Ah, Bach!

Jim Bishop

Item by Jim Bishop Among the gifts offered to those attending the 16th annual Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival were visible enthusiasm among participating musicians as they re-created and interpreted selections by some of the world’s most beloved composers. Guest guitar artist Michael Partington stated: “I’m able to play what I want to play, and I…

A parent’s worst nightmare

Jim Bishop

Item by Jim Bishop Every parent’s worst nightmare is to have a child abducted. In Uganda, that may mean knowing your child is being forced to perform atrocities or being used as a sex slave. This was the reality for Angelina Atyam for seven years. Last week, Atyam told her powerful story of hate and…

Bach Festival brings musical feast to Valley

Jim Bishop

Item by Jim Bishop The 16th annual Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival will offer another musical feast for the senses, June 8-15 at Eastern Mennonite University. “This year’s theme, ‘Bach and String Things,’ will feature music that displays the incredible range of sounds possible with string instruments,” noted Mary Kay Adams, the festival’s executive director.

Children’s choir releases 11th CD, Renowned environmental authority to speak at EMU, EMU expert part of collaborative effort on Civil War pacifism

Jim Bishop

Items by Jim Bishop Children’s choir releases 11th CD The splendor of brass, pipe organ and 150 children’s voices combine as the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir (SVCC) of Harrisonburg, Va., heralds its 16th season with the release of its 11th recording, “Christmas Joy.” This is the second collaborative effort that includes members of the Washington…

Mad About U Hall

Chris Graham

Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall By Chris Graham and Patrick Hite The following is an excerpt from Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall, a book on the history of University of Virginia basketball at University Hall, which closed in 2006. The book was published in 2006…

The war on teen pregnancy

AFP

The Top Story by Chris Graham If there was a magic bullet that could be used to solve the teen-pregnancy problem, it would have been used decades ago. But, alas, there is no magic bullet – or even a single accepted way to combat the problem. Does traditional sex education get the job done? How…

The battle for the heart and soul of the GOP

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   For a brief moment or two after the 2006 midterm elections, it had seemed that the Republican Party was perhaps going off its ideological moorings. The talk was reaching the level of near-clamor regarding how the GOP was going to have to consider retreating from the right-wing conservative…

Right to left? In what direction will Dems take national politics?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   It hasn’t been that long since some in the punditry and the blogosphere were speculating aloud about how Republican victories in the race for the White House and in Congress in 2004 might be signaling the dawn of a GOP century. And it seems that now, instead of…

Next on the Mark Warner agenda: Is former governor, White House candidate ready to again be a player on Virginia political scene?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   Mark Warner made it a point to tell Virginia politics reporters covering the final year of his term as governor of the Old Dominion that he really felt he was hitting his stride in the job – and while the focus of their editors seemed to be on…