Ye Olde Archives

Durham Ciompi Quartet Duke’s Rare Book Room Having moved through the musical ages with its Lunchtime Classics programs in Duke’s Rare Book Room at Perkins Library, members of the resident Ciompi Quartet take on a striking final piece: Belá Bartók’s five-movement String Quartet No. 4 in C major challenges traditional tonality, crafting a punctuated progression […]

Raleigh Hamlet Regal North Hills Stadium 14Think you know Hamlet, with those famous speeches, insane characters, the play within a play, the intimations of incest, parricide, regicide, fratricide, suicide and plain old homicide? And don’t forget that last scene, with dead bodies all over the place. What this tale needs is music, lots of it, […]

Durham The Moody Blues Durham Peforming Arts CenterThough The Moody Blues pale next to the British Invasion’s best (Kinks, Stones, Beatles, The Who), they’re only a notch below and still undoubtedly the era’s finest group to be overlooked by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After a lineup shuffle prior to their second album, […]

Raleigh Lee Smith Quail Ridge Books and MusicI first appreciated the reach of Hillsborough author Lee Smith years ago, when I was in Alaska and made the acquaintance of a young writer. When she found out I was from North Carolina, she excitedly told me her favorite author and role model was Smith, the author […]

Raleigh Jarrod Gorbel Berkeley CafeThe final date of Jarrod Gorbel’s solo acoustic tour finds The Honorary Title frontman coming full circle, since the band name was once only a front for his singer-songwriter act. While support for his band’s pop-rock affections has faded, Gorbel still wears his heart on his sleeve while maintaining the folk […]

Durham Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam & Contemporary Chinese Art Nasher Museum of ArtNo country is developing so rapidly, with repercussions both positive and negative, as China. Its manufactured goods spill out of our Walmarts, while the massive Three Gorges Dam engineering project, the subject of a fascinating documentary called Up the Yangtze, is one […]

Durham Antares Piano-Clarinet Quartet Duke’s Nelson Music RoomThis clarinet-violin-cello-piano lineup is known for recharging pieces from the classical, romantic and modern eras, transmitting a sense of place and history. During a Saturday performance, the quartet will perform the piece it was designed to perform, Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.” The Saturday show […]