CULTURE- FRIDAYS UPDATE- Pearly White: Two ways to take the Pavilion

Sarah White and the Pearls

Sarah White hit the ground running in 2007 and hasn't yet begun to slow down. Her February CD release show packed the late Starr Hill's downstairs way beyond its limits, and frequent local performances in the months that followed have again led her to Fridays After Five, this time as a headliner.

White has twice performed there as an opening act, but this time she'll have the luxury of stretching out and performing both with her rock trio, The Pearls, and in a duo format with Lilliputian singer Sian Richards as the (All New) Acorn Sisters (the parenthetical addition is recent– to distinguish them from a group from the '50s).

She's says she's not the slightest bit concerned about whether she'll be able to fill the pavilion's speakers with just two musicians. "All you gotta do is turn it up," she says. "I played it solo once."

She got to practice last weekend at Charlottesville's premier really-long venue, opening for King Wilkie at her first official Satellite Ballroom show.

But it was a July 15 performance at Jammin' Java up in Northern Virginia that's really making things move: White, along with fellow local songwriter Robin Wynn, made it to the regional finals of the sixth annual Mountain Stage NewSong competition. True to form, White knocked it out of the park– she'll be headed to New York to play the international finals on September 22.

"It was a very warm event," she says. "It wasn't some sort of dog-eat-dog thing."

A little vicious hometown pride might still be in order, though.

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