Triad Arts Weekend

What do you get when you cross gritty east Texas honky-tonks with flamboyant art school kids? Well, as Technical Producer Eddie Garcia finds out you get a friend: Amigo. They have a new album out and Eddie chats it up with front man Slade Baird. Then we wipe off the honky-tonk dust, grab our smoking jacket and sit down for a civilized evening of world class chamber music. Van Cliburn International Piano Competition gold medalist is coming to town to play Music for a Great Space with mind-blowingly good clarinetist Jon Manasse, and he talks shop with me. Then, speaking of international, Eddie's back with RiverRun International Film Festival Executive Director Andrew Rodgers. The Fest turns 16 this year and Andrew gives us a sweet preview. International award-winning poet Terri Kirby Erickson is here too. She's ready to launch her new book—with a cool title: A Lake of Light and Clouds. Terri's got a way of seeing the everyday as if we just got a new pair of specks.

Today on the show we'll explore the world of an international recording artist and a professional basketball player. Spoiler alert: she's the same person! Then Mary Dalton gets girly Behind the Scenes with an insider's look at HBO's hit series “Girls”. Bethany Chafin is here to chew on life's big questions with Soul Pancake's Rainn Wilson. You may know him as the ever nerdy and sometimes lovable Dwight Schrute from The Office, but Rainn's real personality comes out on his website Soul Pancake where the search is on for what it means to be human. And speaking of being human, few things speak to the human condition better than the arts. So when NASA sent off the Voyager to contact life elsewhere in the universe, they included a golden record with (among other things) music from around the world. Two of those hot tracks on the Voyager Golden Record were by Johann Sebastian Bach. Today on the show keyboard artist Peter Sykes fills us in on what made J.S. Bach's music the bee's knees. And, don't forget Bach's musical son C.P.E. It's his 300^th birthday celebration at Old Salem.

Today on the show we'll pick, shred, paint, and write our way through the arts. Banjoists Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn have already sold out two shows this weekend at Crossroads @ SECCA #9, but they're here to share their own unique brand of music-making with us, and to fill us in on how musicians can save the world. Then, Eddie Garcia interrupts your cross country quest for the perfect music festival with this news flash: Phuzz Phest 2014—featuring 50 cutting edge bands—just happens to be right here in your own backyard! Phuzz Phest founder Phillip Pledger is here with a preview. Artist Mona Wu shares her Chinese calligraphy and print-making passion, and Bethany Chafin sits down with Press 53 author Clifford Garstang to find out What the Zhang Boys Know.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is filled with superstar musicians.They rehearse and perform without conductor, and for the past 40 years the ensemble has been leaving audiences spellbound by the depth of their musical expression. Today we'll find out how they do it and explore the art of deep listening with Orpheus cellist and co-artistic director Jonathan Spitz and world-renowned violin soloist Ryu Goto. Then Carolina Film and Video Festival Director Keith Barber is here. Carolina Film and Video Festival is the state's longest running film festival don't ya know, and Keith chats it up with Eddie Garcia, joined by stop motion animated film director Austin Taylor. The film fun continues Behind the Scenes with film scholar Mary Dalton. She's got an aisle seat just for you and her Oscar picks to share. We wrap up today's show with and interesting arts combo. Renowned composer Kenneth Frazelle and acclaimed pianist Barbara Lister-Sink are also amazing visual artists. They share the joys, perils and parallels of painting and music-making.

Wow, talk about your artistic journeys. Today on the show we'll go from live cutting edge contemporary music in a small Cafe, to the music of Johnny Cash. Before we walk the line though, Dancer Helen Simoneau is asking her dancers to put it all on the line for “Paper Wings”. It's local modern dance that the great Baryshnikov calls “cool moves”. Composer Eric Schwartz brings the hip, new music scene of Brooklyn to the Triad with Forecast Music's Brooklyn Sounds: Copland Meets the Moderns. And they say actions speak louder than words. Authoring Action has its cake and eats it too engaging audiences, empowering youth, and bringing about change all through the power of the written and spoken word. Paisley IB Magney School tenth grader Nonnie Christine Egbuna fights the power with Bethany Chafin. And musician/songwriter Richard Boyd of the Bo-Stevens celebrates the birthday of the legendary "Man In Black" with ten outstanding local bands during the 11^th annual Cash Bash. He chats with Eddie Garcia. Get ready to “Walk the Line”.

At an age when David Ford's big obsession was where to find the next wiffle ball game, Petr Ginz was inventing secret codes, making watercolors, and writing novels—five of them by the age of 14! Petr was murdered by the Nazis two years later, but his amazing life and the many lives he touched in and out of the concentration camps are remembered and celebrated in the Wake Forest University production of Embers and Stars: The Story of Petr Ginz. It's Valentine's Day, and film scholar Mary Dalton takes us Behind the Scenes to answer that nagging question: what exactly makes a movie Romantic. Winston-Salem Forsyth County Arts Council President and CEO Jim Sparrow's got an artistic vision that'll rock—jazz, classical and folk—your world. And then we're off to the dance at High Point University. Cara Hagan is here with a choreographer's keen eye for storytelling. We wrap things up with Touring Theatre of NC actor Camilla Millican and a Valentine's Day Card that'll take you Over the Edge.

Today on the show we'll go from girl gangs to Georgia O'Keefe, and legendary luthiers to Martin Luther King. First up NC A&T State University takes its audience on an up close, and in-your-face tour of the mean streets of America with its production of Breath, Boom by Kia Corthron. Then, he's worked on guitars used by Neil, Eric, and Elvis (yes, THOSE Neil, Eric and Elvises): legendary Carolina luthier and picker Wayne Henderson is here to reveal the secrets of his success. Reynolda House reveals the magic behind American Moderns like Grandma Moses, and Norman Rockwell. And Stained Glass Playhouse celebrates National Black History Month with a powerful and personal look at the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of award-winning playwright Gloria Bond Clunie. We'll each follow our own inner “North Star”.

Last week we jumped all over the Piedmont with artistic jaunts to Greensboro, Yadkin, and all the way out to Boone. Today we're going to plop ourselves down right here in lovely, lively Winston-Salem for a while, and enjoy a little Triad music history 101. First, we'll take a look at Salem's 19^th century Moravian community in the waning days of the Civil War. The 26^th regiment bring will bring music to our ears and the New Winston-Salem Museum puts it in perfect historical context. Then, Salem Band is alive and well since its founding 243 years ago, and Music Director Eileen Young is keepin' it real for us in 2014! We'll continue full circle with more great music, this time an old-timey string band that really swings: Unbroken Circle is back in concert raising money for yet another worthy cause, and Wake Forest University's Martha Allman is here to share. We'll wrap things up today with a quick trip to the heart of downtown Winston-Salem and the art house cinema that's doing its part to keep things rockin' on fourth street: Aperture Cinema's Lawren Desai updates us on new screenings, Oscar picks and more.