WINSTON-SALEM – The University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) is contributing a great deal of talent to the Grand Opening Festival of the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) this coming weekend in Raleigh.

UNCSA Dance, Filmmaking, Music, and Visual Arts students will participate in “A Celebration of North Carolina Arts,” which takes place from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday, April 24, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, April 25, at the NCMA, 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh.

“We are excited to have the University of North Carolina School of the Arts as a major participant in our Grand Opening Festival,” said North Carolina Museum of Art Director Lawrence J. Wheeler. “It is only fitting that the nation’s first publicly funded conservatory and the first major art museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding should collaborate on such a grand scale.”

In the Festival Finale, UNCSA Chancellor John Mauceri will lead the UNCSA Symphony Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s towering Symphony No. 2, “The Resurrection,” at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 25, in the Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Theatre in Museum Park. (In case of rain, the concert will take place inside on the mezzanine level of the East Building at the NCMA.)

A massive work in its scale, “The Resurrection” will unite more than 100 music students in the UNCSA orchestra and 100 voices from the Choral Society of Durham and the Duke University Chapel Choir. Soloists for the concert will be renowned mezzo-soprano Stacey Rishoi and UNCSA Fletcher Opera Institute Fellow Jodi Burns, soprano.

“’The Resurrection’ is not only a symphonic masterpiece, but Mahler’s glorious affirmation of life,” said Chancellor Mauceri. “It will truly be a celebration of spring.”

The concert is a repeat of one performed last Saturday, April 17, at the Stevens Center in Winston-Salem (with the exception of different chorus members). Classical Voice North Carolina said: “Mahler is once to have said ‘My time will come,’ and come it did, this evening… . With an orchestra of over a hundred students of all ages, brass in the balcony, chorus in the audience, powerful soloists, a venerable Maestro and most of all, the musical genius of young Gustav Mahler, this was an evening that will be remembered, certainly by the audience, but mostly by the performers, many moved to tears, but all aware of that hallowed moment of work well done.”

In other events involving UNCSA students and/or alumni:

• North Carolina’s most talented young dancers – including 75 dance students from UNCSA – will join dancer/choreographer Mark Dendy (a North Carolina native and UNCSA alumnus) and Dendy DanceTheater in site-specific performances inspired by the art and architecture of the NCMA’s new West Building. The short, intermittent performances, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday, take place outside the West Building and celebrate the relationship of art and nature with vivid movement and color.

 

• Some of the state’s most promising young visual artists will be on display at the NCMA this weekend. The UNCSA Visual Arts Program will have an exhibit in the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Education Gallery of the East Building – a major retrospective of work from current students and alumni that offers a powerful glimpse into the history and future direction of the program. The exhibit, titled “Object Lessons,” includes paintings, drawings, sculpture and mixed-media works, and was curated by Visual Arts Program Director Greg Shelnutt and faculty members Pamela Griffin and Will Taylor. Visitors can meet the artists and the faculty between 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday, April 24, in the exhibition gallery.

 

• Several films made by UNCSA film students and alumni, including B IS FOR BEEKEEPER and TWO SOLDIERS, will be presented as part of “Tar Heel Shorties,” a selection of film, video, and animation short subjects by some of the state’s brightest filmmakers. The films, curated by Cucalorus Festival Director Dan Brawley, will be screened at the Entrance Level of the East Building.

Both the film screenings and the Visual Arts exhibit are part of “Evolving Art and Design in N.C.,” which will transform the permanent collection’s former home in East Building into a hive of new media arts, showcasing some of the state’s most innovative young artists, filmmakers and designers. Times are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Sunday.

·         Two members of Carolina Brass, which is performing for the Festival Celebrations Opening Ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Museum Park Theatre, are UNCSA Music alumni: Robert Campbell, horn, and Matt Ransom, tuba.

 

For more information about the North Carolina Museum of Art Grand Opening Festival, including parking and tickets, visit  http://ncartmuseum.org/interim/grand-opening.php.

 

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from middle school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. Internationally renowned conductor John Mauceri has been chancellor of UNCSA since 2006. UNCSA is located at 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

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