Mixed Media

"Spectacle Spectacular" at the Handwerker Gallery

Dawn Hunter

— whose “Spectacle Spectacular: Cautionary Tales and Other Stories” is on display at Ithaca College’s Handwerker Gallery — will give an artist’s talk in the gallery on Wednesday, Sept. 30. Free and open to the public, the event will begin at 4:30 p.m.

 

Featuring Hunter’s drawings and paintings, “Spectacle Spectacular” explores the relationship between popular culture and gendered identity.

“I’ve conducted extensive research on fashion photography in the latter part of the 20th century,” Hunter said. “I’ve been particularly struck by the persistence of one particular seductive promise: that by recognizing their bodies as malleable objects that are always capable of improvement, women can attain greater status and power, and lead richer, more exciting lives. . . . My goal is to make the myth-building work of popular culture and its various paradoxes and contradictions more visible.”

“Spectacle Spectacular” will remain on display until October 11. For more information, contact Cheryl Kramer, gallery director and assistant professor of art history, at (607) 274-3548 or ckramer@ithaca.edu.

Pulitzer-prize winning poet will give free reading at Ithaca College

Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Philip Schultz will give a free public reading at Ithaca College on Tuesday, Sept. 15. His presentation, which is sponsored by the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series in the Department of Writing, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Clark Lounge, Egbert Hall.

Schultz is the founder and director of The Writers Studio, a private school for fiction and poetry writing based in New York City. He has been called by Norman Mailer “a hell of a poet, one of the very best of his generation.” Despite its name, Schultz’s collection of poems titled “Failure” was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize “for distinguished volume of original verse.”

Other honors for Schultz’s poetry collections include the Lamont Poetry Selection award from the Academy of American Poets for “Deep Within the Ravine” and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for “Like Wings.”

Schultz has been awarded Fulbright, Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships as well as the Levinson Prize from “Poetry” magazine. His poems have been published in the “The New Yorker,” “Partisan Review,” “Paris Review” and “New Republic,” among other magazines.

Also giving readings in the Distinguished Visiting Writers series this fall will be National Book Award finalist Charles Baxter on Tuesday, Oct. 6, and essayist Jo Ann Beard on Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Concert Spotlight: The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at Ithaca College

The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra will conclude the yearlong Ithaca College Concerts season “Ensembles Great and Small” on Friday, March 27. The performance will begin at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. Ford Hall will also be the venue for a free workshop at 4 p.m.

   The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra is an ensemble that began as the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1966 and has performed continuously ever since. In 1966, the cornetist, composer, and arranger Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis founded a band in New York. Having settled in the city after leaving their respective touring jobs with Count Basie and Stan Kenton, Thad and Mel, along with many of their colleagues, needed an outlet for their creative energies and relief from the tedium of studio work. With a handful of arrangements they approached legendary club owner Max Gordon and were booked at the Village Vanguard for three Mondays in February. Critical acclaim, awards and international success soon followed.

The original three weeks have become a permanent gig that has survived over three decades and resulted in the group changing its name to the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Several of the current key members played for Thad Jones, so the orchestra’s unique sound and swing are proudly held and displayed, while other original precepts of creativity and experimentation are nurtured and encouraged.

Here's a peak of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra performing at the Village Vanguard.

Tickets for the concert are on sale at the Ticket Center at Clinton House at (607) 273-4497 or (800) 284-8422 or at ithacaevents.com, and at the door if available.

 

Concert Spotlight: Duo Concertante and the Tarab Cello Ensemble perform at Ithaca College

Violinist Nancy Dahn and pianist Timothy Steeves — together known as Duo Concertante — will give a free guest recital at Ithaca College on Wednesday, March 18. The performance will begin at 8:15 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music.

The program will include a Beethoven sonata, a duo by R. Murray Schafer, and a fantasy by Schubert. The program will conclude with three lighter selections: “A Night in Tunisia” by Dizzy Gillespie, the traditional Irish tune “The Lark in the Clear Air,” and “Tico Tico.”

Since forming in 1997, Duo Concertante’s performances have been acclaimed throughout the United States, Canada, and abroad for brilliance, subtlety, passion, and stunning ensemble. Hailed for their “artistry, poetry, and impeccable technique” (“La Scena Musicale”), “exceptional warmth and intimacy” (“Ottawa Citizen”), Dahn and Steeves have been described as superb musicians who “work together with uncanny perfection” (“Waterloo Gazette”). Their teamwork and powerfully-charged performances set them apart from more conventional violin/piano collaborations, with a critic from “La Scene Musicale” observing, “One doesn’t listen to a program of violin music here, but to real chamber music, as it should be.”

The Ithaca College Concert Series will continue on Friday, with the Tarab Cello Ensemble, eight   cellists dedicated to the performance of new music for cello choir, performing a free concert at Ithaca College on Friday, March 20 at 8:15 pm in Ford Hall.  They will be joined by Ithaca College faculty cellist Elizabeth Simkin.  With one exception from 1996, their entire program will consist of music composed in the 21st century.

Tarab Cello Ensemble is dedicated to the commissioning and performance of twenty-first century American music for eight cellos, with the goal of establishing a vital contemporary repertoire for this instrumentation. Since its inception in 2000, the ensemble has premiered more than twenty works, from such composers as Larry Bell, Caleb Burhans, Garrett Byrnes, Dennis DeSantis, David Liptak, Brad Lubman, Gregory Mertl, Joe Michaels, Sam Pellman, Martin Scherzinger, Aaron Travers, and Dan Trueman. Its repertoire also includes such compositions as Pierre Boulez' /Messagesquisse/, Arvo Pärt's /Fratres/, Augusta Read Thomas’ /Blizzard in Paradise /and Luciano Berio's /Korot/.

More information about these performances and about Ithaca College's Concert Series can be found here.

Concert Spotlight: Verdehr Trio performs at Ithaca College

The Enduring Masters series at Ithaca College will continue on Wednesday, March 4, with a performance by the Verdehr Trio, an ensemble acknowledged for its leadership in the world of new   music. Free and open to the public, the concert will start at 8:15 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. Members of the trio will also conduct a series of master classes on March 4.

Entitled “Music of the 21st Century,” the program will consist of works by Jennifer Higdon, David Liptak, Lee Hoiby, Roberto Sierra, Gernot Wolfgang, and Augusta Read Thomas. These works were commissioned by the Trio and Michigan State University, where the ensemble is in residence.

For more than 30 years, the Verdehr Trio has concentrated on molding and defining the personality of the violin-clarinet-piano trio. With violinist Walter Verdehr, clarinetist Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, and pianist Silvia Roederer, the Trio has created a large repertoire by commissioning nearly 200 new works from the worlds’ most prominent and exciting composers — known and unknown, young and old, from the United States and abroad.

The Verdehr Trio has performed throughout the world, including 17 European countries, the former Soviet Union, South and Central America, Asia, Australia, and all 50 United States. Among the major concert halls where the Trio has appeared are the Kennedy and Lincoln Centers, Vienna’s Brahmssaal, Sydney Opera House and London’s Wigmore Hall.

The Enduring Masters Series is a partnership of the Ithaca College School of Music and the Gerontology Institute’s Linden Center for Creativity and Aging, a part of the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies. The series is funded by the New York State Music Fund established by the New York Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

For more information, contact Susan Harris, coordinator of Enduring Masters, at (607) 274-7007 or sharris@ithaca.edu; or visit www.ithaca.edu/enduringmasters.

Pulitzer prize-winning writer to give reading at Ithaca College

Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Stephen Dunn and award-winning essayist Barbara Hurd will each give a free public reading during their joint appearance at Ithaca College as part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series, sponsored by the Department of Writing.

Dunn will read from his work on Tuesday, October 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Emerson Suite A; while Hurd’s presentation will take place on Thursday, October 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Klingentein Lounge. Both venues are located in the Campus Center.

Dunn is the author of 14 collections of poetry, including “Different Hours,” which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize. “Loosestrife” was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in 1996, and “Local Time” was selected for the National Poetry Series in 1986. His many honors include an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Hurd has published five books of poetry and creative nonfiction, including “Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shifts and What Remains” (2008); “Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark” (2003), which was named a Library Journal Best Natural History Book of the Year; and “Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination,” a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001. Her essays have appeared in numerous journals and were included in the “Best American Essays” anthologies in 1999 and 2001.

Visit the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series website to find more information on the series.

The Guarneri Quartet marks a farewell in Ithaca

The Guarneri Quartet will open the yearlong Ithaca College Concerts season, “Ensembles Great and Small,” with a stop on its Farewell Tour Friday, Oct. 3. The performance will begin at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. The program will include string quartets by Bartok and Mozart, as well as Dvorak’s “American” quartet.

The Guarneri String Quartet "is among the most revered and enduring ensembles of its kind in the world" (National Public Radio) and has circled the globe countless times since it was formed in 1964, playing in the most prestigious halls in North and South America, Mexico, Europe, Asia and Australia. They have been featured on many television and radio specials, documentaries and educational presentations in both North America and abroad.

Members of the Guarneri String Quartet will retire upon completion of the 2008–9 season. In its final season, the quartet will celebrate by doing what it does best—touring extensively throughout the United States as its members have for nearly 45 years. Performances include the annual Metropolitan Museum of Art concert series, instituted in 1965, as well as a collaboration with the Johannes String Quartet. The ensemble will also make its annual European tour this winter.

Visit the Ithaca College Concerts website for more information or call (607) 274-3717.

Essayist Vivian Gornick at Ithaca College

Acclaimed essayist Vivian Gornick will give a free public reading at Ithaca College on Tuesday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Beeler Hall in the Whalen Center. Her presentation is part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series, sponsored by the Department of Writing.

Among Gornick’s many books are the memoir “Fierce Attachments,” the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence; “Approaching Eye Level,” a collection of personal essays on solitude, isolation and loneliness; and “The End of the Novel of Love,” a collection of critical essays that explore the meaning of love and marriage as literary themes in the 20th century. Her essays and articles have appeared in the “New Yorker,” the “Nation,” the “New York Times Book Review” and “Bookforum,” among other publications.

Gornick currently teaches creative writing at the New School. For the 2007–2008 academic year, she is serving as a Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard University, where she is conducting research for a biography of the anarchist Emma Goldman and working on a memoir about an emblematic friendship that is framed within the context of contemporary urban life. She holds a bachelor’s degree in literature from the City College of New York and a master’s degree in literature from New York University.

For more information, visit the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series website, or contact Jack Wang, assistant professor of writing, at (607) 274-3493 or wang@ithaca.edu.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet at Ithaca College

The Ithaca College Department of Writing and School of Humanities and Sciences will welcome Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa to campus as part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. He will read from his work on Tuesday, March 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Park Hall Auditorium. The reading is free and open to the public.

Komunyakaa is the author of 12 books of poetry, including “Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems,” for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. He has also been honored with the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and the William Faulkner Prize from the Université de Rennes, while his “Thieves of Paradise” and “Talking Dirty to the Gods” were both finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The subject matter of Komunyakaa’s writing ranges from the African-American experience through rural Southern life before the Civil Rights movement and his experiences doing a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

Komunyakaa served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1999 to 2005. He has taught at the University of New Orleans, Indiana University and Princeton University. He is currently professor and distinguished senior poet at New York University.

Books by Komunyakaa will be for sale at the reading, which will be followed by a book signing opportunity. For more information, visit the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series website, or contact Jack Wang, assistant professor of writing, at (607) 274-3493 or wang@ithaca.edu.

Concert Spotlight: Ithaca College Wind Ensemble performs 'Circus Maximus'

In a performance called “monumental” by its conductor, the Ithaca College Wind Ensemble will feature John Corigliano’s “Circus Maximus,” a piece of music which literally surrounds the audience with sound. The free concert will take place in Bailey Hall on the Cornell University campus on Sunday, Feb. 24, at 3 p.m.

“The music involves huge forces, including 11 surround trumpets, surround flutes, clarinets, percussionists, and a saxophone quartet,” said conductor Stephen Peterson, a professor of music performance at Ithaca College. “There will also be a small marching band, which will make its way through the hall during the climax of the 37-minute work.”

The percussion section includes two sirens and a shotgun, Peterson added.

“The only venue in the area that could accommodate this piece is Bailey Hall, and the Cornell Department of Music graciously offered the use of Bailey for this event. We’re grateful to so many people at Cornell, as well as 30 additional Ithaca College musicians, to make this program possible.”

The piece has been performed by college wind ensembles and the U.S. Marine Band, always to rave reviews that have noted the overwhelming reaction of audiences to the huge work. The “Austin Chronicle” wrote that, “What was most powerful and extraordinary about ‘Circus Maximus’ was the way it reflected those pressures and the character of our culture—the violence, the pride, the impatience, the disconnectedness, the sense of menace and of mourning—to a degree that was unnerving.”

Also on the program of music by American visionaries are works of Copland and Ives, and “Lollapalooza” by John Adams. The guest conductor for these works will be Cynthia Johnson-Turner, Cornell’s director of wind ensembles.

For more information, call (607) 274-3717.