Spoleto Festival USA and the city’s companion Piccolo Spoleto Festival today kick off 17 days of scores of exciting cultural performances anticipated for months.
Spoleto will have more than 100 performances across nine venues in Charleston, according to Spoleto spokesman Jenny Ouellette. This season, Spoleto Festival USA director Mena Mark Hanna has a clear vision with this year’s festival lineup: reimagining, recontextualizing and reinterpreting stories that have shaped our world.
“Be that different perspectives of what it means to be a human in different marginalized forms, or climate change. If there is an undercurrent to this year’s festival, it’s recontextualizing age-old stories,” he told the Charleston City Paper.
Performances include the festival’s chamber music series to feature 37 works from 37 composers, a special tribute to Geoff Nuttall, the Quentin Baxter quintet and more showings of Pulitzer Prize Award-winning Omar.
To learn more about the offerings in Piccolo Spoleto, read the official guide produced by the City Paper.
Some locations may change due to the threat of inclement weather expected today and over the weekend. For example, both festivals have moved their ceremonies indoors. Spoleto Festival’s opening ceremony has been relocated from the steps of City Hall to Festival Hall on 56 Beaufain St. at noon today while Piccolo Spoleto’s Sunset Serenade concert by the Charleston Symphony will move into Charleston Music Hall on 37 John St. at 8 p.m.
In other headlines:
CP CARTOONS:
CP: Spoleto USA director sparks a new era. Spoleto Festival USA director Mena Mark Hanna has a clear vision with this year’s festival lineup: reimagining, recontextualizing and reinterpreting stories that have shaped our world.
CP: ‘Celebrating Geoff Nuttall’ honors chamber musician. Celebrated musician Geoff Nuttall, who died October 2022, will have a special one-night tribute that kicks off this year’s Spoleto programming on May 26.
CP: Spoleto Chamber Music series presents 37 works from 37 composers. The 2023 Spoleto Festival USA’s Bank of America Chamber Music series is a little different this year, with no composer represented more than once, ensuring something fresh and new at each performance with 37 different works from 37 different composers.
CP: Restaurant reservations are a new kind of scalping in Charleston. The trend of purchasing reservations from third party individuals has found its way into the Charleston restaurant scene.
CP: S.C. residents affected by Medicaid extension rollback. Hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians may lose access to Medicaid coverage over the next year, according to state insurance professionals. Those who benefitted from the extension may lose coverage permanently or temporarily.
Gov. McMaster signs 6-week abortion ban, drawing challenge. Gov. Henry McMaster on Thursday signed the so-called “Heartbeat Bill” that bans most abortions after an embryo’s cardiac activity can be detected in the womb, but that’s often before many women know they are pregnant. Almost immediately, the state’s abortion providers filed a lawsuit in state court to block it.
Charleston’s Warehouse sold after 10 years. Warehouse, founded in 2012, is set to be replaced by a new concept from the owners of Uptown Social, Share House and Bodega.
Palmetto Railways begin construction on rail line servicing Camp Hall. Palmetto Railways has started construction on the $185 million, 25-mile long rail line that will service the Camp Hall Commerce Park and Volvo’s plant in Berkeley County.
Federal lawsuit could remove Ashley River tiki hut. The federal government filed a lawsuit May 24 asking a judge to force Hydrofly LLC, owners of the infamous tiki huts on Ashley River, to remove the two-level platform, citing potential risks to navigation, property and public safety on the Ashley River.
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