Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 5, 1992 TAG: 9201010215
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TITLE ROLES ANNOUNCED FOR `PORGY & BESS' CONCERT
Sherman Ray Jacobs and Elizabeth Graham, respectively, will have the title roles in next month's concert production of "Porgy & Bess."Jacobs' credits include performances with the Houston Grand Opera and the Santa Fe Opera. Graham has sung Bess with the Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Symphony and Memphis Symphony.
One of the most ambitious collaborations in the valley's cultural history, the Feb. 17 performance of George Gershwin's masterpiece will combine the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Opera Roanoke, the Roanoke Valley Choral Society and Voices of Roanoke.
"Porgy & Bess" is being presented in concert because the full opera is too large for performance facilities in the area. Done properly, it probably would be too expensive for just one organization to undertake even if the facilities were available. Even in concert, it is a major challenge.
By joining forces, the cooperating organizations are able to make art of a high caliber while remaining within their financial capabilities even in these mean economic times. Margarite Fourcroy, the orchestra's executive director, says such collaborations are "the wave of the future."
\ In these lean financial times, arts organizations have to resort to extraordinary measures to raise money. The Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra, for example, is giving a concert in which it will not perform.
The person who will be performing is Roy Clark - native Virginian, perennial "Hee Haw" star and protean virtuoso of country music.
Clark appeared with the orchestra in 1987 and sold out the house for two concerts. This time it will be just the star and his band, Rodney Lay and the Wild West.
The orchestra is involved only as sponsor - and recipient of much-needed proceeds from the concerts. It's an imaginative idea - one of which other needful arts organizations might profitably take note.
Clark and his band will perform Jan. 19 at 3 and 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of E.C. Glass High School. For ticket information, call 804-845-6604.
\ As field trips go, this one is impressive: all the way from Roanoke to France and back.
The May 18-June 4 trip is offered by Virginia Western Community College in conjunction with courses in French Impressionism and the history of 19th-century France. It is open to anyone who takes at least one of the two courses for credit.
"One need not be a traditional college student," said David Curtis, head of the art department at the community college. "It's for the people of the Roanoke Valley who would like a more in-depth look at French culture."
They will spend time in Paris and in the provinces of Normandy and Brittany, looking at art, visiting sites such as the home of painter Claude Monet at Giverny, studying history and architecture, and generally soaking up the culture.
If you're interested - and who wouldn't be - call the school's humanities department at 857-7271.
\ R-C Theatres Inc. of Reistertown, Md., owner of the Stonewall Theatre in Clifton Forge, has given the historic building to Appalfolks of America Association (AAA).
Appalfolks plans to turn the building, which was built in 1905, into a performing arts center for for the Alleghany Highlands. The organization also will move its headquarters to the theater.
Appalfolks is a non-profit corporation that promotes drug-free creativity in the arts through writers' workshops, writing contests and projects such as the performing arts center-to-be.
"Appalfolks works like a catalyst," said its president, M. Ray Allen. "You see a need and you go to work on it."