Carolina Live
Carolina Live travels the region and features classical musicians from our area as well as those of international renown who visit our performance halls. Lauren Rico hosts the series.
Note: Carolina Live is looking for professional-quality vocal or instrumental recordings made in concert in the Carolinas in the past couple of years. Mail them to: Box 8990, Davidson, NC 28035-8990, attn. Carolina Live. For more info, call 877.333.8990.
In the Spring of 2015 the Winston-Salem Symphony featured a soloist saxaphonist for a concert at the Stevens Center. The program also included one of the ballet suites by a 20th century Russian master, a beloved Beethoven symphony and more dance music from a landmark Broadway musical. The Lenoir Sax Ensemble is also prominently featured in highlights from another program from the Lenoir Rhyne Concert Series.
The 500-year-old choir returned to the Carolinas in April of 2016 for their third concert appearance in six years. Once again they presented a wide-ranging program in the grand English choral tradition, and this time community singers from churches in Davidson joined them to close the concert, as did local instrumentalists, for a rousing anthem written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Inspired by a performance of Handel’s Messiah during his visit to London in 1791, Franz Joseph Haydn created his own oratorio depicting the origins of the world.
The Lancaster Cultural Arts Center is the setting of an inventive program presented by North Carolina-based pianist Pam Howland. An acclaimed interpreter of Chopin, she performs beloved selections by the Polish composer paired with Beatles pop standards. Then the program shifts to Greenville for highlights from a concert in that orchestra’s Chamber Classics series featuring the overture to a favorite Mozart opera and one of his final symphonies.
The acclaimed American violinist, whose son is part of the Davidson Class of 2016, gave a benefit concert at the Duke Family Performance Hall on campus to benefit Classical Public Radio WDAV. It was a program of delightful works for violin and piano emceed by the host of the national program Performance Today. The concert also included a string quintet from the McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University to play Vivaldi and Philip Glass. Then it’s over to the Palmetto State for highlights from a Masterworks Concert by the South Carolina Philharmonic featuring jazzy classics from Gershwin and Maurice Ravel.
WDAV Classical Public Radio’s third annual Young Chamber Musicians competition drew entries from across the country and Europe, and the four finalists represented some of the nation’s finest music programs. The Junior Division featured a “battle of the coasts,” with ensembles from New York City and Los Angeles competing. In the Senior Division a group from The Cleveland Institute of Music went up against one from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. The concert was presented in the Duke Family Performance Hall on the Davidson College campus and broadcast live, with prizes awarded not only by the panel of judges but also an “Audience Choice” award determined by text voting.
