Orange Co. Arts Commission

Jeanetta Hopkins Brings Musical Education to Hillsborough Youth

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By Taylor Tyson “Art teaches humanity how to coexist…Art is telling the story of life,” said Jeannetta Hopkins, founder of Bull City Music School.  Having grown up in Memphis, Tennessee, Hopkins is accustomed to a very involved arts community. As with most lifelong artists, Hopkins accredits her arts background to her family. With an immediate… Read More →

Out of the LIGHT Emerges Gallery Oneoneone

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When word hit of the closing of the decade-old gallery LIGHT Art+Design, the local arts community began to mourn the loss of yet another arts space in the Downtown Chapel Hill/ Carrboro neighborhood. But seemingly overnight, LIGHT owner Cindy Spuria revealed a new space, and right next door. Gallery Oneoneone (named after their address, 601… Read More →

Down on Copperline: Carrboro Music Festival

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By David Menconi For such a definitively local Orange County institution, the annual Carrboro Music Festival has some origins that qualify as downright worldly. The festival began more than two decades ago, in 1998 as the local branch of a larger international festival called Fete de La Musique. It happened around the summer solstice in… Read More →

Piedmont Laureate presents, a History of Triangle Labels: A MRG30 Preview

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Durham-based Merge Records will mark its 30-year anniversary in July with MRG30, but the history of Triangle record companies goes back much longer than that. Join 2019 Piedmont Laureate David Menconi for a program about the history of record companies in the Triangle, going all the way back to blues pickers in the 1930s. Players… Read More →

Arts Matter: When it comes to the arts, it’s about more than UNC

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Prior to serving as director of the Orange County Arts Commission, I was the director of an arts center near the Outer Banks. Northeast NC is the “forgotten child” of our state; poverty is rampant, many schools are operating with 100% of their student body on the Free and Reduced Lunch program, and like someone… Read More →