Month: August 2016

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Magazines Village

Kids at heart: Local chefs sound off on cooking with children

Will Richey is working with his son, Alston, on proper knife skills, while his daughter, Marie, handles the seasoning and mixing. Photo: Amy Jackson

Urban legend goes like this: Chefs cook so much on the job, they eat simple stuff when they’re cooking at home.

But what about when they get their kids involved—their ravenous but picky, ever-growing but moody kids? Three local chefs told us a few things they like to pack in their kids’ lunches and what they cook when they’re working together in the kitchen.

Harrison Keevil
(Brookville Restaurant, Keevil & Keevil Grocery)

Caroline, 3, and Grace, 2

Packed to go: Keevil approaches packed lunch like any other balanced meal, he says, trying to include fruits and veggies, a starch and meat or cheese. He says the kids are into watermelon, peas and especially broccoli these days. “They love their greens and fruits,” he says. “I imagine it’s because we try to get the best local produce just like we do at Brookville.” And, just like their dad, they “love sandwiches.”

Prepared at home: Keevil’s daughters are still on the young side, but they’re in the restaurant often and love watching their dad work. At home, Keevil and his wife, Jennifer, get Caroline and Grace involved with build-your-own-pizza night. (Broccoli is always one of the toppings.) Caroline is an adventurous eater, Keevil says—“she was crushing some crab the other night”—but he does try to keep the seasoning mild. And that’s actually improved his own sensitivity to salt.

In the Maupins' kitchen, Dean and his wife, Erin, supervise while the kids take over cooking duty. Photo: Amy Jackson
In the Maupins’ kitchen, Dean and his wife, Erin, supervise while the kids take over cooking duty. Photo: Amy Jackson

Dean Maupin
(C&O Restaurant)

Ellery, 8, Grant 6, and Corinne, 4

Packed to go: Maupin says he plays it by the book when it comes to takeaway meals, sending things like fresh fruit and veggies, cheese and crackers and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He also likes to mix in some rice cakes.
“My kids don’t eat school lunch, not because we frown upon it, but because packing their lunch is what they’re accustomed to.” To ensure the kids don’t leave their vegetables in the lunchbox, Maupin says he relies on kid-friendly varieties like raw sugar snap peas, edamame and cucumbers.

Prepared at home: The Maupin family started raising chickens in the spring, and when the first egg was laid, his daughter asked if she should scramble it or do it sunnyside up. “The fact that she found that egg and that was the first thing she said, that was surprising,” he says. “She’s a natural and destined to be a chef—but I don’t know if I want her to be.”

Maupin, whose wife is a pastry chef, said Ellery’s love of cooking has been vaulted not only by her parents but also by “Kids Baking Championship” on Food Network. “She will sit there and watch those episodes over and over,” he says. “It’s a well done show.”

Will Richey
(Revolutionary Soup, The Whiskey Jar, The Alley Light)

Alston, 7, and Marie, 3

Packed to go: Richey says he and his wife pack lunches about 50 percent of the time. For a while he says his son was “stuck on peanut butter and jelly,” but he’s gotten him to branch out more recently. Richey’s careful about the fruits he packs, favoring items that require minimal prep but don’t bruise or smoosh easily, like apples and grapes.

Alston’s particularly into homemade trail mix, according to Richey. They make a batch most mornings using a few nuts and seeds (peanuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds) and dried fruit (raisins, craisins, dried apricots).

Prepared at home: Both of Richey’s kids are into cooking in their own right, he says. Marie likes seasoning and mixing, and while Alston’s developed a healthy caution around fire, he’s working with his dad on proper knife skills. “I don’t do anything differently than I would in the restaurant. I teach him to keep the knife on the knuckle and keep the point on the board,” he says. 

Kids in the kitchen

Want to get your kid cooking? Says Chef Maupin, “This is a great recipe to make with kids, simply for the fact that the process of measuring ingredients is perfect for kids to do, and it has a lot of that and is easy and delicious.” And, bonus: The recipe can be switched up with any nut or spice, so your little one will never tire of it.

Coconut Pecan Granola

In a large bowl:

4 cups rolled oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1 cup pecans, roughly chopped

1/2 cup sesame seeds, chia seeds, sliced
almonds or any other small “mix-in”

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. dried ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix together, and set aside.

In a small pot:

1 cup coconut oil (use extra-virgin for
best flavor)

4 tbs. butter

2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup, pure

1 tsp. vanilla

Heat the ingredients on the stove until the brown sugar has dissolved some, and everything is melted and hot. Pour over the dry mixture, toss together well. Spread granola between two sheet pans, and bake in the oven (275 degrees) for approximately 1 1/2 hours or until lightly golden. Stir with a spatula every 15 minutes. Cool completely and store in air-tight jars. Will keep for three weeks.

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Magazines Village

A whole new world: Area author tells a multicultural children’s tale

Priya Mahadevan's book tells the story of a visit to India with her daughter, Shreya. Photo: Jen Fariello

By the time Priya Mahadevan’s youngest daughter was 5 years old, Mahadevan had completed drafts for six children’s books. But it wasn’t until earlier this year that she published the first one: Princesses Only Wear Putta-Puttas, the semi-true story of a visit to India with her daughter for a wedding.

“The trip was so profound for Shreya, especially after living in a quiet [Albemarle County] countryside home, that it had to be chronicled in some form or manner,” Mahadevan says. The book accompanies bicultural Fey Fey, a dead-ringer for now-7-year-old Shreya, as she experiences and falls in love with the country’s sights and sounds. But what captures Fey Fey’s fancy most is India’s traditional costumes—and when she returns to the United States, she insists that she is an Indian princess. This comes with several challenges, such as playing in the sandbox or staying warm in winter while dressed in a putta-putta (an Indian silk skirt and blouse), the only thing she will wear.

Mahadevan, whose two older children are both in college, says she began writing about Shreya when her daughter was a toddler, and “the themes for stories seemed to present themselves to me. With digital cameras and computers, I could watch her grow and keep notes on stuff she did, something I never got to do with my older two who are just a couple of years apart.”

Princesses Only Wear Putta-Puttas, the first in a series of four books, is a writing departure for Mahadevan, who worked as a political correspondent for an Indian newspaper and a New Delhi-based magazine before getting married and moving to Canada and then the U.S.

When she’s not writing, Mahadevan can be found in the kitchen, cooking up the South Indian fare she serves at her Desi Dosa stall at City Market, the Stonefield farmers market and a variety of other area events (priyasnowserving.com). “I started writing a food blog in 2010, and the cyber interactions with other food bloggers opened up a whole new world,” she says. “One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was doing cooking classes. Desi Dosa was a result of many of my friends and family pushing for me to be more entrepreneurial.”

And while Mahadevan calls food a new passion, her children, she says, are “my permanent passion,” which is why she hopes her book “will strike a chord with many families who enjoy more than one culture.” 

See for yourself Princesses Only Wear Putta-Puttas is available online at priyamahadevan.com.

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Magazines Village

To help or not to help: How much is too much when it comes to your kid’s homework?

Illustration: Jason Crosby

It’s Thursday at 9:45pm, and your child is crying. They have a big project due, oh, tomorrow. They have no outline, they have no poster board; in short, they have no clue. What do you do?

“Late-night runs for supplies are acceptable,” says Lori Linville, a parent of two high schoolers. “Doing work for my children, or giving them a ‘pass’ from school for work that is not completed is not.”

Since Linville is also an eighth grade language arts teacher at Burley Middle School, she has perspective on both sides of the homework help issue. As a parent, she wants to assist her children and get invested in their education—and she hopes the parents of her students feel the same way. “But,” she says, “I remind myself that this is the right time in my children’s academic career for their work and the results of it to be fully theirs.”

Village School math teacher Linde Tassell also recommends that parents take a hands-off approach to homework help, if only so teachers can better assess students’ progress.

“Parental assistance can undermine a child’s progress toward becoming an independent learner, one who is confident in their ability to figure things out,” she says.

Beth Gehle, a world history and AP human geography teacher at Charlottesville High School who both teaches high schoolers and parents two of her own, adds, “I don’t offer my own kids help on homework, although I do ask about what’s due and what’s coming up.”

And that’s the kind of help she says she’d like parents of her students to offer.

“The best way for a parent to be involved with homework is to help make a weekly plan of what times can be set aside to do it, and what assignments can be completed in each available timeslot.”

Aka no more Thursday night meltdowns.

But are all the other parents doing their kids’ homework for them? If you don’t help, are you putting your kid at a disadvantage?

Not necessarily, according to Celia Castleman, parent to two elementary schoolers. “I never offer homework help,” she says. “My husband automatically does, but when he’s on a business trip, the kids are on their own.” She appreciates her husband’s willingness to sit with the kids and encourage them, but says, “I’m more laid-back. I think if we do a lot of things for our children, it can atrophy their ability to become independent and self-motivated.”

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Magazines Village

Rock on! A local drummer delivers the hits

Photo: Jackson Smith

Penny Shuster started playing the drums in fifth grade, with the snare in her school band. But she made the switch to a drum set last year, when she started at St. Anne’s-Belfield School, because it afforded her more opportunities to play different kinds of music. “Plus,” Shuster says, “it’s cooler.”

She takes lessons at Stacy’s Music and practices in her basement at home. But the 15-year-old has actual gigs, too, thanks to Stacy’s Music’s Highway to Rock program, which brings together local kids who play instruments (drums, guitar, bass, vocals) to form a temporary band. The groups practice every Sunday for a few months until they’re ready to rock out at a performance, like the last one Shuster had with her band, Vertigo, at the Ante Room, opening for Superunknown and Pale Blue Dot.

Photo: Jackson Smith
Photo: Jackson Smith

She plays a lot of rock music, but says she’s mostly into hip-hop and hopes to practice more in that style. As for her favorite drummer? She gets inspiration from many.

“I’m always looking at different drummers and drum covers on YouTube, and thinking, ‘I want to be able to play like that.’”

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News

Eramo’s status: Public figurehood will determine how lawsuit plays out

Courtesy Rolling Stone

A phalanx of lawyers assembled to argue motions in former UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo’s lawsuit against Rolling Stone, along with plaintiff Eramo herself, August 12 in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville.

Eramo’s $7.85 million defamation lawsuit against the magazine, writer Sabrina Rubin Erdley and Wenner Media is scheduled for a jury trial in October, and Rolling Stone attempted to get the suit thrown out on the grounds that Eramo is a public official and must meet a higher standard and prove the November 2014 article “A Rape on Campus” was published with actual malice, which means a reckless disregard for the truth.

The now-discredited article told the story of Jackie, who claimed she had been gang raped at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in 2012, a tale that almost immediately fell apart and that Rolling Stone retracted in April 2015. The piece also has generated lawsuits by the fraternity and three of its members, the latter of which has been thrown out.

Eramo’s team had three lawyers at the plaintiff’s table, led by Tom Clare, who is also representing ousted Penn State president Graham Spanier, who is suing the school for breach of contract for releasing a report that found he helped cover up Jerry Sandusky’s child molestations.

Rolling Stone has five attorneys listed in its court filings, and lead attorney Elizabeth McNamara is currently representing Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal ghostwriter who has denounced the Republican presidential candidate.

Clare kicked off the proceeding by pointing out that the Rolling Stone article is “quite literally” on exhibit as a “cautionary tale” of media mistakes in the Newseum in D.C.

The article mentioned Eramo 33 times, said Clare, including in a picture that was photoshopped to show her giving a thumbs up gesture to a victim of sexual assault while “Stop victim blaming” placard-carrying protesters marched outside her window.

“Is this too mean?” Rolling Stone’s fact checker had queried in red ink. The magazine “ignored dozens of warnings and red flags” about Jackie’s credibility, said Clare, and “irreparably damaged” Eramo’s reputation by its portrayal of her as an indifferent administrator responsible for handling victims of sexual assault at the University of Virginia.

“It depends on the spin you put on this,” said Judge Glen Conrad, when Clare asserted that the article showed Eramo as unfit to perform her duties and demonstrating a “want of integrity.”

Clare’s partner, Libby Locke, argued that Eramo was a private, not a public, figure who was not responsible for setting policy at the university. As an intake official, Eramo was the one who would get the call from assault victims, and she was legally precluded from discussing those interactions. And although she was head of the Sexual Misconduct Board at UVA, Eramo hadn’t done anything in that role in a year, said Locke.

“She was interviewed 28 times by the campus newspaper and TV stations,” said Judge Conrad. “She was the face of the university on sexual assault.”

Conrad said he anticipates the case will go to trial, with Eramo as a limited purpose public figure, a designation that requires her to prove actual malice on the part of Rolling Stone.

“This may be the most clear case of actual malice the Fourth Circuit has seen,” assured Locke.

When Rolling Stone republished the article online December 5, 2014, with the editor’s note that the magazine had lost confidence in Jackie’s credibility, that constitutes actual malice, said Locke, because it stood behind the reporting regarding Eramo, including the statement Eramo denies she said about why there are no statistics on sexual assault: “Nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school.”

“Rolling Stone knows how to issue a retraction, and it did so on April 5,” said Locke.

For Rolling Stone attorney McNamara, there were multiple individual grounds to dismiss the case, most notably because Eramo is a public figure and she failed to establish actual malice.

“Rolling Stone has apologized to her,” McNamara said. “Rolling Stone took prompt action within hours when it became apparent there were questions.” Up until December 5, the defendants believed Jackie was credible, she said.

And Eramo’s claim that it was actual malice for Rolling Stone to publish an apology sends a “chill to publications that they correct errors at their peril,” said McNamara. “Publishing a retraction or apology is evidence of not actual malice.”

She asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, a request Conrad seems unlikely to agree to, but he said he will rule on whether Eramo is a public figure.

A two-week trial is scheduled to begin October 11.

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News

DBAC meltdown: Downtown business org in disarray; chair resigns

Joan Fenton ousted George Benford as chair of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville. Photo Eze Amos

Simmering undercurrents from the parking war between the city and Charlottesville Parking Center over the Water Street Garage have splintered the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, whose chairman abruptly resigned August 8 after being told he was illegally elected. The move leaves some members confused about who’s in charge and one who is working to start a new downtown business alliance.

George Benford was elected DBAC chairman in March after former chair Bob Stroh retired from both the business association and CPC, where, as general manager, he’d helped found the DBAC.

Benford says he was in New York on business August 8 when he got an e-mail from DBAC vice-chair Joan Fenton, who owns Quilts Unlimited & J. Fenton Gifts. According to Benford, Fenton said his election was illegal because the bylaws had never been officially approved to allow an election in March, and that she would take over in the interim.

“I said I’d just make this simple and resign,” says Benford. “There’s been a lot of dissent from one or two people. This is a volunteer job. Nobody gets paid.” He adds, “I don’t have energy for this.”

In his resignation letter, Benford listed his accomplishments during the five months he was chair, including DBAC membership being at an all-time high. What he didn’t mention was the parking dispute between CPC owner Mark Brown and the city that has roiled the organization and had it sending conflicting messages to City Council.

Benford came under fire from Fenton and others for an April 17 letter to City Council that said the DBAC would not take sides in the dispute between Brown and the city. It urged a quick resolution and for the city to come up with a long-term plan to deal with parking.

At a May 25 DBAC meeting, Violet Crown Cinema’s Robert Crane called for a petition to City Council that it not sell the Water Street Parking Garage to Brown. Violet Crown, which had hired DBAC member Susan Payne’s public relations firm to represent it, held a June 2 meeting on parking and attendees unanimously agreed that the garage should be a public utility. Days later, council passed a resolution to make an offer to buy Brown’s shares of the garage.

That was followed by a June 23 letter from downtown association board member Mary Beth Schellhammer on DBAC letterhead asking both the city and CPC to knock off the heated rhetoric—the city threatened eminent domain and CPC to close the garage—and come to a quick resolution.

Fenton contends that Benford went to the city and said the DBAC was in favor of it selling its shares of the garage to Brown. She also accused him of not being transparent, and of stalling a DBAC vote on a resolution to keep the garage a public utility.

“From my perspective, [Benford] has done so much damage to the organization and now he’s continuing to damage it,” says Fenton.

“He has a large group of people beholden to Mark Brown,” she says. “There’s a perception CPC is running DBAC.”

Certainly the two organizations have always been intertwined, with downtown booster Stroh holding leadership positions in both. CPC has provided office space and support to DBAC, says Benford, and CPC employee Sarah Mallan is DBAC’s secretary and treasurer.

“DBAC records are kept at the parking garage,” says Fenton. “I think that’s a conflict.”

Brown says that two people out of 17 on the DBAC board work for him. “Didn’t the DBAC encourage the city to fight me and not settle with me?” he asks.

Fenton also questions board members who don’t own businesses downtown, such as Benford, who used to own the restaurant Siips on the mall, and Amy Wicks-Horn, who joined DBAC when she was director of the Virginia Discovery Museum.

Benford says he offered to resign when he sold the restaurant. “Everyone, including Joan, asked me to stay on,” he says.

And Fenton questions the link between Wicks-Horn, who currently works for the Piedmont Family YMCA, which received funding for the new Y from the Jessup family, a member of which also sold Brown his shares in the Water Street Garage Condominium Association.

“I categorically deny that,” says Wicks-Horn. She says she’s not representing the Y with her DBAC membership, and she volunteers because of her passion to support downtown.

“DBAC is a strong partner with CPC and it’s also a strong partner with the city,” she says, and both entities are concerned about the issue of parking downtown. “That doesn’t mean we’re in the city’s pocket and it doesn’t mean we’re in CPC’s pocket.”

Spring Street owner Cynthia Schroeder sees the need for a new business group, an idea she’s had plans for since 2012. “I’m starting a new, honest, open organization to increase business on the Downtown Mall,” she says. “It’s fresh, it’s going to be very active.”

Schroeder doesn’t believe Benford should be chair of DBAC. “It’s unraveling,” she says. “I’m going to put my energy into my effort,” which she says she’d like to have in place by January.

After submitting a resignation not only as chair, but as a member of the DBAC executive committee, board and association itself, Benford reconsidered August 10. “I have received numerous requests to rescind my resignation letter,” he says, and he will remain on a member of the DBAC and its board of directors.

The legality of Benford’s chairmanship was raised at a bylaws committee meeting August 5, says Fenton. Some have questioned whether her interpretation of the bylaws, which the board had talked about updating but she believes never did, is correct.

“I can’t swear to one or the other,” she says. “But if he resigned, it doesn’t matter. He’s got copies of the bylaws, and he could have said, ‘I think you’re reading this wrong.’”

Fenton says she’s been asked to hold an emergency meeting, but with a regular DBAC meeting scheduled for August 17 and the annual meeting in September, she wants the entire membership to vote on who leads the group. “We can start with a clean slate,” she says.

Resignation letter (1)

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Magazines Real Estate

Charlottesville Area Private Schools Offer Impressive Options

Families looking for a private school education for their children will find an abundance of options in the Charlottesville area.  Each school fills a particular niche and parents can find a myriad of alternatives to choose from. We have asked each school to summarize what they offer to give you a sense of the different opportunities available to today’s student.

Blue Ridge School
Founded in 1909, Blue Ridge School is an all-boys, all-boarding college preparatory school with grades nine through twelve. We offer small classes, a structured and supportive environment and a strong sense of community, defined by an honor code and a host of strong traditions. We develop character by nurturing qualities such as integrity, courage, perseverance and empathy.

BRS enrolls 175 students, and the average class size is nine. Experienced, passionate and well-trained faculty provides students with academic programs geared specifically for boys based on the latest gender-specific educational research. A rich mixture of fine and performing arts, outdoor adventure programs and 20 team sports offers students a wide-range of activities and opportunities for success.

For more information visit www.blueridgeschool.com

Charlottesville Catholic School
The nationally recognized Charlottesville Catholic School (CCS) offers Pre-K through 8th grade curriculum. The school welcomes students of all faiths, believing that nurturing Christian values along with excellence in education fosters character and leadership development and inspires good citizenship.

With a focus on their three pillars, Christ, Community, and Scholars, CCS is dedicated to excellence in education and to the spiritual development of youth within the framework of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the tradition of the Catholic Church. Its fundamental task is educating the whole person, instilling in students a lifelong commitment to learning, to developing Christian virtues, and to fostering community service.

As a result of its strong academic performance and demonstrated dedication to learning, CCS was awarded the National Blue Ribbon for academic excellence in 2005 by the U.S. Department of Education. Continuing its tradition of excellence, the school was awarded the National Blue Ribbon for academic excellence for the second time in 2014. Looking forward to the future, Charlottesville Catholic School continues to innovate in its curriculum and instruction with the hopes of being a third-time recipient of this award, when eligible again in five years.

CCS is thrilled to be opening a new STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) wing in the Fall of 2016. The new wing will house two science lab spaces for elementary and middle school students, a new space for the music room, a performance space, and an expanded kitchen.

CCS has the unique opportunity to incorporate religion into the STEAM programs through the incorporation of the Catholic faith and Christian values in everyday interactions of the students and faculty, which when interwoven into the daily curriculum, makes it a STREAM program.

Comprehensive information about CCS is available on the school website, www.cvillecatholic.org.  For further information or to schedule a tour, contact the CCS Admissions Coordinator, Katrina Kuhn, at (434)964-0400 or email at admissions@cvillecatholic.org .

Charlottesville Day School
The motto of the Charlottesville Day School (CDS) is “Celebrate every child. Challenge every learner.” The two-hundred (200) students (ranging from two-year-olds to eighth graders) at CDS discover the joy of learning and embrace a growth mindset towards their intellectual, social, artistic and physical development.  CDS’s outstanding faculty embraces these objectives and works as a collaborative team to serve each child.

Children at CDS develop the self-confidence, imagination, and skills to live fulfilling lives and to realize their individual potential. CDS provides a supportive educational environment that fosters respect for others, develops well-rounded interests, rewards sportsmanship, and cultivates interpersonal skills.

Children at CDS are given repeated opportunities to learn content knowledge in authentic ways, through projects, experiments, performances, interactions with peers, and other real life experiences. CDS teachers not only are experts in their subject matters, but they know each student’s personality, skill level, and role in the classroom. With that knowledge, they motivate students by providing an individualized instructional program.

Teachers work as a team towards this common purpose. The school’s leaders recognize and capitalize on the individual differences of its members and welcome and embrace a diversity of learning styles and cultures. The ultimate goal at CDS is to create a positive environment, provide expert instruction, and nurture children to develop their self-esteem, thinking skills, and independence.

Visit www.charlottesvilledayschool.org for more information.

Charlottesville Waldorf  School
The Charlottesville Waldorf School offers a revolutionary notion: that in the midst of our high-speed world, children should be provided a timeless space in which to do their sacred work. We nurture the innate imagination, empathy, and will in each child as they learn with head, heart, and hands.

Our Early Childhood program supports the healthy growth of young minds and bodies by nurturing a sense of wonder while instilling reverence and joy for the goodness of life. The curriculum features a home-like and rhythmic atmosphere in which the children learn independence and creativity naturally through play and their love of activity. They enjoy rich sensory experiences such as bread baking, snack preparation, water color painting, and handwork projects such as knitting and develop cognitive and linguistic skills through storytelling, poetry, song, and poetic recitation.

At the Elementary School level, the Charlottesville Waldorf  School engages children in the world of traditional academics through an experiential, movement-based, multi-disciplinary approach that supports each child’s unique development. During these development times, speaking, writing, reading, and mathematics are all introduced and reinforced through imaginative, cultural stories, including fairy tales, fables, myths, and legends. Strong work habits and positive social skills are developed and supported by a passionate and committed team of teachers who help round out the child’s education with subjects like Spanish, handwork, movement, orchestra and music, and engage the students in studies that encompass the animal kingdoms, grammar, cursive writing, geography and map-making, decimals and fractions, and the history of ancient civilizations, understood through powerful, imaginative, and practical experiences. The students’ experiences are further enriched through class trips, plays, and relevant activities, such as farming and gardening.

The Charlottesville Waldorf School’s Middle School program promotes a courageous exploration of the self and the community during the middle school grades, the phase of adolescence wherein students begin to understand themselves and their place in the world. The middle school student will experience a human centered and artistic approach to education investigating the explorations of western civilizations including biographies of writers, artists, and thinkers from Ancient Rome to modern times. They will refine observational skills and scientific thinking through the studies of natural phenomena and strengthen abstract thinking through geometry, algebra, and other mathematical concepts. There is also a multi-faceted fine and practical arts program and varied sports opportunities.

Come and witness the future of education for yourself and set up a tour today!

Contact our Enrollment Coordinator (enrollment@cwaldorf.org or 434-973-4946 x102) to set up your tour today!

The Covenant School
Accredited by the Virginia Association of Independent Schools and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, The Covenant School was founded in 1985 as a non-denominational Christian day school seeking to promote the moral, intellectual, and physical development of students in a stimulating and nurturing environment.

The Covenant School is a co-educational school enrolling students in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12. It provides formal education in traditional academic disciplines with a maximum of 18 students per class.  Students benefit from a wide variety of performing and visual arts opportunities, as well as a broad physical education and sports program.  A rigorous college preparatory curriculum taught within a Christian world-view creates an environment that is both supportive and challenging, seeking to inspire students to love God and to love learning.  From the phonics foundation in Pre-Kindergarten, to the wide variety of Honors and Advanced Placement courses in high school, Covenant students are encouraged to become critical thinkers and problem solvers.

The Lower School (Pre-K – Grade 6) is conveniently located in a historic brick building near downtown Charlottesville.  The Upper School is situated on a 23-acre campus in Albemarle County just south of Charlottesville.  There, the middle and high school enjoy a 96,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility built in 2002, with a performing arts center, gymnasium, and several athletic fields. Covenant’s enrollment has grown over the past twenty-six years, from 45 students to nearly 600 students. To learn more, visit www.covenantschool.org

Field School
Field School, a middle school for boys, has a mission to “develop well-rounded boys of character and accomplishment.”

Field School offers a traditional, academically rigorous curriculum in English, social studies, math, science, Latin, Spanish, and arts and music, along with character and leadership development.  Daily team sports participation emphasizes physical fitness, teamwork, fair play, and sportsmanship. The school features regular field trips to expand the classroom and to increase the vitality of learning experiences.  Eighth Graders complete a year-long project culminating in a trip to Costa Rica.

In order to make the Crozet site more convenient to Charlottesville parents, the school provides a daily shuttle from several stops in Charlottesville and offers a daily lunch program.

For more information, visit www.fieldschoolcv.net.

Fork Union Military Academy
Fork Union Military Academy was founded in 1898 by Dr. William E. Hatcher in the village of Fork Union. Today it is one of the nation’s leading college preparatory military schools for boys in grades 7 to 12 and postgraduate. Nationally known for its emphasis on Christian values, top quality academics, and superior athletic programs, the school remains true to its motto of “Body, Mind and Spirit.”

FUMA offers a unique One Subject Plan of instruction. To make sure every cadet receives the individual attention he deserves, class size is kept small. The Academy teachers are dedicated to the challenge of helping young men achieve academic success—and their involvement doesn’t end in the classroom. FUMA’s faculty members are experts in helping young men learn responsibility and self-discipline in a structured boarding school environment. The Academy is accredited by the Virginia Association of Independent Schools.

For more information on FUMA visit their website at www.forkunion.com or contact the Admissions Office at 1-800-GO2-FUMA.

Miller School of Albemarle
Miller School of Albemarle, is a boarding and day college preparatory school for girls and boys in grades 8 – 12. Miller School is a community to nearly 185 girls and boys from across Virginia, eight states, and throughout the world.

Proud of its comprehensive program with small classes, Miller boasts an excellent faculty (with advanced degrees), a vigorous academic college preparatory program and a unique “mind, hands, and heart” curriculum. With sixteen AP course offerings  (including an applied-engineering certificate program) and individual attention and rigorous academics, there is also an emphasis on year-long community service partnerships, and a broad selection of athletics. This includes recognized programs for boys baseball, girls and boys basketball, boys lacrosse, girls volleyball, girls and boys endurance and mountain biking, and an equestrian program. Average class size is ten students; 60-percent of students are five and seven day boarders.

The school is located 12 miles west of Charlottesville, Virginia on a 1,600 acre campus.  Start your adventure at www.millerschool.org.

Mountaintop Montessori – Pantops Mountain
Mountaintop Montessori offers a progressive educational approach based on the Montessori tradition and supported by cognitive science and psychology research. Mountaintop is fully accredited by the American Montessori Society and the Virginia Association of Independent Schools. Montessori promotes the development of the whole child by balancing social, emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual growth. The learning environment honors the importance of intellectual challenge, practical experiences, time in nature and creative expression in order to nurture healthy and successful young people.  Mountaintop serves over 200 children ages toddler through middle school.

The 9-acre campus is recognized as a wildlife sanctuary by Audubon International and the National Wildlife Federation, and is home to extensive gardens, a greenhouse, chickens, bees, fish and kitchens for the growing garden to table program. Performing and visual arts, Spanish, physical education and community service round out the students’ experience at Mountaintop. Read more about Montessori at www.mountaintopmontessori.org.

Oakland School
Oakland School is a specialized learning environment  appropriate for both traditional learners and those who have learning differences. Boys and girls ages 6-13 at admission are welcome. Typically, students return to a traditional school after 2-3 years of individualized and intense instruction in Reading, Math, English and Study Skills. Students are in small classes with an overall teacher to student ratio of 1 to 5. Students receive a daily one-to-one with their main teacher.

Founded in 1950, Oakland is located in Fluvanna County on 450 acres. Recreational activities include team and intramural sports, art and music, nature activities, horseback riding, and much more. The Pillars of Character are stressed throughout the program and community service is an important part of our curriculum. Both day and boarding options are offered. A 5-week summer camp is part of the school year, but may also be attended as a separate session.

Oakland is known for its nurturing environment and professional and experienced staff. It is a unique environment that blends tradition with technology to create an ideal learning space for all. Included in the tuition are books, materials, and supplies, an after-school activity program, weekly horseback riding lessons, a freshly prepared nutritious lunch every day, and much more!

Visit oaklandschool.net for more information.

Renaissance School
Renaissance School is an independent, coeducational college preparatory high school (grades 9-12) for high ability students in the arts, sciences, and/or humanities.  It emphasizes both broad and deep learning through a balanced program equally strong in the arts and academics.  Renaissance School embraces the whole student through differentiated and experiential learning and emphasizes creativity, critical thinking and collaboration.

Students and faculty alike are a friendly community of independent thinkers and learners.  There is a mutual respect and appreciation between students, faculty, the parent council, and Board of Directors.  This support carries into special traditions including Ninth Week, Arts Practicum, and our two-year Independent Study program.  You can learn more about these compelling programs by exploring the school’s website.

Renaissance has had a 100 percent college acceptance rate for graduating seniors, ranging from Brown University to Berklee College of Music.  The average in grant and scholarship offers per applying student for classes 2008-present is $125,000 with some receiving full-tuition scholarships at the college of their choice.

Renaissance School offers a remarkable high school experience to students who want to be engaged in life to the fullest. Courses are intellectually stimulating, rich in content, and highly interactive. Classes are small, and students are viewed as individuals. The faculty is committed to providing each student the support he or she needs to work toward his or her full potential, academically, socially, and artistically. The comprehensive curriculum weaves together the intellectual, artistic, social, and humanitarian fabric to establish a strong foundation for the maturing adolescent’s lifelong interest in learning.

Renaissance School is located in beautiful historic downtown Charlottesville, Virginia.  Its central location enables it to have a campus that includes the Jefferson Madison Regional Library, the McGuffey Art Center, Light House Studio, Music Resource Center, ACAC Fitness and Wellness, local galleries, great cafes and restaurants, convenient bus access to UVA and PVCC campuses, and so much more that Charlottesville has to offer.

Renaissance School is currently accepting applications for the upcoming academic year.   To arrange a visit, please call Renaissance School at (434) 984-1952, and for additional information, visit our website at www.renaissanceschool.org.

St. Anne’s-Belfield School
The St. Anne’s-Belfield School philosophy is that the transmission of knowledge, the encouragement of curiosity, the development of rational thought, and the cultivation of responsible, honorable behavior are the great ends of education. In asking students to master a specific body of knowledge, they seek not to impart knowledge alone, but to instill the lifelong habit of learning. Although they expect graduates to be prepared for the nation’s finest colleges and universities, their true purpose is to create a challenging yet charitable atmosphere where students gain skills necessary for both creative and disciplined thought, where they have opportunities to achieve in athletic and artistic endeavors, where they understand their responsibility as a member of a community, and where high expectations for both their personal and intellectual lives are complemented by the School’s commitment to nurturing students in the spiritual dimension of life.

St. Anne’s-Belfield is a co-ed school with an enrollment last year of 910 students in Pre-School through grade 12, and with 22 countries represented in the student body. Approximately 80 percent of the faculty hold advanced degrees, and students enjoy a student/teacher ratio of   8:1. Approximately $5 million is given to 38 percent of the student body in financial aid per year.

On two campuses totaling nearly fifty acres, the school enjoys state-of-the-art resources and infrastructure. Recent additions include a LEED-certified, 105,000 square-foot Learning Village to serve students in Kindergarten through eighth grade, a new Pre-School building, an Upper School Auditorium seating more than 400, a five court squash complex, and two turf fields. Forty-five school sports teams compete against public schools and in independent school leagues, and about eighty percent of Upper School students participate in interscholastic sports. In addition, 78 percent of the student body participates in fine or performing arts with approximately 25 musical and theatrical performances held each year.

For more information on St. Anne’s-Belfield School, go to www.stab.org

Tandem Friends School
Tandem School was founded in 1970 by educators John Howard and Duncan Alling.  Their philosophy, which continues to define the essence of a Tandem Friends education, was based on the conviction that learning thrives in an environment where faculty and students enjoy close, trusting relationships, values and ideas are freely examined, and decision making involves the whole school community.  They envisioned an economically and racially diverse school dedicated to academic rigor in the context of a curriculum embracing the arts, environmental stewardship, and community service.

In 1995, Tandem formally adopted the philosophy and practices of Quaker education and became Tandem Friends School, now serving up to 230 students in grades 5-12.  The school’s mission statement best summarizes its goals:

Rooted in Quaker values, Tandem Friends School prepares young
people for higher education and fulfilling lives of integrity, creative
expression, and service. 

The school’s unofficial mottoes capture the Tandem philosophy: “Freedom with Responsibility” and “Kindness and Wisdom.”

Tandem has a no-cut sports policy and is a member of the Delaney Athletic Conference. (The varsity girls’ soccer team won the state championship three years in a row— 2010-2012.) A strong arts program features visual arts, music, and drama as well as an award-winning digital film program.  The faculty/ student ratio is 1:7 with classroom sizes ranging from 12-18 students. Tandem Friends is accredited by the National Association of Independent Schools, the Virginia Association of Independent Schools and is affiliated with the Friends Council on Education.

Find out more at www.tandemfs.org. Call Emily Morrison, Director of Admissions, at 434-951-9314 to schedule a tour or visit.

Village School
Village School is a private middle school for girls located in downtown Charlottesville, which provides an avenue for young women to find their own voices as learners. The school believes that effective self-expression and self-confidence arise out of the mastery of skills. As a member within its learning community, each student acquires the skills of making judgments and defending them.

A fine arts program is an integral part of the Village School curriculum. The use of computer technology figures prominently in daily life, where each student completes work on a laptop tablet.

Physical education and development are also stressed.  Village School has its own cross country team. In addition, the girls play on citywide field hockey and lacrosse leagues, as well as participate in soccer, swimming, and other sports. Also, four Village School basketball teams play in the Virginia Basketball Academy league each year.

The school believes strongly in the advantages gained through an awareness and understanding of others. Consequently, community service is an integral part of the school, and being downtown provides many community service opportunities.  For more information, visit www.villageschool.us.

Woodberry Forest School
Woodberry Forest School, an independent, all-boarding community located just minutes from Charlottesville in Madison County, is committed to offering boys what they need for the future.  Thousands of families have trusted Woodberry Forest with their boys in grades 9 through 12 over the years. We’ve honored that trust through our time-honored approach to an academic rigor and intellectual thoroughness, blending traditional values with the latest knowledge about how boys mature intellectually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. At Woodberry, boys become men of honor.

Every boy at Woodberry is chosen for his potential to grow as a future leader. Our students come to us from across the country and around the globe, gaining the type of cultural fluency they will need to be successful adults.

Central to Woodberry is the boarding experience. Our residential character extends far beyond the extraordinary facilities on our stunning, 1,200-acre campus. It influences every aspect of life here, fostering common experiences in our dorms, on our athletic fields, and during whole-campus meals and weekly chapel services. Our exceptional teachers live with their families on campus, where they can participate fully in the life of the school — and the lives of the boys.

Woodberry is fully committed to single-sex education. Free from the distractions of a coeducational setting, a Woodberry boy gains the confidence to attempt new things — sports, artistic endeavors, a school play. He doesn’t see himself as girls see him. Instead, he learns to see the man he is becoming.

But nothing embodies Woodberry quite like our student-written honor system, which prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing. Established in 1899, the honor system upholds Woodberry as a community of trust in which everyone is safe, supported, and treated with respect. It’s truly a place like no other.

Our alumni are among the most supportive and deeply involved independent-school graduates in the country. They are dedicated to seeing Woodberry continue to thrive. And, as our boys move on to college and beyond, a built-in network of Woodberry men is ready and willing to lend them a hand.

We invite you to come and experience Woodberry for yourself so you can see why it is one of the leading boarding schools in the nation. Meet with a member of our admissions staff. Tour our campus with a student guide. Check out our dorms and athletic facilities. You’ll begin to understand why Woodberry is the best school to launch a boy on his lifetime journey.

Visit our website at www.woodberry.org or call our Admissions Office at 888.798.9371 to learn more.

Categories
News

Rescinded: Felons who registered to vote do not pass go

DeShon Langston got out of prison in 2005 and could vote in Michigan, but not in Virginia. PHOTO EZE AMOS

For DeShon Langston, having his right to vote restored—and then unrestored—was like having a really nice dream and waking up to reality. That’s his reaction to a 4-3 Supreme Court of Virginia decision July 22 that the state constitution did not give Governor Terry McAuliffe the authority to restore voting rights en masse, as he did April 22 for more than 200,000 felons.

By July 29, the Virginia Department of Elections had placed all of those names back on the prohibited voter list. This week, people like Langston, who had registered to vote, will get letters advising them their registration has been canceled.

When he got out of prison in 2005 for drug distribution charges, Langston, 41, returned to his home state of Michigan, where felon voting rights are restored automatically upon release from prison. “The first time I ever voted was in 2008 in Michigan for Barack Obama,” he says. “I was on probation.”

But he returned to Virginia, which doesn’t make it so easy and requires felons to petition the governor to get their voting rights back. Encouraged by Virginia Organizing’s Harold Folley, Langston previously tried to get his voting rights restored online, but was told he’d need to provide more information. “I’ve got a wife, two young kids, two jobs,” he says. “I got other things on my mind.”

When McAuliffe signed his blanket restoration, “it felt like a step up for the future, where I can participate in my local government,” says Langston.

He wonders about the GOP-led opposition to him voting. “Is that how Virginia really feels about felons working to get their lives together?” he asks. And he’s convinced the restrictions on felon voting are racially motivated because the majority of felons are African-American. “Whatever their motivation is, it’s not benefiting me,” he says.

curtis-gilmore-eze
Curtis Gilmore Jr. wants to give back and not be seen as a second-class citizen. Photo Eze Amos

Curtis Gilmore Jr., 55, felt like he earned having his rights restored. He, too, was convicted of drug charges and has been out of prison since December 22, 2009. Gilmore works at Blue Moon Diner and is trying to be a productive citizen, and “not feel like I’m second class,” he says.

Now he wants to live a more conventional life, where before, “I always lived in the dark world—a life that could get you killed or get you locked up,” he says. He has seven grown children. “None of them turned out like me, thank God,” he says, putting his hands together in a prayer gesture.

It took Gilmore more than five years to pay $5,000 in fines so he could get his driver’s license back.

“I’m being restored,” he says. “Getting my rights back is one of the things I have to do. I was excited about getting to vote,” although he says he wasn’t disappointed when he heard the court had reversed the governor’s measure. “I know how politics work,” he says.

Delegate Rob Bell, a Republican who is running for attorney general, says it’s no secret he was one of those who challenged McAuliffe’s order and who helped expose those who were ineligible on the restoration list.

“We had policy concerns about treating everyone the same, and we had constitutional concerns,” he says. Under McAuliffe’s order, “there will be some very bad characters who qualify,” he says.

Bell, a former Orange County prosecutor, interviewed lawyers to take the case and checked in with other commonwealth’s attorneys. Jim Fisher in Fauquier County ran the names of a few people he knew wouldn’t qualify, and found a guy serving a life sentence, says Bell. He reached out to other prosecutors who checked high-profile cases and “the dam broke.”

One found a sex offender who was a fugitive noncitizen who had his rights restored. Another discovered 132 sex offenders who were civilly committed. “It got worse and worse,” says Bell. “It underlined the benefits of [restoring voting rights] case by case.”

Bell insists his opposition to McAuliffe’s order is not to disenfranchise black voters, and he points to a PolitiFacts investigation that says Virginia’s ban on felons voting is not a Jim Crow-era law. It notes the ban on felons dates to 1830, when only white men were given the right to vote.

Bell says he doesn’t object to felons getting their voting rights back, but he doesn’t want it an automatic process. “If someone turns their life around, everyone is delighted,” he says. “When people approach and ask me about this, I always ask if they’ve applied. For nonviolent felons, it’s not this big application.”

On August 4, registrars in Charlottesville, which had 86 felons who registered to vote, and in Albemarle, which had 82, received lists of names of those who had been unregistered.

McAuliffe has vowed he will sign letters restoring rights to the nearly 13,000 felons who registered to vote under his executive order.

Both Langston and Gilmore say they’ll register to vote if their rights are restored again. Langston is more interested in participating in local and state elections, which affect his family. “That’s what I care about,” he says,

And Gilmore wants to not be seen as a second-class citizen. “If I can vote my one vote, I can make a difference,” he says. “And I can talk about politics.”

Categories
Arts

Music nonprofit wants to help locals unite in song

MIMA, a music nonprofit originally started in New York City, opened a chapter here in February and wants to engage the community in collaborative workshops. Photo: Murphy Thibodeau

Rappity rap, rappity rap.

A 13-year-old tapped out a beat on a metal folding chair. Rappity rap, rappity rap. Dressed in black jeans, black untied high tops and a black Michael Jordan jersey over a white undershirt, he slumped forward, his restless fingers wandering over the edge of his chair, his gaze wandering up to the stained glass windows in the Music Resource Center’s chapel space on Ridge Street.

He was in the zone. Rappity rap, rappity rap, rappity rap.

After a minute, another boy—about 7 years old and wearing a brown Phish T-shirt—started tapping the seat of his own folding chair. Tap. Tap tap. Tap. Tap tap.

Two girls across the circle talked about swimming, and Charlottesville musician Julia J. von Briesen started chanting “breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle, backstroke.” Soon, all 20 people in the circle—children, teens and adults—stood, stomping and clapping in time to her chant.

They were improvising.

This lasted about 60 seconds before music teacher Kevin Wenzel led them to a new, different rhythm. “Goom-ba! Goom-ba!” he chanted, encouraging them to stomp their right foot then their left, to chant louder and louder before layering on “bunnybunny, BUNNYbunny” in double time.

The louder they shouted, the more confident they seemed. They weren’t caught up in making the music sound good; they didn’t stop and start over if someone missed a beat, they just continued on. They were creating and living together in that moment. Such is the power of improvisational music.

That creative flame is what MIMA, a New York City-based music education nonprofit new to the Charlottesville arts scene, has sought to ignite since its origin in 2000. MIMA’s trained teachers run programs for underserved schools and at-risk youth in Newark, New Jersey, and New York City and have held community music workshops in Cyprus, Nepal, Brazil and other cities and towns around the world.

“So often, we hit on moments that don’t feel good or sound good—in life, not just in music,” says MIMA founding board member Adam Nemett. “The biggest thing I’ve learned from [improvisational music] is that, in those moments, rather than curling up in a ball and saying, ‘It’s over,’ ask, ‘How do we improvise? How do we bend it back into tune or make it work?’” This is the underlying sensibility of the MIMA Method.

The method doesn’t rely on musical instruments or a set songbook. Workshop participants don’t even need musical ability or experience, says Nemett, they just have to show up.

The MIMA curriculum is a framework designed to “draw out the unique rhythms, melodies and lyrics that make sense for [an individual] community or environment,” says Nemett. “Harlem sounds like Harlem, Nepal sounds like Nepal.” And Charlottesville sounds like Charlottesville. “Shady Days,” the song MIMA campers created at the MRC workshop, is a keyboard pop tune with all-ages vocals and R&B drumbeats pumping through saxophone veins; it’s about escaping the intense heat of Charlottesville summer by seeking out the cool shade and waiting for nightfall.

“We do find—and this is a bit cheesy to say—that music is a universal language. People from different cultures, different ages, different languages can keep a beat together,” Nemett says while tapping out a beat on his chest. We can make music with our bodies, without instruments, “at any age, and make something beautiful happen,” he says.

Longtime MIMA music teacher Wenzel, who led that MRC community songwriting workshop, takes it even further, saying that “music is what it means to be human, and being human means interacting and being with others. As a method of communication, a space to experiment and a way of creating emotional bonds between others, creating music together is a human experience that builds empathy and understanding of other people unlike [anything] I have ever experienced.”

That’s why with the MIMA Method, teaching music skills—which already live within us—is secondary to teaching creativity, confidence and collaboration, says Nemett.

Charlottesville seemed like a logical place to establish a new chapter, adds Nemett, who moved to town in 2013 and helped launch the local chapter in February of this year. It is, after all, a town known for its music—there’s jazz at Miller’s, country at the Jefferson, indie at the Tea Bazaar, busking on the Mall and so on. “But there’s so much more that could be supported here,” says Nemett. He knows that there’s music being made in bedrooms, basements and living rooms all over town. People sing together in church, in the car and on their porches.

Nemett hopes that MIMA Charlottesville can help support music and music programs all over central Virginia—in elementary, middle and high schools, in community spaces like the MRC, in adult residential communities like Innisfree Village and through the International Rescue Committee, to name just a few.

MIMA programs are relatively inexpensive to produce, but for schools or organizations that can’t fully afford a program, there’s usually grant money available, says Nemett. Programs are always free for participants, because what’s important is that people—all people—come together to make music and learn the power of improvisation.

After just three MIMA sessions at the MRC, at least one local camper had picked up on that power. Following the group improv session, a young girl with braided hair and wearing beat-up silver sneakers told me that when her older siblings won’t play with her, she plays the piano to keep herself company. I asked her how music makes her feel, and she replied, “It’s just, like, going with it,” before dashing off to watch another camper set up a drum kit, humming the melody to “Shady Days” as she ran.

–Erin O’Hare

MUSIC MAKERS

Add some musical improvisation to your life with MIMA’s “Human DJ” game. Each participant plays the DJ, conducting the group and dictating the direction of a musical experience for a short period before passing the reins to another participant. The overall song never stops but changes gradually with the contributions of each DJ.

1. Gather your group in a circle. Start a basic beat or “pulse” with your feet.

2. Select a confident participant to be the first DJ to step into the center.

3. DJ leads the entire group in a looped musical pattern using voice, body percussion or anything available. Keep it going…

4. The DJ gradually splits the full circle into segments of two to four people, leading each in a call-and-response of a new musical idea or layer. Think in terms of instrumentation: drums, bass, guitar, horns, vocal melody, etc.

5. After five or six layers have been added or changed, the DJ chooses someone to take his place in the center and lead the group.

6. Continue changing DJs and sounds to improvise a constantly changing musical composition.

Tips:

Try an eight-beat phrase. A longer phrase equals variability.

Use eye contact and clear body motions to model dynamic changes, rests, etc. (i.e., raising or lowering your arms to adjust volume and achieve a balanced mix among the group).

Categories
Arts

Found letters put C’ville at the heart of a German opera

Victory Hall Opera’s Miriam Gordon-Stewart plays the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier for the show’s first performances in Virginia, at PVCC on August 14, 17 and 20. Photo: Publicity photo

Since its debut in 1911, opera-lovers have considered Der Rosenkavalier a masterpiece of the repertoire.

The German comedy follows the story of the Marschallin (Princess Marie Thérèse von Werdenberg) as she decides to end her affair with a younger man and save another woman from an unhappy marriage.

More than a century later, on the eve of its first Der Rosenkavalier performance, local opera group Victory Hall Opera unearthed a magical coincidence: The Marschallin’s character was partially inspired by a real woman, Countess Ottonie von Degenfeld, and her descendants live and work in Charlottesville.

“It’s just not common knowledge in the opera world that this relationship was based around a real relationship,” says Miriam Gordon-Stewart, Victory Hall co-founder, artistic director and the soprano who plays the Marschallin in the group’s upcoming performance. “Finding out about the link to Charlottesville was purely due to a conversation that we struck up with a German lady at an art exhibition.”

Following the lead, Gordon-Stewart and fellow co-founder Brenda Patterson discovered that von Degenfeld’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren did, in fact, live in Albemarle County. What’s more, the family possessed intimate letters that detailed a deep affection between von Degenfeld and Der Rosenkavalier’s librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

The private letters, bound in a blue ribbon and opened after von Degenfeld’s death by her daughter Marie Thérèse, detail the couple’s deepening relationship, which began in 1910, when von Hofmannsthal attended a dinner party at Schloss Neubeuern, a castle in Bavaria where von Degenfeld lived at the time.

“Their relationship was something probably we wouldn’t understand today,” says Ralph Miller, a Charlottesville native and von Degenfeld’s grandson. “It was very intellectual because it started when she was in a wheelchair.”

At age 26, von Degenfeld had been married only two years when her husband died of prostate cancer, leaving her widowed, essentially homeless and with a small child. Though she’d once been vivacious and charismatic, von Degenfeld was so devastated she could hardly speak or walk.

By the time von Degenfeld arrived in Neubeuern, von Hofmannsthal was part of a circle of intellectuals and artists who frequented the castle, which acted as a rotating world of art, opera and music.

“[von Hofmannsthal] took pity on her and said, ‘There must be some way we can we bring this poor creature back into a life.’ Being the intellectual he was, life to him was literature. So he started prescribing for her books,” Miller says. “She would read them. Then he would send her more books, all the classics in French, in German, in English and so on. That’s how he slowly brought her back.”

It’s also how their correspondence began. Each time she received or finished reading a book, von Degenfeld wrote von Hofmannsthal with thanks or a discussion of the book’s plot and themes. This went on for years, until she finally regained her strength and her joy and became active again.

Their mutual affection extended beyond literature. To understand its depth, consider this quote from von Degenfeld’s correspondence, cited in Victory Hall’s promotional video for the upcoming performance: “Should I continue explaining why I like you so much? Because you also love the dust upon the flower petals and would not think of placing the buds in a greenhouse to see them bloom before their time. And this is what separates you from other men and serves as a sort of balm for the wounded heart. I realize that if I love your letters, must I not also love your soul and you?”

Despite the tenor of certain exchanges, von Degenfeld and her family maintained that the actual relationship remained platonic.

“Like in any relationship, there were all the temptations, but one reason I know [it remained platonic] is that [my grandmother] was always very good friends with [von] Hofmannsthal’s wife,” Miller says. “She never had any guilty conscience regarding that.”

“The stories we hear about her were stories of great humor or great character,” says Marie Lefton, von Degenfeld’s great-granddaughter and a Charlottesville native. “The letters have to speak for themselves.”

During the pair’s correspondence, von Hofmannsthal also wrote the libretto for Der Rosenkavalier.

Guestbooks from Schloss Neubeuern log various dates on which he arrived to write particular scenes. According to Miller, he may have staged the first performance of the show in the castle salon.

No doubt, von Hofmannsthal’s relationship with von Degenfeld influenced his greatest work. He even told her daughter that he named the princess after her. Coupled with the librettist’s unique writing style, it’s easy to see why the show feels so poignant.

“There are sentences that aren’t finished,” Gordon-Stewart says. “There are thoughts that start one way and they sort of get hijacked in an attempt to avoid the subject. Then, they meander in a different direction. Then, one person starts talking over the other to try to draw them back to the point.

“It’s not a surprise that it’s based on a real relationship. It makes a lot of sense to us. I think that is a reason why it feels so personal and so naturalistic in a way.”

Once again, von Hofmannsthal’s art extended beyond the stage and into local lives.

“From what I’ve heard, Der Rosenkavalier stands out as an opera because it’s very much alive and real,” Miller says. “I gathered that that was his style of writing that differentiated him from some of the others.

“As a matter of fact, he taught my mother how to write letters. That’s why hers were not rigid and stylistic. She said [von] Hofmannsthal taught her to stop thinking of it as a letter. To just put down what you really feel.”