(uplifting music) - Coming up next on "Curate."

- [Camille] When I was younger, I did feel very constricted because I just didn't see people that looks like me doing the things that I was interested in.

- [Charlotte] Architects, engineers and sculptors came together to create these beautiful pieces.

- [Sean] Community theaters had lost their focus on the people behind the scenes.

- [Mark] The love that I have for doing documentaries, it expresses an art form in a different way.

- I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

Music is a universal language, but it can lack universal representation, especially classical music.

- The Virginia Symphony Orchestra's Fellows program is changing that, empowering young Black musicians to see themselves on stage and inspiring a new generation to embrace classical music.

(lively classical music) - [Lisa] If you close your eyes, the majestic sound of a symphony orchestra can consume you.

When you open your eyes, there are numerous talented musicians helping to escort you on this musical journey, but it's what you don't see that the Virginia Symphony Orchestra is working to change.

(audience applauding) (intriguing music) - We are trying to make a difference.

We are trying to expose students of color to classical music, to beautiful music, and to really understand that this is something that they can do as well.

- [Lisa] According to a study done by the League of American Orchestras in 2014, Black musicians make up less than 2% of orchestra musicians.

Three years ago, the VSO started a fellows program designed to grow the number of Black musicians, not only in this orchestra but in orchestras around the country.

- My name's Camille Jones.

I'm a returning fellow from Maryland, and I play the violin.

- My name's Adrian Jackson.

I'm from Austin, Texas, and I play the viola.

This is my first year of the program.

Thanks for having me.

(audience cheering) - My name is Amari Abdul-Alim.

I'm a returning fellow and a violinist from Seattle, Washington.

(playful classical music) Music is a universal language, so we will find stuff that we love in all cultures, but it kind of takes that extra representation to kind of activate it within ourselves, activate it within students to say, "Oh, I could do that."

- Going into school programs and boys and girls clubs and the places where there are young black and brown kids and showing them these opportunities at a high level with seriousness really helps.

(lively violin music) The reaction when I go into schools and show what it's like to be an African American playing a classical instrument is, it's a little bit like awestruck of kids that look like me.

Sometimes they don't see people in those spaces.

You'll see someone on TV or someone in a magazine, but they have someone you can speak to that looks like you, that does something different that you haven't thought about before, I think kind of opens up the possibilities for yourself.

So you can kind of see like the spark lit in a kid's eye.

(lively violin music) - [Lisa] What the fellows and many classical musicians have known for some time is, the earlier you can introduce Black youth to orchestral music, instruments, and mentors who look like them, the greater the likelihood of them seeing the orchestra as a career choice.

VSO Fellow Camille Jones was first introduced to the violin in the fourth grade.

- When I was younger, I did feel very constricted musically because I just didn't see people that looks like me doing the things that I was interested in.

I just remember being like, "Wow, violin is sick.

That's the instrument for me.

I'm gonna learn the heck out of that."

And so that's what I did.

And then the rest is history.

- [Lisa] One key component of the fellows' time with the symphony are the mock auditions.

These blind auditions mimic what they'll encounter as they audition for spots with different orchestras across the US.

- Well, I think it's a good idea that the opportunity to have that feedback, because sometimes we judge ourself a little bit too hard.

Now, playing with the professional orchestra as a fellow is just great.

Since the first rehearsals when everybody's prepared and the conductor just move the button and everything sounds like a recording is nice.

(audience applauding) - And that's what this is about.

It's about making an environment where we're all just making music together at the absolute highest level.

- [Lisa] The year long fellowship not only takes these talented young musicians into schools to teach the next generation, but it incorporates an opportunity to give back through a community service project.

- The capstone is this opportunity to allow the fellows to expand their administrative and entrepreneurial skills through curation of some sort of special event.

We curated this really cool event called Artistry for the Soul, which was this program focused on uplifting Black artistry through focusing on music by Black composers from 20th century to now.

- [Lisa] It's a program that's growing roots and sprouting results.

- See, they're expanding.

They've grown their wings, and they're flying, and we are extremely proud of them.

- And this is the future of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and is the future of orchestras across America.

So what we have to do is continue to support these types of programs so that we continue to include everyone in our community as we move forward with our musical ambitions.

(lively classical music) (audience applauding) - What a great story.

And joining us now to talk more about this is Lisa Godley.

- Thank you for having me, Jason.

- Absolutely.

Lisa, this curate feature is just scratching the surface.

Correct?

- That's right.

This is a story that we've been following for about 10 months.

The fellows, these four incredibly talented individuals here in Hampton Roads learning their craft, honing their craft right here.

It's so exciting being able to watch them and follow them, and we will continue to do so until the program ends at the end of the summer, and we will bring an incredible documentary to the viewers here in Hampton Roads when we're done.

- Oh, that's fantastic.

So this sounds like such a great story to tell.

Well, what has surprised you the most so far in the time that you've spent with these four aspiring musicians?

- Well, these are young people in their early to mid-twenties who are so incredibly talented.

To hear them play, you would think they've been playing 20 years, and they haven't.

And to watch them share what they know with like middle school students and to watch these middle school students, the expressions on their faces, seeing these folks who look like them, teaching them their craft, and you can see them light up and know, "I can do this when I grow up.

I can be an orchestral musician."

And that's what the program is all about.

It's just showing people the importance of these folks being in this, in this genre right here.

- This is amazing.

Thank you so much for the feature and the upcoming doc.

- Thank you so much, Jason, for having me.

And the doc will be on WHRO TV 15 and all our streaming platforms.

- For his fourth annual celebration, ODU's Arts Festival went bigger than ever with Pneuhaus, an immersive experience using nature and design.

What began as a pandemic era outdoor exhibition has grown into a beloved annual tradition, bringing art beyond gallery walls and into the heart of the community.

(uplifting music) (crowds chattering) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) - This year is our fourth annual Public Arts Festival, and for this one we are featuring biomes.

We're thinking about the earth sciences.

We have a lovely piece here.

They are building these beautiful tree canopies that open and close, but they're human powered, so you need to ride a bike in order to open and close it.

And then over here we have a piece called Fabric Prism.

This biome, we're thinking about caves, underground structures, and then inside we have something called Cloud Lights.

Cloud Lights are these beautiful, atmospheric sort of brand new clouds.

It's actually their newest piece.

They created it just for us today.

We're thinking about the atmosphere.

So the group is a collaborative group called Pneuhaus.

P-N-E-U, like pneumatic, like built with air.

They're architects, engineers, and sculptors that all kind of came together to create these beautiful pieces.

And it's really fitting because this is their 10 year anniversary.

And we have their oldest piece right here.

This is actually gonna be decommissioned after this.

Its final inflation, and their newest piece.

So it's sort of like we kind of bookend their whole careers here.

And they've sent down some of their people, and they've helped us set everything up, and it's been wonderful working with them.

Over here we have some ODU professors, Brendan Baylor and Kelly Mors.

They're partners in life and in art, and they're doing a piece called Sound Mapping, and they're inviting the public to take sounds from their own waterways.

And all of those get put up into the cloud into this new website that allows people to think and hear our waterways right here in Hampton Roads.

And they've done all of that inside of a shipping container (laughs).

So the Public Arts Festival began really organically during Covid.

People couldn't come inside, so we decided to create an outdoor street festival that would be safe for everybody to still experience art.

People loved it, and they decided, the new president here at Old Dominion University, President Hemphill said, "Let's do it again!"

We started on the moon, we went all the way out to Mars, then we landed back on Earth last year with Fantastic Planet, those big people that landed here, and now we're delving into the earth sciences.

There is actually one other thing I do wanna tell you guys about.

We're closing the museum for a massive expansion.

We're doubling the footprint of our museum.

We've raised 90% of the $23 million goal for us to break ground, so we're breaking ground next spring.

This sort of was necessitated through a major gift by the Waitzer family.

They doubled our collection, and now we need to double our gallery space to match that.

But don't worry, the festival will be here next year.

It's still happening.

The museum just won't be open, and we'll go out into the community and be popping up places.

But it's very exciting, and I'm really excited for the next chapter here at the Barry Art Museum.

(crowd chatting) - If you've ever visited Chelsea, you probably passed by the Little Theater of Norfolk.

The building with its bright red exterior has stood as a beacon to the neighborhood for 75 years.

From meager beginnings, the Little Theater has evolved, producing full main stage seasons, hosting educational workshops, and providing space for the creative community to grow.

(upbeat music) - The show is the culmination of the effort of, you know, maybe a hundred people at any one given time.

What's magic about community theater is, it's never guaranteed that any one of those people knew that they could do that thing before they got here.

(performers rhythmically clapping and tapping) On the whole, not only this theater, but I think community theaters in general, had lost their focus on the people behind the scenes where the actors and the director and the show must go on, and me saying, "Well, wait a minute, before we even get to the show, we've got a hundred needs, we've got a hundred different people that we need to find to get to this point."

- Our board is totally volunteer.

Anybody who works on a show here, all volunteer.

Being the volunteer coordinator is kind of a really important role because the goal is to make sure our volunteers feel heard, they feel appreciated, they know their value.

We literally could not do any of what we do without our volunteers.

- Taught by a famous story.

You got one more, Bobby.

- Are you all right?

- Can I, can I call you- - Students!

- Students, uh.

(audience laughing) - One thing we also embrace here is, and it's, I've said it over and over again to my board, is everybody who shows up here is our volunteer.

We don't ever say that person wants to stage manage, but they don't have any experience, so they can't stage manage.

That person is not a painter, so they can't paint for us.

This show is directed by a brand new director, never directed before, and we didn't say no to that.

- And then Jakar, this is going to stop, center.

So when you guys keep.

- [Sean] We focus on what are the resources.

We said, now we have a volunteer that wants to fill one of our positions.

How do we give them the resources and the support they need to make it happen?

- Theater is such a unique art form.

It's so different from a movie or reading a book or something because it really is experiential.

Every time someone comes in and experiences volunteering here for the first time, even if it's a little scary for them to jump in, because they're interested in lighting, but they've never done lighting before or whatever it is, we have so many people that are here to guide them.

- I worked in drama class stuff in school, but when I went active duty, I stopped doing anything in theater because you just didn't have time.

And one of the things that you do as an engineer, you do a lot of training for fire drills so use the smoke machines, all that.

Well, when I first got back into theater, the first thing I did was I was working backstage on a production of called "The Witches," which you've probably seen the movie, right?

And they were using smoke machines for all these transitions, and they asked me, "Hey, do you know anything about these smoke machines?"

"Yeah, I do."

So I helped reset the smoke machines, so the effects had worked properly, and one thing led to another, I started helping backstage, I started helping build sets.

Next thing I know I was auditioning for a little part here, a little part there, and it just kinda steamrolled.

- Yeah!

- I build sets, and I'm acting, and I'm having fun, yeah.

- It's really cool to see people grow and push themselves a little bit, get out of their comfort zones and just try different types of art, because there's so many different types of art you can try in the theater.

(performers rhythmically stomping) (performers shout) (audience cheering) (audience applauding) - It's such a great way to tap into a creative outlet that maybe you don't know that you have.

Like I said, this was my first time ever working in theater really.

And I found that I like to be very creative, but here it's pulled out some different things even within me.

I've directed now two shows, helping just organize and do different things, come up with lots of different ideas for shows, and season extras and different things.

I think, you know, when you get to be around a group of creative people, it pulls out things in you that maybe you didn't realize were there.

- (laughs) Just lemme think about it!

- I'm gonna get one person down there, one person in the middle, and then I'm gonna grab here, and we're gonna feed it up here.

- First time being an artistic director here, it's easier in the sense that I have more of a support team.

We have a mix of people who have experience in the arts and in theater, but then we get a lot of people that just come in, and they just wanna help, and they just think it would be cool, and they show up.

They all came in, and they had a good time, and they're keeping in touch with each other and building communities of their own within our community.

(upbeat music continues) - I find this great history.

Rose Wilson started this in her living room in 1925 'cause of one act play reading group.

And I've been happy to be part of it.

What brings me back?

Someday, my name will go on a little two and a half inch by one inch plaque in the green room that Sean Thompson was president here for a very brief moment of this glorious history.

And I like that, I think that's a cool thing.

(audience cheering) (audience applauding) - [Jason] To see previous segments, go to whro.org/curate.

- Welcome to "Curate Presents."

I am Kayda Plus, and I'm here with Mark Atkinson.

How are you?

- Great, thanks.

Thanks for having me.

- Most people know you from your photography work.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

- Well, I started off in the eighties as a still photographer, and I've been doing that ever since then.

And then about 10, 20 years ago, 15, I don't know, started, had got into this idea of wanting to do film.

The difference in the love that I have for doing documentaries and film shorts is that it expresses an art form in a different way, you know?

- So I hear you have a upcoming episode of "Curate" that you did something with the artist Lewis McGehee.

- Yeah, Lewis McGehee, he's a guitar player and a writer, but he's been playing around here for 50 years.

So I was curious about him, and I thought he's sort of the troubadour of Tidewater, you know, and so we spent some time, or I spent some time with him at various gigs he did.

And then he has four daughters that he's put through college and all that.

And some of them are musically inclined, and we interviewed all of them, and they actually went out one night and actually played with him on stage at a place on Shore Drive, but he went to William and Mary, was gonna go to law school and then got the music bug and has written a lot of his own tunes and has settled in and has, between teaching guitar lessons and playing around town, you know, carved out a living for himself.

So it's a good little story.

- I hear you're a lover of the Eastern Shore.

- Yes, I'd have to confess to that, yes.

- Why is that?

- Well, it's an interesting part of the country.

It's still rather pristine in its presentation of beauty, and I mean, it's just a beautiful place, and interesting people there.

- Are some of those interesting people a part of your film "Pickers & Players"?

- Yes, Bill Aeschliman, who bought a general store in Craddockville years ago, he and his wife, and he was a little bit of a early musician, but he made his living building and making Windsor chairs, and then he and his wife were both musical, and he built a banjo.

Finally got decent about it, and he put together a bluegrass group that rehearsed on Thursday nights.

That grew into inviting people over to jam with him.

And so since the early 2000s, he's pretty much every Thursday night had people in there just to sit around and pick and tell stories and play music.

- Thank you so much for coming to talk with us today.

Appreciate you.

- Love being here.

- Awesome.

- And I love "Curate," and the programs, and you know, it's really nice to see the local artists and stuff that you guys feature.

- Awesome, thank you.

- Thank you.

- And this is the perfect segue for us to go and see "Pickers & Players."

(lively bluegrass music) ♪ I hear the train coming ♪ ♪ It's coming in around the bend ♪ ♪ I ain't seen sunshine since I don't know when ♪ ♪ I'm stuck with fools and cruising ♪ ♪ And trying to drag it on ♪ ♪ When my prays keep me rolling ♪ ♪ All down to San Antonio ♪ ♪ When I was just a baby ♪ ♪ My mom told me, son ♪ ♪ Always be a good boy ♪ ♪ The fellows they become ♪ ♪ But I shot a man and killed 'em ♪ ♪ Just to watch him die ♪ ♪ When I hear that people know ♪ ♪ I hang my head up high ♪ ♪ Hey, Mike ♪ (lively bluegrass with harmonica music) (lively bluegrass music continues) - [Bill] When I turned 50, I decided I was gonna learn how to play the banjo.

I started playing, and my friend Tom Westcot, who just lives around the corner over here, started coming over and accompany me with guitar, so I could have somebody to play along with.

Then another friend, Alan Cason, he started coming over, and that was pretty much the beginning of it, that it just kept growing.

And that was 16 years ago.

I can't make it stop.

I tell 'em we're not gonna play, they come anyway.

♪ And that's what Georgia means ♪ - If I wouldn't unlock the door, they'll either come around and unlock the door or they'll sit out front and play.

At the time we was all still working, and Thursday night just seemed to be the best night.

And as my friend Tom said, it makes for Little Friday, and you have a bunch of fun on Thursday night.

We call it an open jam session.

It's for anyone that wants to come and play as long as it's acoustic.

The interesting thing is we've had musicians vacationing here on the Eastern Shore that would hear about us, and so they would show up on Thursday, and if they're gonna be a couple weeks, they'll come the next week.

We've had some really, really good talent.

Best way to advance is to play with other people, and that doesn't go for brand new people.

That goes for people that's been playing most of their life.

♪ I know the sound ♪ ♪ So gather around me ♪ ♪ I know my way ♪ - The type of music that we play depends on what group shows up.

We started out playing pretty much just create bluegrass because of the banjo.

We'll have people come, they'll call me up and say, "Bill, I play a little bit guitar, can I come by and play on Thursday night?"

For sure.

They'll come, and sometimes they don't even take the guitar outta the car.

They'll sit in the back back here, and they'll just kind of watch and listen and see how we're doing.

And when they feel more comfortable, they'll go out and get their guitar, or they'll come the next week.

I guess probably the biggest enjoyment that I get personally is watching them move forward.

I mean, they'll start in the back, and the more comfortable they get with it, they'll move up a little bit, and until they're on the stage, and that's my reward right there.

(lively bluegrass music) (audience cheering) - [Member] I miss Joe.

I miss Joe (laughs).

- Jason, I guess we can say you were really inspired by that last video.

- Well, absolutely.

Couldn't you see me out there on a Thursday night jamming with those guys?

- Yes, I could, and I'm sure they would love to have you.

- Well, there you go.

(light guitar music) ♪ And that's our show ♪ ♪ Make sure you check us out next time for more "Curate" ♪ - Boy (clapping).

- Thank you.

(both laughing) (uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music fades)