Arts and Culture

The UNC Charlotte “Pride of Niner Nation” Marching Band has been selected as the official band to represent the United States in Normandy, France, in June 2018. The performance will mark the 74th anniversary of D-Day. Each year, one band is chosen to represent the United States at the D-Day commemoration. The honor was reserved historically for official military bands, but, in recent years, it has been assigned to university marching bands of distinction.

The UNC Charlotte Department of Dance has received a 2016 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The $10,000 grant will support “Tracing Modern Dance: A Reconstruction Residency for Paul Taylor’s Lost ‘Tracer.’” The reconstruction residency is the culmination of an 18-month research project by Associate Professor of Dance Kim Jones. 

A large crowd gathered Friday, May 6, at the gazebo in the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens to listen to a musical interlude by a five-piece ensemble from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.

The mini-concert, presented by the symphony in partnership with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, was made possible through a gift from an anonymous donor in memory of University founder Bonnie Cone.

More photos from the event are on the college’s Facebook page.

Theatre students Sammy Hajmahmoud and Jennifer Huddleston will be featured performers in the Charlotte Symphony’s “KnightSounds” concerts on Friday and Saturday, May 20-21.

In connection with the international celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the upcoming programs will present Romeo and Juliet in a montage of orchestral pieces, opera arias, a ballet pas de deux and brief scenes from Shakespeare’s tragedy. Charlotte Symphony Music Director Christopher Warren-Green will conduct.

A project by Charles Davis, assistant professor of architectural history and criticism, and students of the School of Architecture will be part of the echo Art Fair, a juried fine art and design exposition in Buffalo, N.Y.

The pieces “Carpenter Brownstone” and “Thespian Brownstone” will comprise one of four installations in the “Light Industry” Architecture Section of the exposition.

Bring a lunch and enjoy a live performance by a five-piece brass ensemble at noon, Friday, May 6, at the gazebo in the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens.

This one-hour mini-concert, which features musicians from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, is being held in memory of UNC Charlotte founder Bonnie Cone.

An ambitious six-year project to address all of Shakespeare’s plays before the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death comes to completion on Saturday, April 23, with “As We Like It” in the Belk Theater of the Robinson Hall for the Performing Arts.

Tackling six plays a year in formats ranging from lectures to full-blown theatrical productions, the “36 in 6 Project” has been an initiative of UNC Charlotte’s Shakespeare in Action.

Students from the UNC Charlotte Department of Dance, under the direction of Professor of Dance Sybil Huskey, will participate in the National Water Dance. Scheduled for Saturday, April 16, National Water Dance is an annual event that builds a “movement choir” of dancers who join together to draw attention to global water issues. The topic is particularly urgent this year, with the recent drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., and the persistent drought in California.

The student group Voices of Eden Gospel Choir recently completed its spring semester tour with concerts in Winston-Salem and Greenville, N.C., and Richmond, Norfolk and Suffolk, Va. The group will be featured in concert at Mission Gathering Charlotte at 10 a.m., Sunday, April 10.

In Richmond, the choir sang at a nursing home and visited with residents; the performance was part of its established tradition to uplift the campus and community through sharing its gift of music.

The Department of Music will celebrate the music of women composers on Thursday, April 21, with “Set No Limits,” a free concert at UNC Charlotte Center City at 7:30 p.m. Developed by Assistant Professor of Clarinet Jessica Lindsey, the program will present music by eight composers, performed by Lindsey and guest artists Christian Bohnenstengel, piano, and Christy Banks, clarinet. Funded in part by a Chancellor’s Diversity Grant, the concert is free and open to the public.