This project is supported, in part, by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly.
The Robert Jospé Quartet brings an exciting mix of instrumental jazz, rock, pop, and Latin styles to the Piedmont Arts galleries on Thursday, Oct. 15. A reception will be held at 6:30 p.m., and the concert will begin at 7 p.m.
Featuring Jospé on drums, the quartet includes Daniel Clarke on piano, Paul Langosch on bass, and Brian Mesko on guitar. Their repertoire includes original works from their newest release, “The Night Sky,” standards, and covers by well-known composers.
Tickets are $20 for general admission. Complimentary refreshments will be provided, and additional beverages will be available for purchase.
Sponsored by Brightspeed and 3rd Bay.
Local educators are invited to a special Educator Appreciation Night from 4-6 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 22, at Piedmont Arts.
Enjoy light refreshments, games, and raffles with prizes donated by generous local businesses, including 3rd Bay, Ground Floor, Southern Seasons, Stateline Aesthetics, Rippe’s, Rooster Walk, Sportlanes, and Wild Magnolia.
This event is free and open to all education professionals in Martinsville-Henry County. RSVP by Wednesday, Oct. 21.
RSVP Here
Sponsored by Bunco Babes, Olivia and Pres Garrett, Libby Kormos, Nancy Philpott, Julie Thomas, Jackie Thornton, Brenda and Joe Williams, Virginia Foothills Quilters Guild, Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Lynwood Artists, and What's Your Sign.
Join Piedmont Arts for an opening reception honoring its new exhibits from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13, at Piedmont Arts. A gallery talk with curators Linda M. Fiedler and Betty Blessin will take place at 6:15 p.m.
Exhibits on view:
This event is free and open to the public and will feature live music by pianist Ann Nichols. Complimentary refreshments will be served before the gallery talk. RSVP by Wednesday, Nov. 11.
RSVP Here
Sponsored by King's Grant.
Dr. Elliot Engel returns to Piedmont Arts with “Beyond the Muddy Cloak: The Brilliance of Sir Walter Raleigh” on Thursday, Nov. 19. A dinner with Engel will take place at 5:45 p.m., followed by the lecture at 7 p.m.
Engel reveals details of Raleigh's fascinating life as an author, explorer, and courtier who deserves to be celebrated for far more than his muddy cloak. Using anecdotes, analysis, and a large dose of humor, he brings this remarkable historical figure to life again.
Engel lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he has taught at NC State University, the University of North Carolina, and Duke University. He earned an MA and Ph.D. from UCLA and was awarded that university’s Outstanding Teacher Award. He has written 10 books published in England, Japan, Turkey, and the United States. His mini-lecture series on Charles Dickens aired on PBS stations nationwide. His articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and national magazines. He has lectured throughout the United States and on all the continents, including Antarctica. He was inducted into the Royal Society of Arts in England in 2009 for his academic work and service in promoting Charles Dickens.
Tickets to the dinner and lecture are $50. Dinner reservations must be made in advance. Tickets to the lecture alone are $25.
Piedmont Arts will kick off the holiday season with the annual lighting of the Art Garden Christmas tree from 4-6 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 3, in the Gravely-Lester Art Garden.
Enjoy holiday music, a visit from Santa, themed crafts and a snack of cookies and hot chocolate. This event is free and open to the public.
Much like the sculptures in the Art Garden, the Christmas tree is a work of art. It is created each year by Ian Hogg using more than 3,000 lights. The tree will be lit at sunset and brighten the Art Garden through New Year’s Day.
The Gravely-Lester Art Garden is located at 207 Starling Ave. It is free and open to the public from dawn to dusk each day.
Sponsored by Brightspeed. This project is supported, in part, by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly.
Join Piedmont Arts for its annual production of the Roanoke Symphony Holiday Pops Spectacular at 3 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 6, at Martinsville High School Auditorium.
There’s no better way to lift your spirits than with the music of the season delivered in full sound and spectacle by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Maestro David Stewart Wiley conducts the Holiday Pops with all the magical elements guests have come to expect — high energy, familiar carols, and lots of holiday warmth.
Guest Adelaide Trombetta will join the symphony for a heartwarming celebration of cherished holiday classics. A graduate of Yale’s prestigious Opera Program, the skilled soprano debuted with the Metropolitan Opera under the direction of Marco Armiliato. She is recognized internationally as a world-class singer and a compelling stage performer, and has led concert and stage engagements throughout the United States and Europe.
| Event schedule: | |
| 1:30 p.m. | Lobby and box office open |
| 2 p.m. | Auditorium opens |
| 3 p.m. | Concert begins |
Tickets are $30 for reserved seating, $20 for general admission, and $10 for students in grades K-12.
Join Piedmont Arts for an opening reception honoring its new exhibits from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 22, at Piedmont Arts. A gallery talk with Jeffrey Allison and Courtney Burkhardt of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will take place at 6:15 p.m.
Exhibits on view:
This event is free and open to the public. Complimentary refreshments will be served before the gallery talk. RSVP by Wednesday, Jan. 20.
RSVP Here
Curator Dr. Sarah Kennel will discuss the exhibit, "Willie Anne Wright: Artist and Alchemist," on Thursday, Feb. 11, at Piedmont Arts. A reception will be held at 6:30 p.m., followed by the talk at 7 p.m.
Celebrate groundbreaking, internationally renowned photographer and painter Willie Anne Wright, whose remarkable career spans more than six decades. Presenting 63 photographs and nine paintings by the Richmond, Virginia, native, this is the first major exhibition to explore the trajectory of her impressive 60-year career.
From playful and irreverent scenes of everyday life to ethereal evocations of the past, Wright's experimental paintings and photographs examine pop culture, feminine identity, the pull of history, and the shifting cultural landscape of the South.
With a focus on photography’s role in shaping collective understandings of history, place, and gender, the exhibition draws from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' recent acquisition of Wright’s work, including more than 230 photographs and 10 paintings, as well as a comprehensive artist archive.
This exhibit was organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Kennel, the Aaron Siskind curator of photography and director of the Raysor Center.
This event is free and open to the public. RSVP by Wednesday, Feb. 10.
RSVP Here
Sponsored by Brightspeed and Carter Bank.
The annual African American Read-In and Family Day will take place from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 20, at Piedmont Arts.
Guests are invited to participate in a public read-aloud. Participants should bring a book, story, or poem by a favorite African American author to share with the group. Members of Piedmont Arts’ Teen Arts Council will provide a free craft for children, and the Piedmont Arts Guild will give away door prizes. Snacks will be available.
Free tours of VMFA on the Road, featuring the exhibit, "Virginia as America: Navigating Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," will be available during the event. This traveling art exhibition explores the American ideal that was first expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Fourteen works of art, including paintings, prints, and decorative objects, provide an alternative lens by which to understand our past, encouraging us to consider the hopes and challenges of those founding principles and their persistent relevance for realizing a “more perfect union.”
This event is held in conjunction with the National African American Read-In. This groundbreaking initiative encourages communities to read together, with a focus on African American books and authors. The initiative was established in 1990 by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month. It has reached more than six million participants worldwide.
Admission is free, and all ages are welcome.
Admission Free
Join Maestro David Stewart Wiley, the music director and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, for a special solo piano recital on Thursday, March 11, at Piedmont Arts. A reception will be held at 5:30 p.m., followed by the performance at 6 p.m.
The program will include original music composed by Wiley and piano music by Bach, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff.
Wiley has conducted such distinguished symphonies as Atlanta, Buffalo, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Saint Louis, Oregon, Honolulu, and Utah, among others. He won the Aspen Conducting Prize, was assistant conductor for the Aspen Music Festival, and was awarded a conducting fellowship at Tanglewood. He holds both a doctorate and a master’s of music in conducting from Indiana University, a degree in piano performance with honors from the New England Conservatory of Music, and a degree in religion, summa cum laude, from Tufts University. He is a recipient of the Perry F. Kendig Prize for service to the arts and is a Paul Harris Fellow from Rotary International. He and his wife, Leah Marer Wiley, have a son and a daughter who play cello and violin and enjoy traveling, hiking, biking, chess, and making music together.
Tickets are $25 for general admission.
Take a bus trip to the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Wednesday, March 31. The bus will depart from Piedmont Arts at 8:30 a.m. Guests will enjoy a tour of the historic house, museum, and grounds, followed by lunch at 1703 Restaurant.
About Reynolda House Museum of American Art
Completed in 1917, Reynolda House Museum of American Art was originally the home of Katharine Smith and R.J. Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Promising a healthier lifestyle, the more than 34,000-square-foot historic home was the centerpiece of a 1,067-acre estate and model farm. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, the Reynolds family’s 64-room historic house stands as one of the few well-preserved, surviving examples of the American Country House movement.
Inside, you’ll find not only more than 6,000 historic objects, but also a collection of world-renowned American art on view in the historic house and special exhibitions in the Babcock Gallery. Spanning 250 years, the collection is a chronology of American art, and features artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Frederic Edwin Church, Alexander Calder, Romare Bearden, Lee Krasner, Stuart Davis, Martin Johnson Heade, Jacob Lawrence, John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol, and Grant Wood.
Tickets on sale soon.
Join Piedmont Arts for an opening reception honoring its new exhibits from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 2, at Piedmont Arts. A gallery talk with artists Tex S. Crawford and Kelly Mattox will take place at 6:15 p.m.
Exhibits on view:
This event is free and open to the public. Complimentary refreshments will be served before the gallery talk. RSVP by Wednesday, March 31.
RSVP Here
Join Piedmont Arts and the Charity League of Martinsville and Henry County for a special event celebrating students with work on display in the Foster Gallery. This event is free and open to exhibiting students, their families, and friends.
The Foster Gallery is an important part of Piedmont Arts’ community programming. Exhibits in the gallery have been curated in partnership with the Charity League of Martinsville and Henry County for more than 25 years. A new exhibit is installed every six to eight weeks to allow work by students from all 19 schools in Martinsville-Henry County to be displayed during the year.
| Schools | On View | Reception |
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Oct. 6-30, 2026 |
4-6 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 13 |
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Nov. 13-Dec. 4, 2026 |
4-6 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 17 |
|
Dec. 8, 2026-Jan. 9, 2027 |
4-6 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 8 |
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Jan. 22-Feb. 20, 2027 |
4-6 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 9 |
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Feb. 23-March 20, 2027 |
4-6 p.m., Tuesday, March 9 |
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April 2-30, 2027 |
4-6 p.m., Tuesday, April 13 |
Celebrate fine art and flowers at Art in Bloom, a spring-themed fundraiser for Piedmont Arts at 6:30 p.m., Friday, April 23, at the museum. Enjoy food, drinks, and live music by Real Jazz.
Tickets are $100 per person and include food and drinks.
Artists living within a 100-mile radius of Martinsville, Virginia, are invited to enter work in "Expressions 2027" from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturday, May 22, at Piedmont Arts.
All entries must be made during the designated time frame. No early or late entries will be accepted.
“Expressions” is an annual open-entry exhibition presented by Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts. All submitted works in compliance with the entry rules are accepted into the exhibition. Up to two pieces of art may be submitted per artist. Artwork submitted for entry must have been completed within the last two years. Work previously exhibited in "Expressions" is not eligible.
Cash prizes will be awarded for first, second, and third place in seven categories, as well as purchase awards, the Lynwood Artists Award, and Best in Show. Artists should review the entry form with complete entry rules before submitting work.
Entry forms will be released in spring 2027.
Join Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts for an opening reception in honor of Expressions 2027 from 5:30-7:30 p.m., Friday, June 4, at Piedmont Arts. An awards ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. in the galleries.
This event is free and open to the public. Complimentary refreshments will be served before the gallery talk. RSVP by Wednesday, June 2.
RSVP Here
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