Wintergreen Summer Music Festival to celebrate Appalachia

It’s called the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival and Academy, but the month-long cultural kaleidoscope’s more than 200 events include dance, a film festival, theater, literature, visual arts, cooking classes, whiskey, beer and wine tastings — even hikes.

This year’s festival, which runs from July 6 to Aug. 2, celebrates Appalachian Roots.

Larry Alan Smith, artistic and executive director of Wintergreen Performing Arts, said in a written statement, that every time he’s on Wintergreen Mountain, he steals a few moments to look out at the Blue Ridge Mountains. The sight of ridge after ridge brings to mind the wonders of nature.

In such a setting, this year’s festival focuses on the contributions those who settled the mountains from Maine to Georgia made to the country’s culture as a whole.

Those contributions include influences from Scots/Irish Celitic music, German settlers, and the songs and instruments of Africa.

A July 8 concert will feature the Wintergreen Chamber Players, with appearances by Dr. Gwynn Ramsey, soprano Caroline Worra, pianist, Nicholas Ross and the Virginia Consort Appalachian Singers. The music will include O’Connor’s “Appalachian Waltz,” Copland’s “American Songs” and Mendelssohn’s “Octet in E-Flat Major, Op. 20.”

Other highlights:

- Six performances by the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra

- A pops performance by Mike Seeger

- The premiere of Peter Coy’s adaptation of “A Soldier’s Tale”

- Two one-woman plays based on novels by Lee Smith

- A film festival, which will include films based on the works of writer James Agee, including “A Death in the Family”

- Appalachian ArtFest

- Heritage concerts by Larry Bland & the Volunteer Choir and by the St. Andrews Legion Pipe and Drums

- Morning lectures

- Whiskey, wine and beer tastings

- Two performances by Graham II, the performing ensemble of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City.

There also will be performances in other settings in Nelson County, a way to honor the influence of local culture, said Donald Burland of the Wintergreen Performing Arts organization.

And in collaboration with the Wintergreen Nature Foundation, there will be hikes along the Appalachian Trail. (The AT used to run through Wintergreen, but was moved.) And there will be canoeing on the James River.

The festival’s organizers increased the number of events and broadened the focus this year, part of an effort to make the festival a regional draw.

“We’re moving into a new league,” Smith said in an interview.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://www.wintergreenperformingarts.org or call (434) 325-8292.

w Pugh is a staff writer for The News & Advance and can be reached at spugh@news

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