It's Spring!

Photo of the Week

Welcome back to campus for Spring Quarter! Our pic of the week is dance MFA student Noelle Stiles (above) performing her solo work Merge. Stiles and Colleen Leonardi will present their MFA performance Wunderkammer Thursday, April 5 – Saturday, April 7 at 8 pm at the EMMA Lab in the ACCAD building. The two will perform in original choreographed works with other OSU dancers. Selections of Wunderkammer include: Waveland, choreographed by Leondardi, performed by Leonardi, Stiles, Adriana Durant, Jaclyn Thompson and Yen-Fang Yu. Stiles' Merge was created in collaboration with Portland, OR, based choreographer Linda Johnson. Merge includes an original score by Matt Jones and Delany Kelly, along with sculpture by architecture student Kyle Zaylor. Stiles also will perform excepts from Bebe Miller’s seminal 1993 work Nothing Can Happen Only Once. The show is free and open to the public. Seating is limited; to reserve a seat email wunderkammer.567@gmail.com.

Notable News

Bebe Miller (Dance) was honored last week as Individual Artist in the 2007 Governor's Awards for the Arts, presented by the Ohio Arts Council. The recipients are chosen for outstanding contributions to the arts statewide, regionally and nationally. Awards were presented at a luncheon to Miller and other recipients. For more, see the website.

Congrats to Richard Blatti (Music) who recently was presented with an OSU Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching!

The School of Music presents a Lecture In Musicology, with one of the world's most eminent musicologists Richard Taruskin. A professor of music at the University of California at Berkeley, Taruskin will present the lecture "Did Somebody Say Censorship?" at 2:30 pm Friday, March 30, in the Music and Dance Library in Sullivant Hall. The lecture will present a broad sampling of musical works that have been altered in the course of their reception by composers, performers and legal authorities. It is co-sponsored with the Center for Slavic and East European Studies. The lecture is free and open to all.

OSU employees can earn money while making positive choices for their health by participating in the 2007 Your Plan for Health faculty and staff incentive program. Starting March 26, faculty and staff can can sign up for the program by visiting http://yourplanforhealth.com. They'll create a secure profile to confidentally track incentive points online. Participants can earn up to 125 points by engaging in specific health-related activities between now and Sept 30, which will translate into dollars. For details, visit the website.

A recent review of BalletMet's new production of Whodunit? in the Columbus Dispatch had good things to say about some College of the Arts folks. Barbara Zuck's piece said that choreography by Susan Hadley slyly dresses the Detective, the Costume Designer, the Professor, the Butler and a host of other Clue-like personages in this character-driven and amusing tale. . . She went on to say about Hadley and Bradley Sowash, who created the music for the show: "These two principal creators of Whodunit? have formed an unusually strong marriage of movement and music in each scene." Zuck also praised the set by Dan Gray (Theatre).

Alan Woods (TRI) announces that his Shakespearean prequel, Downstairs at Elsinore, was chosen in a national competition to be produced in June by the Pointed Remarques Classical Theatre Co. (a company of swordspeople) in Colorado as part of its Fields of Honor Festival. Woods' piece is set in the armory of Elsinore, where the guards complain about having to keep watch. They're visited by Ethel, the Pirate King's daughter, who's come with the Pirates of Penzance to entertain at the wedding of Claudius and Gertrude.

In addition, Stonewall Columbus will present a staged reading of Woods' Twentieth Night, a sequel to Twelfth Night, in May as a benefit. OSU alumna Karla Rothan and Linda Schuler play Viola and Olivia some 18 years after the action in Shakespeare's play. Rothan is acting executive director of Stonewall Columbus.

Terry Barrett, (Art Education) recently published a chapter, "Teaching Toward Appreciation in the Visual Arts," in the International Handbook of Research in Arts Education, volumes 1 & 2, Liora Bresler, editor. (New York, Springer, 2007, pages 639-654.)

Ann Hamilton (Art) presented a lecture, "Perspectives in Art", last month at Mount Holyoke College. The event was part of the college's Leading Women in the Arts series.

The OSU Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble played at the Midwest Regional Tuba Euphonium Conference earlier this month.

Designing Women

Photo of the Week

Sixteen students in a junior design class taught by Jeff Haase -- including (l-r) Andrea D'Antonio, Marcela Figueira and Katharine Keller -- are revamping some of the hallways in Hopkins Hall. The class project was to completely design and build spaces in the hallway locker alcoves, from researching possibilities, designing the spaces, detailing and gathering materials, and completing the construction. They are finishing up three projects now, including a second floor "lounge" area for students and two display cases on the third floor.

Notable News

Rave review! OSU's opera production of The Elixir of Love garnered a stellar review from Columbus Dispatch critic Barbara Zuck. Her article was published Saturday with the headline, "Student show charms audience." In it, Zuck says, "(Peter) Kozma's free-spirited and inventive staging makes the opera fly by with almost a laugh a minute." She continues, "Taylor Stayton sings this long and challenging role better than many a professional singer." And, "Coloratura soprano Samantha Mowery handles the role of Adina with equal skill and conviction. In fact, the entire cast performs with unusual confidence and savvy."

Zuck also said, "Todd E. Ranney . . .is a horribly but hilariously over-confident ladies man. And Jonathan Stuckey as a hip-hop Doctor Dulcamara -- another wonderful voice -- has an entrance that must be seen to be believed." Zuck also praised the OSU Orchestra, conducted by Marshall Haddock.

Terry Barrett (Art Education) recently published the book Why Is That Art? Aeshetics and Criticism of Contemporary Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

The Pendulum Percussion Duo -- Joe Krygier and Susan Powell (Music) -- will perform March 11-15 at the International Drum and Percussion Festival in Lithuania. They also will present clinic sessions at the Lithuanian Music Academy in Vilnius and in Warsaw, Poland.

In addition, Krygier was named second place winner of the James P and Shirley J O'Brian Composition Competition with his piece Hot Pants. The purpose of the competition is to create new works blending the contemporary technologies of CrossTalk -- an electronic/world percussion ensemble affiliated with the University of Arizona -- with the instrumentation and aesthetic of the World Music Gang. The prize includes a $750 award plus publication of the composition.

Four college staff members have received staff professional development grants from the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences. They are Tamara Dunaeff (Design), Chris Gose (Art), Matt Hazard (Theatre) and Brian Windsor (ACCAD). In addition, three staff members have received College of the Arts' Staff Professional Development Grants -- Marilyn Cook (Music), Hazard and Windsor.

The CityMusic Chamber Music Series in partnership with the Jewish Music, East & West series of OSU's Melton Center for Jewish Studies presents the music of Grammy Award-winning composer Osvaldo Golijov, performed by the Carpe Diem String Quartet, with Marguerite Levin, clarinet. The concert is Sun, March 18, at 2 pm at the Columbus Performing Arts Center. For ticket information, call 433-9963.

Love Story

Photo of the Week

Taylor Stayton, Samantha Mowery and Jonathon Stuckey (Music) rehearse the Italian opera, The Elixir of Love (L’elisir d’amore) by Gaetano Donizetti. This eternal love story will be presented on the Mershon Auditorium stage March 9, 10 and 11; it is the first major opera production on campus to be directed by new faculty member Peter Kozma. The bold and colorful production of Donizetti’s 19th century comic opera centers on the timeless struggle of males and females in love – a light-hearted story filled with lovers’ quarrels, magic potions and commercialism. The opera has a cast of 40 students, and will be sung in Italian with English supertitles. A full set and costumes will add to the production, as will the accompanying student orchestra conducted by Marshall Haddock. For tickets, call the Wexner Center box office at (614) 292-3535.

Notable News

A book, The Pleasure of Modernist Music (University of Rochester Press, 2004) by Arved Ashby (Music) has sold out its first print run after just two years, and is going into a second printing. The compendium of 14 essays is in almost 300 libraries around the world, including university collections in Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. Experts have greeted the book with praise but as editor Ashby predicted, it also has caused some (constructive) controversy.

According to Alan Woods (TRI), five short plays (10 minutes or less) will be read Thurs, March 8, at 7:30 pm at Gallery 202 in Westerville to celebrate International Women's Day. The plays include Shirley Barrie's Audience, Vicki Cheatwood's The Last Time Cooper Took Midge Fishing, Elaine Jarvik's Dead Right, Gerry Sanseviero's Matinee Lunch, and Katherine Burkman's Geraldine and Jacob. All authors are members of the International Centre for Women Playwrights. More details at http://osureadings.blogspot.com.

A conversation with Ann Hamilton (Art) appears in the current edition ArtInfo online. The interview, by Robert Ayers, focuses on her art, upcoming projects and her new book, an inventory of objects. Click here to read the article.

Bit Babble is an Art & Technology exhibition opening this Thursday, March 8, from 5 to 9 pm in Hasket Hall Gallery, soundstage and 2-4 floors. Video screenings will take place at 7 pm in room 211. The show is also open Friday 11:30 am-4 pm. Bit Babble is a showcase for new media, video, holography, animations, robotics, digital imaging, 3D modeling, rapid prototyping and web-based artworks.

Assimilating Similar/The By-Product of an Unnatural Offshoot is an exhibition by Christopher Gose (Art) that's at the ARC Gallery in Chicago. Opening reception is Friday, March 9, 6-9 pm. ARC is a not-for-profit, artist-run gallery in Chicago's River West Neighborhood, and is an internaionally recognized alternative space that's been part of the art community there since 1973. ARC shows seven individual or group exhibitions in the gallery each month. For more, click here.