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Weekly events: Get a head start on Easter, 'Listen' closely and much more

Weekly events: Get a head start on Easter, 'Listen' closely and much more

Yahoo11-04-2025

Egg hunts and theater and so much more – spring celebrations are everywhere! And at Upstate Parent, we're having our annual celebration of local educators. Join us in thanking them for everything they do for our children. Read all about it at upstateparent.com.
To include your organization's family friendly events in Upstate Parent, email chris@worthyplace.com.
Learning Safari: Sherlock Bones, a drop off program for ages 5 – 7, is 10 a.m. – noon April 11 and 12 at the Greenville Zoo. For details and registration, visit greenvillezoo.com.
Afternoon Exploration is 1:30 – 5 p.m. April 11 at Roper Mountain Science Center. For details and tickets, visit ropermountain.org.
Starry Nights programs are at Roper Mountain Science Center April 11. 'The Cowboy Astronomer' is at 4:30 p.m. 'Invaders of Mars!' is at 6 and 'From Earth to the Universe' is at 7:30 p.m. Advance ticket purchases are required. For details, visit ropermountain.org.
Kroc Greenville's Annual Easter Egg Hunt and Open House is 5 – 7 p.m. April 11 at Kroc Greenville. The event is free. (Participants must fill out a waiver upon arrival.) The egg hunt is for ages 1 – 12. Check in from 4:45 – 5:10 p.m. at the soccer field for the 5:15 p.m. egg hunt. Crafts are 5 – 7 p.m. Open swim and open basketball will be available from 5:45 – 6:45 p.m. Concessions will be able for purchase. For details, visit krocgreenville.org/KrocGreenville/easter-egg-huntspring-open-house.
'Listen' continues through April 13 at South Carolina Children's Theatre. This is a choose-your-own-adventure mystery play with silent disco headphones – best enjoyed by ages 8 and older. For tickets and details, visit scchildrenstheatre.org.
A Spring Festival is at Denver Downs Farm April 12 – 13 and 18 – 20. For tickets and details, visit denverdownsfarm.com/springfest.
Spring & Sprout is 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. April 12 at TCMU-Greenville. Snap a photo with the Easter bunny or snuggle a few in the petting zoo. Celebrate the season with creative crafts, hands-on activities, and a spring scavenger hunt, all while enjoying three floors of exhibits. All guests, including members, must purchase tickets to attend. Visit TCMUpstate.org/greenville/springandsprout.
The 2nd Annual Child Abuse Prevention Run 5K is in Anderson April 12. The event supports The Parenting Place/Prevent Child Abuse, a child abuse and neglect prevention agency serving Greenville, Pickens, Anderson and Oconee Counties. For details and registration, visit runsignup.com/Race/SC/Anderson/Andersons1stChildAbusePreventRun.
Vivaldi and the Invisible Orchestra: Lollipops Concerts from the Greenville Symphony Orchestra are at 10 a.m. at the Hughes Main Library and at 11:30 a.m. April 12 at the Travelers Rest Library. Visit greenvillelibrary.org.
Storytime on the Steps is at 10 a.m. April 12 at M. Judson Booksellers on Main Street in Greenville. Visit for a story time and sweet treat. The event will move indoors to the children's section if weather requires. Visit mjudsonbooks.com.
History Up High: Hot Air Balloon and Kite Festival is 1 – 8 p.m. April 12 at Walnut Grove Plantation. Tickets are $12 each for adults and $10 each for ages 3 – 17. Tickets include access to kite flying zones, balloon watching, live music, activities and vendors, tours of the doctor's office, kitchen cabin and Rocky Springs Academy and more. Tethered hot air balloon rides will be offered on site for $20, weather permitting. For details visit spartanburghistory.org.
Member Morning is 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. April 13 at TCMU-Greenville. Enjoy full access to TCMU-Greenville during this special members-only session. Visit tcmupstate.org.
The Greer Farmers Market Winter Market is 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. April 13 at Greer City Park. Visit greerfarmersmarket.com.
Taste of the Upstate: Livin' La Vida Local is 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. April 13 at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena. Taste of the Upstate benefits Loaves & Fishes and is a celebration of local talent and homegrown goodness, with 'tastes' from some of Greenville's finest chefs. The event includes live music, a cooking competition and more. For tickets and details, visit werescuefood.org/taste-of-the-upstate.
More from Upstate Parent: Your guide to April arts classes, family fun, learning and more
More from Upstate Parent: April 2025: More than 150 things to do in Greenville, Spartanburg and beyond!
More from Upstate Parent: 2025 Upstate Parent Educators Who Make a Difference
More from Upstate Parent: Healthy start, healthy you – April classes and programs for your growing family
More from Upstate Parent: Tracktivity: Spring Showers
More from Upstate Parent: Parents: Get out while you can
More from Upstate Parent: On the Shelf: Easter, Earth Day and a bit of March Madness
related: Helping To Make A Home Affordable - Greenville Housing Authority Works To Close Gap Between Housing Need And Affordability
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Events in Greenville, S.C. and the Upstate this week

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Review: Netflix's ‘The Four Seasons' is overprivileged and out of touch
Review: Netflix's ‘The Four Seasons' is overprivileged and out of touch

San Francisco Chronicle​

time21-05-2025

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

Review: Netflix's ‘The Four Seasons' is overprivileged and out of touch

'The Four Seasons' was a 1981 film about growing old together, not only with one's spouse but also alongside one's dearest friends. Yet, while the new Netflix adaptation brings together a new cast of aging stars, it's not the bodies onscreen that feel dated. Featuring Gen X-ers Tina Fey, Colman Domingo and East Bay's own Will Forte, plus at least on-the-cusp boomer Steve Carell, the series-long expansion of the movie by the same name — written and directed by its original star Alan Alda of 'M*A*S*H' fame — actually regresses the older narrative. Updating the story for 2025 requires a heavy lift, and an acclaimed trio of showrunners — Fey, Lang Fisher (' Never Have I Ever,' ' Brooklyn Nine-Nine ') and Tracey Wigfield ('30 Rock,' ' The Mindy Project ') — certainly make an effort. Unfortunately, it turns out that these three very successful TV writers don't exactly live on the cutting edge of storytelling for the streaming era. The original film's premise is that three middle-class couples of mostly white people navigate love's changing nature through middle age over the course of four seasonal vacations within one year, all to the tune of Vivaldi's famous violin concerto. Here, over the course of eight episodes, we see some beat-for-beat repeats: On the first vacation in spring, everyone jumps impishly from their leisure boat into the water, fully clothed! On a later vacation in summer, one of the wives is replaced awkwardly by a younger blond who sports a fetching white bikini! Yes, there is, once again, so. Much. Vivaldi! The remake gets a small diversity update by casting one of the couples as San Francisco theater veteran Domingo and Marco Calvani, a pair of gay men — although the former is forced unfairly into a 'two-fer' role as the sole person of color. (In the original, that place went to the great Rita Moreno, the East Bay's beloved EGOT.) Gone is a critical confrontation when the younger blond would have stood up for herself against the withering disdain of her partner's older friends. Such a scene would have added much-needed dimension to the role of Ginny (Erika Henningsen), but there's not much to her here beyond the pejorative label 'Yoga Barbie' that another character assigns to her. And rather than keeping the couples middle class, they're rewritten as much wealthier. Carell's Nick is referred to as 'king of the hedge fund,' while Domingo's Danny appears to be a jet-setting interior designer. The other characters are so thinly written in this update, that unlike the original, work rarely enters their banal conversations that drip with privilege and not much else. Particularly grating is when the two — beautiful — middle-aged actors, Fey and Kerri Kenney ('Reno 911!') crack fatphobic jokes, especially at their own expense. It's not funny, and it's not believable in the least, especially when, in one scene, Kenney is a vision clad in a sleeveless, backless gown. Love and the dilemmas of aging are both meaty subjects, as audiences have seen recently in far edgier, envelope-pushing narratives like ' Babygirl ' and ' The Substance.' I'm not at their protagonists' age bracket yet, but those stories dared to stir up dreams of what my menopause era could look like, even if they were fantasies that starred impossibly well-toned, rich white women. Despite all the undeniable talent involved in 'The Four Seasons,' its real failure is one of untapped imagination.

9 Classical Pieces About Spring
9 Classical Pieces About Spring

Epoch Times

time28-04-2025

  • Epoch Times

9 Classical Pieces About Spring

Music about nature seems to written only slightly less frequently than music about love or religion. Within this genre, springtime might be the most popular topic. It's not surprising that many composers have written pieces on it. What is surprising, though, are the variety of ways they've found to express this season and the accompanying emotions. Here are nine famous composers who gave us their unique renditions. Vivaldi's 'Spring' Concerto Antonio Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' is probably the most famous work of music representing the natural world. Of all these, his 'Spring' concerto is the most popular and recognizable. The opening of the first 'Allegro' movement indicates spring's arrival. Trilling violins represent singing birds. A portrait of Antonio Vivaldi, circa 1723. Public Domain Each of Vivaldi's four concertos are accompanied by a sonnet that describes what's happening in the music. The three lines of the 'Spring' sonnet representing the second slow, 'Largo' movement have been Vivaldi depicts this scene brilliantly through instrumentation. A solo violin represents the sleeping goatherd, while the other violins imitate rustling leaves and the violas stand in for the barking dog, playing 'molto forte e strappato,' very loud and rough in Italian. Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony No. 6 Ludwig van Beethoven was directly inspired by spring when he wrote one of his most memorable piece of music, the 'Pastoral' Symphony No. 6. His friend Anton Schindler left people an account of this symphony's creation. While walking near the town of Heiligenstadt, Austria, Beethoven sat near a murmuring brook. He leaned against an elm and said, 'Here I composed the 'Scene by the Brook' and the yellowhammers up there, the quails, nightingales and cuckoos round about, composed with me.' An illustration of a common nightingale, 1907, by Arthur G. Butler. Public Domain 'Scene by the Brook' is the title of the symphony's second movement. Beethoven uses a flute to portray the nightingale, an oboe for the quail, and clarinets for the cuckoo. When Schindler asked why Beethoven didn't write a part for the yellowhammer, too, Beethoven said that he'd imitated that bird sound through a two-octave arpeggio rhythm 'written down in Andante.' Later critics have suggested that Beethoven was just playing a joke on his friend by telling him this, since the yellowhammer doesn't sing in arpeggio. Delius's 'On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring' While Beethoven used only the clarinet to represent the cuckoo, the English composer Frederick Delius went for a more complex description. He Related Stories 4/17/2025 4/15/2025 The cuckoo notes in this tone poem are embedded within a Norwegian folk song and can be difficult to hear in the middle of the piece. Delius's portrayal accurately evokes the English countryside, where the sounds of nature intermingle in the listener's ear. Copland's 'Appalachian Spring' This is probably the most famous piece associated with spring ever written by an American composer. The cover images of most recordings feature the Interestingly, though, Aaron Copland himself named the piece only after he wrote it. That hasn't changed the fact that listeners everywhere now forever associate his music with this time and place. A view of Hot Springs, N.C., from Lovers Leap on the Appalachian Trail. Jennifer Stanford/Shutterstock Vaughan Williams's 'The Lark Ascending' George Meredith's poem 'The Lark Ascending' opens with the lines: He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake … All the great composers of springtime have their own unique way of evoking birdsong. 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Brahms's 'Spring' String Quartet No. 1 Like Copland, it's questionable how much Brahms had a seasonal theme in mind when he composed this piece in the spring of 1882. He didn't title it 'Spring'; it was given this informal description later. Still, as in the case of 'Appalachian Spring,' the description fits well. It has a warmth and an energy that makes one think Brahms may have been looking out the window for inspiration while writing it. Grieg's 'Last Spring' Nearly all the pieces here that were consciously identified with spring are about evoking the season as a natural phenomenon. Edvard Grieg's ' A statue of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in Troldhaugen in Bergen, Norway. Dmitry Chulov/Shutterstock As in the case of Strauss's 'Voices of Spring,' Grieg's piece was originally meant to be sung. It was only later adapted into an orchestral version. In this case, the text was a poem by Norwegian poet – 1870). Schumann's 'Spring' Symphony No. 1 Robert Schumann made springtime the theme of his first symphony. He had just married Clara the year before and was experiencing the happiest period of his life. He wrote this symphony's four movements in just four days of 1841. It opens majestically with 'Spring's Awakening' and ends with the joyful energy of 'Full Springtime' in the final movement. Robert and Clara Schumann, 1847, by Eduard Kaiser. Public Domain Schumann believed that the spring was an inherent feature of every musical composition, since the composer is always creating something new. To the extent that that is true, the entire Western tradition can be seen as a long and varied series of re-awakenings. What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to

Weekly events: Blues, Matilda, flamingoes and more
Weekly events: Blues, Matilda, flamingoes and more

Yahoo

time25-04-2025

  • Yahoo

Weekly events: Blues, Matilda, flamingoes and more

Don't look now, but festival season is well underway. Bring the whole family for Mauldin's Blues and Jazz Festival (there's a great playground next to the amphitheater), and get ready for 'Matilda' at South Carolina Children's Theatre. There's a lot of fun coming up this spring. Be sure to visit Upstate Parent online for much more, including our celebration of local teachers and a look ahead at 'Fraggle Rock Live.' It's all at Attention, business owners: Get a free listing in Upstate Parent's birthday guide this July. The deadline for listings is May 12. Submit your free listing at To include your organization's family friendly events in Upstate Parent, email chris@ Night Life: Nature's Party Animals: A Study in Science is 9 a.m. – noon April 25 at TR Makers Co. Recommended for ages 5-11. $48 per session. From bats to bears and owls to opossums, uncover the unique features that help these awesome animals thrive in the darkness. For details and registration, visit Homeschool Days: South Carolina Regions and Ecosystems is 10 – 11:30 a.m. April 25 at the South Carolina Botanical Garden. Themes change monthly for this hands-on learning experience. Designed for ages 5 and older. For full details and registration, visit Afternoon Exploration is 1:30 – 5 p.m. April 25 at Roper Mountain Science Center. For details and tickets, visit Starry Nights programs are at Roper Mountain Science Center April 25. 'The Cowboy Astronomer' is at 4:30 p.m. 'Invaders of Mars!' is at 6 and 'From Earth to the Universe' is at 7:30 p.m. Advance ticket purchases are required. For details, visit Bilingual Story Time is at 4:30 p.m. April 25 at the Hughes Main Library. Cuentos bilingües en inglés y español para niños 7 años y menores acompañados por un adulto. Llame al 864-242-5000, ext. 2634 para más informatión. For details, visit Greenville Heritage Federal Credit Union Main Street Fridays is 5:30 – 9:30 p.m. April 25 at NOMA Square on Main Street. Visit 'Matilda: The Musical' opens at 7 p.m. April 25 at South Carolina Children's Theatre. Best enjoyed by ages 6 and older. The show continues through May 18. For tickets and details, visit The Hub City Spartanburgers play at 6:35 p.m. April 25. Stay for fireworks after the game. Visit Snow White & Her Fairytale Friends is presented by Carolina Ballet Theatre at 7:30 p.m. April 25 and at 2 p.m. April 26 at the Peace Center. For tickets and details, visit The Greater Greenville Master Gardeners Annual Plant Sale is 8 a.m. – noon April 26 at Jeff Lynch Appliances (17 Roper Mountain Road, Greenville). The sale is rain or shine. Hundreds of healthy plants will be available for sale and Master Gardeners will be on hand to help with selection. Credit cards are accepted for purchases over $25, as well as cash or checks. For details, visit Make GVL Greener Earth Fest 2025 is 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. April 26 at Pangaea Brewing, PKL Park and Southernside Brewing at Unity Park. Admission is free. The event includes live music, family activities and more. For details, visit The Greenville chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby will host a battery recycling drive from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Pangaea Brewing. Bring rechargeable devices like phones, tablets, and laptops, plus rechargeable batteries/battery pack, (Li-ion, NiMH or NiCd) and non-rechargeable lithium batteries (photo, coin cell, etc.). Family Free Saturday for all ages is 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. April 26 at the Spartanburg Science Center. Admission is free. No registration is needed. Visit Let There Be Mom's Spring Market, Stop, Shop, & Stroll is 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. April 26 at Simpsonville Methodist Church. The event includes more than 70 vendors, including crafters, makers, bakers and growers, plus food trucks, a raffle, a kids' zone and more. For details, visit Storytime on the Steps is at 10 a.m. April 26 and April 30 at M. Judson Booksellers on Main Street in Greenville. Visit for a story time and sweet treat. The event will move indoors to the children's section if weather requires. Visit Nature Center Open House: Pollinators in the Garden is 1 – 4 p.m. April 26 at the South Carolina Botanical Garden. Drop by the Nature Learning Center to learn something new. The program is free and open to the public. The Caboose and Hunt Cabin will also be open during this event. For details, visit CoComelon: Sing-A-Long LIVE is at 2 p.m. April 26 at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena. For tickets and details, visit is 2 – 9 p.m. April 26 at the Mauldin Cultural Center's Outdoor Amphitheater. The event includes live music and more. Visit The Hub City Spartanburgers play at 4:35 p.m. April 26 and at 2:05 p.m. April 27. Visit Garden Sprouts is 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. April 29 at the South Carolina Botanical Garden. Preschool children and their caregivers discover the wonders of the Botanical Garden through nature walks, crafts and more. For full details and registration, visit Tell Me About It Tuesday: Flamingoes is at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. April 29 at the Greenville Zoo. Included with admission. For details, visit STEM Story Time for ages 5 and younger is at 10 a.m. April 30 at the Spartanburg Science Center. For details, visit This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Events in Greenville, S.C. and the Upstate this week

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