Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 28, 1995 TAG: 9504280026
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS BANKS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Feeling like I deserve it has been really hard for me," she says.
Mattea credits her humility to her West Virginia upbringing. Her mother, she says, always told her to remember where she came from. She recalls her mother saying, "Don't let fame go to your head - you have to be the same person."
Mattea has earned her fame. She was twice named Female Vocalist of the Year by the County Music Association and won a Grammy Award last year for her Christmas album, "Good News."
The country music star who's held tight to her folk and bluegrass roots has produced a slew of hits: "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses," "Love at the Five and Dime," "Goin' Gone," "Where've You Been" - and the list goes on.
Success hasn't gone to her head, either. If anything, it has made Mattea struggle even harder to keep her work honest and inspired.
"I think that there's a danger, when you've been doing this for a while, of listening to your voice instead of the song," Mattea says. "I believe that when you do that, you become a caricature of yourself, a puppet of the voice. An honest reading of the song is the best thing I think I can try to bring to music."
Mattea will bring her music to Virginia Tech on Sunday for an 8 p.m. show in Burruss Auditorium. The Virginia Tech Union's Concert Committee is sponsoring the event.
Tickets are $17 for the public or $10 for Virginia Tech students. To reserve seats, call the ticket office in Squires Student Center at 231-5615. Door sales begin at 7 p.m. Sunday in the lobby of Burruss Hall.
SPRING AND EASTER: They go together like coffee and cream.
The New River Valley Symphony will perform its spring concert and soloist Wallace Easter will be in the spotlight Saturday at 8 p.m. in Virginia Tech's Burruss Auditorium.
Easter, a faculty member in the university's music department, will play Mozart's Horn Concerto.
A graduate of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the Catholic University of America, Easter played horn with the United States Marine Band. He's now principal horn in both the Roanoke Symphony and Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra.
Tickets for Saturday's concert are $5 for adults or $3 for students and senior citizens. Call 231-5615 for reservations.
ANNDRENA'S ART: Anndrena Belcher believes the arts help folks develop leadership, self-confidence, self-identity and creative thinking.
Belcher's specialty is the folk arts. She's a storyteller, a dancer and a mountain musician.
Storytelling, she says, is particularly useful in education because it appeals to students with a variety of backgrounds and abilities.
Belcher, who has been conducting workshops for middle-school students in Pulaski and Dublin this past week, will delight kids of all ages with a concert performance tonight. Her show, "Stories from Home," starts at 7 in Richardson Auditorium at New River Community College.
Expect to hear tales from the Old World and the Appalachian Mountains, as well as a few yarns you'll relate to in today's world. You'll see why Belcher is called "a Minnie Pearl with track shoes."
Tickets are $3 and you can get them at the door.
DIG IT! Glad that gardening time is finally here?
If so, you won't want to miss "Springfest" this Saturday. The annual celebration, sponsored by The Plant Plant, runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. for a fun-filled day of live folk and Celtic music, herbal refreshments and lots of gardening tips.
Free seminars include a spring "weed walk" and a talk on spring vegetable planting.
Admission to the festival is free. Herbal food and drinks will be sold and, of course, you can buy all the plants and flowers you want while you're there.
The Plant Plant is on Barringer Mountain Road off U.S. 11 between Christiansburg and Radford. Look for the signs.
FAMILIAR FAVORITES: George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," Richard Rodgers' "My Favorite Things," Charlie Parker's "Moose the Mooche" - these are a few of the "familiar favorites" in store for you Wednesday. The Virginia Tech University Jazz Orchestra is cooking up a spicy musical show.
The end-of-semester concert features performances by three seniors: Paul Viani on tenor sax, Kevin Lewis on alto sax and Doug King on euphonium.
In addition to tunes you know and love, the orchestra will entertain with a little improvisation. The concert finale is a jam session.
Wednesday's concert starts at 8 p.m. in Haymarket Theatre at Squires Student Center. Tickets, available at the door, are $2 for everyone.
GREEN DAY: The town of Blacksburg is inviting everyone to visit the Municipal Building on Saturday between noon and 3 p.m. to see what the kids have been up to.
Schools have provided a display of artwork in observance of Arbor Day. The children's work in this exhibit is tree-mendous!
Members of the community may vote for their favorite entries at Saturday's exhibit. Awards will be presented to the children at 2:30 p.m., and the winning design will be used as a promotional poster for the 1996 Arbor Day festivities.
Other ceremonies Saturday include a tree planting at 2 p.m. and "tree tours" at noon, 1 and 3 p.m.
Tree trivia games, tree care and identification videos, an information booth sponsored by the Master Gardeners and food booths are among the offerings, too.
For more information, call Susan Garrison at 961-1142.
by CNB