Andrew Young
Click to see the related video. NCSA threw its doors open for the second annual UNC Festival of the Arts on April 12th and 13th. Arts delegates from 11 of the other 16 UNC campuses, as well as the RJ Reynolds High School Arts Magnet Program visited the NCSA campus for the first community day in 10 years.
The first Festival of the Arts was held last year on the day of Chancellor John Mauceri’s installation. Chancellor Mauceri invited the other UNC campuses to send arts delegates to NCSA to perform on the day of his installation, and the day culminated with Mauceri conducting the NCSA symphony orchestra in Wagner’s “Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nornberg” and the Overture to the movie version of “West Side Story.”
This year the festival was expanded from two hours to two days. Both Classical and Jazz music performances, Drama performances ranging from improv players to scenes from “My Fair Lady”, Dance demonstrations and student films from both NCSA and UNCW were offered, as well as refreshments provided by Ben and Jerry’s, Chick-fil-A and Little Richard’s Bar-B-Que, and face painting and scavenger hunts for the kids.
Chancellor Mauceri hopes to expand the UNC Festival of the Arts in the future and have the festival coincide with more NCSA concerts. While visitors this year were not able to attend any NCSA performances other than those scheduled specifically for the festival, they were able to attend open rehearsals for “Henry IV” and “Rodeo.”
The festival sparked positive comments from the participants. Robert Stevens, a member of the improv group CHiPs from UNC’s Chapel Hill campus called the festival “a lot of fun,” and said he hopes to participate in more festivals here in the future.
For more information on the UNC Festival of the Arts visit
ncarts.edu 
