Category: Events

Jazz Band Concert Honors Freddie Hubbard

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Freddie Hubbard playing trumpet
Freddie Hubbard

The Kalamazoo College Jazz performs a concert titled “A Tribute to Freddie Hubbard” on Saturday, November 2, at 8 PM in Dalton Theatre, located in the Light Fine Arts building on the Kalamazoo College campus. The concert is free and open to the public. Hubbard (1938-2008) was an American jazz trumpeter whose musical career spanned 50 years.

The 18-member Kalamazoo College Jazz Band will perform selections composed by Hubbard and by other jazz greats with whom he played. Included are: “A Nasty Bit of Blues,” “Ready Freddie,” “Little Sunflower,” “Povo,” “Alianza,” “Red Clay,” and “Out of the Doghouse.” The Kalamazoo College Jazz Band is directed by Professor of Music Tom Evans. Featured performers include Jon Husar ’14, trombone; Ian Williams ’17, piano; Riley Lundquist ’16, tenor sax; Kieran Williams ’16, trumpet; Chris Monsour ’16, drums; and Curtis Gough ’14, bass.

Phi Beta Kappa Lecture on K’s Campus

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David Forsythe
David Forsythe

David Forsythe will deliver the annual Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture at 8 PM on Tuesday, November 5, in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room at Kalamazoo College. The title of his address is “The United States and Torture after 9/11.” The event is free and open to the public.

Forsythe is University Professor and Charles J. Mach Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Emeritus at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln). His work focuses on international human rights, international law and organization, American foreign policy, and international relations.

His books include The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights in International Relations; The United Nations and Changing World Politics; American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World; and The Politics of Prisoner Abuse. He is the general editor of The Encyclopedia of Human Rights and the recipient of many awards for scholarship. In 2008 he held the Senior Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair for Human Rights and International Studies at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

Since 1956, the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Visiting Scholar Program has been offering undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars. The purpose of the program is to contribute to the intellectual life of the institution by making possible an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students. The 13 men and women participating during 2013-2014 will visit 100 colleges and universities with chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, spending two days on each campus to meet informally with students and faculty members, participate in classroom discussions and seminars, and give a public lecture open to the entire academic community.

 

 

Love Opens Bach Season

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Lyric soprano Rhea OlivaccéLyric soprano Rhea Olivaccé is the featured performer in the Kalamazoo Bach Festival Society’s opening concert,“The Many Facets of Love,” featuring romantic music of Strauss, the alluring charm of French opera, and the musings of new American composers. Olivaccé has performed on the stages of Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and multiple sites other throughout the United States. “The Many Facets of Love” occurs October 20, 2013, at 4 PM in Dalton Theatre (Light Fine Arts Building) on the Kalamazoo College campus. In the first half of the concert Olivaccé sings works by Donizetti, Strauss, and “The Jewel Song” from Charles Gounod’s opera Faust. Contemporary composers are featured in the second half of the concert, including Hundley, Bolcom, Mechem, Adams, and emerging Michigan composers Logan Skelton and Michael Lauckner. Olivaccé is accompanied by pianist Gunta Laukmane. Tickets are $15 if purchased by October 11.  After October 11, tickets are $18 for general seating.  Student tickets cost $5!  For tickets, visit the Bach Festival Society website or call 269.337.7407. The event is a collaboration of the Bach Festival Society and the Kalamazoo College Department of Music.

Kreisler at K

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The Kreisler TrioThe Kreisler Trio will present a concert of works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Hummel–performed on period instruments–on Sunday evening, October 20, at 8 PM in Dalton Theatre of the Light Fine Arts Building on the Kalamazoo College campus. The event is sponsored by the Kalamazoo College Department of Music; admission is free.

The Kreisler Trio was founded in the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and brings together three musicians from around the world: Keyboardist Shin Hwang, a prize-winner of the 1st International Westfield Fortepiano Competition; Violinist Yuki Horiuchi, a graduate of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and performer with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; and cellist Fernando Santiago García, a graduate of the Koninkljk Conservatorium in The Hague and member of the European Union Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Academy in Bolzano.

For their concert at Kalamazoo College, the Trio has programmed sonatas by Mozart (for solo fortepiano and for violin and fortepiano), and trios by Beethoven and Hummel.

 

What the Dickens?! K on the Art Hop

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Advertisement for What the DickensK on the Art Hop
October 4, 2013  / 5-8 p.m.
“What the Dickens: Victorian England in the A.M. Todd Rare Book Room”
A.M. Todd Rare Book Room
Upjohn Library Commons — 3rd Floor

England was an incredibly rich and diverse society during the reign of Queen Victoria. Authors of the era included Charles Dickens, the Brownings, Oscar Wilde, and John Ruskin. Artists such as James McNeill Whistler, William Blake, William Morris, and Aubrey Beardsley all were creating works in very different styles. Charles Darwin completed his voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle and began to develop controversial theories on evolution. Phrenology, physiognomy, and séances all were popular. It also was an era of collecting, following the age of exploration. Travelers were covering the globe to bring back to England rare and exotic plants and animals. Examples of these various aspects of the Victorian Era are included in the “What the Dickens: Victorian England in the A.M. Todd Rare Book Room.”

Can′t attend Art Hop? “What the Dickens” exhibit remains on display through Nov. 26 (closed Nov. 4-17), Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 1-3 p.m. or by appointment. Call Paul Smithson, 269-337-7147.

Cheerio!


 

Homecoming and Reunion Weekend

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Buzz the Hornet with a family of three at HomecomingWelcome back, Orange and Black, on October 18-20. Homecoming registration is open NOW! Please check out the schedule of events to view all of the opportunities to connect. Highlights from the weekend will include: reunion activities for the classes of 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 (as well as special gatherings for the Class of 2013 and emeriti alumni); a student film festival featuring works created in K’s introductory and advanced documentary film production classes; family friendly activities on the Quad, featuring the Fresh Food Fairy, Cirque Du K, and the College’s three a cappella groups; the Hornet football game vs. the Albion Britons at the new Kalamazoo College Athletic Field Complex; and an opportunity to tell your K story or record a favorite memory at the Story Zoo booth in the library. There is so much to share, and alumni relations staff members are looking forward to seeing you and your family. Kalamazoo area hotels are filling up fast so please do not forget to book your hotel and mention “Kalamazoo College Homecoming” to receive a special rate. If you would like a registration form mailed to you or need assistance with online registration, please contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 269-337-7300 or aluminfo@kzoo.edu. All alumni, faculty, staff, students and K friends are invited.

Opening Convocation 2013

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Kalamazoo College marks the beginning of the 2013-14 academic year with its annual Convocation on the campus Quad, Wednesday, Sept. 11, at 3:00 p.m. Free and open to the public, this colorful ceremony serves as a formal induction into the K community for the incoming Class of 2017 and includes a musical fanfare, faculty processional, welcoming remarks, and an international flag ceremony.

Under sunny skies (or in Anderson Athletic Facility in the event of rain), 457 first-year students, 27 visiting international students, and 22 transfer students from other institutions will recite the “Ritual of Recognition for New Students” and receive their charge from President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran.

Jody Clark ’80, vice president at Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, will deliver the keynote address, which will be live-streamed for the first time. Visit www.kzoo.edu/convocation for live-stream details. A reception for attendees follows on the Upper Quad, behind Stetson Chapel.

New students will receive an extensive orientation through the College’s nationally recognized First-Year Experience, including a reading and talk by Vaddey Ratner, author of In the Shadow of the Banyan, the Summer Common Reading book new students.

The incoming Class of 2017 is one of the largest since the College was established 180 years ago (1833). Fifty-three percent are female, 47 percent male. Approximately 62 percent (284) come from Michigan, 31 percent (141) come from other U.S. states and territories, and seven percent (32) come from 13 other countries (Cambodia, Canada, China, South Korea, Colombia, France, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe).

Also, 187 K students are participating in study abroad this fall at 28 programs throughout Africa (20 students), Austral-Asia (45), Central and South America (26), and Europe (96).

The College’s overall enrollment for the academic year will be approximately 1,440.

Fall quarter classes at K begin Monday Sept. 16. The fall quarter ends Wed. Nov. 27.

Conference Call

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The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College will hold its first conference to question–and complicate–the notion of borders. Called WITH/OUT – ¿BORDERS?, the gathering will use a “(un)conference” structure, says Lisa Brock, academic director of ACSJL. “We welcome proposals for papers, roundtables,think tanks, and workshops.” The deadline for proposals is January 15, 2014. “We are interested in creating conversations on emerging epistemologies, radical geographies, critical solidarities, and transgressive practices that transcend and theorize across disciplinary and academic /activist borders,” says Brock. Topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

The seemingly fixed and immutable character of national-state borders (often writ in blood based on conquest and war) that, in truth, are actually unsettled and contestable. How might we map this?

Globalization’s increasing commodification of ever more forms of human and natural activity and the concomitant rise of “new” borders (fences, checkpoints, restrictions, gates, walls, prisons, and policies and laws that put greed before need). Where are the critical solidarities being developed?

The challenges to gender borders and the re-inscription of race and class divides. Where are the radical transgressions today?

The effect two changes–old borders under review and new borders in flux–on pedagogy, disciplines, nationalist paradigms, and social justice in education. What are the emergent 21st century epistemologies?

The conference will take place September 25 through September 28, 2014, at the ACSJL on the K campus. Proposals should be sent (by January 15) to Karla.Aguilar@kzoo.edu. Address queries to Arcus.Center@kzoo.edu.

Time to Reprise

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Kalamazoo College alumna Gail Griffin
Gail Griffin in the 1986 Festival Playhouse production of UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS

It’s been 50 years of great theatre at Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College. What have been the highlights? And who should choose? Let’s start with the people who have acted and directed many of that half century of productions. They have picked their favorites, and you can enjoy them.

An Evening of Kalamazoo College Theatre Alumni Scenes occurs Saturday, October 19, at 4 PM in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. Alumni of past Festival Playhouse productions will present staged readings of their favorite plays. On the schedule:

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, featuring Emilia LaPenta ’10 and Emily Harpe ’08;

Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, featuring Wa-Louisa Hubbard ’03, Lisa Ludwinsk ’06, Anne LaTarte ’03, and Betsy King ’05;

Uncommon Women and Others, by Wendy Wasserstein, featuring recently retired Professor of English Gail Griffin and Laura Livingstone-McNellis ’89;

Pullman, WA, by Young Jean Lee, featuring Ryan Hatch ’04 and Matt Pieknik ’04;

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, by Anna Deavere Smith, featuring Kristala Pouncy ’02;

subUrbia, by Eric Bogosian, featuring Ben Harpe ’09 and Paul Whitehouse ’08;

Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, featuring Todd Beck ’60 and Bill Vincent ’60

Festival Playhouse Golden Anniversary Features A DREAM PLAY

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Playbill cover for "A Dream Play"Theatergoers should not miss Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College’s production of August Strindberg’s masterpiece of early expressionism, A Dream Play. The opening night performance includes a pre-show ceremony to inaugurate the grand re-opening of the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. Dates and times are: Thursday, November 7, 7:30 PM; Friday and Saturday, November 8 and 9, 8 PM;, and Sunday, November 10, 2 PM. Tickets are $5/students, $10/seniors, and $15/adults. Thursday night’s performance is “pay-what-you-like.” Call 269-337-7333 for reservations.

“It’s a beautiful theatrical experience,” says Festival Playhouse Manager Laura Livingstone-McNellis (an alumna theatre arts minor from the Class of 1989). Her statement captures the irony of art and suffering, of art on suffering. “The way cast and crew combine movement, text, and voice to create the semblance of a dream is nothing less than stunning,” she adds.

The play depicts a female demigod’s visit to earth to explore the nature and depth of human suffering. Livingstone-McNellis’s “semblance of a dream” description and the play’s theme reminds this author of poet Lucille Clifton’s poem “sorrows,” recently anthologized in Poetry magazine’s The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine.

sorrows

who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be

beautiful        who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals

that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin

sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls             clicking their bony fingers

envying our crackling hair
our spice filled flesh

they have heard me beseeching
as I whispered into my own

cupped hands       enough not me again
enough         but who can distinguish

one human voice
amid such choruses of desire