Arts in the Community Archive

AGAR NEWS 2018-2019

The winner of the Inaugural Mary Lynn Brown Performing Arts Award Scholarship to a senior graduating from Amherst County High School (ACHS) who plans to study performing arts is Za'Marae Morgan. Mr. Morgan will attend the University of Lynchburg. The scholarship was presented on May 16, 2019, by AGAR Board Member Linda Zabloski and Mary Lynn Brown’s grandson, Miller Brown, who graduated last year from ACHS and attends Virginia Commonwealth University. Mary Lynn Brown was a beloved Board member of AGAR and a fan of performing arts (both those produced by AGAR and those presented by ACHS) who passed away this year.
Lynch’s Ferry Magazine has published a major article in their Spring/Summer 2019 issue about magician Benjamin Rucker, known nationally and internationally as “Black Herman” and his family, the Ruckers of Amherst County, Virginia. The Rucker family has owned and operated restaurants and boarding houses in the Town of Amherst since at least 1910. The article was assembled by AGAR's Lynn Kable, Memories and and photos were provided by members of the Rucker/Brown Family: Carl “Buddy” Brown, Charles “Skippy” Brown, Kelvin Brown and Tyrone Brown. Archival research was performed by: Lynn Rainville, PhD, Sandra Esposito, Melodie Fletcher, and Lynn Hanson. Video assistance was provided by Edward Kable, with additional program assistance from the Board of Directors and Advisors of Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) and the Program Committee and Board of Directors of the Amherst County Museum and Historical Society. Copies of Lynch’s Ferry, a Journal of Local History can be obtained from Blackwell Press, 311 Rivermont Avenue, Lynchburg, VA 24504. Tel. 434-847-0939.
AGAR has been awarded a planning grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for the summer and early fall of 2019. The grant will provide funding for the Board of Directors to work with Scott M. Williamson, former CEO and Artistic Director of Opera Roanoke, on planning for the next five years.

AGAR in the Community

Amherst Glebe Arts Response, Inc. (AGAR) has collaborated with numerous Amherst County Amherst arts, humanities, educational and civic organizations, and has acted as a fiscal agent for non-profit community arts projects in Amherst County. Our aims are to increase the availability of arts and humanities programs to everyone interested.

Students try out early music instruments

AGAR's production of "Two Comedies by Anton Chekhov" featured (pictured) Royal Shiree, John Langston, John Gunnoe and Tanya C. Anderson in "The Festivities" and with Emma Thom in "The Proposal." The plays were directed by Maxim Tumenov, of New York, who directed the plays as an homage to the work on Chekhov of his late mentor Mark Weil at Ilkhom Theatre in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

AGAR activities at Second Stage Amherst

Linda Zabloski in the role of Eleanor Roosevelt performed for AGAR at Second Stage, Amherst Glebe, Lynchburg Woman's Club and The Summit. In 2017 AGAR presented Claude Bolling's jazz classic "Toot Suite" featuring Chris Magee and Dana Ballard. AGAR also served on the planning committee for the organization's food extravaganza last fall, helping to interview citizens and garner recipes from Clifford and Bear Mountain.

AGAR and the Amherst County Public Libraries
AGAR has collaborated with both the Amherst and the Madison Heights branches of the Amherst County Public Library on two National Endowment for the Arts / Arts Midwest BIG READ programs. Programs on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God featured Evelyn Moore from Lesley University, composer and vibes virtuoso Cecilia Smith, and Shaun Spencer Hester, museum educator and granddaughter of Lynchburg poet Anne Spencer on the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. For The Poetry of Emily Dickinson, a panel of poets and scholars including Marcia Robertson, PhD of Sweet Briar College, Jan Freeman, poet and publisher, and LuAnn Keener-Mikenas and Lynn Martin, local Virginia poets. Funded by Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, AGAR and the Library collaborated on lectures and art exhibits relating to the work of Edgar Allan Poe, featuring writer M. Thomas Inge and Poet Laureate of Virginia J Ron Smith.

In 2016, AGAR worked with the library and Amherst County Schools to bring programs from Virginia Poet Laureate J Ron Smith back to the Library to speak about the Sonnets of Williams Shakespeare.

In 2017, AGAR brought a collaboration between Library of Virginia poetry prize winner LuAnn Keener-Mikenas, composer Ed Mikens, Amherst County High School show chorus "The Amherechos" and its conductor Melanie Coleman, and poetry writers from ACHS to present "We Will Sustain the World," a program of poetry and music.

AGAR and the Amherst County Museum
AGAR has presented programs of historic music from baroque to early Virginia folk music.

AGAR has presented its own documentary films about going to school in Amherst County in the first three-quarters of the 20th century and based on AGAR first person interviews with formers teachers, students and parents.
AGAR presented Virginia Foundation for the Humanities funded lectures on the life of Edgar Allan Poe by Christopher Semtner of the Poe Museum in Richmond, and by local historian Sandi Esposito.

Most recently, AGAR presented a program about legendary African American 20th century magician Black Herman, who was born and raised in Amherst. The program featured a PowerPoint lecture by AGAR board member Melodie Fletcher, video family stories by great nephews of Black Herman Charles "Skippy" Brown and Carl "Buddy" Brown of Amherst. Finally students from Amherst Middle School demonstrated several of Black Herman's tricks and laught them to the audience.

At Amherst County Museum, AGAR local actors read letters from Amherst County soldiers to their families at home. Actors also read slave narratives from the period narrating events during the war. The project was part of the Museum's programming about the Civil War. Robert Maxham and his wife Judy compiled the script and played fiddle songs of the period,

AGAR SCHOOLS ACTIVITIES:
AGAR has provided arts and humanities programs in collaboration with or for Amherst, Bedford and Campbell County and Lynchburg City Schools, colleges and universities, including:

Poet Laureate of Virginia Ron Smith spoke on Poe and Poetry in Virginia at Amherst County High School, Monelison Middle School and Amherst Middle School in 2015, and returned to ACHS English classes to speak about Shakespeare and the Sonnets in 2016.

Artist and Curator of the Poe Museum in Richmond Christopher Semtner taught a series of classes at Amherst County High School (ACHS) in September 2015. Art II students studied Poe stories and poems and illustrations by graphic artists of Poe works before creating their own illustrations, which were exhibited at the Poe Museum in Richmond, and in Amherst County Library, Museum and ACHS. Drama I performed "Telltale Heart" at the Amherst County Public Library in conjunction with a lecture by M. Thomas Inge,PhD.

AGAR has commissioned three composers to work with students. Aaron Garber set a choral piece based on an Emily Dickinson poem and set two songs to Shakespeare sonnets for the ACHS Amherechos to premiere. Jazz vibraphonist and composer Cecilia Smith, who worked with jazz musicians Llew Taylor Trio, and three players from the ACHS jazz band on a new piece "The Hurricane" improvised around themes from Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Finally, composer and bassist Ed Mikenas worked with the Amherechos to develop a new arrangement of his piece "We will sustain the World," while poet LuAnn Mikenas, a Library of Virginia Poetry Prize winner, wrote poetry on the environment with English and Creative Writing classes.

AGAR has presented Anthony Harvey playing and discussing baroque instruments and music for students in Amherst, Bedford and Campbell Counties (students ranging from K-12) every year since 2011. In 2016-207 Harvey and Gifted Program Angela White worked with Bedford elementary age students on designing a "new" country. Harvey played examples of many instruments, many styles of music history, and the students decided what the musical culture of "their" country would be. Robert and Richard Maxham and Mr. Harvey also spoke about Heinrich Biber and baroque music to students at Amherst High School and EC Glass High School, Lynchburg.

AGAR brought Evie Blakey, author of "Magda’s Daughter" and a World War II “Hidden Child” to lecture at Amherst High School (as well as to Agudath Sholom Synagogue. Lynchburg).

AGAR presented re-enactor performances about Abigail Adams by Williamsburg actor Abigail Shumann at Amherst Elementary School, Central Elementary School, Amelon Elementary School and Madison Heights Elementary School.

AGAR's project of DVD interviews of persons who taught at or attended Amherst County Schools (1915-1974) have been exhibited at Sweet Briar College, VMI, and the Amherst County Schools.

AGAR's work in the Schools and Libraries has been supported in part by National Endowment for the Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Amherst County Education Foundation, Friends of the Amherst County Libraries and Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation

Photo of Amherst New Era-Progress newspaper

COUNTY AND TOWN CELEBRATIONS:
AGAR applied for and provided artistic and fiscal management for a grant to Amherst County’s Sesquibicentennial (250th) Celebrations of the Founding of Amherst County in 2011 from Greater Lynchburg Community Trust to bring music and dance groups including the Warpipe Pipe and Drum Corps, Bear Mountain Monacan Youth Dancers, Proffitt and Sandidge Blues, Amherst High School bands and choruses, and historical cultural presentations by the Cardinal Lacemaking Guild, Monacan Storyteller Luci Curry and the Amherst Art Society. Also in conjunction with Amherst County’s 250th birthday, AGAR presented showings and live discussions by students who had attended Bear Mountain Indian Mission School (closed in 1964) at the Monacan Tribal Hall and Ancestral Museum. At the Clifford Ruritan Club, formerly the Clifford School (closed in 1969) AGAR showed a film about the old school and former students discussed their experiences. In 2011 AGAR also showed its film about Amherst Training School at the Legacy Museum for African American History in Lynchburg and the Virginia History Forum at Virginia Military Institute (VMI). In conjunction with the Town of Amherst’s 100th Anniversary in 2010, AGAR presented a live discussion and showed its film about Amherst County Training School at the Amherst County Museum in conjunction with the official anniversary and showed the film and produced an exhibit for Founder’s Day at the Amherst County High School.