Sights & SoundsLegendary Ingramettes: Take a Look in the Book – album out now
The Virginia Folklife Program is so proud to announce the release of Take a Look in the Book, the new album from The Legendary Ingramettes. Six decades of music, sixty-five …
Sights & SoundsRichmond Folk Festival Highlights – 15th Anniversary
As we look back at the 15th Folk Festival in Richmond we can’t help but take pride in the stunning success of this event! This was another great year, and …
Sights & SoundsRemembering Helen White
The Virginia Folklife Program is deeply shocked and saddened at the news of the passing of our good friend Helen White. Helen channeled her tireless passion for the music and …
Sights & SoundsRemembering Gerald Anderson
I’m sure we join so many throughout Southwest Virginia and beyond in our sadness and shock to learn of the passing of Gerald Anderson. Gerald was a fine luthier, player, …
Sights & SoundsSherman Holmes Project: The Richmond Sessions
The first solo recording in his more than fifty-year career, Sherman Holmes’ The Richmond Sessions carries on the spirit of the revered Holmes Brothers by reimagining songs and making them …
Sights & SoundsFrank Newsome: Gone Away with a Friend (Free Dirt Records)
On Gone Away with a Friend, Frank Newsome sings a more than four-century-long American tradition into the present. His arresting style—the lined-out hymn singing of the Old Regular Baptists from …
Sights & Sounds2019 Apprenticeship Showcase Highlights
We are so grateful to artists and audience who braved the forecast and came out for the 2019 Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcase. The event featured a remarkable program switching seamlessly …
Sights & SoundsMaster Artist Spotlight: Mark Cline
Mark Cline is a master artist in the 2019-2020 class of apprenticeship teams in the art of roadside attractions and fiberglass sculpture. In this feature Richmond-writer Don Harrison takes an …
Sights & SoundsJunious Brickhouse and Tyrone Edwards
Born in 1974, Junious Lee Brickhouse grew up in a musical household in the African American communities of Virginia Beach and Norfolk. His mother, Lynda, shared with him her love …
Sights & SoundsLuz Lopez and Princey Reyes
Luz Maria Lopez was born in the small town of Morocoy, in the state of Quintana Roo on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula after her parents moved there from Michoacán. Her mother …
Sights & SoundsMark Cline and Brently Hilliard
Known as the “P.T. Barnum of the Blue Ridge,” Mark Cline is keeping alive the vanishing tradition of the roadside attraction—those haunted houses, singing caverns, historical parks, and outsized food …
Sights & SoundsBrian Calhoun and Adam McNeil and Jake Hopping
Brian Calhoun grew up in Rockbridge County, an area rich with many fine players of bluegrass and old-time music as well as a wide variety of acoustic styles. Already a …
Sights & SoundsRonald Dixon and William Hinkle
Stained glass master artist Ronald Dixon grew up viewing stained glass art from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in his native Northern Ireland, spending hours in local cathedrals while his …
Sights & SoundsEmily Spencer and Lisa Ring
Returning to the Folklife Apprenticeship Program in 2019 is the beloved Grayson County clawhammer banjoist Emily Spencer. The clawhammer banjo style is an essential aspect of old time music, an …
