Jazz, poetry help festival bid farewell

The Wintergreen Summer Music Festival will wind up its season with jazz, poetry, theater and one last cup of coffee.

“America’s Jazz Legends: Ellington, Monk and More’’ will begin 7:30 tonight in the Evans Center.

Charlottesville’s John D’earth will play trumpet and flugelhorn and composer Kirk Nurock will be at the piano for an evening of interpretations of jazz classics, including “Take the A Train’’ and “Mood Indigo.’’

Tickets are $25, $10 for ages 10 to 17.

“Jazz Meets Poetry: The Kirk Nurock Songbook’’ will be presented at 6 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, also in the Evans Center.

Vocalists Theo Bleckmann, Miles Griffith and Kate McGarry will join Nurock, D’earth and drummer Robert Jospe for a program of scat singing and ensemble work as they present Nurock’s settings of poems by Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare and others to the rhythms of jazz.

Ticket holders will want to arrive early — at 5:15 p.m. Saturday and 2:15 p.m. Sunday — for a talk by Larry Alan Smith, the festival’s artistic and executive director. Tickets are $25 and $10.

“A House in the Country’’ by Peter Coy can be seen 8:15 tonight and Saturday in the Festival Performance Center. The play, intended for mature audiences, will be followed tonight by a talk-back session, so plan to stick around. Coy won the Helen Hayes Award in 2000 for the play.

Students in the Wintergreen Summer Music Academy will present their final Academy Showcase at 4:15 this afternoon and closing concert at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Evans Center.

Tickets are $15 and $10.

The Coffee with Cream Concert, at 11 a.m. Sunday in the Evans Center, will wrap up a month of themed concerts complete with coffees reflecting the tastes of Italy, Spain, France and the United States.

Barbershop will be the featured music this time, in keeping with the Americas Week theme. Soundworks will perform.

Tickets are $15 and $10, and soft drinks are available for youths.

Learn more at http://www.wintergreenperformingarts.org or call 325-8292.