Category: Events

Lecture to Explore Intersection of Math and Music

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For David Kung, the relationship between math and music goes far beyond alliteration.

Math and Music speaker David Kung
David Kung will deliver the annual Kitchen Lecture, sponsored by the Kalamazoo College Department of Mathematics, while exploring the interrelations between math and music.

The star of a series of popular video lectures explaining the applications of mathematics to the world around us, especially music, Kung will deliver the annual Kitchen Lecture, sponsored by the Kalamazoo College Department of Mathematics, at 8 p.m. Wednesday in Stetson Chapel.

A math professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, that state’s public liberal arts institution, he grew up studying violin while developing a passion for math. He says that at age 16, he had to decide which field to pursue professionally. Although he chose math, he never gave up music.

“While pursuing a doctorate in math, I always made sure to keep up my violin chops — or not let them fade too badly,” he says on his website about mixing math and music. “Now I get the privilege of traveling around the country giving talks and performances about the connections between these two beautiful subjects.”

He has authored a variety of articles on topics in harmonic analysis and mathematics education. His series of Great Courses lectures, “How Music and Mathematics Relate,” is a top math and science seller for the Teaching Company.

Performing and explaining, he discusses — for example — how the math that explains the movement of electrons also lets us understand why a particular string on the violin vibrates at a certain pitch, and why a clarinet’s tone is so much lower than that of a flute. He also explores how the brain recognizes harmonics and other musical patterns the same way it recognizes numerical patterns, and how errors in that pattern recognition lead to auditory illusions, tricking the brain into hearing something that isn’t there.

In addition, he uses abstract algebra to provide insight into the structures beneath the surface of Bach’s canons and fugues.

Kung holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a Ph.D., all in mathematics, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. At St. Mary’s, he is a full professor and chairman of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. He also serves as director of the Mathematical Association of America’s Project NExT, a professional development program for new faculty in the mathematical sciences.

The George Kitchen Memorial Lectureship was established at Kalamazoo College in 1999 to honor George Kitchen, a mathematician and teacher at Portage Northern High School in Portage, Michigan. Kitchen, who died in 2011, was married to Susan Kitchen ’60, who died in 2017.

The purpose of the lectures is to provide an opportunity for high school students and mathematics educators to hear mathematicians speak about their own or related work at a level intended for high school students.

Music Concerts Feature Jazz Band, College Singers

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Be sure to attend two music concerts this weekend that will feature Kalamazoo College student performers. Both concerts will be at Dalton Theater in the Light Fine Arts Building.

Jazz Winter Music Concerts from 2017
Be sure to attend two music concerts this weekend, featuring the Kalamazoo College Jazz Band and the College Singers.

From 8 to 10 p.m. Friday, enjoy Kalamazoo College’s Jazz Band. The group, directed by Thomas G. Evans, pulls together an eclectic collection of contemporary and classic jazz arrangements to provide the students participating and the audience members an electric experience.

From 8 to 10 p.m. Saturday, hear a variety of musical favorites from Broadway shows performed by the College Singers in their “Broadway Revue.” The group is a 24-voice choral ensemble that performed a sold-out show at K last fall. More recently, they performed a social justice-themed concert in Farmington Hills, Mich., and Chagrin Falls, Ohio, in February. The group is directed by Christopher J. Ludwa and features a mix of soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices.

Read more at our website about the Kalamazoo College music ensembles and find music scholarships available to music majors and non-music majors alike.

K Plans Career Summit 2018 for April 6, 7

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About Career Summit 2018

A distinguished group of K alumni will join Silicon Valley executives and venture capitalists for Kalamazoo College’s Career Summit 2018. The event is two days of practical preparation April 6 and 7 for Life after K. All students are welcome and encouraged to attend this special event.

Kalamazoo College Career Summit 2018
Kriti Singh ’17 attended Kalamazoo College’s Career Summit last year. “As a senior who will soon transition into the workplace, it was inspiring for me to hear that your career is a lot more than your first job,” she said about her experience at the event.

Through interactive break-out sessions, themed panel discussions and networking opportunities, students of all majors will gain priceless information about the global job market.

Led by Brad O’Neill ’93, creator of K to the Bay and the CEO and co-founder of Depot Global Inc., this exclusive opportunity to connect with industry leaders takes place at K so as many students as possible may participate.

Confirmed speakers for Career Summit 2018 include:

Armstrong Lecture to Focus on Religion, Racial Identity During Great Migration

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As African Americans and Afro-Caribbean immigrants poured into northern U.S. cities during the early 20th century, religious movements arose that offered them new identities as descendants of the Arab culture of North Africa, members of the “Lost Tribe” of Israel or simply humans free of racial labels.

Armstrong Lecture Speaker Judith Weisenfeld
Judith Weisenfeld, the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University, will speak about her research as she delivers this year’s Kalamazoo College Armstrong Lecture at 7 p.m. Monday in the Olmsted Room at Mandelle Hall.

“While such groups frequently have been dismissed as cults and fringe elements, they gave people, then referred to as ‘negroes,’ a claim to something more exalted than a socioeconomic status tinged with the memory of slavery,” Judith Weisenfeld writes in “New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration.”

Weisenfeld, the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University, will speak about her research as she delivers this year’s Kalamazoo College Armstrong Lecture at 7 p.m. Monday in the Olmsted Room at Mandelle Hall.

Titled “Apostles of Race: Religion and Black Racial Identity in the Great Migration,” her talk will explore the intersection of religion and racial identity among the migrants from the South and immigrants from the Caribbean who encountered one another in cities such as New York, Chicago and Detroit. She will focus in particular on the Moorish Science Temple, Father Divine’s Peace Mission movement, congregations of Ethiopian Jews and the Nation of Islam — all part of a quest among the urbanizing population for what Weisenfeld calls “new religious frameworks for understanding the black past and future.”

“New World A-Coming” was awarded the 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Book Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions. Weisenfeld also authored “Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949,”  “African-American Women and Christian Activism: New York’s Black YWCA, 1905–1945,” and “This Far by Faith: Readings in African-American Women’s Religious Biography.” She received her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and her master’s and Ph.D. from Princeton.

The Armstrong Lectures, hosted by the College’s Religion Department, are made possible by the Homer J. Armstrong Endowment in Religion, established in 1969 in honor of the Rev. Homer J. Armstrong, a longtime trustee of Kalamazoo College.

 

Academy Street Winds Concert Slated for Saturday

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Academy Street Winds rehearsal
Music Professor Thomas Evans leads the Academy Street Winds. Their winter-term concert is slated for this Saturday.

Music lovers will gather at 8 p.m. Saturday for an Academy Street Winds concert at Dalton Theater in the Light Fine Arts Building.

The Academy Street Winds, formerly known as the Kalamazoo College Symphonic Band, functions as a beloved creative outlet for woodwind, brass and percussion students. Community musicians joined the ensemble in winter 2016 to expand the group’s sound and capabilities.

The group, conducted by Music Professor Thomas Evans, performs one concert each term, playing exciting arrays of challenging band music. The band is a great favorite for its members and its audiences as the programs are coordinated around diverse themes, which allow for performances of much-loved pieces, both classic and new. The theme on Saturday will be “Landscape Escapes.” Admission is free.

For more information, contact Susan Lawrence in the Music Department at 269-337-7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.

Senior Performance Series Starts Thursday

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Kalamazoo College students are continuing a tradition of directing and performing in their own theater productions through the Festival Playhouse’s Senior Performance Series. This year’s shows include:

Senior Performance Series
Senior Performance Series shows are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15-Saturday, Feb. 17, with a matinee at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18.

• “Too Close to the Tracks,” written and directed by Sam Meyers ’18;
• Selections from “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” by Jane Wagner, performed by Tricia LaCaze ’18; and
• “Mal Ojo,” written and directed by Johanna Keller Flores ’18.

The shows are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15-Saturday, Feb. 17, with a matinee at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18, at the Nelda K. Balch Festival Playhouse’s Dungeon Theatre. General admission tickets are available online. They’re free for Kalamazoo College students and employees with a College ID and $5 for the general public.

For more information, visit reason.kzoo.edu/theatre/festival/.

Asia Fest Set for Saturday

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Kalamazoo College’s rich diversity will be on display Saturday, Feb. 10, as the Asian Pacific Islander Student Association and KDesi join forces to stage their award-winning annual Asia Fest.

Asia Fest
The Asian Pacific Islander Student Association and KDesi will team up Saturday to stage Asia Fest.

In an “Asia’s Got Talent” showcase at Dalton Theatre, students from the two groups will perform music and dances representing their cultures. Judges will choose the winning act. The students will also stage a fashion show.

Everyone is invited. Asia Fest director Li Li Huynh says doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the show gets underway at 8 p.m. Food will be provided.

The two groups received the College’s 2016-2017 Black and Orange Leadership Award for Best Collaborative Initiative for last year’s show.

Major Day a Major Event for Sophomores

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Some students enter college knowing exactly what they want to do. Many don’t or change their minds at some point early in their academic careers. Kalamazoo College, with a liberal arts curriculum embodied in the K-Plan that is designed for exploration and discovery, gives students a year and a half to sample various academic fields before choosing a major, and makes it possible for them to do so without sacrificing their ability to graduate in four years. This week’s Declaration of Major Day, the midpoint of their sophomore year, is a festive gathering where they formally designate their majors, minors and concentrations.

Major Day
This week’s Major Day will be a festive gathering where sophomores formally designate their majors, minors and concentrations. The event will be from 10:55 to 11:55 a.m. Wednesday at the Hicks Banquet Room.

The banquet hall at Hicks Student Center is packed as each department sets up a booth. Students go from table to table, committing to their fields of study and getting answers to last-minute questions. Wearing stickers declaring they made their choices, they are treated to pieces of “Declaration Cake,” courtesy of Dining Services, and share the big moment with one another and the rest of campus.

“It’s a real rite of passage for students because it’s a big decision and they’re finding their academic home,” said Associate Dean of Students Dana Jansma. “Instead of just processing paperwork, we make it a communitywide celebration.”

Jansma also said it’s also a way for the College to show that it believes every student at K is important, whether they have a record of distinguished scholarship or are newly committed to their academic path.

“We want sophomores to know we’re excited about their plans and their accomplishments,” she said.

K senior Shelby Hopper, an international and area studies and German major with a minor in political science, still recalls the excitement of her Declaration of Major Day.

“It was an opportunity for everyone in my class to come together and show each other what we were all passionate about,” Hopper said.

And it can be cathartic. Sometimes the act of making a decision can spur a rethinking that leads to a different path. If it does, no worries: Thanks to the flexibility of the K-Plan, the College will work with students to make a switch of major or majors as seamless as possible.

Choral Group Tours with Social Justice-Themed Concert

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The College Singers, a 24-voice choral ensemble that performed a sold-out show at Kalamazoo College in the fall, will perform in Farmington Hills, Mich., and Chagrin Falls, Ohio, bringing a social justice-themed concert to other communities.

College Singers Rehearse Social Justice-Themed Concert
The College Singers’ social justice-themed concert  will feature music of the great spirituals in addition to a capella songs, spoken-word performances and popular pieces from such artists as The Beatles and Queen.

The program features music of the great spirituals in addition to a capella songs, spoken word performances and popular pieces from such artists as The Beatles and Queen among others that will appeal to everyone regardless of age or political viewpoint. The program’s sections present ways hope and community were found in ancient cultures despite holocausts, oppression, poverty and despair. The concert also features a call to action for audience members to get involved in their communities.

Performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 23, at Nardin Park United Methodist Church in Farmington Hills and 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 24, at The Federated Church in Chagrin Falls outside Cleveland. Both concerts are supported by a free-will offering to defray the expense of touring.

“The goal is to entertain, educate and inspire an audience,” said Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of Music Christopher Ludwa, who directs the College Singers. “If we do our job well, there will be moments punctuated by tears, laughter and a sense of deep and shared purpose.”

The College Singers includes music majors and non-music majors, offering a different approach to choral singing. Ludwa calls it “singing with a higher purpose,” a hallmark for which he is well-known in the Midwest.

Kalamazoo College, founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts college and the creator of the K-Plan, which emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement.

For more information on the concerts, contact Ludwa at cludwa@kzoo.edu or 231-225-8877.

 

Organizer, Educator Mariame Kaba to Lead MLK Day Convocation

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Greater Kalamazoo is asked to consider this: What is your position in times of challenge and controversy? Join in a celebration of Martin Luther King’s legacy at a convocation that begins at 10:50 a.m. Monday at Stetson Chapel with organizer, educator and curator Mariame Kaba.

Kaba to Speak at Stetson Chapel
Join in a Monday celebration of Martin Luther King’s legacy at a convocation that begins at 10:50 a.m. at Stetson Chapel with Mariame Kaba.

Kaba’s work focuses on ending violence, dismantling the prison industrial complex, transformative justice and supporting youth leadership development. She is the author of many articles and publications on criminal justice, abolition and ending the mass incarceration of minorities in our country. She dedicates herself to working with youths and empowering them for leadership. Kaba is also the founding director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization dedicated to ending youth incarceration, and the co-founder of the Chicago Freedom School. Hear Kaba’s Thursday interview on WMUK’s WestSouthwest.

Tamara Morrison ’20, an Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership student liaison, will present an opening address. The convocation is open to the public. A brunch and workshop will follow for students who RSVP’d in advance.

At 7 p.m. Monday in 103 Dewing Hall, Intercultural Student Life will sponsor a public showing of the movie “Gook.” In the movie, Eli and Daniel, two Korean American brothers who own a struggling women’s shoe store, have an unlikely friendship with 11-year-old Kamilla. On the first day of the 1992 L.A. riots, the trio must defend the store while contemplating the meaning of family and thinking about personal dreams and the future. Popcorn and pizza will be provided.