Artists & Communities Host Site: Sweet Briar College
C/o Sweet Briar College Galleries
Box BM
Sweet Briar, VA 24595
Web site: www.artgallery.sbc.edu

Millennium Artist:
Anthony Kelley
Composer
North Carolina

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The creation of new orchestral compositions joining two divergent melodic traditions of Virginia's Appalachian region was the focus of Anthony Kelley's Artists & Communities residency with Sweet Briar College and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Through Artists & Communities, Kelley worked with New Horizons Summer Enrichment Program students recruited through Amherst County Public Schools to research the musical heritage of the area. The residency participants sought a way to marry the 'old time' music of the Scots-Irish inhabitants of the Appalachian hills and the African American plantation gospel music of the lowlands. Although Kelley's goal proved elusive, the groundwork was laid for future collaborations between these previously divided sectors of the community.

Through their research, the students participating in Kelley's residency worked with local instrumental and gospel musicians and were introduced to the discipline of music composition. A gifted teacher and mentor, Kelley helped guide them in creating a number of new works, as well as composing his own new piece for orchestra and chorus, "Closer." A second orchestral work, "Overture For a New Millennium," was composed by high school student Matthew Johnson, while other participants composed short works for fiddle, mandolin and bass, solo piano, for voices, and for a woodwind quartet.

The new works were premiered at "Blue Ridge Bridge" concerts presented in October at the Sweet Briar College Babcock Fine Arts Center.

Commenting on his residency and artistic process, Millennium Artist Anthony Kelley said, "as an American composer who has had extensive contact with the listening public, I have often encountered individuals who are most enthusiastic about music, but who express a desire to understand the art more deeply…I believe that the most effective way to provide useful cultural and musical education…is to shed light on the history of American music…my music often juxtaposes just enough eclectic elements to keep the interest of new and / or young audiences while at the same time consciously extending the American musical tradition…."

MILLENNIUM ARTIST BIO

Anthony Kelley is a composer, instrumentalist, and educator whose work has been performed by the Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, Oakland, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras.

ADDITIONAL VIRGINIA RESIDENCIES FUNDED BY THE VIRGINIA COMMISSION FOR THE ARTS

The Virginia Commission for the Arts generously funded two additional host sites in Virginia -- the City of Norfolk Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Theatre IV / Richmond Symphony. Both of these host sites employed Artists & Communities short-listed artists; however, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation's primary Artists & Communities host site for Virginia was Sweet Briar College, described above.