- Next on our place, our time Meet the Virginia Company.

Their music is old, but the spirit is timeless.

We'll update you on the plans to restore a theater that is truly one of a kind and we'll profile a sculptor with a muse of fire.

Hello, I'm Vian Webb.

We welcome you to our place, our time.

They call themselves the Virginia Company, taking the name from the company of English Adventurers that founded in Settle Jamestown in 1,607.

This modern day Virginia Company is composed of Dean Shasta, Barry Trott and Cliff Williams.

Each one of them is a professional musician with credits from folk music to grand opera.

They met while playing and singing in the taverns of Colonial Williamsburg, and now like the adventurers of old, they are seeking new places and new audiences before whom to play their music.

Mike Sinclair tells us about this group that plays old music in a fresh way.

- She wept in sorrow, she tore her hair.

- The music we listen to tells a story of who we are.

It reflects the spirit of the times.

The songs of 17th and 18th Century Virginia create a picture of life in the early colonies.

The Virginia Company is a modern day trio that performs this music and keeps the stories of Colonial Virginia alive.

- We really try to do a pretty broad representation of the music that was popular during during the Colonial period, which really starts in the beginning of the 17th century and goes through almost the end of the 18th century.

You're talking almost 200 years of music, a lot of trends, a lot of different kinds of music, a lot of different classes of people too.

So there's, there's just an abundance of styles and, and types that we can look at - And within what we're referring to as popular music, you had different types as well.

You had the music that, that the aristocracy might have been playing or the wealthy planters, and they very possibly would've been trained and more very probably trained in music, could read music.

You also had had more of the common people who played and sang music as well, of course, but, but they weren't quite as sophisticated.

They didn't read music, so they were learning this music through the oral tradition and word of mouth - The musicians meant while playing in the taverns of Colonial Williamsburg.

They performed together many times and decided that they wanted to form a group to spend more time on arranging.

They play and sing a wide range of songs that touch on nearly every aspect of 18th century life.

Much of the music of the 18th century had been written down, but some of the songs were passed by word of mouth from one generation to another for the musicians of the Virginia Company.

Building a repertoire takes some research.

- We're very fortunate in having the resources of Cloney Williamsburg research library, which has in most cases the original songbooks of the time.

So we can go back if, for instance, there's a, a modern recording of an 18th century song, we can go back and find that song if we can and see whether the, or find out what the original version of the song was with the original tune, original words, because obviously sometimes after 200 years, these songs can change a bit - Rather than the group sitting down as a unit of three going through music books saying, well, let's learn this one.

You know, I'll hear a piece, a song say, or Cliff will have a song that he's been, might have been singing for years, and we'll say, okay, we all sort of know it and we can all play the melody, but what can we do to shape that song and give it some, some coherence as a, as a piece of music.

- The company primarily performs live, however, in an attempt to preserve some of their music they have recorded and are marketing a compact disc, it's difficult to know exactly how to market.

17th and 18th century music, - We are put sometimes in maritime centers, in gift shops that have maritime music.

We're put in folk or classical sections in a record store and just wherever they, wherever the record owner, record store owner wants to put it.

- The task of explaining exactly what type of music the Virginia company plays falls to.

Dean's wife, Valerie, she's the business manager of the group, overseeing sales of the compact disc speaking as well as booking and promotion.

- Well, I've gotten a very enthusiastic response all across the state of Virginia.

There's a lot of recognition to the 18th century development here in in Virginia, in Jamestown, Williamsburg, Yorktown, and there's an immediate recognition of that across the country.

We feel like we're a good representative for our state's heritage, sometimes less - Than to better tell the story of 18th century Virginia.

The group has written a show called Colony Days.

The 30 minute musical incorporates music and excerpt from letters and diaries to paint a picture of 18th century life - Sometimes to deliver a letter.

- The songs and the the dance tunes are, are tied to the culture, tied to what was going on in the period.

We thought it'd be interesting to look back at Virginia in the 17th and 18th centuries and somehow try and tie the music in to what was going on in Virginia in those times.

So with this show Colony Days, what we did was pick a set of music that we wanted to perform that covered a, a span of basically from the early 16 hundreds to the late 17 hundreds, and then look and see what themes that that music related to.

- There is a trend towards performing period music using only instruments accurate to the period the instruments used in the 18th century were not as loud as modern instruments and were tuned to a different pitch because of the wide variety of places the Virginia Company performs.

They used both period and modern instruments.

- We use a combination of modern instruments for some of the jobs we do and for other jobs where, where we're able to use reproductions of older instruments.

So Cliff has a guitar that was made in Williamsburg back in the early seventies at the instrument maker shop.

Dean is having a one of his older violins refitted as a baroque violin so that, you know, there's subtle changes.

- Barry is building his own Baroque guitar with the help of his fiance, an instrument maker, Lynn Crawford.

- I've always sort of been interested in, in different kinds of woodworking and had made a, a couple of instruments from kits and things like that back when I was in college.

Actually, the woman that I'm gonna be getting married to this spring is had studied instrument making and has a shop set up for that.

She studied up in Richmond for I guess three years and, you know, she is always done woodworking since we've known each other and I've gotten interested in, in instrument building more, you know, through watching her build things, - The musicians of the Virginia Company are performing and preserving the story of Colonial Virginia through song.

- Most people don't know what to expect, but I think they're pleasantly surprised.

We find a pleasantly surprised in that it's really very accessible to 20th century people.

It's lighthearted, it's, it's enjoyable, it's fun.

And then there's some very good music as well.

There's a serious side as well.

- First, Henry Brother - Hampton University alumni, Dr.

William Shepherd was the first African American missionary to travel into the heart of Africa's Cuba Kingdom, what is now central Zaire in 1892.

What Dr.

Shepherd brought out of the Kasai Valley now fills the university's gallery and is one of the oldest collections of its kind.

The Cuba people are recognized for producing some of the most elaborate art in pre-colonial Africa.

- Each of the patterns that you see on textiles, on the masks, on objects carved of wood as we have.

Some of the metal pieces are geometric patterns that have special significance to the Cuba, but the Cuba have a special love of geometry and also of color and of design.

It's probably some of the most intricately ornated objects in all of African art are the masks.

- Well, I was really fascinated by the beautiful work that the Cuba people did with such raw materials.

I mean, just beads and feathers, copper.

I was just really impressed, I having no appreciation for it.

- Cuba art was not only for decoration, it also served as support for their political tradition - Among the Cuba.

You knew who you were by what you wore, and you would know an individual certain position in court or certain social status in the society by what he would be wearing, whether it be a hat, whether it be a necklace.

Only certain individuals were allowed to wear a certain kind of item, and among the kuba, you wore your wealth.

The king could only wear certain things.

He could only, only he could have a copper, for example, the one he could have brass, but he could give it to someone else to wear and it would be a sign of your rank or status.

- Even today, such items are worn in traditional royal court ceremonies and serve as a link to a rich heritage.

- Here you kind of get a feeling for what the people are about in what they like, what you know, their laws and what their culture is like compared to ours.

- The Royal Art Collection will be on exhibit at the Hampton University Museum through March 22nd.

I'm Holly O'Neill reporting.

- We have now a story about a sculptor who from Metal and Fire creates a cast of characters that engage us in a world of fantasy, fascination and delight.

Linda Gson, who lives in Virginia Beach, has a national reputation for the memorial she has made.

Remembering the Jewish Holocaust.

Tim Morton visited her in her garage studio and founder to be an artist with a muse of fire.

- The reason that I decided to learn how to weld was because there was a piece of Holocaust sculpture that I just had in my head and just decided I really had to put into, into form and therefore I welded for a couple of years and learned the technique and therefore felt ready to tackle the task.

I feel that today's generation knows so little of what happened during the Nazi era, and that with whatever talent I have, I feel that it's really a mission to be able to tell the world about what happened and the form in which I can express myself, and I wanted to do what I could so that those times never repeat themselves.

- Linda Gson practices her art with moral commitment and aesthetic joy.

Her sculptures remembering the Holocaust are in Texas, California, New York, and Virginia.

Her enamel paintings and figure sculptures are in the collections of tennis star Althea Gibson television newsman Edwin Newman, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ely Elle and Governor Douglas Wilder.

- My interest in art began really before I even remember it.

It began as a very small child.

My parents talk about how I was always into something, either finger paint or working with cookie dough or doing something, but it was always doing something artistic.

My first original professional credentials were in watercolor, and from watercolor.

I went on to enamels, which is baked vitreous enamel, which is baked glass that is put through a heat process onto metal, and I had a number of museum shows in enamels and, and then I discovered welding and it's, it's wonderful.

I I just love the, the dripping of the metal and the creating with the high heat and, and all of the things that can be done.

Three dimensionally - Gson has concentrated recently on making masks out of copper to which she might add bronze, straw, feathers or whatever else might strike an exuberant fancy.

- This particular mask is gonna be based on New Guinea masks with bright colors and lots of circles upon circles and a lot of scarification and face painting.

- What inspires you to make the masks?

- Sometimes, I don't even know.

I, from childhood, I loved going to the Natural History Museum and going into their mask room and seeing the mask and, and feeling the power.

I love African work, I love Eskimo work.

The real genesis, I guess of the masks has been about two years ago we went to Alaska and had the opportunity to meet with some Alaskan wood carvers and to see the masks that I had seen in childhood be created and had an opportunity to see them in their natural surroundings and I became captivated.

- The masks for all their comedy and charm.

Take gson hours of work, she'll hammer the copper for a couple of hours, heat it, hammer again and heat it again.

She puts in a laborer's eight hour day.

Do you strive to make accidents?

- Absolutely.

I think part of part of growing as an artist is experimenting and sometimes we have what we call happy accidents because we come up with results that if we had planned it, we probably could never have achieved it.

- Figure sculptures long and thin are another gson genre.

They begin as brass rods less than a quarter inch in diameter, which she builds up under heat drip by exquisite drip.

The finished dimensions maintain the integrity of the material while they give to the figure a lofty majesty, both of the earth and rising straight above it.

Gson is working on a sculpture model in the shape of barbed wire, which she calls, let My People Go.

She is hoping a larger version of it will join others over more than 20 Holocaust memorials.

- There are many in Virginia.

One of the, the one that I am the most proud of is at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia, and it was commissioned by Bishop Sullivan and is the first holocaust commemorative peace ever commissioned by a diocese in the country.

It is an 11 foot tall sculpture of Rachel weeping for her children, for they are no more.

She's surrounded by six reminiscent of the 6 million Jews who were lost, and she's a very towering figure and she hopefully is a rather universal figure.

She's created in copper and bronze - Name the kind of music program you want, and the Eastern Virginia Brass quintet will play it for you.

This versatile group with a repertoire from Renaissance to modern music travels throughout eastern Virginia performing recitals, educational clinics, and soiree of light music.

They stop by here to play for us a work called The Battle of Trenton, The Eastern Virginia Brass Quin.

Ted is on the road these days with a series of free concerts.

The next one is Sunday afternoon, March 3rd at the Great Neck Library in Virginia Beach.

The 72-year-old addicts theater in downtown Norfolk is truly one of a kind, designed by a black architect built by blacks with money raised from blacks.

The attics theater for most of its life was a cultural gathering place for the black community.

Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters Cab Callaway played there as well as the best of the jazz bands in the stage touring shows.

But since 1955, the Attics Theater has been silent serving as a warehouse for a clothing store and during those years a group of community citizens have been trying to save it and restore it to its form of prominence.

Don Jeffries tells us that now their efforts may at last be paying off.

- This extraordinary old structure was recently given what amounts to a love note on Valentine's Day.

Representatives of the city of Norfolk and members of the Crispus Attics Cultural Center Incorporated met to begin working out the details of preserving the attics and restoring its dignity.

The Norfolk effort is coordinated by a city clerk - Committee, - Breck Daughtry.

- The goal of the meeting was for the two groups to get to know one another, first of all.

Second was to establish a line of communication between their group and the city for the purpose of working together for the renovation of the theater.

- Mr.

Wesley Chapman.

- It was a very excellent meeting and surprisingly excellent, and I think we covered a lot of sensitive issues and we were very proud of the fact that not only did the mayor show, but so did the city clerk, city manager, the housing authority, excellent representation of all that are concerned in the restoration of the Attics Theater.

- We sort of see the, the partnership or the financing of the, the structure to be sort of like a three-legged stool.

One of the legs would be federal grants, state grants and foundation grants that could be applied to different phases of the project.

The second leg would be the community fundraising, which would be an attics committee activity, and the third leg of the stool would be the city's capital budget funds being applied to the project.

I think the idea is to work towards an arrangement similar to what the city has done with the opera, for instance and the stage company.

- We have two things working against us and that is slow deterioration of the building and obviously we don't want it to increase because it could give us problems that we have not anticipated and cost even more to renovate.

- The question is, can we afford it?

- The question of affordability is, is certainly a pertinent one, and these are difficult financial times, but - Regardless of the economy, this building is suffering damage.

So if you want to maintain a historical landmark, you have to attend to it right away - In six months from now.

We all hope that the economy's going to be in a much more positive mode than it is today.

So the financial aspect is a major concern, but we're not gonna let that deter us from moving forward on the project.

The - The Huntersville community has itself received considerable rehabilitation over the past few years and the area just north of the theater now known as Attic Square, is the site of 28 new homes.

It seems fitting that the attics be renovated at this time so it can once again resume its place as a cultural gathering place.

This time of a much wider community.

- For the next three weeks, we at WHRO will be celebrating our annual spring festival and we invite you to join us for a special series of programs.

Our place, our time, will return on March the 23rd with the story of two young architects who are specializing in the design of museums and who show an unusual sensitivity to social issues.

I'm Vian Webb for our place our time.

We hope you join us then partial funding for our place.

Our time is made possible by grants from the Arts Commissions of the cities of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

From the Virginia Commission for the Arts and from the Arts Commissions of the cities of Newport News, Norfolk Hampton, and Williamsburg.