This article was published in the 2009 Year in Review issue of The Daily Tar Heel.
As the program is halfway through its fifth season, the Carolina Performing Arts has set a standard for consistently bringing performers of the highest caliber to Chapel Hill.
The last year only further confirmed this standard. Memorial Hall and Gerrard Hall were host to a range of internationally acclaimed artists, based on this season’s global theme.
CPA also offered a new presentation of performances through the Loading Dock Series, which allowed for a more personal experience with artist and audience backstage at Memorial Hall.
In June, CPA hosted the Bolshoi Ballet, Russia’s premiere ballet company, to perform two shows.
“The Bolshoi is really putting us on the map,” said Laurie Paolicelli, executive director of the Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitor’s Bureau, in a June interview.
“Don Quixote” provided passionate movement, and “Swan Lake” was originally composed for the Bolshoi in 1877 and then reworked twice by the Bolshoi’s former artistic director Yuri Grigorovich.
“Historically, the fact that they’re doing Swan Lake here is very satisfying to us,” Emil Kang, UNC executive director for the arts, said in June.
This year, Daily Tar Heel reviews have been riddled with adjectives such as, “remarkable,” “emotionally stirring,” “beautiful” and “creative and fun.”
The fall 2009 season opened with a performance by a jazz legend who shaped the face of the genre, Sonny Rollins.
Playing with a quintet, the tenor saxophonist reminded his audience why he won a Grammy Award.
The September review described the show as “an intimate, casual performance as warm as it was dazzling.”
Chapel Hill was rocked with Indian star Ravi Shankar, whose sitar music “breathes with a shifting, pulsing sense of color,” as described by an October review of the concert.
The 89-year-old Shankar was accompanied by his daughter Anoushka, whose arrangements turned Memorial Hall into a “warm, personal living room.”
Closely following the performance, CPA brought another power group that managed to impress reviewer and audience alike.
Banjoist Béla Fleck, bassist Edgar Meyer and tabla player Zakir Hussain had their audience “buzzed with excitement even before the show started,” an October review said.
The review also stated, “Though the concert was very different, everyone could connect to the sound and could feel the rhythm within.”
For a change of pace, the Noche Flamenca performance brought an intense heat to their audience.
“The passion and intensity of the show was inextricably connected to the dance that they performed,” the review in November said of the show.
With such a colorful and powerful experience this past year, CPA leaves Chapel Hill with an exciting curiosity of what is to come.
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
