For its next Candlelight Concert, the Great Bridge Presbyterian Church at 333 Cedar Road will go for baroque.
This offering of the church’s 2019-2020 performance season will feature The Wren Masters baroque quartet at 4 p.m. Feb. 9.
The concert will be partially supported by funding from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The foursome will perform on period instruments works by such iconic masters as Georg Philipp Tetemann, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel as well as compositions by such lesser known baroque composers as Giovanni Paolo Cima, Dario Castello, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Francesco Turini and Giovanni Bassano.
“It will be an afternoon of delightful chamber music,” Music Director and Candlelight Concert series founder Billye Brown Youmans wrote in an email.
The acclaimed Williamsburg-based ensemble features Sarah Glosson on viola da gamba and baroque cello, Ruth van Baak Griffioen on recorder, Thomas Marshall on harpsichord and Susan Via on baroque violin.
Named after its favorite venue — the 1693 Wren Chapel on the campus of the College of William & Mary — the four met through their involvement with early music performance as members of the college’s performing artist faculty. The ensemble excels at works by baroque and renaissance composers.
The Washington Post cited the quartet’s “crisp ensemble, mellowness, and admirable stylistic awareness,” according to the Great Bridge Presbyterian Church’s website.
The concert is free and open to the public. Donations will be accepted to help defray the cost of the performance.
For more information, call 547-4706 or visit gbpres.org.
CLEAN ART
Young artists who want to make a statement about anti-littering and keeping our city beautiful will want to enter the Chesapeake Environmental Improvement Council-sponsored Chesapeake Clean and Green Poster Contest.
The competition is open to all Chesapeake students — homeschooled and in public and private schools — in grades K-12. Posters will be judged in various age/grade categories.
Submissions will highlight the theme: Chesapeake: clean and green.
All works will be judged on originality, message impact and visual appeal. First prize will win $100, second takes home $50 and third will be awarded $25. Winners will also meet the mayor and have their works displayed in the City Hall lobby.
The deadline to register is March 2, and all submissions must be completed by March 27. Winners will be notified in April.
To register or for more information, call the Special Programs Office at 382-6411 or visit cityofchesapeake.net/CEIC or email specialprograms@cityofchesapeake.net.
POUNDING EDUCATION
Learn the way of the African drum from 2 until 3:30 p.m. Feb. 2 at the Central Library, 298 Cedar Road.
Local master djembe drummer Kamiruri “Kam” Kelly will teach all ages the ins and outs of the West African drum during this free rhythmic session presented by The Day Program, an organization with the mission to empower, encourage and strengthen students.
Kelly is considered a maestro of the West African djembe who has been deemed a member of internationally known African musician Mamady Keita’s world famous family of percussionists in Guinea, according to the Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center’s website.
The djembe is a skin-covered goblet drum carved out of a single piece of hardwood, according to DrumConnection.com. It’s thought to be 400 to 800 years old and created during the Malian Empire.
Kelly has been studying and playing the drum since the age of 9. He’s been a professional drummer, educator and mentor for the past two decades.
For more details, call the library at 410-7147 and get with the beat.
HARMONIOUS BLACK HISTORY
Weekend Scoop
In celebration of February as Black History Month, the Indian River Library at 2320 Old Greenbrier Road will present the acclaimed I. Sherman Greene Chorale in concert.
The free performance is from 1 until 4:45 p.m. Feb. 8.
The chorale was founded in 1972 by then-Booker T. Washington High School chorale director Isaac Sherman Greene at the behest of the Norfolk Committee for the Improvement of Education in order to observe Negro History Week, according to IShermanGreeneChorale.org.
The original chorale was made up of Booker T. Washington High alumni. It has since grown in size and stature to include singers from other Hampton Roads communities and undergraduate and graduate college students.
The Feb. 8 concert will include a salute to black composers as well as traditional spirituals and contemporary choral works.
For more information, call 410-7001.
Eric W. Feber, ewjfeber@gmail.com