Arts & Lifestyle
Of Interest ...
Female barbershop singers
to compete in Winston
Nine hundred members of Blue Ridge Region 14,
Sweet Adelines International will participate in the 33rd
Annual Regional Competition and Convention at the
M.C. Benton, Jr. Convention Center March 28-29.
Event tickets to the barbershop singing event are $ 1 5 .
The Show of Champions, an extravaganza of barbershop
excellence featuring the top five quartet and chorus win
ners, will take place the evening of March 29 at 8. Show
tickets are $20. Tickets will be available at the conven
tion center one hour prior to each event.
This year's competition is entitled "Leaping to
Success." Nearly 40 quartets and choruses, including
Golden Triad Chorus of Winston-Salem, under the direc
tion of Marcia O'Neil, will compete. Quartets will com
pete on Friday, March 28 starting at 5 pin. Chorus com
petition will commence at noon on Saturday, March 29.
Singers will come from North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to fill the air with four
part harmony while demonstrating, at the highest level,
their skills in barbershop singing and high -energy chore
ography. Both quartets and choruses will be competing
for the top prize; to qualify to compete at the internation
al level of the organization.
Piano prodigy Gonzalo
Rubalcaba will perform at UNC
Cuban-bom piano prodigy Gonzalo Rubalcaba,
called "one of the greatest musicians in jazz" by The
New York Times, will perform on March 29 at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The 8 p.m. solo concert in Memorial Hall will cap
off Carolina Performing Arts' 2007-2008 jazz series and
Rubalcaba
headline the music department's
2008 Festival on the Hill.
Rubalcaba (pronounced
"Gone-SAL-oh Roo-ball-CA
ba ') fuses American styles with
traditional Cuban rhythms. He
has made more than 20 albums,
most in a piano trio, but enlisted
a quintet for 'Avatar," released
last month. He won a Latin
Grammy for his 2002 album
"Supernova."
As a teenager in Havana,
Cuba, Rubalcaba spent years honing his versatile style
in the city's many jazz clubs. In 1985, he formed his
own band, Grupo Proyecto, and his unique blend of
Afro-Cuban jazz caught the ear of legendary jazz trum
peter Dizzy Gillespie.
Tickets for the concert, $24 to $50, are available at
(919) 843-3333, online at
www.carolinaperformingarts.org and at the Memorial
Hall Box Office on Cameron Avenue, open from 10 a jn.
to 6 pjn. weekdays.
Moviegoers will
screen "Uncounted"
The Moviegoers will screen "Uncounted - The New
Math of American Elections" at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday,
March 27 at Grace Presbyterian Church, 3901 Carver
School Rd.
A 15-minute video reel of clips from films that will
be featured at this year's RiverRun International Film
Festival, which will be from April 23-28, will also be
shown at 6:05 pjn.
"Uncounted" has been called an explosive documen
tary that claims that election fraud that changed the out
come of the 2004 Presidential election led to even greater
fraud in 2006. The controversial feature-length film is by
Emmy award- winning director David Earnhardt.
The Moviegoers post-film discussion will feature
Phil Dickinson, the education committee chair of the
Voting Rights Coalition; Joyce McCloy, a coordinator
with the North Carolina Coalition for Verified Voting;
Jonathan Peterson, a Democracy North Carolina Field
Organizer; and Linda Sutton, secretary of the Forsyth
County Board of Elections.
Mary Dickinson, vice president of the Forsyth
County Democratic Party, will moderate the discussion.
There is no admission fee, but reservations are
required at either, TheMoviegoers@aol.com or 336-661
0339.
Mariah Carey says: 'I know
I'm called 'ditzy moron'
NEW YORK (AP) - Mariah Carey knows her indis
putable talent clashes with her sexed-up image as a
"ditz." "It's a dichotomy, I understand," the 37-year-old
Grammy winner tells Allure magazine. "I understand
that people think I am a ditzy moron."
The singer - who was treated for exhaustion in 2001
after a public meltdown - says she still struggles with her
confidence.
Tve always had really low self-esteem, and I still
do," she says. "What's weiid about that is being onstage,
and the love that you get. and the adoration that you feel
from your real fans. It's hard for a partner to compete ?
just imagine."
Carey and ex-husband Tommy Mottola, the former
chairman and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment,
divorced in 1997. She has described that relationship as
controlling and says: "I had to make a decision: either
lose myself completely or leam to stand up for myself.
You have to be very courageous to do that."
She says she'd marry again ? preferably, to someone
who knows where she's coming from.
"That's a big deal for me. feeling like somebody else
can't fiilly understand me because they're not in show
business. It shouldn't matter, but it does, because the
energy it takes to be 'on' is a lot," she says.
Carey's latest album, EMC2, arrives April 15. Her
previous album, "The Emancipation of Mimi," has sold
10 million copies.
Angelou and Catlett chat planned
? ? ? - ,4
Event will be
fundraiser for
Delta Arts Center
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Poet and author Dr. Maya
Angelou will conduct a conversa
tion with famed artist Elizabeth
Catlett on Saturday, April 12 at
6:30 p.m. at the Delta Arts
Center. The event will serve as a
fundraiser for Catlett's 93rd
birthday and as a fundraiser for
Delta Arts Center.
Catlett says she "began to get
more of an idea about what art is"
as an art major at Howard
University.
"It's something creative you
have to plan and work on," she
discovered Armed with a cum
laude Bachelor of. Science and
Art form Howard, Catlett headed
south to North Carolina to teach
art at Durham High School . $ut
the yen for knowledge beckoned
her back to school. She obtained
her masters at the University of
Iowa.
"There, I got into my first
sculpture class," she recalls, "and
I liked it better than painting. So
Maya Angelou
I decided to get my degree in
sculpture instead of painting."
The degree she earned, in
1940, was the first master of fine
arts - the highest degree in art
ever granted at the University of
Iowa at that time.
A tenured teaching position at
Prairie View College in Texas
helped her later to become head
of the art department at Dillard
University in New Orleans .
Always the student, though,
Catlett went to study ceramics at
the Art Institute in Chicago. After
that, she moved east to teach at
what is now Hampton University.
She would later realize that
she had to expand her artistic
Elizabeth Catlett
scope.
"I had work for all people,"
she said. "I had to do more than
just work with Black subject mat
ter."
She learned woodcarving
while teaching at a local art
school in Mexico. Catlett later
earned the prestigious Julius
Rosenwald Foundation grant and
was. able to gain prominence
through exhibitions at southern
Black colleges - at that time one
of the only venues open to Blacks
who wanted to appreciate art.
Throughout her career, Catlett
has been the recipient of numer
ous commissions, awards and
prizes, both large and small.
Most notable, Catlett nas crcaicu
a 10-foot bronze statue of Louis
Armstrong for the City of New
Orleans and life-size bronze bust
of poet Phyllis Wheatley for
Jackson State College in
Mississippi.
In her ninth decade of life,
Catlett received the International
Sculpture Center's Lifetime
Achievement Award in
Contemporary Sculpture and was
honored by the Art Institute of
Chicago. Catlett continues to
work in her studio in Cuernavaca,
Mexico and has remained stead
fast to what she sees as the chal
lenges of her lifetime; exposing
racial and social injustice, cele
brating the African American and
Latin American woman, and
graphically depicting the African
American experience and the
relationship of art to people. Her
work today encompasses the
same, rhythmic, expressive qual
ities as when she first began, con
veying the positive strength of
her people and all humanity.
Delta Arts Center is located
at 2611 Ne w Walkertown Rd. For
ticket information, call 336-722
2625 or email,
delta261l@bellsouth.net.
1
Belle of
the Beauty
Ball
? *
Photo by Gerald Janssen/PRNewsFoto/Coty Inc
Singer/actress Vanessa Williams, far left,
hosted Coty Inc.'s 33rd Annual Beauty
Ball on March 12 at Cipriani 42nd Street
in New York City. The event is a benefit
for the March of Dimes. Pictured with
Williams are Coty Inc. CEO and Beauty
Ball Chairman Bernd Beetz and Beauty
Ball Co-Chair Designer Vera Wang. Coty
is a mega beauty products company
whose brands include Pierre Cardin,
Stetson, Jovan and Calgon. This year's
event rasied nearly $12 million. Over
the past 33 years, the Beauty Ball has
raised more than $25 million to benefit
the March of Dimes New York Division.
UNC's Williams will give Gallery Talk
CHRONICLE STAFF REPORT
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill Professor Heather
Williams will give a Gallery Talk
Tuesday, April 1 at Reynolda
House Museum of American Art.
Williams, who is Harvard and
Yale educated, teaches in UNC's
History Department. She also
writes about African-Americans
in the 18th and 19th centuries.
During her 5:30 p.m. talk, she
will describe the symbols and
Heather Williams
meanings passed through genera
tions in the work of African
American quilt-makers and take
questions from the audience.
Reynolda House is currently
showing "Ancestry &
Innovation: African Americart Art
from the American Folk Art
Museum," which features a vari
ety of quilts.
Williams is the author of "Self
Taught: African American
Education in Slavery and
Freedom." She is currently
researching the separation of
African American families during
the antebellum period and subse
quent attempts to reunify families
following emancipation. She is
also an artist who creates quilts
that incorporate photographs, let
ters, sheet music, and other
gleanings from the past.
A cash bar reception will fol
low the talk. For further informa
tion, call 336-758-5150.
Admission is 55.
Gospel singers will
perform with symphony
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
The Winston-Salem Symphony
will present a gospel extravaganza
called "A Symphony of
Messiah," to contemporary Christian
tunes like "Total Praise" and "Circle
of Life" from "The Lion King."
Symphony Maestro Robert
Praise" on March 29 at
7:30 p.m. at Reynolds
Auditorium.
The event will feature
members of several local
choirs and choruses per
forming as the Gospel
Festival Chorus with
symphony musicians.
Talent from the Winston
Salem State University
Choir, the Twin City
Choristers, the Winston
Salem Symphony
Moody
Moody will partner with
D'Walla Simmons Burke,
the director of Choral and
Vocal Studies at Winston
Salem State, to conduct
the Gospel Festival
Chorus and orchestra
musicians.
Burke has taught at
WSSU for more than 19
years and founded the
University's. Burke
Singers, a female a cap
pella ensemble commit
ted to performing
Chorale, Ambassador Gospel Choir
ajtd several other local churches are
all' slated to perform as part of the
chorus. African drummers will also
play along with the symphony and
the singers.
Musical selections will range
from spirituals such as "Ride on
King Jesus" and "Soon I Will Be
Done," to gospel hymns like
"Hallelujah" from "Soulful
African-American sacred songs,
African and African-American civil
rights support songs, and songs of
world political awareness.
Tickets are $15 r- $50, and stu
dent, senior, and group discounts are {
available. For more information, go
to www.wss\mphonyj>rg or call 336
464-0145.
WSSU's D' Walla Burke will co-conduct the concert.