Serious Coffee at Golden Belt This Weekend

This weekend The Cotton Room in Golden Belt is going to smell like heaven to coffee lovers. It's also going to seem like heaven since it is the location for a regional barista competition this weekend. 

As The Tastiest Town in the South and home to one of the nation's top 10 coffee roasters, Durham is home to a ready-made audience for an event like this. It's also centrally located so people from all around can attend.

“The Big Eastern,” a Regional Barista Competition presented by the Specialty Coffee Association of America and the Barista Guild of America takes place this weekend, January 17 – 19. Free and open to the public, the three day event features top baristas from the entire East Coast.

Competitors will battle it out for the regional titles in a competition format that tests the barista’s technical skill as well as knowledge and passion for coffee, in a viewer-friendly way. Spectators will get to sample the drinks prepared by baristas similar to those being prepared by competitors.

Carrboro Coffee Roasters will host a pop-up Café in the Lobby of Golden Belt which will also serve as a 'hands-on' environment for barista's to work with various pieces of equipment and where the barista community can interact and learn from one another. Many events are planned around the main competition to further increase awareness of coffee, and its inter-relationship with the culinary industry.

Learn more about Durham's Tastiest Town in the South title online.

Audio Rule to Host Downtown Durham Walk/Run April 27

Durham-based music company, Audio Rule Sound Design will host a one mile walk/run event on April 27 to benefit the Audio Education Institute, an audio engineering education program for youth.


The run will take place starting at North Carolina Central University and ending at Goldenbelt in Downtown Durham. Quinton White, a graduate of the Audio Education Institute who has been accepted to a recording arts school, will be at the event along with the incoming 2013 AEI class. Students from the new class will also be performing at the end of the race. To register for or donate to the Mile Walk/Run visit online.

About Audio Rule Sound Design's Audio Education Institute

Audio Rule Sound Design is an audio engineering company committed to comprehensive customized solutions for sound design. Audio Education Institute students receive music training from some of the nation’s best musicians.


Registration for the education Institute is open until June and has space for 10 participants per semester. Applications are available at: www.ncsvsdurham.com

For more information about this event or to schedule an interview with Audio Rule Sound Design or North Carolina Sound and Visual Symposium Staff call Alicia Sidney-Vick at 919-886-7311 or email at info@ncsvsdurham.com

The New York Times Spent 36 Hours in Durham

The New York Times regularly runs a piece in their travel section where they write about what a traveler can do with, well, 36 hours in a place.  On Sunday, January 20th, the world will see what they think can happen in Durham in 36 hours.  Heads up, it's a lot!

Like Durham, the article focuses a great deal on great food, music, the arts, and the open and welcoming culture of intellect.  In other words, the article captures Durham right down to the last nuance and lets it shine as the funky, authentic place that it is.

The story is on the paper's website, and will hit the stands on Sunday. There is an accompanying slideshow, as well.

Coverage like this is always appreciated.  Durham is also up for a major accolade from Southern Living Magazine.  Read more about that online and be sure to vote daily for Durham!

Durham Sculpture Project

Durham's arts scene is arguably on the brink of reaching a critical mass. Events such as Third Friday and the bi-annual Art Walk, now in its twelfth year, continue to grow in popularity. The Durham Art Walk Spring Market featured more than 200 talented artists at sites throughout downtown Durham and was attended by an estimated 10,000 visitors. Durham is home to a plethora of galleries, studios and museums with Golden Belt and the Nasher Museum anchoring the arts community.

In typical Durham fashion, a visionary thinker has come forward with an ambitious plan to foster community development, this time, with the arts in mind. John Wendlebo has launched the Durham Sculpture Project, a community arts project which aims to foster socio-economic development in Durham's arts community through the creation of a large scale, high impact sculpture. The Durham Sculpture Project flagship is a 35 ft tall sculpture to be built in Durham under the non-for-profit umbrella of the New York Foundation for the Arts. The sculpture itself will become a high visibility attraction and a focal piece for Durham arts. Additionally, the project will create jobs in the community for artisans and engineers and build upon existing efforts to revitalize downtown Durham.

Wendlebo's vision for the impact of such a project runs much deeper than simply creating a massive work of art. The Durham Sculpture Project will also host a gallery space which will house the Project's fund raising headquarters, permanent exhibit space and short rotation exhibits. From that space, Wendlebo hopes to develop an arts incubator for new ventures and concepts.

Born in France, Wendelbo is a Durham-based artist specializing in sculpture and digital art. He has worked as a designer, fabricator, project engineer and project manager on large scale projects which have appeared in the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the US Embassy in London and the Regan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA.