Piedmont Virginia Community College to Present Viva la Vida Featuring Guitarist William Feasley

Charlottesville, Va. – October 17, 2025 – Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) will present “Viva la Vida,” a musical journey through Mexican history celebrating artist Frida Kahlo through the medium of guitar Saturday, October 25, at 7:30 p.m. Award-winning classical guitarist William Feasley will perform a selection of works that span centuries and highlight the development of Mexican classical music. Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and part of the 2025-26 Fine Arts and Performance season, the concert will take place in the V. Earl Dickinson Building Main Stage Theatre. Admission is free and no tickets are required. General seating begins at 7 p.m.

The program will begin with music dating from as far back as 1732 by Santiago de Murcia, one of the key figures in the Baroque guitar repertory. Major works and more intimate, folkloric pieces of the early and late 20th century follow, including music by highly regarded classical guitarist and composer Octaviano Yañez, contemporary of Kahlo’s and the most prolific of all Mexican guitar composers Manuel Ponce, and Carlos Chávez, an important figure in the development of Mexican classical music who combined elements of indigenous music with modern composition techniques.

About William Feasley
Selected to perform for Spanish virtuoso classical guitarist Andrés Segovia at the maestro’s historic last master class at the University of Southern California in 1986, William Feasley was included the following year on the CBS special,” Eulogy of Segovia.” He was the first guitarist to be awarded the Johns Hopkins University Peabody Institute’s coveted Artist Diploma, a program “reserved for exceptional and experienced performers, with emphasis on repertoire.”

Feasley’s 1980 professional debut was with the San Francisco Ballet, where he performed guitar works for Lou Christianson’s ballet, Don Juan. Since then, he has performed throughout the United States and world-wide in such locales as Prague, Lima, Athens, London, and Sydney, as well as Washington D.C.’s Phillips Collection, Strathmore Hall, National Gallery of Art, and various theaters of the Smithsonian Institute. His four critically acclaimed albums include the Grammy-nominated Simplicity and the most recent release,” Diferencias.”

The V. Earl Dickinson Building is at the south end of College Drive. Plentiful free parking is adjacent to the building. For more information, contact the PVCC Box Office at boxoffice@pvcc.edu or 434.961.5376. Details about more upcoming events are online at pvcc.edu/performingarts.

Viva la Vida is funded, in part, by the Paul Mellon Endowment and the Jean Stafford Camp Memorial Fund. Media support is provided by CBS19.        

About Piedmont Virginia Community College
Established in 1972, Piedmont Virginia Community College is a nonresidential two-year institution of higher education that serves Central Virginia – principally, residents of the City of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson. PVCC is committed to providing access to a college education for all who can benefit, an opportunity for each student to reach their potential, and excellence in all programs and services. The main campus is in Albemarle County, Virginia. Classes are also offered at the PVCC Eugene Giuseppe Center in Stanardsville, Va. (Greene County) and the PVCC Jefferson School City Center in downtown Charlottesville. Visit pvcc.edu.

###

Photograph: Guitarist William Feasley.

MEDIA CONTACT: 
Susian Brooks
Executive Director, Marketing and Communications
434.961.6574 | sbrooks@pvcc.edu