Community Center said that money raised at the event Saturday will be sent to the American Joint Distribution Committee. It will be used to provide food and medicine for victims of the war and to help establish a communication and transportation network between Sarajevo and other communities in the former Yugoslavia.
A FAMILY AFFAIR: Joe Kennedy III will join his distinguished dad, Joe Kennedy Jr., for a jazz concert, "Family Affair and Friends," Saturday at 8 p.m. in Virginia Tech's Squires Recital Salon.
The father-and-son team will perform with bassist Ephriam Woolfolk and percussionist Bill Ray, musicians with the Roanoke Symphony. Joe Kennedy Jr. is director of jazz studies at Virginia Tech and plays violin. His son is a teacher in the Pittsburgh school system, a pianist and a composer.
Saturday's concert includes three original pieces by Joe Kennedy III: "So True," "Beauty Personified" and "Perspective for Dad." Other works on the program honor American composers.
Tickets are $3 and will be available at the door. For ticket information, call 231-5200.
YOU'RE MY HERO: Sculptor Inge Hardison believes there has always been a need for heros, especially in today's troubled world.
That belief inspired Hardison to create a series of bronze cast sculptured portraits of some of her favorite historical heros and heroines, including Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, Mary McLeod Bethune, George Washington Carver, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Robeson and Phillis Wheatley.
Many of the sculptures are now on display at Virginia Tech's Black Cultural Center in honor of the university's celebration of Black History Month. In 1990, Hardison's sculpture of Sojourner Truth was presented to Nelson Mandela by New York governor Mario Cuomo. Like the South African activist, Sojourner Truth, the name used by Isabella Baumfree, was a voice for abolition, civil rights and women's rights in this country.
Hardison and her colleague, Margaret McCaden, will speak tonight at the Black Cultural Center in Virginia Tech's Squires Student Center. The free presentation, "Sculpture and the Spoken Word," starts at 7. A reception will follow.
For more information, call 231-5355.
CURTAIN GOING UP:"The Hollow Crown," a John Barton play about quirky English queens and kings of the 16th and 17th centuries, continues today and Saturday in Radford University's Porterfield Theatre. Curtain time is at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $5 for the public, $4 for Radford University faculty and staff members and free for Radford University students. Call 831-5289 for information.
Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is the next production by Virginia Tech's Theatre Arts-University Theatre. It opens Thursday and runs through Feb. 20 in Squires Studio Theatre. A second run is scheduled for Feb. 23-26. Evening shows are at 8. The show on Feb. 20 is a matinee performance at 2.
David Johnson is directing the classic romantic comedy about love and unrequited love. Blacksburg's Convergence Jazz Quartet has composed original music for the production, and three Virginia Tech graduate students have designed the set in "Art Deco" fashion.
This should be a treat for the eyes, the ears and the funny bone!
Admission is $7 for adults or $5 for students and senior citizens. To reserve tickets, call 231-5615.
RAMBLIN' MEN: Ike Jarrells and the Bluegrass Ramblers, The UCLA Ramblers and The Farmer's Daughters are the pickers and grinners at Saturday's jamboree put on by the New River Community College Fiddle, Banjo and Dance Club. The fete starts at 5 and runs until 10 p.m. at the New River Valley Fairgrounds in Dublin.
Admission is free but donations are appreciated to help pay traveling expenses for the bands. As always, winners of the dance contest will take home cash prizes.
by CNB