- This is our place, our time on this edition.

We'll have a progress report on a new art center for Virginia Beach.

We'll honor a first citizen of music in Hampton Roads and Walter Nuna will play the piano.

Here's your host, Vianne Webb, - Some old friends and a new building for the arts will be among our subjects on this edition of the Cultural magazine program for Hampton Roads.

Welcome back to our place, our time.

You perhaps know the Virginia Beach Arts Center best as the sponsor of the Annual Boardwalk Art Show every summer, where as many as a quarter of a million people come to the beach to ogle art and each other.

But the Art Center has also long been an institution, though housed in a building far too small and out of date for its many programs.

About five years ago, members and supporters embarked on a plan to build a new art center for Virginia Beach.

They've not had an easy time.

The building was supposed to open two years ago and it looks as though it will still be another year before it does.

We'll learn why and have a progress report on the new center.

When I talk with its executive director, Michael Marks and we'll set the scene for our interview with a field report from Tempe Fisk.

Tempe visited both the old art center building and the site of the new one.

- It's had a proud history.

This weather beaten building at the corner of 18th and Arctic Avenues in Virginia Beach, built as a USO building for military personnel in the forties, it served as a home away from home for traveling Army and Navy soldiers.

Since 1952, it has served as the home of the Virginia Beach Arts Center, a non collecting institution established to provide quality programming in the fine arts.

The center emphasizes 20th century American visual arts and is the only institution in Hampton Roads to do so.

The Arts Center also provides a studio school which stimulates the artisan with workshops in the studio arts.

- It's been a lot of fun to be able to show here, to show with local artists and people from lots of other countries and other areas around the United States.

We have a lot of fun showing here we can do anything we want and show whimsical work as well as really serious art.

- Its hands-on philosophy gives the student an opportunity to work in a variety of classes, including among others.

The art of making pottery.

In addition to the youth art Saturdays and art camps held to provide art education for children ages seven to 12, the center also stages ambitious arts events.

The most notable being the Boardwalk Art Show held in June every year.

To accomplish the ambitious goals of the art center requires more than just the dedication and perseverance of a staff and interested artisans.

It requires space and that's something of a premium for the Art Center.

Exit 1952, enter 1989.

Their campaign slogan we're making the Beach and Arts Center and construction crews have begun to do just that.

The new 32,000 square foot building is being built on 12 acres of land on the north side of Toll Road opposite the Virginia Beach Pavilion Architect e Vernor Johnson of Boston is responsible for the design, which will house an outdoor sculpture garden, an exhibition, gallery and auditorium, lecture hall, six classrooms and interior courtyard and administrative offices and support areas.

Peter Coe, president of the Virginia Beach Arts Center Board of Trustees is confident all the proper mechanisms have been put into place.

- We're gonna be able to have exhibits that have never been shown here before that will compliment and add to what other arts institutions are showing.

The studio class program will be expanded, our arts, our lecture series, film series.

In the new auditorium, we're gonna be able to offer so much to this whole community.

- The major push for a new home began nine years ago and the realization of that dream will take place next spring when Michael Marks and his staff occupy the new facility of the Virginia Beach Art Center.

- Virginia Beach will indeed have a new art center and one of the people the city will have to thank for it will be Michael Marks, the Center's executive director.

Michael, the fight for the new center has been a difficult one.

We all know that.

And one of the things we wanted to do on the program today was to have you bring us up to date on where you stand in your capital campaign in your new building.

- Well, it, it, it, it has not been easy.

I'm happy to report that we feel fairly good about what has happened in the past two and a half years.

Capital campaign was started probably five years ago.

It evolved as a decision through the board of trustees to bring our facilities up to the standard that the Virginia Beach area and the entire Hampton Roads area should expect of an art center.

We've gotten caught in the middle of several campaigns, major campaigns, the marine science, the, the Chrysler Museum, the medical school.

So we've been kicked about a little bit, but we have survived and we're right on the edge of, of attaining our goal of seven and a half million dollars, which should put us in a fairly comfortable position for opening up a new building.

- You had commented earlier how generous this community was and we were sort of ticking off the organizations all of whom had had come for capital funding.

I think during the past three to five years, and it has been a generous community.

I there does come a time when even those generous corporate contributions and individual contributions have to wait or be put aside until they are, are those that are already committed, are fulfilled.

What's your backup position?

Should you not get this last step, which is what about a million and a half dollars, a million and a - Half dollars is, is, is is what we're hopeful from, from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the next general assembly.

I believe traditionally, most folks who've gone out into the community for a capital campaign have basically gone to the same people, the same corporations.

There are quite a few other individuals out there who are willing and capable of giving, perhaps not to the degree that a Norfolk Southern or a sovereign bank can give, but still their contribution is extremely important to us.

We do plan to research those folks and go out and talk to them.

We also plan a public community-wide splash.

We want to give everyone in this Hampton Roads area an opportunity to buy into the building.

We want them to feel like it's, it's, it is their building - There.

Talk about that building a bit.

There are two things I wanted to talk about within the time we have.

One is the beauty of that building, the architect and the design of it, because you really stirred up my curiosity about it and I think the viewers would like to know about that.

And then secondly, how your artistic programs might change in any way or be enhanced once that building is in place.

I think we all know you, you best for the Boardwalk Art Show of course, which is a huge success drawing.

What about a half million people a year?

- Yes.

Yes.

Our building, which is presently under construction, about 65% complete, we are quite proud of, of the design.

It was designed by an architect out of Boston who is internationally known for museum and arts and art center design work, E Verner Johnson.

He de designed the Virginia Marine Science building, the building.

It, it, its itself should set the stage for what's going on inside the building.

Lots of things are gonna go be going on inside the building.

We are primarily focused on 20th century American art.

We'll have an exhibition space of some 6,000 square feet, which - Is But you're not a collecting new museum?

- We are - Not collecting institution In essence though.

- Yes ma'am.

Yeah.

We will put on a variety of traveling shows.

We'll, we will organize a lot of our own shows.

We will focus again on the 20th century American artist, both living and dead.

We will entertain opportunities for artwork from other periods.

Our educational program is also very important to us and we have a, we teach a variety of art classes presently in our old facility.

We offered something like 120 different classes last year and over 1000 people participated.

And this is an, a building that is extremely limited, obviously in our new building.

It's being designed with six classrooms.

It's being designed with a printmaking studio, a dark room, a ceramic studio, and what have you.

So our opportunities to enhance our educational programming as far as studio arts go is just limitless.

We'll be able to further develop our educational programming for young folks, which we are extremely interested in making sure that these children are given an opportunity to learn at an early age about art and the type of effect it it can have on their life.

- You're also building an auditorium as well?

- Well, we - Have an auditorium which will enhance that whole program.

- Again, that's entirely a a a new world for us.

We don't have an auditorium right now.

It's 264 seats.

It, it will be the site for a film festival.

We'll do lectures from there, slide presentations.

We'll do small musical ensembles there, readings, what have you.

It's just the opportunities for our programming will, will quadruple easily.

- I had read something about you that said that when the new building was built, that you were going to stay as executive director.

Certainly your background is interesting.

So I ask you two questions since you have graduate studies in, in urban studies, I think you told me, we were talking about what you were going into healthcare, right?

And we decided that the arts were, were premier healthcare.

- Certainly.

- Was there some talk or some thought on your part that you might leave and are you very happy making business decisions in the arts?

- I'm very comfortable with it.

My background is a, a nonprofit group.

Certainly the arts is a nonprofit organization.

I look at this as more than a job.

I, I, I feel very pleased and happy to be a part of bringing an, an extra bit of quality of, of life to the community.

Our funding problems won't cease once we get into the new building.

There are going to be continual, our annual operating budget is probably going to go up towards a million dollars, which is about three times as much as it is now.

So those type of funding needs are always going to be there and I'm, I'm very, very happy there and I hope I can continue to work there for quite some time.

- Well, we'd like to thank you very much for being on the program with us 'cause so we could follow your progress and when that building's finished, I hope you'll come back and let us do another field piece on it.

I'd be happy to.

It will be a happy day when Virginia Beach has its new art center and indeed, we'll return to it on our place, our time every week on our program, we take a look at important events happening around Hampton Roads over the next few days.

So mark your calendars with us.

Here are our choices for this week.

Ronald Marshall first played in the predecessor orchestra to the Virginia Symphony in 1939.

He was 17 years old and his mother, brother, and sister played in the orchestra with him.

Ronald and his sister Dora went on to found the Feldman string Quartet to play in every major orchestra in Hampton Roads and to teach string playing to hundreds of admiring and grateful students.

Last month, Ronald Marshall, after a series of I operations, which he feels prevent him from playing as well as he should, resigned from the Virginia Symphony, our Tim Morton, talked with Ronald and with people who have played alongside the musician and been touched by him.

Lee, - I don't, I don't like a lot of weaving around or anything like that when you play, but those are, those are kind of musical gestures and if you show it with your body language a little bit more, you'll also remember to do it.

It'll be a part of the piece.

Then let's take from the beginning.

Teaching means to me the method by which all art is taught and passed on from one generation to another.

The personal one-on-one type of teaching, which is what I do, is the time honored way of, of passing your skills onto another generation.

Music is one of the great communications methods for all of mankind.

It's first of all, and and they say the cliche universal language.

It certainly is true.

There are others and, but these performing arts are all the ways that people communicate their greatest insights and their most extravagant thoughts and, and their smallest thoughts to other people.

I think you enjoy playing this one.

You get get the, it'd be nice if you had the violin part, not just the piano part though.

It's easy to see.

- I'm looking through one of Ronald Marshall's scrapbooks lovingly kept for him first by his mother and now by his wife Lake, who is also a fine musician looking through it.

One reviews 50 years of music history in Hampton Roads for there have been few orchestras, chamber music groups, ballets or opera companies.

Ronald Marshall hasn't made music for.

- I started be playing in at a time when I really don't remember the details because there is a photograph of me holding a violin at the age of three and I'm certain that was a photograph before the fact because I don't think I started quite then.

But obviously from looking, excuse me, at old programs, I see that I participated at the age of five in, in recitals of my mother, who was my first teacher and on both piano and violin, the quartet makeup was myself on first violin 'cause I was oldest and here first and I got, you know, the honor or took it and my sister Dora was playing second violin.

My brother, her twin Richard, he now is called Arthur, but he was a cellist and they were about 10 years old.

I was about 14.

My mother played viola and we played quartets to learn to participate as a family and music and sometimes kids didn't always appreciate that.

But then at a time when we got to be well enough advanced to, to really play some music where we found that we could get jobs playing for weddings and things like that, which made it a lot more palatable to the kids.

- I'm four years younger and I have a twin brother and the two of us were competitive to Ronald because he always seemed to have the drop on us.

He would always come up with the freshest, newest ideas for games and activities other than music.

But I looked up to him because of his intelligence and his ability to be a leader for us.

- I was seven and a half years old when we first went over to Mr. Feldman, those initial stand for Israel Eddie, his friends, I'll call him Eddie Feldman.

This man came to Norfolk in the World War I days as the Navy's youngest Bandmaster.

He was a almost a kiner as a, a young violinist, born in Philadelphia, went to New York to study with Franz Kal, who was a great German violence and headed the Kal Quartet, which was one of the pioneers and in that field and one of the best who ever played.

And he studied at what is now Juilliard and was brought here by the Navy and decided to stay in Norfolk and teach was what he desired to do.

And so this place, which was out of the way of the mainstream of culture, certainly in those days, was blessed by having one of the, the great violin teachers.

Feldman was a inspiring teacher and he was great with kids, he was great with everybody.

But his ability to analyze and personalize every lesson for every student is the thing that you've looked for in, in good teachers.

This is in the form of a Rondo Gava in form of a rondo, which means, do you know what that means?

No.

A rondo is like a dagwood sandwich, you know, meat, bread, meat, bread, cheese, bread, tomatoes, bread.

The bread is, that's the filler meat or cheese or something like that.

And you always have bread in between each of those things.

The first orchestra experience I had was with the what became the Peninsula Symphony and it was called the Peninsula Orchestra or Philharmonic or something at that time.

It was started by one of Feldman's great students, Howard Boatwright violinist.

And he was several years old and I was, I think I was approximately 13 when I first looked at an orchestra piece and, and attempted to play it at the orchestra existed in that fashion and I eventually became concert masters of it, throwing my teens.

Then later I had some teenage experience playing in the Norfolk Symphony.

- We played several times together in the center theater as solo, but the first time was in 1948 and we performed the Mozart Symphony Concertante for violin and viola.

To me it was the beginning of an artistic career, which I hoped would engender more performances with my brother and it did.

The second time we performed the solos, we repeated that work and that was another culmination of many years of playing together in quartet orchestra and in private recitals.

- Ronald Marshall has adorned music in Hampton Roads in so many ways.

After the war conductor, Kerry McMurrin chose him to be the concert master of the newly organized Peninsula Symphony.

The headline didn't exaggerate.

His playing touched the life of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

When they visited Williamsburg.

The Chamber music society was named for Mr. Feldman, who coached the players in the early years.

The Feldman String Quartet was really the first professional chamber music ensemble to reside in Hampton Roads.

For Ronald Marshall playing chamber music has always been his first love.

- To me, chamber music is the most perfect form of of music and I think that is the great composers put some of their best efforts into writing of chamber music.

It was the most difficult for them because it was the most transparent, anything that was a little bit easy to do because, and and done because it was easy to do.

The composers had to shun that because they, they would be exposed just as the players are exposed in chamber music because by definition it means one player on each part.

- Player, teacher, composer, and conductor.

Over the past 40 years, there's hardly been a string student in Hampton Roads who hasn't studied with or played under Marshall's direction.

28 years ago he started the Peninsula Youth Orchestra and now after leaving and starting youth orchestras elsewhere, a Johnny Appleseed of music, he's come back to lead the Peninsula Young Players again, - I mentioned that on this program.

We have some old friends in Ronald Marshall's family scrapbook.

There's a newspaper picture from about 30 years ago showing him, playing with Walter Nuna.

Today we know Walter Best as the conductor of the Virginia Beach Pops Orchestra and his career is expanding into ever wider circles as the guest conductor of major pops orchestras around this country and in Canada, Walter will perform for us at our Steinway.

I hope you've enjoyed this program as much as I have, and I hope you'll join us on our place, our time next week when we'll look ahead at the 40th annual renewal of the Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum and examine the making of the Hampton Roads skyline.

Thanks for watching.