2010 12/30/2010
This year, I heard about a town called Harrisonburg, came for an interview, moved in and fell in love with the community and the landscape. This year, my mom came to my favorite place on Earth with me, to meet my fiancee's mom, who is now completely healthy and cancer-free, miraculously! This year, I was able to take more photos of people whose stories deserve to be told, and was lucky enough to witness some beautiful moments in this place. It is a year I am proud of, and awed by. I am looking forward to seeing 2011, but it is bittersweet to see 2010 go.           Add Comment Winter Abstracts 12/16/2010
Snow and ice, though common every year for much of the country, still kind of freak me out in a good way. I have to run outside and frolick, sometimes in my pajamas, because I just cannot control myself. I am from the south, so I am always awed by the first snowfall(s) of the year. Today we're in the throes of our third, and I am finally calming down a bit, but still. SNOW!     Piano Man 12/09/2010
 Antonio Renovales followed his secret dream of jazz from Puerto Rico to New York City in 1982, learning from living legends and always in pursuit of creating his own unique sound. Twenty years later, he has made Harrisonburg his home, finding peace and satisfaction through music in the Valley.  Renovales, 57, enjoys his daily lunch break by playing a variety of jazz, Latin and film standards on the piano at Earth & Tea Cafe. He typically performs solo but will sometimes play with a drummer or a bass player, and also teaches piano lessons to students downtown. Renovales’ philosophy about creativity and success is to never get comfortable, to keep striving to be an individual. “You should never think, ‘I have arrived.’ No, think: ‘I’m just starting.’”  At age 7, Renovales’s aunt gave his family a piano as a gift. Both his father and his mother, a Panamanian, were lifelong lovers of music, but had been too poor to pursue it themselves. The piano in his home was the first Renovales had seen in person, and he was immediately able to play by ear a Latin standard, “Montuno.”  “If you don’t go after the things you want, no one will bring them to you,” Renovales explains, a mantra which has driven him throughout his life. It was what led him to pursue his musical dreams in New York in the ’80s and to be the first Puerto Rican pianist to participate in the renowned Puerto Rico Heineken Jazz Festival in 2002.  After one of his students at the school in Puerto Rico physically assaulted him and led to him being unemployed for two years, Renovales, eager to find any paying job, accepted a position picking apples at the orchards in Timberville. He found himself spending more and more time downtown at Whitesel Music, and eventually behind the piano at Earth & Tea Cafe. He has become the resident musician of the restaurant, playing twice daily every weekday.  The Nutcracker 12/02/2010
Young dancers and old, who have spent much of their lives dedicated to dance, bring "The Nutcracker" - an unmistakable sign of the arrival of the holidays - to life each year in the Shenandoah valley.  Annie Nealon (left), 13, watches from the wings as the party scene of "The Nutcracker" leads to her cue. The Rockingham Ballet Theatre company rehearsed in Cole Hall at Bridgewater College for their production of "The Nutcracker," which will be performed December 3, 4 and 5.  Caroline Kempfer (front), 14, dances as Clara with Daniel Ranck, 15, as the Nutcracker during the Rockingham Ballet Theatre company rehearsal.  Young dancers watch as the ballerinas with the Rockingham Ballet Theatre company warm up on the edge of the stage.  While waiting for the first rehearsal with the full set, the Rockingham Ballet Theatre dancers warm up in their toe shoes on the edge of the stage. |
