THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 30, 1994 TAG: 9411010506
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: MARK MOBLEY
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
ONE OF THE largest and most successful local arts groups doesn't sell tickets, but it presents more than 1,000 performances each year to demanding patrons.
Thanks to Young Audiences of Virginia, elementary school students in Hampton and Norfolk explored Japanese life and modern dance last week. Virginia Beach high school students learned about singing from a soprano. Norfolk senior citizens were treated to music of the Ukraine and a look back at Louis Armstrong.
President Clinton presented the National Medal of Arts to the nationwide parent organization of Young Audiences earlier this month. The nonprofit group was the only organization to receive the prestigious award; other honorees included Gene Kelly and Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz.
Young Audiences of Virginia was founded in 1955 as a vehicle for taking the Feldman String Quartet into schools. Today, on a debt-free budget of $431,000, it presents low-cost music, dance and theater performances and residencies by area artists and guests.
``We are finding that the wave of the future is to integrate programs with existing curricula,'' says executive director Eilene H. Rosenblum. So Young Audiences has embarked upon projects such as Total Quality Music, which is bringing the Virginia Symphony into the Norfolk and Chesapeake public schools.
Because of that project, each Chesapeake third-grader will hear a concert by a Symphony chamber group and a lecture by associate conductor Andrews Sill. Then the orchestra will visit the school. Teachers will receive materials for instruction before and after the concert. Norfolk music students will have the opportunity to play for orchestra members in a masterclass setting.
A similar partnership brings Hampton students to the Chrysler Museum for tours and performances.
Perhaps most innovative is ``The Dreamer and the Seedling,'' an environmental show by local playwright Edward Morgan. It is being performed by the theater group Marmalade and is funded in part by a Virginia Department of Forestry grant. Schools receive seedlings that students plant and tend.
Rosenblum, a former Virginia Opera staffer and longtime arts advocate, says she has thought about fostering the next generation of audience members. ``I think they're going to come from educated young people who feel the arts are the most enjoyable parts of their lives,'' she says. ``These are the really pleasurable things.''
For more information about Young Audiences programming, call 466-7555. OPERA OFFERINGS
Virginia Opera does not participate in Young Audiences, though opera master Peter Mark serves on the advisory committee. The opera has an education department, which produces programs that tour the state. For more information about such shows as the new Latino program ``Bolivar: Music of the Americas,'' call Helen Stevenson at 627-9545, ext. 334. QUARTET CHAMPS
Vienna's Franz Schubert String Quartet is visiting with works of Haydn (Op. 76, No. 6), Shostakovich (Op. 138) and Dvorak (Op. 105). The quartet, in its 20th year, was the youngest ever to win the European Broadcasting Union's International String Quartet Competition.
Monday's performance is at 8 p.m. at the Chrysler Museum. At 6:30 p.m., Dwight Davis of WHRO-FM will preview the concert and hors d'oeuvres will be served. Tickets are $14. Students and music professionals get in for $5.
Tuesday's performance is at 8 p.m. at the Williamsburg Regional Library. Tickets are $10 and $5. For more information, call 498-9396. ILLUSTRATION: JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI\Staff photos
Yukie Okuyama, above top, and Jeff Moen of Saeko Ichinohe & Co.
dance for children at St. Helena Elementary School in Norfolk.
Kerneshia Scott, below left, and Zita Smith take part in the
movement during the performance.
by CNB