The Roanoke Valley has a little bit of everything for families, young people and those near or in retirement.
For many years—almost since it was founded—Roanoke has been considered the cultural capital of Western Virginia. And with good reason. The arts—both high and low—thrive in the Star City, whether it’s at the Taubman Museum of Art, the two large civic centers with wildly varied offerings, ball fields of all kinds, children’s activity areas and myriad museums from transportation to African-American history.
Roanoke is a center for festivals and celebrations and in the past few years has become something of a craft brewing capital, with those brewers adding to the festival atmosphere. At the heart of these festivals (strawberry, chili, fall, blues and jazz, etc.) and parades (Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day) is the Local Colors annual celebration of Roanoke’s diverse cultures. There are 125 distinct nationalities and counting. Former Mayor Noel Taylor dubbed Roanoke “The Festival City” more than 30 years ago.
The Berglund Center is the biggest of the venues with a performance hall (2,500 seats), an arena (10,000-plus seats) and even a large trade show space, which stays busy. The Center is in downtown Roanoke and features a wide variety of entertainment, including a professional hockey team (the Railyard Dawgs) as well as college hockey, monster trucks, basketball, musical concerts and even Broadway plays. A smaller version is the Salem Civic Center, with a 7,000-seat arena located next to a professional baseball stadium and a football stadium, both of which serve a variety of uses. Included is the annual Salem Fair, one of the largest in the region.
The Jefferson Center is home for several arts organizations and its Shaftman Theater has a popular concert series, among other things. Roanoke’s amphitheater in Elmwood Park downtown is host for concerts (some of them big-time) and celebrations and hard beside it during the cold months is an ice-skating rink that caters to children.
Roanoke Valley Children’s Choir is 30 years old and has performed at Carnegie Hall. The choir includes children 7-18 from 50 schools and homeschools in the area, with 260 kids as members. Opera Roanoke is the region’s only professional opera and it performs two operas a year, one each in the fall and spring.
The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra is the only professional orchestra west of Richmond, performing once a month fall to spring. There are occasional special performances, as well. Maestro David Stewart Wiley heads a group of 75 musicians, playing mostly classical music, but occasionally venturing into other forms.
The Southwest Virginia Ballet is a 28-year-old amateur group. It conducts performances in the Roanoke and Blacksburg areas and offers free weekend instruction to 10-18-year-olds who are judged to have significant promise.
The Taubman Museum of Art is situated in a $65 million, 10-year-old iconic building, designed by the late Randall Stout, a student of Frank Geary. The Taubman features high-end art, local exhibits and some fascinating cultural exhibits.
Roanoke has become a center for live theater in the region. Its groups are amateur and professional, old and new, for children and adults. The leader is professional Mill Mountain Theatre, founded in 1964, 13 years after Showtimers, a community theater which is still going strong. Among the other groups are the theater arts program at Hollins University, which is nationally ranked, Roanoke Children’s Theatre, Off the Rails, Star City Playhouse, Attic Productions, the Bedford Players and community theater groups in the surrounding counties.
The localities surrounding the immediate Roanoke Valley are rich with culture and entertainment.
Franklin County, for example, features the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival every October and it draws thou-sands of people from throughout the larger region to see how our mountain ancestors lived. There is mountain music, crafts being performed on site, and the ever-popular hound and draft horse competitions.
Franklin County is also home for the Harvester Center for the Performing Arts, which brings in a wide variety (Glenn Miller to B.J. Thomas) of music that the Salem Civic Center and Roanoke Civic Center are too big to host. Harvester shows are frequent sellouts.
Botetourt County’s Daleville Town Center–an instant town that is still under construction–features free concerts in its amphitheatre each Friday during the warm seasons and they attract people from Botetourt, Roanoke, Craig Counties and all the way to West Virginia.
As a whole, the region is the center for fun, whether it’s Virginia Tech’s nationally-recognized football program, or pig races at the Salem Fair. It’s all there and it’s family-friendly.
