NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2020

"The Fine and Performing Arts are central to the tradition of a liberal arts education, which is the cornerstone of our Virginia Wesleyan mission."  VWU President Scott D. Miller 
NEWS AND EVENTS
Jenni on the Block

Batten Fellow and senior Political Science and Theatre major Jenni Vega (Chesapeake, VA) made quite an impression on Dr. Sally Shedd, VWU Professor of Theatre, in last spring’s "Advanced Acting" class.
 
One of the course assignments was to prepare and deliver a monologue several minutes in length. While most choose something from a prepared work, Jenni wrote hers.
 
“I’ve always enjoyed reading and once I’d inhaled every book I could get my hands on, writing came next. When I started doing theatre, writing my own plays and monologues seemed like the next logical step.”

Performances during the festival will be broadcast on the VWU Digital Broadcast Network at 7:30 p.m. (FREE), November 12 and 13, with a different set of plays each evening. Twenty-five VWU students take part under the direction of Jenni Vega and Mak Kern, Kayla Bissette, Rachel DeMay, Joseph Chatman, Chasida Taylor, and Joey Mueller.
Music of the Mayflower
Thursday, November 12, 2020
12:00 p.m.

The Wesleyan Sacred Music Institute presents the free webinar "Music of the Mayflower: Communal Music in a Time of Isolation" on Thursday, Nov 12, at 12:00 p.m., as the final installment in WSMI’s fall Sound & Symbol Lecture Series.

Dr. Bianca Hall, lecturer in Early Music at ODU and director of the ODU Madrigal Singers, will be virtually joined by Dr. Sandy Fryling (OH), William Rowley (CA-Fullerton), Joel Nesvadba (CA-LA), and Dr. Jason Yoshida (USC) in a mini-concert and question/answer period on music the Mayflower passengers brought with them from the Aynsworth Psalter to traditional mariner songs.

While the lecture series, "Infecting Faith & Art," has focused on music and art created during, or in response, to pandemics, plagues, and times of loss, this installment focuses on music of chosen isolation from the trans-Atlantic crossing, as well as ways 21st -century musicians make music together while apart.

Register to join the webinar, or for access to view at a time of your convenience after the session. 
Good Trouble:
Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook
Neil Britton Art Gallery
October 20 - December 20, 2020

Illustrator and journalist Christopher Noxon’s exhibition, Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook,” is currently featured in VWU’s Neil Britton Art Gallery. For easy viewing during social distancing times, it’s available to all on YouTube at Good Trouble.

Overwhelmed by today’s political climate and accompanying pessimism, Noxon found encouragement on a visit to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. He left inspired and determined to learn the deeper lessons of the movement. The results are the book from which come this exhibition’s pen and watercolor illustrations, as well as five original watercolors created to reflect Virginia’s history in the civil rights movement. The video also offers an opportunity to hear the artist’s insights about this important subject matter and his creative process.

The exhibition is presented by the Robert Nusbaum Center for Diversity, Dialogue, Faith, and Freedom with John Rudel, VWU Professor of Arts and Curator of Exhibitions.
A New Face in the Goode Center

​Moving from A-Rod and JLo to VWU, sure, that sounds like a logical step.

Trey Delpo, Virginia Wesleyan's new Operations Manager and Technical Director for the Susan S. Goode Center for the Fine & Performing Arts, left the television and film world of HBO, Netflix, Fox Sports, and the Major League Baseball network (where he crossed paths with Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez, if only for a minute) to return to VWU from which he graduated in 2017.

A native of Annapolis, Delpo said, “I fell in love with the campus and this area on my very first visit, and when I finished grad school, I did everything in my power to find a job here because I love the area.”
VWU/WHRO Virtual Concert Series

The pandemic has halted the VWU Concert Series but not the music! In collaboration with WHRO Public Media, A Virtual Concert Series, recorded in the Susan S. Goode Center for the Fine & Performing Arts, is in development.

A host of the region’s finest performers are recording throughout November and performances will be broadcast on WHRO in December and January. Among the performers are three with VWU connections: pianist Lee Jordan-Anders, Professor of Music and Artist-in-Residence Emerita; the New Commonwealth String Quartet which includes cellist Elizabeth Richards, Adjunct Faculty and Applied Music Specialist-cello; and classical guitarist Todd Holcomb, Adjunct Faculty and Applied Music Specialist-guitar.

Stay tuned to WHRO or check the Arts@VWU webpage in December for broadcast dates and times.
December Winter Arts Showcase
December 11, 2020

The Art, Music, and Theatre departments will share highlights of a semester’s work in a virtual Winter Arts Showcase on Friday, December 11, on the VWU Digital Broadcast Network.

The showcase will feature an all-day Painting, Drawing, Sculpture virtual gallery, concerts by both the Jazz and String ensembles, a reprise of the fall One-Act Play Festival, and a music majors’ recital. The day will conclude with the VWU choirs presenting A Virtual Wesleyan Christmas.

For further details and the showcase schedule, check the Arts@VWU webpage in December.