Room 1078
Appreciators of fine music have two performances to look forward to this month as Mars Landing Arts Center, in Mars Hill, hosts a weekend of jazz and classical crossover. Until this year, Mars Landing Gallery & Arts Center was known as Mars Landing Galleries. Owner Miryam Rojas did not realize it at the time she opened Mars Landing Galleries, but an active space for all of the arts was what she had in mind, and now she has seen that come to fruition.
“Rebranding as an arts center means we now have a mandate, a mission, to present a broad spectrum of artistry to people in and around Madison County,” she says. “We’ve also created intimate spaces to enjoy these performances and presentations where everyone can feel welcome.”
On Friday, March 27, at 7 p.m., Mars Landing welcomes Room 1078, a string quartet known for its mélange of traditional classical heightened by contemporary repertoire, improvisation and folk music, and for bringing its innovative performances to nontraditional spaces such as art galleries, construction zones and living rooms.
“Our audiences are as much a part of the music-making process as we are: everything we do is about shared experience,” says Cassidy Goldblatt, a violinist based in Asheville. Her fellow musicians are violinist Bram Margoles, of Birmingham, AL; violist Ryan McDonald, of Ann Arbor, MI; and cellist Hanna Rumora, of Iowa City, IA. The musicians met while at the University of Michigan and began playing together in 2015. This will be their first appearance in Mars Hill.
“We play all sorts of music,” Goldblatt says, “but were founded around contemporary classical music (working with student composers) and promoting this to the general public. We’ll be taking our audience on a journey with this set. It’ll be fun, funny, sobering, hopeful. It will probably make you want to dance and, hopefully, make you want to cry. It should take you to another world and bring you back again.”
To round out the weekend, on Saturday, March 28, at 7 p.m. celebrated bassist Hilliard Greene returns to Mars Landing for a jazz performance with pianist Lenore Raphael. “She is what people think of as ‘the real deal’ and is one of the most potent piano players performing now,” says Greene. “She has been doing concerts in the eastern part of NC, and I’m glad the folks farther west will get a chance to experience her artistry. She and I have been performing and recording for more than two decades, including on the East Coast, in the Midwest, on the West Coast and in Europe. Each time we perform, it’s another adventure into the exciting.”
Greene has performed widely in New York City at nightclubs, recording studios and in concert halls, including Carnegie Hall. He served as a musical director for jazz vocalist Jimmy Scott for nearly 20 years. Greene also composes music and appeared at the Arts Center last month to perform a program of Black spirituals.
Raphael is a native of the Bronx and, as a child prodigy on the piano, performed at Carnegie Hall when she was just seven years old. She has been performing jazz since her teenage years, appearing at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Showcase in Chicago and at jazz festivals around the world.
“We’re bringing in a caliber of performer rarely presented in this region, or rural areas in general,” says Rojas. “We’re fortunate to have them, and I hope people here see these rare opportunities.”
Mars Landing Gallery & Arts Center is located at 37 Library Street, Mars Hill. For more information, call 828.747.7267 or visit MarsLandingArtsCenter.com.
