Last night, the Arts@Lehigh blog won the “Art” category title of the My Choice Voice – Best of the Lehigh Valley Blog contest. I’m thrilled that our readers and friends gave the support by their votes. The significance of this award is in a few areas:
1. Blogging isn’t something you need permission to do. You just do it. If there is something important that needs to be said, shared or discussed, you don’t have to wait for someone else to say it, share it, or start the discussion. Blogs are a readily available tool that anyone can do. In addition to writing blogs, feel free to expand your understanding of the universe by reading other blogs. Last night was another reminder of the breadth and depth of local bloggers. I have come to know many of these people through their blogs; a few of them I would call good friends. Only one other person on the list of bloggers last night works at Lehigh. He is such a supportive friend in Arts@Lehigh’s communications efforts. Thanks, Prof. Twitter.
2. The arts are all around us. While “arts” might not be the identity many of us boldly wear on our sleeves, the instrument that is displaying these words, the chair you may be sitting on while you are reading this sentence, or if you happen to glance away from the screen – you will see something that is informed by art. Art is not merely entertainment. It is discovery and communication. To be able to write about art, to share information about art, or to simply be artful – is why we blog about it. As Alec Baldwin said, “Art is all around me. So maybe I should introduce myself.”
3. The Lehigh Valley is full of creative, passionate and dedicated people who also support many things. Last night, all of the people at the event shared the “blogger” identity; but also have multiple talents and dreams. While some may just want people to “lighten up and find fun in your own back yard,” others are dedicated to sharing their passion for vegan cooking, Lehigh Valley sports, or the humor they see in their daily lives.
I’d like to thank again, the Morning Call for their support of local blogging. I also need to personally thank all of the readers who voted in the contest. Here’s a slide show of images taken by the Morning Call. See the entire album here.
Lehigh University’s Department of Theatre wishes these graduating students hearty congratulations and well wishes! They have been highly active in multiple productions, both on stage and behind the scenes. We thank them for their contributions to the arts at Lehigh University, and look forward to seeing them again. They have delighted, inspired and shared their passions. We are truly moved by their dedication. Some of them may still be here for a fifth year – we support and thank them all!
Arts@Lehigh would like to remind our readers that the university’s annual Move Out Collection Drive has started this week, and will run through Friday, May 24th.
Students who will be packing up at the end of the semester are encouraged to donate unwanted clothing, linens, electronics, school supplies, household items, furniture, and unopened food at designated locations within each residence hall or at Windish Hall (across from Rauch Business Center on East Packer Avenue).
Students, staff and faculty are also welcome to participate by volunteering to help by picking up donations and/or sorting them at Windish Hall in any shift from today through May 24th. Volunteers also needed to support the incredibly large, and amazingly heart warming Great South Side Sale coming up on Saturday, June 1st, at St. John’s Windish Church (corner of Fourth and Buchanan streets).
Proceeds from this sale will fund Lehigh University’s Afterschool Homework Clubs for South Bethlehem children; an important piece of our community school partnerships, and support for education in our community.
In addition to benefiting this worthwhile cause, the sale also helps recycle much-needed items back into the community, at extremely affordable prices. We really don’t want to see shameful waste in the dumpsters.
Unwanted items can be taken directly to Windish Hall from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m – Monday through Friday until May 24th, or at approved locations in Residence Halls.
On Monday, April 29th at 4pm, the 2013 Annual Music Department Awards were announced. In a future blog post, we will share the story behind many of the names of these awards. For today – let’s celebrate the achievement and recognition of the many talented Lehigh University students.
Freshman Award – Lauren Mentzer
Sophomore Award – DeVaughn Roberts
Junior Award – Kim Hetrick
Senior Award – Geoff Groman
Henderson Braddick Composition Awards
Bryan Lun
Geoff Groman
Lumin Hao
Chris Covney
Liz Zeffiro
Andrey Stolynarov
Ensemble Awards
Jazz and Combos
Brian Lin
Chris Covney
Dan Canistracci
LU Philharmonic
Service – Geoff Groman
Musicianship -Taylor Bond and Meghan Brisson
Band and Wind Ensemble:
Schempf Award – Joshua Hubert
Elkus Award – Lauren Mentzer and Sheila Strong
Gold-Hansen Award – Andrew Pope
Senior Band Award – Alexis Lundy
Burr-Kirkpatrick Award – Anne Smolko and Hannah Hoganson
Shields Award – Goeffrey Groman
Choral Arts
Debra Field Dolce Award – Amanda Curry
Michael “Bear” Sebastian Award – Connor Tench and Damiano DiFlorio
Cutler Award – Emily Koehler
T. Edgar Shields Award – Brian Rodriquez
Stoz-Rickert Award – Hilary Hla
Memorial Awards
Melissa Rodriguez Award (to a wind player) – Anne Smolko and Geoff Groman
Kenton Lerch Award (for participation in Band and other ensembles) – Erin Barrick
Robert Thompson Award (For Joyous music Making) – Bryan Lin
The National Endowment for the Arts just announced their 2013 Spring Grant Awards. The number of grants for the commonwealth of PA: 30 with a total dollar amount of: $975,000. Of that, $75,000 of federal tax dollars are coming to Bethlehem next year to support our vibrant arts scene.
Citizens should know that these dollars are pennies per capita spending. They are HUGE investments in our youth. Each grant supports the work of notable arts organizations who provide arts education programming in a time when schools are cutting arts and music programs and teachers to balance state budgets. Activities that support arts IN the schools for each organization are highlighted below. However, these grants don’t cover the total budget needed to make this activities happen. The NEA grant requires a $1-$1 match for each proposal. The match usually comes from corporate sponsorship, or organizational revenue (like ticket sales). And that still doesn’t cover all the expenses. That’s why we all should support the arts and cultural organizations that keep our community spirit alive.
The NEA grant is not a gift. It’s an investment in our community. If we like our community to have a high quality of life, support the creative development of our future work force, and be that part of economic development, then celebrate the hard work it took the grant writers who achieved this success. Winning an NEA grant is not easy. Judgement by artistic and arts administrative peers is fierce. These organizations got the support because they meet a national standard of excellence.
Happy Tuesday, indeed.
ArtsQuest $50,000
To support RiverJazz. The year-long celebration will feature activities such as jazz concerts, a high school jazz band competition, documentary screenings, visual art gallery exhibits, a site-specific dance piece, workshops, lectures, and a month-long jazz festival.
Bach Choir of Bethlehem $15,000 Bethlehem, PA
To support educational programs for adults, children, and intergenerational groups including the commissioning and premiere of a new children’s opera. The project will include Bach to School assembly programs for elementary through high school students, Family Concerts incorporating student and professional guest artists and featuring the new work by composer Chuck Holdeman titled Young Meister Bach, and the free Bach at Noon concert series of Bach cantatas.
Touchstone Theatre $10,000
To support the Young Playwrights’ Lab, an after-school theater arts program. Professional theater artists guide students at schools in the Bethlehem and Allentown School Districts of Pennsylvania through the process of creating an original, one-act play.
As if Saturday doesn’t offer enough to pull students off campus – there’s a MONUMENTAL event planned for the early afternoon. It’s the dedication ceremony of the Chinese Harmony Pavillion – the second structural project built by the Chinese-Bridge Project investigations. Write this down: Saturday, 1:30pm, South Bethlehem Greenway, between Webster and Taylor. Get there by 1:00pm
The Chinese Bridge Project was a joint creation. Many people were involved with the creation and implementation of the project including Chinese Professor and Director of the Lehigh in Shanghai Internship Program Connie Cook, Religion Professor Norman Girardot, Architecture Professor Tony Viscardi, and Visiting Post-Doctorate Research Fellow Dongning Wang. The project recognizes the increasingly prominent role China plays in world affairs today and also emphasizes Lehigh’s historical relationship with China. Lehigh University and China have a 130-year history that continues today with many Chinese students choosing to study at Lehigh University.
One of the primary aims of the Chinese Bridge Project is to attract a broader spectrum of students studying science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) into Chinese studies than would traditionally be the case. The goal is to have students from a variety of academic backgrounds collaborate in a design project that involves creating a more modern interpretation of the traditional Chinese Rainbow Bridge for the Lehigh community.
Read more about the Lehigh University Chinese Bridge project here.
The first structure is the wooden bridge, just off the upper Sayre Sayre Park Rd drive, near the gate to Mountain Drive north. If you ride the Brown & White Bus to Iaccoca Campus, look into the words on the right side of the road. There, perhaps by a few deer, you’ll see the wooden Chinese Rainbow bridge. But to really get a full understanding of the rigor, the multi-disciplinary explorations through this project, give yourself a gift of watching this 12 minute video – beautifully produced by Steve Lichak in LTS.
Linda Harbrecht, of Lehigh University’s Communications office, write a full article about the dedication ceremony here. If Lehigh University staff are pulling in this much time to tell you about this event, and to document the work of the Chinese Bridge Project – you might realize how monumental this effort is. And while I believe in the value of documentation, I’m constantly reminded of the value of one of the most basic concepts – and yet understandably, one of the greatest challenges for students and other super busy people – JUST SHOWING UP!
If you’ve never witnessed an event led by Professor Norman Girardot (Religion Studies), you’ve missed something truly remarkable, spectacular, even epic. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Prof. Girardot on a number of “weird” events and I can say with all honesty; there’s nothing else like them.
Truth be told, these events are so epic that future generations of Lehigh faculty, staff and alumni will speak of these ceremonies as witnesses to something so special; they defy category. Professor Girardot has been teaching and leading students for a few decades. He’s about to exit into what he calls, “the halls of Valhalla.” Before he retires from teaching, I beg of you to see his last ceremony so what some day in the future you can say with all honesty as you tell your grandchildren, “What I tell you is the truth – for I was there.”
Sponsors of the Pavilion Dedication The Henry Luce Foundation Lehigh University: Advancement, Academic Diversity, Art, Architecture & Design Department, ArtsLehigh, Asian Studies, Center for Dialogue, Ethics & Spirituality, Chaplain’s Office, College of Arts and Sciences, Community & Regional Affairs, Digital Media Studio, Facilities Services, Global Studies, Greenway Native Planting Group, Humanities Center, Integrated Degree in Engineering, Arts & Sciences, Lehigh University Art Galleries, Lehigh University Core Competencies Grant, Modern Languages & Literatures Department, Office of Interdisciplinary Programs, Office of International Affairs, Office of the Provost, P.C. Rossin College of Engineering & Applied Science, Religion Studies Department, Research & Graduate Studies, Risk Management, Science, Technology & Society, South Mountain College, South Side Initiative, Student Affairs City of Bethlehem: Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission, City Planning Commission, Parks & Recreation Our South Side Neighbors: Artefact Inc., Hank’s Auto Service, Holy Infancy School, Litzenberger House
In celebration of National Poetry Month a program will feature individuals and their work, inspired by a love of poetry, and buoyed by a strong conviction in collaborative arts and the power it has to transform our lives. Poetry and Song from the Real World will show how artists of all kinds are using poems in their daily lives, making them concrete and alive.
John Fox, international speaker, author and facilitator whose work in poetry therapy for over 25 years has benefited many people in all kinds of settings including hospitals, retreat centers, and schools. www.poeticmedicine.org
Craig Czury, an internationally published poet, poetry activist, and recently interviewed on NPR, will read from his Thumb Notes Almanac, poems from interviews while hitchhiking NEPA’s “fracking” region. http://craigczury.com/
Heather Thomas, author of six books of poetry and a professor at Kutztown University, will offer a tribute to the great 20th century poet H.D., who was born in Bethlehem and is buried in Nisky Cemetery. http://faculty.kutztown.edu/hthomas/reviews.htm
Susan Kerschner, poet and author of The Shoulders of Country Roads: My Journey from Head and Neck Cancer
Michael London, Muhlenberg professor and musician, inspired by the poetry of Rumi will play songs and music with Sarah Carlson as dancer and Lisa DeVuono as reader.www.michaellondon.net
At the end of the program the audience will have a chance to participate in an interactive poem and a sharing of how poems have made a difference in their own communities.
Jazz pianist Claude Black may not be well known in the Lehigh Valley. Claude Black was a highly respected jazz musician in Toledo, Ohio. I first met him as one of the “in-school artists” for the Toledo Muse Machine. From 1997-2001, I was lucky enough to be Claude’s driver/escort and MC for his many performances in middle and high schools of northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. I even got to introduce Claude to a few young students and teachers who wanted to hear more of his music at Murphy’s – a fine jazz club in downtown Toledo.
I have always admired jazz musicians. As a classically trained bassoonist, I marvel at the ability of jazz and folk musicians who play more by ear. They way they turn a musical phrase, stretching a tune almost beyond it’s recognition, but still contain it’s structure within an agreed upon musical “rule” in order to keep something musically together. I love working at “hearing the tune” while the artist improvises around it. I love hearing the musical interplay between the musicians; the lock-step rhythm between the bass and drums, the way a soloist fits or doesn’t. It is fascinating.
There’s probably going to be a couple of long articles written about Claude in the next couple of days – he passed away last night at the age of 80. He’d been fighting cancer for while. A few links of articles I’ve found about Claude’s career tell some of the stories he shared with me those many road trips to schools at a time way too early in the morning for a jazz musician.
See, it’s just not right to wake a legend at 7am. Too often, I had to pick him up at his home the morning after a long set at Murphy’s. I’d have his coffee in the car just the way he licked it: two creams and four sugars. I’d also bring along an orange juice, knowing the vitamins would give him a little more sustenance for the young audiences. Since Claude was an African-American jazz musician, most of the schools wanted him to perform in February during Black History month. In addition to being insanely early, the poor man had to bear with the cold temperatures, too.
The first part of these trips were rough for him. But once he warmed up the crowd with a snappy number, he started to tell the students about touring the Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s. He talked of performing for segregated music halls; of how moving it was to hear the Reverend speak. He didn’t tell the kids of the stink bombs blowing up on stage, or of the terribly racist things he had to endure. He played standard tunes, he played his own tunes. He really didn’t talk that much in his school performances. He played.
Every school that heard him was polite. I’m not sure if any of the students that heard him understood the legend that was sharing the same air they were breathing. The teachers and the administrators I worked with did. When Claude finished his set; the principal would ask for one more round of applause before the assembly ended. Then, privately back stage, the principal, a few teachers and an occasional student would ask for an autograph. By this time, Claude’s energy was at the “performer’s high.”
In the car ride home, his stories about the “real scene” of his first job were quite shocking. Things he’d never tell a reporter, or his grandchildren. I think he shared them with me to see how far he could go with his flirting. I played along. Why not? I got some great stories out of him. Stories of being on the road with Aretha Franklin in the mid-60s, sharing the stage with Harry Belafonte, the jazz clubs in Toledo and Detroit. Never stories about other artists; only young one who needed to be taught a few lessons. He never yelled at young musicians who boasted of skills they had yet to develop. He just whooped their butts on the stage; like it’s supposed to happen. These stories are treasures of our time together.
My favorite story of Claude is when we were first introduced. He said, “Hey, your name is White and you’re white. My name is Black, and I’m black. How about that?” Another interesting story is the one performance where he, Cliff Murphy on bass and one of his “sons?” on drums played back up for Jon Hendricks at one of the Toledo area high schools. This was a crowning moment for the University of Toledo; bringing Jon Hendricks back to Toledo to be a professor of jazz. Claude knew he wasn’t the star of the show – but he didn’t pout. He played. When it was his turn for a solo, he was pure class.
By the time I dropped him back to his home from every one of those school shows, he was ready for lunch and a nap. He usually had to rest up for another late night back at Murphy’s. He was also getting ready for his 2000 concert at the Toledo Peristyle. That concert was going to set all of his finances straight. He wasn’t going to have to sell anything too precious to help pay for his wife’s medical bills.
I’m listening the to CD of that concert as I write this post. I can’t share the CD on this post. But I can share a YouTube link from a 2008 performance. The video also features a few other Toledo Area musicians: Gene Parker (Tenor Sax) Jeff Halsey (Bass). Sadly, I don’t know the name of the drummer.
When I left the Muse Machine in 2001, I lost touch with Claude. When my kids were born, I stopped going to Murphy’s. After I moved to Bethlehem, I had heard he was battling prostate cancer, but that he was still playing with Cliff once in a while. I stayed in touch with him through friends who knew him better. I am honored to have worked with him in such a small way. In the grand scope of his career, these performances many have been insignificant. But to all the students, teachers and administrators who heard him in their school auditoriums, or cafe-toriums, on either surprisingly in-tune baby grand pianos, or rickety-a couple of key’s missing-uprights, I’m forever grateful for the chance to have heard him.
I’m thinking about playing his CD at the end of the MLK Opening Ceremonies at Lehigh University. Besides this post, it’s another way I can pay tribute to a man who shared so much others.
Perhaps too much has been said or written about the tragic events in Newtown, CT. It’s also been said that we may have become a culture of distraction, moving too quickly to another topic after a tragic event occurs. We know that the process of absorbing the horrific loss of so many innocent lives; what had been encountered by Sandy Hook elementary teachers, students, parents, families, school administrators, counselors, and the first responders and citizens of Newtown, will take an enormous amount of time.
Our hearts go out to all affected as they begin the process of absorbing what has been encountered. The days, weeks and months ahead will be difficult as they cycle through their, grief, thoughts, feelings, and life which has been drastically altered in ways most can not comprehend nor imagine.
We offer our readers a few items from artists who, by their own reflections of this event, have given us something which may help us in our own processing. We are all changed by this.
(from the Huffington Post) Artist Jeremy Collins reacted
by channeling his complex emotions and desire to help into a two-color sketch conveying the massive community of friends, community members and absolute strangers willing to send their prayers and support to the victims. Collins put prints of this work up for sale to help families with funeral costs.
Vance Gilbert, a songwriter from the northeast who appears at Godfrey Daniels, wrote this song over the weekend: “26 reasons”
Elyse Bogacz, a graphic designer who lives in the Boston Area, put together an Indiegogo campaign to buy extra art supplies for the children of Sandy Hook Elementary. Here’s her reason:
These kids are going to be scared to go back to school, and a child should NEVER be afraid of the place where they are supposed to be the safest. It’s up to us as a community to reach out. It could have been OUR children, brothers, sisters, grandchildren, nephews, or nieces.
When it comes down to it, money isn’t going to help these kids. It’s HEALING that will. So let’s drum a little something up to help the school begin that process.
Let’s start a fund for an after school art program that is going to help these kids express the emotions they are feeling and really begin the recovery process. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we can absolutely make a difference.
If you feel so inclined, join in a national moment of silence in honor of the Sandy Hook victims called for by Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy. At 9:30 a.m. EST, spend several minutes reflecting quietly on this terrible tragedy and take a five minute pause from all online activity.
It’s from that really cool course; Product Design taught by Wes Heiss. Actually, there’s more than one course in Product Design at Lehigh. If you want to know more, best to check out the Department of Art, Architecture and Design website. But, if you want to know more about the course behind this work, here’s the description from the course catalog:
In this advanced level studio students will research fabrication techniques and materials, develop ideas into prototypes, outsource production and sell their designs in a competitive retail market. This course confronts the financial realities of being an independent designer while offering an opportunity to create innovative and desirable domestic products.
For readers who’ve been following this blog for a while, you may remember we did a post on last year’s course results. For new readers, here’s that story.
Last night, the Arts@Lehigh blog won the “Art” category title of the My Choice Voice – Best of the Lehigh Valley Blog contest. I’m thrilled that our readers and friends gave the support by their votes. The significance of this award is in a few areas:
