We love faces; our lives depend on it from an early age. And a close-up on a face is one of the most notable differences between the experience of a movie and the experience of live theater. When we choose to see a film instead of a play it may be, in part, because were drawn to the human face. In her latest installment of her Psychology Today blog (What Shapes Film?) Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan explores what attracts us to cinematic face time. Her article is aptly titled “3 Reasons Why We’re Drawn to Faces in Film.” Maybe it should be four reasons, because music plays a big role as well. It’s a fascinating read, and Tan demonstrates her points with faces from some pretty famous films, including Amelie, It’s a Wonderful Life, Saving Private Ryan, and Toy Story 2, among others. Of particular interest is how facial close-ups make us, the audience, both mirror and blank-canvas-and-painter, depending on a face’s intensity or nuance, respectively.
music
Symphonic Band Does Spin
The Kalamazoo College Symphonic Band presents its Fall 2013 concert: SPIN CYCLE: A Concert of Theme and Variations. The concert takes place on Friday, November 15, at 8 PM in the Light Fine Arts Dalton Theatre on the Kalamazoo College Campus. The event is free and open to the public. The Symphonic Band is directed by Professor of Music Thomas Evans and functions as a beloved creative outlet for woodwind, brass, and percussion students. The Symphonic Band holds one concert each quarter playing exciting arrays of band music both challenging and simple but–as Dr. Evans attests–never “simple-minded.” The band is a great favorite for both its members and its audiences, as the programs are usually coordinated around greatly diverse themes that allow for performances of much-loved pieces, both classic and new. SPIN CYCLE selections include Fantasy on Yankee Doodle (Mark Williams), Pachelbel’s Canon (Calvin Custer), Variations on a Korean Folk Song (John Barnes Chance), Themes from Green Bushes (Percy Grainger), Variations on Scarborough Fair (Calvin Custer), Variations on a Shaped Note Tune (Johnnie Vinson), First Suite in E-flat (Gustav Holst), and Joyful Variations-Ode to Joy (Brian Beck). The concert is sponsored by the Kalamazoo College music department.
Music Down in My Soul
The Kalamazoo College Singers and Women’s Ensemble presents the choral composition, Music Down in My Soul, on Sunday, November 17, at 3 p.m. at Stetson Chapel on the Kalamazoo College campus. The concert is free and open to the public. Music Down in My Soul was arranged by Moses Hogan, an African-American composer and arranger of choral music best known for his settings of spirituals. The concert also features selections by Benjamin Britten, Anders Edenroth, Joan Szymko, Randall Stroope, and Eric Whitacre. The songs evoke a spiritual theme within oneself–understanding the emotions within and celebrating them through music. The Kalamazoo College Singers and Women’s Ensemble consists of some 60 students and under the direction of Professor of Music James Turner. The event is sponsored by the K music department.
REGENERATION Features Four Last Songs
REGENERATION, the Kalamazoo Philharmonia’s Fall 2013 concert, features soprano Rhea Olivaccé, whose work as a concert and recital soloist has been widely recognized for her versatility of repertoire and medium. REGENERATION occurs Saturday, November 16, at 8 PM in the Light Fine Arts Dalton Theatre on the Kalamazoo College campus. Tickets are $5 general admission and $2 for students. The concert is free to Kalamazoo College students. Olivaccé and the Philharmonia will perform the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss. The content of Four Last Songs features a solo soprano voice given remarkable soaring melodies against a full orchestra, and all four songs have prominent horn parts. The combination of a beautiful vocal line with supportive brass accompaniment references Strauss’s own life. His wife, Pauline de Ahna, was a famous soprano and his father, Franz Strauss, a professional horn player. The Kalamazoo Philharmonia will also perform Mahler’s First Symphony, referred to as “The Titan.” The symphony lasts around just under an hour, making it one of Mahler’s shortest symphonies. The Kalamazoo Philharmonia is under the direction of Associate Professor of Music Andrew Koehler. The event is sponsored by the Kalamazoo College music department.
Trumpet and More
Keith Geiman will perform a recital at Kalamazoo College on Saturday, November 9, in the Light Fine Arts Dalton Theatre. The recital begins at 7 PM and is free an open to the public. Geiman is 2nd trumpet with the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra, a member of the Kalamazoo Brass and the Kalamazoo Symphony Brass Quintet, and an instructor of applied trumpet at K. Geiman will be accompanied by Thomas Britton, piano, performing selections by a variety of composers. The program also features Associate Professor of Music Andrew Koehler, violin, and Professor of Music Leslie Tung, piano, accompanying in The Trio for Trumpet, Violin and Piano (Eric Ewazen). Other compositions to be performed include Selections from Suite in D Major (Jacques Alexandre de Saint-Luc), Sicilienne (Maria Theresia von Paradis), Concerto in F minor, Op. 18 (Oskar Böhme), and Tango from ‘Espana’ Op. 165 No. 2 (Isaac Albéniz). Geiman served as principal trumpet of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2011. The recital is sponsored by the Kalamazoo College music department.
Legendary Pianist To Perform at K
Pianist Frank Glazer will present a solo recital of works by Haydn, Beethoven, Barber, and Liszt on Wednesday, November 6, at 7:30 PM in the Dalton Theatre of the Light Fine Arts Building on Kalamazoo College’s campus. General admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students. Kalamazoo College community members are free. The event is sponsored by the Kalamazoo College music department.
Glazer’s artistry and longevity make him a singular figure in the music world. The 98-year-old musician was born in Chester, Wisconsin, in 1915. In 1932 he traveled to Europe to study with Artur Schnabel and with Arnold Schoenberg. He made his debut at Town Hall in New York City in 1936 with a program of Bach, Brahms, Schubert, and Chopin. He played this program again in 2006, to celebrate his seventieth anniversary of public performance.
In 1939 Glazer performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Sergei Koussevitzky. During World War II he served in the US Army as an interpreter in Germany and France. In the early 1950s, Glazer had his own television show called “Playhouse 15” in Milwaukee. In 1965 he joined the Artist faculty of the Eastman School of Music. He left that position in 1980 to become artist-in-residence and lecturer in music at Bates College (Lewiston, Maine).
Frank Glazer’s recital program on November 6 will include the Sonata in E minor (Hob. XVI/34) of Haydn, the Phantasie and Op. 109 Sonata of Beethoven, Excursions by Samuel Barber, and three pieces by Liszt, including his Rigoletto paraphrase.
For more information, contact Susan Lawrence (269 337 7070).
Jazz Band Concert Honors 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.
Love Opens Bach Season
Lyric 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
The 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.
K Professor Siu-Lan Tan Teams with Hollywood Stars in “The Art of the Score”
Kalamazoo College Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan joined actor Alec Baldwin, Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, composer Carter Burwell, and Tufts University neuroscientist Aniruddh Patel as part of The Art of the Score: The Mind, Music, and Moving Images, a co-presentation by World Science Festival and the New York Philharmonic about the uniquely powerful role of music in shaping the emotional impact of film.
Professor Tan served as primary editor of The Psychology of Music in Multimedia published by Oxford University Press in 2013. This book has been recognized as the first to consolidate scientific research on how we integrate sound and image when engaging with film, television, video, interactive games, and computer interfaces. She is also first author of a leading text entitled Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance (Psychology Press/Routledge 2010, 2013). Tan’s work also appears in Music Perception, Psychology of Music, Psychomusicology, Empirical Musicology Review, International Journal of Gaming, and other journals.
Born in Indonesia and raised in Hong Kong, Siu-Lan Tan earned degrees in piano and music before attending Purdue University, Oxford University, and Georgetown University to complete an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology. She has taught at K since 1998.