Virginia Beach opened a big, shiny, new entertainment venue. Clipse rapped themselves back into the national spotlight. And an opera made its world premiere in Norfolk.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest stories in local arts and culture in 2025.
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The Dome music venue in Virginia Beach, soon after it opened in May. (Staff/File)
The Dome
The Dome, the entertainment venue that’s part of Virginia Beach’s $350 million Atlantic Park project on 20th Street, opened May 4.
Rock band Three Dog Night played the first concert, and a string of big-time acts followed.
Nationally known musicians such as Melissa Etheridge, Pat Benatar, Whiskey Myers, Cypress Hill, Ziggy Marley and Alison Krauss performed at the Dome this year. Lauded comedic duo Steve Martin and Martin Short took the stage in September.
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Michelangelo’s “Study for the Prophet Jonah,” on loan from the Casa Buonarroti museum in Florence, Italy. (Courtesy/Muscarelle Museum of Art)
Michelangelo in Williamsburg
Original drawings by Michelangelo, one of the most praised European painters of all time, came to Hampton Roads.
“Michelangelo: The Genesis of the Sistine“ opened March 6 at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary in Williamsburg.
The exhibition featured 25 sketches Michelangelo made while planning designs for his fresco on the ceiling and altar of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. And color images of the finished works that cover the interior of the chapel were displayed next to the artist’s original rough outlines of biblical figures, prophets’ faces and apostles’ bodies.
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Waka Flocka Flame was a headliner in April at the Vibe Check music festival, which replaced Something in the Water at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. (Courtesy/IMGoing Events)
Vibe Check
Virginia Beach proved capable of a quick bounce back after canceling Something in the Water, which had failed to meet its obligations to the city.
A new music festival, Vibe Check, was created to fill the April 25-26 weekend and brought headliners Waka Flocka Flame and Bryce Vine to the Oceanfront.
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Jonathan Michie and Flora Hawk as Richard and Mildred Loving in a dress rehearsal of “Loving v. Virginia,” which premiered April 25 at the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk. (Bill Tiernan/File freelance)
“Loving v. Virginia”
The opera “Loving v. Virginia” made its world premiere in April at the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk. The Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony commissioned it and produced it with the Minnesota Opera.
The opera told the true story of Mildred and Richard Loving, who grew up in Caroline County, Virginia. They fell in love in the 1950s but couldn’t get married in their home state because of a state law that prohibited and punished interracial marriage. Richard, a white man, and Mildred, a Black woman, instead were married in Washington, D.C., and subsequently arrested by Virginia police and charged with violating the anti-miscegenation law after they returned home.
In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that the Virginia law and laws like it were unconstitutional.
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Federal cuts
WHRO’s master control room is the hub of the station’s programming. (Stephen M. Katz/File)
Federal funding cuts to public media and arts and humanities institutions hit home in Hampton Roads.
In July, Congress approved rescinding $1.1 billion in funding slated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over the next two budget years. That means a $3.8 million loss over two years for Norfolk-based WHRO, the local affiliate for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. The lost funding represents about 9% of the nonprofit public media organization’s roughly $20 million annual budget, and WHRO has been campaigning for donations to help make it up.
The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art saw a federal grant — awarded to fund a two-year educational project for Virginia Beach public school students — unexpectedly terminated because of one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders. In April, the museum’s deputy director, Truly Matthews, expressed concern that the loss of the grant could lead to MOCA’s ending its fiscal year with a budget gap. On Nov. 26, MOCA received notification that the Institute of Museum and Library Services reinstated the federal grant support, Executive Director Alison Byrne said. A federal judge had ruled Trump’s order unlawful on Nov. 21, though the administration can appeal the decision.
Virginia Opera and Tidewater Arts Outreach also announced the loss of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts when the agency began emailing grant termination notices on May 2 to art groups across the country after Trump proposed excluding the NEA from the national budget.
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Linda McGreevy holds a picture of her husband, Tim Cooper, taken when he was 20. Cooper died on July 23. (Colin Warren-Hicks/File)
Norfolk personality lost
Tim Cooper, who for years operated the Naro Expanded Video in Norfolk, died on July 23 after a series of prolonged illnesses and declining health.
The beloved Ghent independent video rental business, which closed in 2019, survived well into the age of streaming because of its celebrated, vast and esoteric collection of over 42,000 film titles. Friends remember Cooper as a tastemaker and erudite cultural critic, and his legacy collection lives on at the Old Dominion University libraries.
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Pharrell Williams greets attendees at his Virginia brand pop-up in Virginia Beach, Oct. 10. (Staff/File)
Pharrell’s new brand
Music mogul, international celebrity and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams launched a new brand: Virginia. The merchandise, including canvas tote bags, beach balls and T-shirts, went on sale in August.
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Timbaland greets a mascot after receiving a letterman’s jacket at his alma mater, Salem High School in Virginia Beach, Oct. 17. (Staff/File)
Timbaland Way
Musician and super producer Timbaland, born Timothy Mosley, got a hometown street named after him in Virginia Beach.
City Council in October unanimously approved giving Bridle Creek Boulevard the new honorary name of Timbaland Way. A new street sign was later unveiled at a public ceremony where Timbaland was presented with a key to the city.
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Gene Thornton (Malice), left, and Terrence Thornton (Pusha T) are the Hampton Roads rap duo Clipse. (Courtesy/Clipse)
Clipse nominated for 5 Grammys
The two brothers from Hampton Roads who make up hip-hop duo Clipse — Gene and Terrence Thornton, aka Malice and Pusha T — received five Grammy nominations last month:
Best Music Video
Best Rap Performance
Best Rap Song
Best Rap Album
Album of the Year
The Grammy Awards will be presented Feb. 1. The men used one word to describe how they felt at their five nominations: “Recognized.”
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Another music fest?
Newport News City Council approved a $3.03 million grant in December to help launch a “major music festival” over Memorial Day weekend next year.
Specific performers and presenters have yet to be named, but the event is intended to feature “internationally recognized” musicians, presentations by “notable thought leaders” from business and technology, and local speakers, according to a news release.
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8139, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
