- Next on our place, our time, we'll visit and taste test the school known as the Harvard or Yale of cooking schools, and we'll continue the search with the Virginia Symphony for the music director, whose task it will be to lead the orchestra into a secure future.

Welcome to our place, our time.

I'm Vian Webb.

The decision the Virginia Symphony is making about its new music director is probably the most difficult decision that the orchestra will be called upon to make in the 1990s.

Like other arts organizations, the Virginia Symphony is suffering severe financial problems, and so the new music director will have the task of instilling in the players and public alike a sense of confidence together with the idea of a compelling mission.

Last week, Tim Morton talked with one of the sixth finalists for the position, Raymond Harvey, who is currently the conductor of the Springfield, Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra.

- Good evening, everyone in the Elgar.

Let's do the last movement.

- Raymond Harvey has credits with orchestras in Indianapolis, Louisville, Detroit, Buffalo, and with the New York Philharmonic.

His program with the Virginia Symphony included music of Mozart, Tchaikovsky and the work.

We watched him rehearse the enigma variations of Sir Edward Elgar.

A music director has to perform many duties while Harvey was here.

We also observed him as he met and was interviewed by the media.

We had him for television, - We're not - On radio.

He put 12 and a half minutes down tape for WHR oms Dwight Davis, mark Mobley, writer and critic for the Virginian pilot newspaper.

Talked with Harvey for two and a half hours.

Mobley summarized what he thinks the task of the symphony is now that all six candidates have led the orchestra, and - So the orchestra is in search of a musical identity.

And it'll be interesting to see which of the potential identities the board chooses because they have a very, I think they have a very strong list that they've assembled.

And as Harvey was telling me in an interview just last night, it's now a matter for the board to pick which identity they want.

They basically know mostly that all these people can do the job, all these men and women, but it's a matter of selecting which job the board wants done.

- Okay.

Yes, please do take your seat.

- A native of New York City.

Harvey is from a musical family.

His mother first taught him piano by his early teens.

He was teaching himself to play opera scores.

He has music degrees from Oberlin and Yale universities.

What brings you to Norfolk at this stage in your career?

- I think any conductor is always seeking to work with orchestras where, where there's a potential for growth.

I think for me, I've now been five years with my own orchestra in Springfield, and I'm proud of what I've done there, but I'm also aware of some of the limitations of that orchestra and its budget and its organizational structure.

And so I'm, I'm seeking what would be a logical next step for me, and this is why I come here.

- What are your ambitions as a conductor?

- It's a strange profession to be in, in the first place.

I think that anyone who's in it long enough realizes that he's crazy, but it's also a wonderful thing to be making your living, making music and working with beautiful music all the time.

I think for me, I do think that I'm a good orchestra builder, and so I like to go someplace where I'm not just going and doing a concert and rehearsing and doing a good concert, but rather working with an orchestra that I can have a relationship over a period of time and really bring the, the playing and the level and the audience appreciation of this music to a higher level by, by a long growth period.

- You're an orchestra builder.

What do you mean and what do you do to build an orchestra, particularly in reference to the repertoire?

- There very often are certain pieces that are good for the orchestra play because it strengthens them as an ensemble.

There are many orchestras that have missed that repertoire and have played big splashy pieces.

It's wonderful to play Strauss and mah, but you can hide a lot of things in Strauss and mah.

You can't hide so much in Mozart and hide it in Schubert.

And so if you temper the repertoire that you're doing between the big things and the other more exposed things, you start building a a better ensemble.

You build better colors in the orchestra, you, you increase their ability to change styles quickly.

And after a while, this starts to, to really add up - A music director, especially in the United States, has to be so much more than a podium or a rehearsal conductor.

You're an executive, you're a public relations expert.

Comment on these for me and what you think your particular strengths are.

- I think that you have to be the kind of personality that your face can be associated with.

The symphony.

People have difficulty thinking of an organization just as a mass of bodies or a large administrative staff.

They have to have one person that is the person that's brought to mind when the Virginia Symphony is mentioned.

And if you can fulfill that role, then I think you can start making impact because it becomes something, something more personal.

It's not the organization asking for money.

It's a a person that you feel you have some, some affinity with.

It's also someone who hopefully will be an educator who will be trying to invite the audience to learn more about this wonderful vast repertoire of music there is, and in a very non condescending way, trying to share some of his knowledge with the audience about this great literature.

- We saw you coming in this morning.

How do you deal with the media and, and the public and is there a difference between the two and how do you handle this?

How do you talk to people like me - With great difficulty?

I've, I've given some awful interviews usually because the questions have been awful and when the questions are exciting and, and and thought provoking, then I have fun.

I find that when I'm talking to the public that not in a media situation, I can tend to be a little freer.

I can tend to be a little bit more able to go into depth perhaps about certain things because there's less of a time constraint and you have less of the pressure of everything that you're saying is being recorded for posterity.

- Harvey made a fine impression on the orchestra, the audience, and the critics.

It's a horse race for the music director post.

The Symphony Board is supposed to make its choice in late April.

- Good.

- It's the night of a long knives for two Hampton Roads arts organizations.

The first casualties of state mandated budget cuts and the recession are cultural experiences unlimited or CEU and the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads.

Both agencies have suspended normal operations.

The mission of CEU was to create access to the arts for people isolated by economic, medical, legal and logistical reasons.

- What CEU did was not do good work.

What we did was reach people who hadn't been given opportunities, kids who may never have had their hands on crayons and paper, people who have an enormous amount to give back to the community and the community's resources through the artists.

A tremendous amount to give and we just connected.

We tried to meet human needs with cultural resources, and not a lot of people are doing that.

- Several months ago, it became painfully aware to the board of directors that we weren't gonna have our normal budget shortfall this year that we managed always to make up at the end of the year, we were gonna have a shortfall of such an enormity that we were not going to be able to survive.

And the board thought it was better to suspend operations for a period of time, cutting off all expenses rather than try to continue through the next eight to 12 months, running up expenses which we might not be able to cover ultimately.

And we thought the better course was to be fiscally responsible.

Right now, - People who depend on CEU have few other resources actively in their neighborhoods on their behalf working for their cultural access.

So it would be a reach for a lot of other organizations who're trying to spread that burden around without all of a sudden having nothing left when we cease our operations for the time being.

Okay.

- Meanwhile, the cultural alliance will become an all volunteer organization according to its board of directors.

During the last several years, the Cultural Alliance has been a regional service agency for member organizations producing a resource directory, clearing house calendar, a newsletter, technical assistance workshops and seminars, such as a symposium on arts criticism in November.

But despite the apparent need for an umbrella organization in a region with over 250 different arts organizations, the Cultural Alliance has found little funding support.

- The overall picture, of course, is very bleak right now.

Clearly the loss of the Virginia Commission's funds hit the alliance like a, like a truck.

- The major performing arts organizations don't, don't begrudge us funding from the same sources, the same pies that I don't know that they get as many benefits, direct benefits from our existence as would the 80% of smaller organizations that do use us.

They, a lot of the board members of those organizations are concerned that, that we are taking another bite out of that pie and that we shouldn't be in existence.

Yeah, and that's been a hard row for us to hone - If we do our job right, we are largely in the background greasing the skids and like any grease, you're not really noticed or appreciated until you are not there.

And metal touches metal, so it will be interesting in the coming months to see who, who misses us, but I think some folks who don't quite realize that yet are gonna miss us a lot.

- Both agencies hope to play some programs with other groups, but since all arts organizations are feeling the pinch of drastic funding cuts, the success of this strategy remains to be seen.

Who will miss these organizations?

Time will tell these casualties of the arts, budget wars may be missed only when their absence becomes conspicuous and then only by the people who need the most, something like that.

This is David Ferrero reporting.

- It's known as the Harvard or Yale of cooking schools.

The origin of Johnson and Wales University goes back to 1914 when it was founded as a business school in Rhode Island.

Then in the 1970s, the school added a culinary arts division and at about the same time, cooked up an agreement with the military in Hampton Roads to provide food service training for military personnel in their off-duty hours.

Now the school, which is located in Norfolk Commerce Park, offers culinary training to military personnel and civilians alike.

Our lucky Mike Sinclair got to visit the school and sample its educational diet.

- You've heard the adage, I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.

Well, most everyone knows something about food and they certainly know what they like.

Eating is a national pastime, whether it's a hamburger at that place on the corner or filet mignon at a five star restaurant, we all at one time or another entrust our palate to the artistry of a chef.

The kitchens of Johnson Wales University in Norfolk have been training culinary for nine years.

The Norfolk Campus is a branch of Johnson Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Originally, the school offered training in the culinary arts to military personnel.

In 1986, they opened their doors to civilians and have been training students in food service ever since.

Debbie Gray.

As the director of the Norfolk Campus, - We take them into the very classical cuisines, the fine dining into the institutional setting, into bake shops, dining room, so they have the ability to make their own choices when they leave, when they walk out of here after two years, we don't profess them to be chefs.

It takes just a few minutes to look like a chef, but a lifetime to really become one.

It's a continual learning process.

- The culinary arts encompass more than just cooking.

Some of the classes at Johnson and Wales include biology, math, sanitation skills, and kitchen and store room management.

The students also must understand Russian and French table service, baking skills, meat cutting, and how to make a rose from a tomato.

The program at the Norfolk campus last two years with the successful graduates earning the associate and occupational science degree, - Typically people think that they just go into a kitchen and stand and cook.

And I think as you walk around today and look in our classes, that's not everything.

That's not all that takes place here.

We talked about related classes.

There's homework assignments, there's continual repetition and teaching and skill practice and knowledge.

It's a building block of education.

We don't teach them recipes.

They can, they can learn a recipe anywhere.

We teach 'em techniques - And you can, you can teaching these techniques are a wide range of chef instructors.

The instructors offer students practical training gleaned from their own experience in the food service industry.

Susan Batten is Johnson Wales, director of Instruction without - Even getting back to the, it's challenging.

A lot of people think they want to teach until they really get down to it.

Teaching is, it's not something you can be an excellent cook or chef, but unless you are good at directing people verbally and not everybody's cut out to be a teacher, you know, not, not everybody has the skills necessary.

The patience for one takes a lot of preparation, a lot of time to, you know, you think, oh, well, I can, I can cook well, I can teach anybody how to cook.

But it, it doesn't necessarily come true for that.

- What we do is try to instill in everyone the confidence in their ability, you know, to work with the knives and to understand the concepts and to know how to look up what they don't have in their head.

You know, half of learning is knowing how to access the material.

So we certainly don't turn out chefs.

We turn out culinarians that will eventually become chefs.

- Chef Cindy Groman is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and gained her practical experience at the Williamsburg Inn.

She teaches the garge class, which focuses on serving and preparing cold foods.

Chef Groman runs her class with an iron hand and demands precision from her students - Fulfilled.

I'm giving back to my art or my craft, what I took when I went to school.

I think culinary education is, is the basis for any kind of professional job in food service.

And so I feel like I'm helping to train the people that will be carrying on the tradition of cooking.

- The students at Johnson and Wales are trained in a wide variety of culinary skills.

There are many options for a graduate, whether working in an institutional kitchen, opening their own restaurant, or overseeing the menu at a five star restaurant like the Williamsburg Inn.

Han Shaler is executive chef at the Inn and a faculty member of Johnson Wales.

Through internships and work study programs, he provides students the opportunity to put their classical cooking skills to work.

- I'm looking for the person who is consistently dedicated, involved, self-motivated.

The person who comes to the instructor constantly asks question constantly is, is looking for new projects in, in sort of like shows that that initiative, that self initiative.

There we are exposing the students to the, the true elements of, of cooking in reality where versus in school, you not always get your hands on where here they then really transfer that and they can really start or get a, get a glance firsthand on the classical fundamentals of basic cooking.

- The dumb waiter in Norfolk offers a sharp contrast to the classical fair of the Williamsburg Inn opened in 1989.

The dumb waiters menu features regional cuisine, specifically new southern cooking.

Sydney Mes graduated from Johnston Wales in 1985 and is the chef owner of the dumb waiter.

Mes oversees every aspect of his restaurant from creating original recipes to painting the pictures that hang on the wall.

- There are some good cooks out there and some not so good cooks.

The ones that are good are the ones who are aggressive mentally.

They're, they're into the art of the food.

They could probably do very well on canvas.

I paint a little bit, and part of that is just a, a stem that helps in all the other things I do.

I mean, when I sit in a car and drive down the road, I'm thinking about creative things.

I don't just listen to music, you know, I do my best menus while doing aerobics.

- You can't teach people art.

Well, I, art teachers will disagree with me.

My mother's an artist.

It's, you have to show them how to create.

You have to, you give somebody the tools to create.

And if people say, oh, I'm not artistic, I can't do anything, and, but you give them the tools to create and you show them, try and spark some imagination.

Food is art.

It's, it's instead of paint or, you know, clay, we're sculpting with food.

And it doesn't mean everything has to look like it's so fuss over.

It's just learning color combinations and how to present something attractively.

Since you do eat with your eyes, - Johnson Wales offers students the skills needed to master the art of cooking.

Whether creating new recipes to accommodate the changing public taste or perfecting the skills required in classical cooking.

The students of Johnson Wales University are serving up their art every day.

- Hans Hoffman was known in his lifetime as a teacher of artist, dozens of well-known American painters of the 1940s and 1950s studied with Hoffman and he was known as the father of the New York School of Abstract expressionist paintings.

The Chrysler Museum currently has on display an exhibit of Hoffman's own work, and it makes such a spectacular display of color that Hoffman himself should be known as a 20th century master.

Tim Morton visited the Hoffman Exhibit Forest at the Chrysler Museum - In the long career of Hans Hoffman.

You can follow the course of six decades of modern art.

He began painting portraits like this one of himself in which he used the touch and dab technique of turn of the century French neo Impressionists.

Near the end of his career in the 1960s, he was painting abstract compositions that while inspired by nature no longer imitated physical life, the Chrysler Museum exhibition brings together for the first time a body of paintings spanning Hoffman's lifetime.

They reveal a modern classicist for whom color was the medium of expression and rhythm, the highest quality.

- I see lots of blues and they're, they're very joyous, the blues and the yellows, all of it together.

And, and that's why this show is so wonderful and so full of exuberance to me because it is so colorful - In this painting called Lebaum or Love Tree.

Hoffman stroked on the colors and built them up into a thick impasto.

The bark on the love tree.

Hoffman's style went through chameleon changes.

But as you walk through the exhibit, the early paintings follow you.

In this portrait of his wife from 1901 Color for Hoffman had psychological content in Paris in the 1920s.

Huffman painted alongside of and like Matisse, he was beginning to employ color as a means to achieving more energy and depth.

Sometimes the colors appearing whimsical were not that at all.

- That is an interior from 1939 and we are very fortunate to have that painting because they're very rare and that was actually added just for this venue.

But his wife meets had been in Europe staying and teaching his school in Germany and then finally in 1939 got very nervous as the war was really beginning and, and so she came to America finally with most of his belongings or wet belongings, she could pull together quickly and then got there and there was this bare unpainted wooden furniture.

And she was a very colorful, wonderful, warm person.

And so she painted the furniture and that's really what his apartment looked like.

Pink cupboards and purple.

And we actually talked to a person who bought the Hoffman House later and he owns the furniture now.

- Hoffman painted himself again in 1942 in an almost cartoon-like depiction below.

And the pivot of the painting's energy.

His hands grip a headdress of paintbrushes in two more self portraits from the same year his image dissolves into the brush work and paint in one of Hoffman's last paintings called Pcu Rest in Peace.

He celebrated 60 years of marriage to his late wife.

Hoffman once remarked that a painting in the end should be harmonious in every sense.

The Hoffman Show will be at the Chrysler through April 15, - Eight years ago, Virginia Davis decided that she wanted to know the leaves and branches of her family tree, and she subsequently published a book that tells the stories of 40 Tidewater, Virginia families and that has become a best seller in genealogical fields.

Next week we're going to accompany Virginia Davis on a journey into her and possibly your past.

We'll also enjoy a performance by a comedy group called Comedic License and visit a spectacular exhibition at the Chrysler Museum.

I'm Vian Webb.

Thank you for watching our place, our time, partial funding for our place, our Times 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.