Low & Lower, Theatre Gigante, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Mary Dalton, and Steep Canyon Rangers

Today on the show we're going to find out once and for all just how low we can go. No, not THAT kind of low. There'll be no profanity, no cruelty, no foul humor, just a whole lot of fun with America's #1 selling cello bass duo: Low & Lower. They've got a world premiere coming up by renowned composer Lawrence Dillon, so I guess we'll call this segment Low & Lower & Larry. Then, from the enormous double bass, we get even bigger with Theatre Gigante—the theatre of big ideas. They're here with their own brand of Shakespeare, movement, dance and sound. My Dear Othello puts the “D” in deconstruction, and what exactly that means, well, Theatre Gigante's leaving that on up to you. Sweet Honey in the Rock is celebrating four decades of great music-making. They're fierce at 40, and headed to the Triad! Mary Dalton has the skinny on the gritty new British prison film "Starred Up". And after reaching for the stars we head down into the canyon…Steep Canyon Rangers are lighting up the Blue Ridge Music Center.

Low and Lower

Low & Lower is cellist Brooks Whitehouse and Bassist Paul Sharpe. This weekend they'll join their Winston-Salem Symphony colleagues in a world premiere of Katabasis by composer Lawrence Dillon. The trio stopped by to share the work's early beginnings.

The world premiere of Katabasis is Sunday, October 12^th at 3:00 pm followed by a performance on the 14th at 7:30 pm in the Stevens Center IN DOWNTOWN Winston-Salem. Music Director Robert Moody will lead the soloists alongside members of the Winston-Salem Symphony. Low & Lower are more fun than a person should be allowed to have—talk about fun for the whole family—and they're followed by a truly awesome symphony: Symphony No. 1 by Johannes Brahms. The program begins with Dmitri Shostakovich, his exciting Festive Overture.

And if you're busy Sunday and Tuesday, you can hear Low & Lower in an intimate chamber music setting next month! On Friday night, November 21^st, Their Music for a Great Space recital begins at 7:30 PM in Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Greensboro. 

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My Dear Othello and Theatre Gigante

“My Dear Othello plays out as an ornamental litany, with Desdemona's murder repeated again and again. More and more of the story is revealed around each iteration; the spiral of inevitability pulls us like a hastening undertow, down and down to the tragic irony of love leading to murder”. So wrote Milwaukee Journal Sentinal's Tom Strini in assessing Theatre Gigante's groundbreaking production. My Dear Othello comes to UNC Greensboro next week as part of Globe and Cosmos Celebrating 450 Years of Shakespeare and Galileo. UNCG Department of Dance Head Janet Lilly is joined by Theatre Gigante co-Artistic Directors Mark Anderson and Isabelle Kralj.

My Dear Othello comes to UNCG's Dance Theater October 16^th through the 18^th with evening performances at 8:00 pm. 

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Sweet Honey in the Rock

The Grammy nominated, female, African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock returned to the Triad this week to commemorate their 40^th Anniversary. On Thursday night they performed on the campus of WFU as part of the university's Secrest Artists Series. Sweet Honey in the Rock Forty and Fierce showcased the variety and depth of their repertoire with newly arranged medleys as well as their timeless classics.

One of those is founding member Carol Maillard's arrangement of the spiritual Sometime I feel Like a Motherless Child. She spoke with me by phone from her home in Manhattan.

On Thursday night October 9^th their 40^th Anniversary tour Forty & Fierce continued in Winston-Salem, in Wait Chapel on the campus of WFU. The performance was part of the school's Secrest Artists Series.

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Behind the Scenes with Mary Dalton

This week on Behind the Scenes, Wake Forest University Professor of Communication, Film Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies Mary Dalton on the gritty British prison film "Starred Up" opening at A/Perture Cinema.

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Steep Canyon Rangers

The Blue Ridge Music Center wraps up its stellar performance series Saturday, October 11^th with the Grammy Award-winning Steep Canyon Rangers.

They've performed at venues from Carnegie Hall to London's Hammersmith Apollo Theatre, and this weekend they'll be jamming at the Blue Ridge Music Center's beautiful outdoor amphitheater. Along the way they've also become one of the most successful bluegrass bands in the world. The Asheville-based musicians were recently nominated for the 2014 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards for the song "Graveyard Fields”.

It's from the band's most recent album release Tell The Ones I Love, and we're sampling from that album right now.

But Steep Canyon Rangers started out as a group of friends jamming together for fun in college. Guitarist Woody Platt says prior to that time his primary instrumental experiences came from the brass section where he played trumpet and baritone as a youngster.

Woody and the rest of the Rangers will perform at The Blue Ridge Music Center Saturday, October 11th beginning at 4:00 PM. The band recently partnered with the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation and Bonesteel Films to protect Graveyard Fields, one of the Blue Ridge Parkway's most treasured spots. Together they've created a public service video to help the foundation raise money to complete an improvement project at Graveyard Fields, located at parkway milepost 418 near Asheville and Brevard. You'll find links to more at wfdd.org and click on TAW. The beautiful Blue Ridge Music Center and it's stunning outdoor amphitheater is mighty pretty this time of year. It's just a hop skip and a jump along the Blue Ridge Parkway to mile post marker 213 in Galax, VA, just about an hour and change from the Triad.