32nd Art in the Garden, Arts & Crafts Festival
Saturday, May 12, 2012 – 10am – 5pm

“Art in the Garden” will be held at the colorful and historic Danish West Indian Farm known as Tillett Gardens. Featured at the one-day event will be fun for the whole family to include shopping, interactive arts activities, live music and performances, food, drinks and more. Admission is free.

Festival visitors will find an array of unique hand-crafted items for sale at booths set up throughout the outdoor space, as well as inside the many shops of Tillett Gardens. For those who would like to get in on the action, the Children’s Art Table (C.A.T.) will be open and hands-on, interactive activities will be offered, allowing attendees the opportunity to participate in the arts and explore their own creativity.

For those who prefer to observe, local musicians and performers will be making appearances on the Tillett Gardens stage, including island favorites Janet Reiter, Jammin Z on his drums, Chantal Carty, The G-Clef Band, Sarah Smith, Pure & Simple  and the BCB Ballroom Dance Team. And for visitors in need of refreshment, Arts Alive will have a food booth with local food and drinks. There will also be the 3rd Annual Bake-Off Challenge were local bakers can enter for the chance to win $100. with their winning entry.

For more information on booth rentals, directions to the venue or more, call (340) 776-8566 or email artsalive@tillett.net.

Arts Alive is administered by the Tillett Foundation, a not-for-profit 501 (c) (3) arts

organization. Its mission is to present quality visual and performing arts in the Virgin

Islands and to involve and encourage young people in the appreciation, study, performance, and exhibition of fine music and visual arts.

“Authentic.” “Timeless.” “Harmonious.” “Exhilarating.” Any or all of these adjectives could describe the folk-rock sound created by Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion (eye-ree-un). The musical richness and psychological depth of their collaborations is irrefutable proof that the disarming granddaughter of Woody/daughter of Arlo and the prodigious South Carolinian quite naturally bring out the best in each other.

Sarah Lee was two years old when she made her singing debut as part of a children’s chorus on Arlo’s 1981 album, Power of Love, but she had little subsequent interest in making music herself, although she was surrounded by it. “I think it was in me,” she says, “but I wasn’t ready for it.” After graduating from high school in 1997, Sarah Lee agreed to tour-manage her father, who was emceeing the Further Festival, on which members of the Grateful Dead were joined by the Black Crowes. She got on so well with the Crowes and Chris Robinson that, when the tour ended, she made what proved to be a life-altering decision: “I knew all these cool rock & roll guys, so I decided to move to L.A.”

Irion came out of the vibrant Carolina indie-rock scene of the early ’90s, first as a member of Queen Sarah Saturday and later with Dillon Fence. He, too, got friendly with Robinson while Dillon Fence was on the road with the Crowes. Robinson convinced Irion to come out to L.A. and join Freight Train, a band he was producing. That was in the fall of ’97, just after Sarah Lee arrived in town. Whether by serendipity or cosmic intervention, the two were on a collision course; they met at an L.A. club and began dating a week later.

Their relationship was musical as well as romantic, although tentatively so at first. Johnny provided melodies for Sarah Lee’s Dylan-influenced poetry and played guitar while she sang. One night in his Santa Monica apartment, he handed Sarah Lee an acoustic and taught her a couple of basic chords. As she strummed, he started playing licks over the top, “so that it sounded kinda good, for like a second,” Sarah Lee recalls. Noticing a growing smile on her face as she plucked the strings, Johnny turned to her and said, “It’s fun, huh?” Johnny’s words echoed in her head for days afterward. “I thought, ‘Gosh, it is fun,’” she remembers. “I’d never known that side of it; music was like a business to me.” It was then that Sarah Lee realized she’d discovered her true calling.

Sarah Lee had just applied for college when word of her musical epiphany reached the family; she got a call from her mother urging her to forget higher education and join her father on tour. So she went out on the road with her dad – “I’m the comic relief in the show,” she says with a laugh – but she always came back to Johnny. A year and a half into their relationship, he proposed. “It totally sideswiped me,” says Sarah Lee, “but I’ve always been a one-person person. He solidified me and believed in me and my art.” They married in 1999 and soon thereafter moved from hectic L.A. to Irion’s birthplace, Columbia, S.C.

Two years later they simultaneously released solo albums on Arlo’s Rising Son label. Since setting out on the road together in 2001, they’ve averaged 180 shows a year. The next step was obvious – it was time to make an album together. Louris was at the top of their producer wish list, and they double-teamed him in Amsterdam late in 2003, while the couple was on the Blue Highways tour and the Jayhawks were headlining one of their own. They convened last February in Ackerson’s Minneapolis studio; inspired and brimming with positive energy, the principals knocked off the record in 12 productive days. After New West’s Peter Jesperson caught an extraordinary live show in Ventura, CA, he offered the duo a deal.

At once timely and timeless, their first album together marks the intertwined coming of age of two vital and distinctive artists. The funny thing is, when you hear them for the first time, you’ll probably feel like they’ve always been there, singing in your ear.

With a dynamic style that captivates audiences, and a repertoire ranging from original works by Ibert, Debussy, and Villa-Lobos to his own arrangements of Piazzolla, Rachmaninoff, and Morricone, Ashu has shown that the concert saxophone can reach beyond stylistic categorization and to a large diversity of people.  His playing has been described as “Riveting…Brilliant…Pizzazz to burn!” (National Public Radio Performance Today host) and “…just as much fun to watch him as it is to listen to him.” (Dallas Morning News).  Born and raised in California, Ashu has won First Prizes at competitions including the International Heida Hermanns, International Kingsville Wind Instrumentalist, National Federation of Music Clubs, National Midland-Odessa, National Lennox, National George S. Howard, and Houston Symphony Concerto Competitions.  Ashu graduated from Northwestern University and is currently based in Chicago. 

South American wines, art and live entertainment are on the bill for this sophisticated evening affair.   Preparations are underway for Arts Alive’s 4th annual fundraiser, “Viva Argentina!”, scheduled to take place from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, February 18, 2012, at Tillett Gardens. Featured fundraiser attractions will include a silent auction, wine tasting, tapas, music and more. Admission is $35 per person.

Event attendees will enjoy live music throughout the evening from local band Pipe Dream, with Danny Silber, Daryl Abu and Rhett Simmonds, and featuring Denise Hummer on vocals.

A number of Argentinean wines will be available for tasting, furnished by Jimmy Gallivan, with cases of wine also available for purchase. Jack’s Restaurant will also be providing a selection of Argentinean-inspired tapas to go along with the wines.

Rounding out the evening will be the Arts Alive silent auction. An eclectic collection of never before seen artworks, inspired by the “Viva Argentina!” theme and created by local artists using mini-canvases will be on display and up for bid in the auction, with proceeds to benefit Arts Alive.

Call For Artists

Artists are invited to explore their South American side for this Argentinean-themed event.  Arts Alive is putting out a call to all Virgin Islands artists to create works for a silent auction that will be held during the organization’s 4^th annual fundraiser. The fundraiser, “Viva Argentina!”, will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, February 18, 2012, at Tillett Gardens.

Any and all artists are welcome to participate in the creation of artwork for the fundraiser, though all works must incorporate the use of a mini canvas. Arts Alive will provide one, two or three mini canvases to each artist to be used in any manner, with any media, in an interpretation of the “Viva Argentina!” theme. The canvases are currently available and can be picked up at the Arts Alive office in Tillett Gardens. All works must be turned in no later than Friday, January 6, 2012.

All artworks will be sold in a silent auction that will take place during the “Viva Argentina!” fundraiser event. Artists have the option to donate the proceeds from the sale of their works directly to Arts Alive, or they may retain 30% of proceeds, with the other 70% to be donated to Arts Alive. To inquire about participating, drop by the Arts Alive office in Tillett Gardens, call 776.8566 or email artsalive@tillett.net.

The dynamic female trio that began as a happy accident around a campsite (at the 2004 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival) is now drawing invitations from renowned historic national events like Merlefest, and is winning over audiences around the country. Spurred onward by an ever-growing and devoted fanbase, and the desire to commit themselves to touring farther from home, Red Molly is at the start of a new and exciting musical chapter. After six years of touring, the band announced that guitarist/bassist Carolann Solebello will leave the group in August 2010 to spend more time with family and pursue solo opportunities. Remaining founding members Laurie MacAllister (bass, banjo) and Abbie Gardner (Dobro, guitar) welcome the newest “Molly”, Austin-based singer/songwriter Molly Venter, to fill out their lush, distinctive three-part harmonies. Over the last month of rehearsals and impromptu live performances in Hamilton Park, near their rehearsal space in Jersey City, the three women quickly nailed the essence of the Red Molly sound, while hinting at inspiring new musical possibilities in the months of touring that lie ahead. “We are busily reinventing fan favorites from our current recordings, while adding new material and collaborating on songwriting for the first time,” says Gardner. “This is an exciting time for the band; we’re so thrilled that Molly has joined us,” adds MacAllister.

This engagement of Red Molly is a Virgin Islands Presenters Initiative project, a partnership
between the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, funded by the
Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program.

A product of America’s rich aural folk tradition as well as being a Classical and Flamenco music student in his formative years, violinist and composer Mark O’Connor is widely recognized as one of the most gifted contemporary composers in America and surely one of the brightest talents of his generation.  Mr. O’Connor’s creative journey began at the feet of the folk fiddler and innovator who created the modern era of American fiddling in the 1940s, Benny Thomasson, and a French jazz violinist who was considered one of the greatest improvisers in the history of the violin, Stephane Grappelli.  Along the way, between these marvellous musical extremes, Mark O’Connor absorbed knowledge and influence from the multitude of musical styles and genres he studied.  Now, at age 50, he has melded and shaped these influences into a new American Classical music, and is perpetuating his vision of an American School of string playing.  The New York Times calls his “one of the most spectacular journeys in recent American music.”  The Los Angeles Times describes him as an artist who is “one of the most talented and imaginative…working in music — any music — today.”

One of the most-recorded violinists in many genres, Mr. O’Connor’s first recording for the Sony Classical record label, Appalachia Waltz, was a collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer.  The works Mr. O’Connor composed for the disc, including its title track, gained worldwide recognition for him as a leading proponent of a new American musical idiom.  The tremendously successful follow-up release, Appalachian Journey, received a Grammy Award in February 2001.

With more than 200 performances, his first full length orchestral score The Fiddle Concerto has become the most-performed violin concerto composed in the last 40 years.  In April 2000, Mr. O’Connor premiered his 4th violin concerto The American Seasons: Seasons of an American Life, at Troy Music Hall in Troy, N.Y.  The New York Times said “…if Dvorak had spent his American leisure time in Nashville instead of Spillville, Iowa, ‘New World Symphony’ would have sounded like this.”  The American Seasons was recorded with the Metamorphosen chamber orchestra and released in 2001.

Mr. O’Connor received a commission from fifteen symphony orchestras in 2007 to compose his Americana Symphony recorded by the Baltimore Symphony in 2008.  Mark O’Connor has performed his compositions in concert at The White House, the Presidential Inauguration Celebration and the ceremonies of Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Games for which he composed Olympic Reel.  He is often featured on major network television shows, and past appearances include “CBS Sunday Morning,” “Great Performances” on PBS, and the “Kennedy Center Honors.”

Mr. O’Connor regularly conducts residencies, giving lecture/demonstrations and teaching workshops, at many prestigious schools of music. He was the inaugural Herb Alpert School of Music Artist in Residence at UCLA for the 2008-2009 season and is the Frost School of Music Artist in Residence at the University of Miami from 2009 to 2012.  Mr. O’Connor generously donates his time in support of a number of organizations that promote music education and outreach, including Third Street Music School Settlement, Opus 118, Midori and Friends, Project Step and Sphinx.  He serves on the advisory panel for the selection of the Kennedy Center Honors.  Mr. O’Connor is the founder and president of the internationally recognized Mark O’Connor String Camp and Fiddle Camp attracting over 5,000 students from around the world.  New music education programs have been launched in his name including the The Mark O’Connor/Berklee College of Music Summer String Program in Boston and the O’Connor Method String Camp in Charleston.  Mr. O’Connor was born in Seattle in 1961 and currently resides in New York City.

This engagement of Mark O’Connor is a Virgin Islands Presenters Initiative project, a partnership
between the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, funded by the
Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Exploring the views that philosophers, psychologists, or physicists have on time can be fascinating, and sometimes even mind-boggling. Still, after researching these diverse and equally interesting perspectives, we are left with one question.

How does the artistic mind—a visual artist, a writer, or a director—view time? Come find out how the artists of the Virgin Islands interpret time and view art that is totally unique. Their time inspired art pieces will be for sale in a silent auction held at Everyday Clay Studio in conjunction with a concert at Tillett Gardens.

Christina Zayas, an award winning alumni of the Arts Alive Classical Music Competitions is currently an 18 year old freshman majoring in Music Therapy at Florida State University. Throughout her young career she has won numerous awards for her piano performances. She is an All Saints School graduate and studied at Hintz Music Academy and UVI.

Complimentary HorD’Oeurves & wine will be served
Saturday, April  9, 2011
$50. Admission Fee
6:30 pm
for reservations call
776.8566
or email:
artsalive@tillett.net

A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Student Outreach Program.

The Kennedys are an American folk-rock band, consisting of husband and wife Pete and Maura Kennedy. Their first album, River of Fallen Stars, was released under the name “Pete and Maura Kennedy”; they released all subsequent albums as “The Kennedys”. They met in Austin, Texas in 1992, when Pete Kennedy was playing in Nanci Griffith‘s band, and for their first date, each drove 500 miles to meet at Buddy Holly‘s grave in Lubbock, Texas. Soon, Maura Boudreau joined Griffith’s band as a harmony singer, and they began their career as a duo when they opened for her during her tour in Ireland. They are influenced by the Byrds and other 1960s rock and folk-rock artists. Their 1998 album Angel Fire featured many songs with literary references, such as “A Letter To Emily” and “Just Like Henry David“.

When performing live Pete plays acoustic guitar, electric sitar, and ukulele. Maura plays the acoustic guitar and the uke.

They have performed in clubs and theatres throughout the United States, a cruise, and at Bill Clinton‘s first and second inaugurations.

Svetlana Gorokhovich and Liliya Khobotkova playing four hand piano are ideal interpreters of Valery Gavirlin’s and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s piano music. They are sisters, and their musical values and sympathies were shaped in a musical household. Both attended the School for Musically Gifted Students in Kazan, Russia and both went on to earn advanced degrees: Liliya, a M.A. from the Kazan Conservatory and Svetlana, a Ph.D. from St. Petersburg State conservatory.

Beginning in 1983 Svetlana and Liliya began successful careers as soloist and duo pianists, performing in the major cities of the Soviet Union. They received high praise form both critics and audiences.

Their partnership, however was interrupted when Svetlana immigrated to the United States in 1989. Reunited in 1992. Svetlana and Liliya resumed their partnership and have active performing careers in New York and New Jersey with recitals at Northwest State University (Louisiana), St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts in Florida, St. Croix and in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. In New York, the sisters have appeared many times in the Caramoor Concert Series.

In 2006, Svetlana and Liliya recorded the music of Russian composers Sergei Rachmaninoff and Valerii Gavrilin, both of whom had written piano duos for four hands. SMH Music released this CD entitled “Russian Sketches”.  After this release, Iceland Air featured a musical entree from this recording on their radio show in 2008.

This engagement of Svetlana Gorokhovich & Lilya Khobotkova is a Virgin Islands Presenters Initiative project, a partnership between the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, funded by the Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program.

David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the same time. In 2008, he was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Often referred to as a musician’s musician throughout his career, David Bromberg has spent almost as much time being a sideman to people like Bob Dylan and Jerry Jeff Walker as he has fronting his own band. Session credits for albums by Tom Paxton and Jerry Jeff Walker started getting Bromberg attention in the mid-’60s, and he began making the transition from
sideman to front man in the early ’70s, when he was signed to record for Columbia Records. The key to appreciating Bromberg is to realize he has an equal passion for blues, folk, country and western, bluegrass, and rock & roll. This diverse range of influences is reflected on all his recordings and in his performances as well. His musical eclecticism over the years may have cost him some fans, but a typical Bromberg concert can be a musical education. Bromberg disappeared in the early ’90s to become a full-time violin maker, but returned in 2007 with Try Me One More Time, an all-new, all-acoustic solo set of blues and folk tunes.

“The key to appreciating Bromberg is to realize he has an equal passion for blues, folk, country and western, bluegrass, and rock and roll. This diverse range of influences is reflected on all his recordings and in his performances as well.” He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the same time. In 2008, he was nominated for a Grammy Award.