Students, student organizations, and IUP classes are encouraged to create a social or political message in chalk between 9:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., with colored chalk provided.

Judging will occur between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. Prizes awarded (for IUP students only) will be announced in the Oak Grove at 5:00 p.m. The public is invited to stroll through the Oak Grove to watch students create their drawings throughout the day and when the works are completed.

This event is held this year as part of President Michael Driscoll’s inaugural celebration. The Driscolls will join several others as judges for the contest.

Department of Fine Arts

Alloy Pittsburgh is a visual and performing arts initiative developed for the Carrie Furnace National Historic Landmark. The program is conceived as a laboratory where 15 emerging artists from the Pittsburgh region will create site-based projects that investigate the creative reuse of a post-industrial site. The completed artworks will be simultaneously presented in a one-of-a-kind art event to be held at the Carrie Furnaces National Historic Landmark in fall 2013.

The project will promote the work of emerging and underrepresented artists from the Pittsburgh region and encourage interaction between the artists and the surrounding communities of Braddock, Homestead, Swissvale and Rankin. In addition to interactive public tours and the event reception, the project will engage the local community through public discussions and lectures throughout summer and fall 2013.

College of Fine Arts

This fall, all IUP arts alumni will receive an e-mail invitation to participate in the survey from Michael Hood, dean of the College of Fine Arts, and the chair of their department (Andrew Gillham, chair of the Department of Art; Jack Stamp, chair of the Department of Music; or Brian Jones, Chair of the Department of Theater and Dance).

All alumni are warmly invited to respond, whether they’ve stayed in the arts or work in other fields.

After completing the survey, alumni will have access to an exclusive website where they can see how their experience compares with those of other arts graduates in North America. They can see where arts graduates live, where they work, what they earn, and how their arts educations have influenced their lives.

What’s the benefit to IUP?

“By sharing their life and career experiences with us in the SNAAP survey,” said Hood, “our alumni help us understand how the experiences created at IUP resonate after they graduate. Good, hard data will encourage us to improve what we do, raising the value of their IUP degree and allowing us to accurately describe the value of an arts education to prospective students and to the general public.”

SNAAP is supported by grants from the Surdna Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other foundations.

Brian Jones, theater professor and chair of the Department of Theater and Dance, saw the grand opening of his new gallery, the Artists Hand, on Friday, July 13, 2012.

The gallery is located in downtown Indiana and will feature works by local artists and IUP faculty and students.

According to Jones, the name of the space came from his thought of “Giving a hand to the arts.”

The Artists Hand is a comprehensive gallery and studio managed to benefit artists and patrons of the arts by offering the very best in locally produced art and art instruction. It is also a place for both planned and spontaneous gatherings to enjoy locally roasted coffee and a variety of food while being entertained by local musicians and performers.

Gallery hours are 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and until 7:00 p.m. on Friday. The coffee shop is open 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday. Both are closed on Sunday and Monday. The address is 732 Philadelphia Street in Indiana.

Pictured here is Kevin McGill installing the lettering on opening day of the Artists Hand Gallery.

The invitation was extended in December 2011 by Pennsylvania Presenters board president Deborah Baker, special events manager at Slippery Rock University.

Pennsylvania Presenters, with offices located in Emmaus, Pa., and established in 1987, is a consortium of performance presenters, artists, and agents working in the touring performing arts field. Consisting of over 100 individual, organizational, and institutional members, the group facilitates dynamic peer-to peer connections and is considered among the top organizations of its kind in the U.S.

Knerr served previously as president of Pennsylvania Presenters. In 2009, the organization bestowed him with the first Presenter of the Year Award.

He has also served as a board member with the Indiana County Humane Society, Indiana Arts Council, and Indiana County Tourist Bureau and currently sits on the board of the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance. He currently sits on advisory committees for several organizations, including an arts teaching certification program at the University of the Arts through the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership.

Knerr participates regularly as a conference panelist and consultant in the fields of performing arts presenting, community outreach, and arts-in-education and has twice chaired statewide arts conferences.

Fellow board members include Teresa Baughman, Westermoreland Cultural Trust, Greensburg; Marc Baylin, Baylin Artists Management, Doylestown; Patrick Brogan, ArtsQuest, Bethlehem; Rick Bryant, Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, State College; Andy Cassano, Lehigh University, Bethlehem; Jennifer Cole, Majestic Theater, Gettysburg; Chad Herzog, Juniata College, Huntingdon; and Cathleen Stephen, Miller Center for the Arts, Reading. Catherine Little serves as administrator.

On Thursday, November 10, there will be a public reception and short talk with Jill Fotte-Hutton, co-curator and gallery coordinator from Red Lodge Clay Center. The talk begins at 5:00 p.m., and a public reception for the exhibition will immediately follow. The Kipp Gallery Annex is located on the first floor of Sprowls Hall in room 118B. Gallery hours are noon to 4:00 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays.

“The Low Down: Tales from the Margin” is an exhibit of contemporary ceramics which are both honest and current, reflecting narratives that are personal and shared, abstract and implied. The concept began with a volley of ideas and artists, until a group emerged who consistently generate objects that toy with definitions and tease visual, historical, and/or technical boundaries. The second factor in our selection process was an intent to extol the achievements of artists generating their main body of work within low temperature ranges.

Max Lehman, Carole Epp, Alex Kraft, Nick Ramey, Julie Guyot, Jason Bige Burnett, and Melissa Mytty have created a spirited and vibrant collection of objects, the best of which will pull the viewer into the tales they spin. Formal compositions pair sparse grounds with overwhelmed figures, and the viewer is left to decide if the decadence is for the better or not. Some of the more obvious narratives still leave ample room for audience interpretation; and, like a visual madlib, we can fill in the blanks. There are elaborate dialogues between material pairings made in fantastical, imaginary worlds alongside very evident social commentary with an extremely clear point of view.

This is an exhibition for a modern world with visual “sound bites” for those in search of overstimulation. However, if one chooses to go deeper, the conversation thread is there to pick up and carry. Perhaps this is what can happen when a graphic novel impacts the oft-insular world of clay?

The exhibit is a targeted snapshot of a specific area of inquiry in the field of ceramics—a peripheral group generating more and more buzz, and not just from the hum of an electric kiln. “The Low Down: Tales from the Margin” is a celebration of the creative exploitation possible with electric coils and eutectic compositions.

College of Fine Arts

Last year, students were limited to one ticket per I-Card for major touring events. When these tickets were purchased at the Hadley Union Building, students would not receive their ticket until the night of the event. This required students to stand in line twice—lines that were often long and slow-moving. This system also prevented students from being able to sit with friends unless that friend was also standing in line at the same time.

This year, students with an activity fee-paid I-Card may purchase up to four tickets in advance at the Hadley Union Building. They will receive their tickets when they are purchased at the HUB, eliminating the need to stand in line again the day of the performance. This also allows for a student to purchase tickets for friends without the others in the group needing to also wait in line.

Tickets for many events have also been lowered for I-Card holders. I-Card ticket prices for the various season events for the new Ovations! series range from $10 up to $30, depending on the event and the seat. Tickets for others performance series, such as Theater-by-the-Grove, Sound Choices, Dance Theater, and Music Theater, are as low as $6 per seat with an I-Card.

A calendar of events and ticket prices is available online. Tickets for each event are also sold online at IUP Tickets for I-Card holders through URSA and for the general public. Tickets go on sale approximately thirty days before each event.

For more information about the Lively Arts, e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu or call 724-357-2787 (ARTS).

The Lively Arts is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association and over forty other campus, local, state, and regional partners.

David Surtasky, director of production for the Lively Arts at IUP, and alumnus Greg Giovanni are both members of the international performance group Theatre Nohgaku. The troupe has been invited to perform in four Asian cities in June and July 2011.

Both are alumni of IUP’s Department of Theater and Dance. Surtasky graduated in 1989 and Giovanni graduated in 1984.

Surtasky is pictured at left performing inPagoda.

Surtasky and Giovanni will perform in the contemporary English-language noh play Pagoda and will provide support for the traditional play Takasago. The 2011 Asia tour of this unique performance will open on the evening of June 28 with a performance at the National Noh Theatre in Tokyo, followed by performances at the Kongo Noh Theatre in Kyoto on June 30, Peking University on July 2, Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts on July 4, and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts on July 6.

Noh (能 Nō), or Nogaku (能楽 Nōgaku), is derived from the Japanese word for “skill” or “accomplishment.” It is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the fourteenth century.

The Oshima Noh Theatre (Kita-ryu school) of Hiroshima, Japan, is collaborating with Theatre Nohgaku for this classical and contemporary theater. The two companies premiered Pagoda to packed houses in a European tour in 2009 to London, Dublin, Oxford, and Paris. Pagoda will feature lead actress Oshima Kinue, the only currently acknowledged female professional of the Kita-ryu.

Takasago is a popular Japanese classical fifteenth-century “god” noh play by an unknown author.

Pagoda is an English-language noh play by Jannette Cheong, with music by Theatre Nohgaku artistic director Richard Emmert. It is based on the true story of the author’s grandmother, who sent her youngest son away to sea when he was a young boy to save him from the famine ravaging rural China in the 1920s. After his death in London in 1973, playwright Cheong went to find her father’s birthplace. Her experiences are combined with an ancient Chinese legend to form the foundation of the play.

The project includes “Getting to Noh,” a program of public workshops, lectures, and educational activities to introduce the dance, music, costumes, and masks of Japanese noh theater to a broader audience. Bunka-cho (the Japanese Cultural Ministry) and Mitsubishi Electric have underwritten major portions of the tour with the cooperation of the British Council and government agencies of Japan, China, and Hong Kong.

Theatre Nohgaku, based in Tokyo and New York, was in residence in Indiana for rehearsals during the 2007 Noh Training Project hosted by the College of Fine Arts.

She will perform, along with a twenty-eight-piece orchestra, on Thursday, September 15, Monday, May 4, 2012 (originally scheduled for September 15, 2011), at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center.

Throughout her illustrious career, Peters has dazzled audiences and critics with her performances on stage and television, in concerts, and on recordings. She is one of Broadway’s most critically acclaimed performers, and she has won numerous accolades.

Peters received both the Tony Award and Drama Desk awards for her critically acclaimed performance in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance. She earned her second Tony Award for her performance in Annie Get Your Gun.

She also received Tony nominations for her memorable performances as Momma Rose in Sam Mendes’ critically-acclaimed revival of Gypsy, Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl, Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, the Jerry Herman/Gower Champion ode to the movies Mack and Mabel, and the Leonard Bernstein/Comden and Green musical On the Town,

In addition to these honors, Peters earned a Drama Desk nomination for her memorable portrayal of the Witch in Sondheim’s Into the Woods. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and recently appeared on Broadway in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and in Follies at the Kennedy Center.

While Peters is best known for her work in the theater, her career also boasts an impressive list of television credits, including most recently starring in Lifetime TV’s Living Proof and guest-starring roles on ABC-TV’s Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty.

Peters has lit up the silver screen in seventeen films and received a Golden Globe Award for her memorable performance in Pennies From Heaven. Among her other film credits are The Jerk, The Longest Yard, Silent Movie, Annie, Pink Cadillac, Slaves of New York, Woody Allen’s Alice, Impromptu, It Runs in the Family, and the soon-to-be-released independent film Coming Up Roses.

Ms. Peters has recorded six solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein; Sondheim, Etc: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall; and I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, in addition to numerous Original Broadway Cast recordings.

Peters devotes much of her time and talents to numerous events that benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. With Mary Tyler Moore, she cofounded Broadway Barks, a very special “pet project.” Each year, Broadway Barks presents a star-studded dog and cat adoption event that benefits shelter animals throughout the New York City area.

Her two children’s books, Broadway Barks (New York Times bestseller) and Stella is a Star, feature original songs written and performed by Peters. All of her proceeds from the publications benefit Broadway Barks.

Tickets for the Fisher Auditorium performance will first be available through subscriptions, with subscription information to be sent by the end of June. Patrons contributing at the Designer level ($250 and above) of the Premiere Club will receive priority seating with their subscription order in advance of general subscribers. Single tickets will be available at the end of August.

The event is presented as part of the Helwig Distinguished Artist program. It is funded by the Wilfred E. Helwig Distinguished Artist Endowment, established in 1988, with additional funds provided by the Helwig family. This will mark the eighteenth Helwig Artist.

To receive the latest news and information about this event and others presented by the Lively Arts, make sure you are on the mailing list by calling 724-357-2547 or e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu. People can also sign up for the mailing list by clicking on the Lively Arts’ “Go Live!” button. Leaving your e-mail address will provide more frequent and timely updates.

PRAA, with offices at the Southern Allegheny Museum of Art in Loretto, Pa., provides funding and other support for arts organizations and arts-related activities across the region. PRAA services sixteen Western Pennsylvania counties, including Beaver, Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Indiana, Lawrence, McKean, and Westmoreland.

Established in 1997, the program expands access to the arts for all Pennsylvania citizens through local decision-making and provides arts services to under-served constituents. It is also one of thirteen arts organizations across the state that administer the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts’ Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts re-granting program.

Knerr has served as president of PA Presenters, a state organization dedicated to presenting touring performing artists. In 2009, the organization bestowed him with the first Presenter of the Year Award. He currently sits on advisory committees for several organizations, including an arts teaching certification program at the University of the Arts through the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership. He has also served as a board member with the Indiana County Humane Society, Indiana Arts Council, and Indiana County Tourist Bureau.

Knerr participates regularly as a conference panelist and consultant in the fields of performing arts presenting, community outreach, and arts-in-education and has twice chaired statewide arts conferences.

Others on the PRAA board include Jacquelyn Cavanaugh, a theater director from Greensburg; Noel Feeley, from the Misciagna Arts Center at Penn State–Altoona; Jeanne Gleason, an arts consultant and vice chairperson of the governor-appointed Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; Steven Helsel, Altoona Community Theater; Patricia Hofscher, Johnstown Symphony Orchestra; Nancy MacRae, Pennsylvania Consort in Bedford; and Rosemary Pawlowski, Bottleworks Ethnic Arts Center in Johnstown.

With plans of having this first “Dock Party” become an annual event, the Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania unveiled its 2011–2012 seasons on the stage of Fisher Auditorium on Tuesday, May 3, 2011. The event, attended by nearly 125 contributors and supporters, included announcing the events of Ovations!, IUP’s new touring performing arts series.

David Werner, IUP’s interim president, addressed the group, stating that the university is fully committed to providing quality arts for the community while making sure that “the students remain at the center of all we do.” He went on to say that the College of Fine Arts is uniquely qualified to provide the vehicle for delivering culture and entertainment so that everyone may benefit.

Gerald Intemann, IUP’s vice president of Academic Affairs and provost, stated that the missions of the university and the Lively Arts are “inextricably connected. They work together to ensure that everyone shares in the resources, the expertise, and the commitment to the arts that we have to offer. We are proud to share this with you.” He added that “we are committed to being good neighbors and to offer all our audiences the best we possibly can. This, we promise.”

Speaking on behalf of the Indiana County Tourist Bureau, Director Penny Perman said, “The past, present, and future performances encompassing music, theater, dance, and visual arts, the mission that the Lively Arts has set forth to accomplish, is succeeding. What a great opportunity for a county tourist bureau to also have such an infinite series of performances to promote.”

Ovations! Touring Performing Arts Series

The inaugural season of Ovations! will open with previously announced Tony Award-winning performer Bernadette Peters. She will perform on September 15 May 4, 2011 as the year’s Helwig Distinguished Artist, with a twenty-eight-piece orchestra to be assembled by IUP. [Please note: Due to a scheduling conflict, the date for the Bernadette Peters performance has changed.]

Holding to the promise of also presenting Broadway musicals, Ovations! will feature two productions produced and managed out of New York City. The first, to be presented October 21, will be four-time Tony Award-winner In the Heights. In addition to the show’s awards in 2008 for Best Musical and Best Score, it also won a Grammy Award for best cast album that year.

Closing the Ovations! inaugural season will be the highly popular Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks. This fun, bawdy, musical comedy is based on the dryly humored movie of the same name. It will be presented April 17 16 in Fisher Auditorium.

Nine other performances will be offered in the series, including the theatrically spectacular Yamato: the Drummers of Japan; the simultaneously talented and hilarious Austrian-based septet Mnozil Brass; the return of the popular Sacred Song Sacred Dance by the Mystical Arts of Tibet; and a tap dance performance titled “India Jazz Suites.”

The season also includes an Irish Christmas performance by award-winning Celtic fiddler Eileen Ivers performing with her band, Immigrant Soul. This concert will also include a performance with Ivers and Indiana’s popular gospel choir Voices of Joy.

Two other bands in the lineup include the bluegrass and jazz fusion group the DePue Brothers Band and the Louisiana-based Cajun band Cedric Watson et Bijou Creole.

Classical offerings on the series call for the return of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; the chamber ensemble Cordis, performing newer classical music; and Spanish-born clarinetist José Franch Ballester, whose performance will include a duet with David Martynuik, IUP professor and director of the Marching Band.

Kipp Gallery

Kipp Gallery also announced its plans for 2011–2012. Kyle Houser, a faculty member of the Department of Art who directs gallery activities, listed several exhibits planned. The offerings include one by sculptor Bonnie Collura; artworks by Joelle Dietrick; and an exhibit curated by Houser featuring eight contemporary ceramacists.

University Museum

Michael Hood, dean of the College of Fine Arts, provided the announcement of University Museum plans, which begin with the annual gala titled “Eine Kleine Kit Kat Klub.” Exhibits include a fifty-year retrospective of visual artist Paul Binai in the Fall and works by IUP Art faculty members in the Spring.

Theater, Dance Theater, Music Theater

On hand to announce the theater, dance theater, and music theater series presented by the Department of Theater and Dance and the Department of Music were Theater chairperson Brian Jones and IUP Dance Theater director Holly Boda-Sutton.

Combined, these groups will present seven productions, including a new drama, Lindsey’s Oyster; Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters; and the restoration comedy The Gentleman Dancing Master.

Dance Theater will present two productions, including “The Alan Parsons Movement Project” in October and “Dance Winds,” a collaboration with the IUP Chamber Winds, in April.

Music Theater will present a double bill of one-act operas by Gian-Carlo Menotti in December, including The Old Maid and the Thief and The Telephone. In February, Music Theater will team up with Theater-by-the-Grove and present the rock-scored musical of gamesmanship, Chess.

Music

Music Chairperson Jack Stamp announced the four concerts of the Sound Choices series, which showcases the premiere events of the students and faculty. In addition to Music’s collaboration with Dance Theater on “Dance Winds,” concerts include a performance by the Litton Quartet, the popular Band in Review, and a vocal concert titled “The American Art Song.”

Promises Kept

In closing, Hank Knerr, director of the Lively Arts, stated, in the early stages of planning for this new series and the season, “we promised to present Broadway musicals, to announce a season of shows earlier than we can ever remember, and to significantly increase our already active arts-in-education outreach.”

He added, “We promised an experience filled with diversity of cultures, genres, and ideas. And we promised offerings that, in combination with events at the Kovalchick Complex, would provide the students and the community with a full spectrum of cultural and entertainment events greater than IUP has ever offered. We are thrilled to report that these promises have been kept.”

The Lively Arts is also on target to send out its season brochure by the middle of June, which will include an order form. Anyone who has joined the Premiere Club, a group of individuals who have donated to the Ovations! series, by June 1 will receive advance notification of final dates, prices, subscription packages, and the like.

Anyone joining the Premiere Club at the Designer level or higher before June 1, which starts at $250, will receive at least a ten-day window to reserve seats in advance of all other subscribers.

For more information about the Lively Arts or to be placed on its mailing list, call 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Red Shoes Project, a dance collaboration presented by the IUP Dance Theater and the Mahoning Valley Ballet, will be presented April 28 and 29, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. in Zink Hall Dance Theater. It is being offered in partnership with the IUP Women Studies program.

The production will address the underlying issues raised by Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, Women Who Run With the Wolves. The first piece on the program, choreographed by Holly Boda-Sutton and Joan E. Van Dyke, is titled “Sealskin/Soulskin.” The work deals with a woman who gives up her “wild side” to pursue earthly happiness, only to find herself fading away from her true spirit.

The second piece is based on Han’s Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Red Shoes, as interpreted by Estés. The collaborators have researched and developed this story from a theatrical, psychological, musical, and multimedia perspective.

The creators on the piece include Joan E. Van Dyke, choreographer and director; Carole Tina Lewis, licensed psychologist and cocreator; Derek Cooper, composer; Chauna Craig, creative writer and director of the Women’s Studies program; Steven Loar, scenic artist and director of the Center for Turning and Furniture Design at IUP; Delbert Highlands, multimedia and film director; Lori Miller, costume designer; and Katherine Hood, consultant.

According to Van Dyke, “One of the interesting approaches to our process has been to work closely with psychologist Tina Lewis. She has acted as a resource to develop each character in the story as well as address contemporary issues that this age group of students could be facing in their own lives.”

She goes on to explain, “Because we will be soliciting viewpoints from the audience and then reflecting on those through poetry and dialogue, our goal is to present a visually stimulating work which also stimulates thoughtful growth. Topics that will be addressed include finding one’s voice, conformity, creativity, self-confidence, and motivation.”

A final Dance Theater performance will illustrate these issues as a result of audience participation. The work will strive at reaching a new understanding of the ever-present problems in today’s society.

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building and will also be sold at the door starting at 6:15 p.m. each evening. To charge tickets, call 724-357-1313. For more information, contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547.

This will include Ovations!, IUP’s new performing arts series, along with Theater-by-the-Grove, Music Theater, Dance Theater, Sound Choices, University Museum, and Kipp Gallery.

The event will be held on Tuesday, May 3, 2011, starting at 4:00 p.m. People wishing to attend should RSVP by Friday, April 29, by calling 724-357-2547 or rsvp-livelyarts@iup.edu.

Those attending will enter through the loading dock area behind Fisher Auditorium, IUP Performing Arts Center, for music and refreshments followed by a program on the Fisher stage. Backstage tours of the Center will also be available.

A tweny-year tradition will continue on Thursday, April 28, 2011, as the campus chapter of the National Art Education Association, along with the College of Fine Arts, once again presents the Sidewalk Commentary Contest (a.k.a. Chalk-on-the-Walk).

Chalk-on-the-Walk has become an all-campus tradition involving hundreds of students and employees participating and several hundred more viewing the dozens of incredible entries on the walks of the Oak Grove throughout the day.

The contest has always served as a vehicle for students to express their political and social views through drawings across the Oak Grove. As we face a wide variety of dynamic local, national, and world issues, this year’s contest will again serve as a unique outlet of free expression. We encourage all students and student organizations to participate as a class, a group, an office, or an individual.

No matter what your involvement, we do hope everyone, including community members, will join us in the Oak Grove on Thursday, April 28 (in case of inclement weather, we will reschedule if possible). Creation of the drawings commences at 9:00 a.m. and continues through mid-afternoon. Prizes will be awarded around 5:00 p.m.

We are also seeking individuals, organizations, businesses, and offices who would like to contribute to the student awards, which usually total at least $200. If you are able to do this, please e-mail Hank Knerr at lively-arts@iup.edu. We will acknowledge your contribution during the contest but will wait to collect those pledges until after the contest is held.

The Department of Art will open its annual Bachelor of Fine Art Exhibition on April 19, 2011. This exhibition serves as an showing of art works by the students within this program as they conclude their college careers. There will be a public reception held on Thursday, April 21, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

This year, six students are exhibiting works in sculpture, ceramics, metals, and painting. Those six are Jonathan Burtnett, Nicole Conley, Rebecca Harmon, Robert Irvin, Joshua Kosker, and Nicholas Volpe.

The exhibition will run from from April 19 to May 3 in Kipp Gallery, located in Sprowls Hall on the corner of Grant and Eleventh streets. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday from noon to 4:00 pm. Admission is free.

Recent events and exhibitions can be seen on the Kipp Gallery website and Facebook page.

Pictured are works by Joshua Kosker (top) and Rebecca Harmon.

James Staples, a professor of piano in the Department of Music, will present a recital that will celebrate years of teaching at IUP. The program will begin at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 16, 2011. It will be performed in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of John Sutton Hall. Admission is free.

Staples will perform a program containing three masterworks of piano literature, including Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 90, a selection of preludes from Books I and II by Debussy, and Schumann’s Carnaval Op. 9. This will be Staples’ final solo recital as an IUP faculty member. He will retire June after fifty years in higher education, forty-four of which have been at IUP.

Each piece is a masterwork of its respective era. The Beethoven Sonata, the last of his middle-period piano works, is a two-movement piece somewhat atypical of the composer, being almost entirely lyrical in nature.

The Debussy preludes are expressive miniatures evoking pomposity, songlike melodies, humor, and sensuous keyboard colaborations. The Schumann Carnaval consists of twenty-one short impressions of a Mardi Gras masked ball, utilizing figures from the Commedia del Arte, characters from the composer’s own life, and representations of events from his own imagination.

Dr. Staples holds degrees in performance from Florida State University and Eastman School of Music. Prior to coming to IUP in 1967, he had taught at SUNY Fredonia for six years. He has appeared frequently over the years as solo pianist, soloist with orchestra, accompanist, and chamber musician.

For a period of nearly eight years, he turned to composing, producing many piano works and choral and wind ensemble pieces. His composing culminated in his Piano Concerto, which he has performed twice with the IUP Symphony Orchestra. Staples’ Mass was taken on tour with the IUP Chorale under the direction of the late James Dearing.

Theater-by-the-Grove at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will close its 2010–2011 season with William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, opening April 14, 2011.

Performances are slated for April 14–16 and 27–30 at 8:00 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, April 17, at 2:00 p.m. Performances will be presented on the Waller Hall Mainstage of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

The Shakespeare classic, with this version set in 1950s Cuba, follows the story of a man and his servant in search of family, another man and his servant in search of truth, and a zany town full of wacky characters. Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse (played by Caleb Feigles and Natalie Palamides) and Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus (played by Kyle Hawk and Gina Wagner) are identical sets of twins that were separated at sea by a storm.

The Syracusians have been searching for their long-lost brothers for years and find themselves in Ephesus, which coincidentally is where their brothers reside. Their arrival sparks a series of mistaken identities that leads to chase scenes, romance, lust, and utter chaos.

Director Rick Kemp said, “This is one of Shakespeare’s most accessible plays. It includes both farcical comedy and touching romance. Setting the play in 1950s Cuba gives it a fresh and passionate feel.

“I am sure audiences will enjoy the skilled performances of our student actors and the professional level of our production right here on the IUP campus.”

Tickets for The Comedy of Errors are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before each performance. Tickets can also be purchased through IUPTickets.com or by calling 724-357-1313.

Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more, and $8 for students and I-Card holders. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Box Office at 724-357-1313.

This play contains situations that may not be suitable for younger audiences.

For more information, contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail us at lively-arts@iup.edu.

Theater-by-the-Grove is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and the College of Fine Arts. It is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

Closing its 2010-2011 lineup of the Performance Plus series, the Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will welcome the Ben Munisteri Dance Projects on Thursday, April 7, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. in Zink Hall Dance Theater.

The program will feature three works, including a world preview performance with a prelude performed by members of IUP Dance Theater.

Ben Munisteri Dance Projects was founded in 1994 in New York City. Composed of five dancers, the company has been under the direction of Ben Munisteri for eighteen years, presenting a body of dance repertoire that challenges the perception of contemporary dance making. Munisteri, who sees himself as an editor, tailor, and craftsman in dance, has led the company to perform in a wide variety of dance theaters and campuses across the globe.

The company has enjoyed home seasons presented by the Joyce Theater, Central Park SummerStage, Dance Theater Workshop, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.

The troupe will perform three pieces from its current repertoire, including a world preview performance of its newest work, Robot vs. Mermaid. This new work will include a prelude performed by a specially auditioned corps of students from the IUP Dance Theater.

Beginning the evening will be Catalog, first performed at the Damrosch Theater at New York’s Lincoln Center in August 2010. This piece was originally choreographed to three songs by the English rock band Radiohead.

In response to the Lincoln Center performance, Alastair Maccauley of the New York Times commented, “The dancers were as accomplished as the choreography, with strong footwork, firm jumps and turns, and remarkable coordination.”

Binary, the second work, was originally made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a residency with Alverna Presents in Milwaukee. It was further developed at the Williams Center at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.

Tickets for the Ben Munisteri Dance Projects performance are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus, by calling the ticket office at 724-357-1313, or online at IUPTickets.com. Remaining tickets may be purchased at the door beginning forty-five minutes before the start of the performance.

Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $14 for seniors (age sixty-two and older), and $10 for students and children. For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Zink Hall Dance Theater is located along Maple Street on the IUP campus near the corner of Maple and Eleventh streets and adjacent to Memorial Field House and Miller Stadium.

In addition to the performance, Munisteri and the IUP dancers will present a special workshop at the Palace Theater in Greensburg at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 3. Cost for the workship is $5. Munisteri will also conduct a workshop for high school students from Indiana Area Senior High School and Purchase Line High School.

Performance Plus is presented by the Lively Arts at IUP, a program of the College of Fine Arts. The series is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, African American Cultural Center, Office of International Education, and Liberal Studies. This project is also funded by an additional grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and funding by the PCA Partners in the Arts program provided through and managed by the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance.

Thomas Hong, assistant conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, will serve as maestro for the PSO’s appearance on Tuesday, March 29, 2011, in Fisher Auditorium.

The all-Beethoven program will begin at 8:00 p.m. and celebrates the tenth anniversary of a partnership between IUP and the PSO, one of the world’s most honored symphony orchestras. It is being presented by the Lively Arts at IUP as part of its Performance Plus series.

Hong is presently the new assistant conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and associate conductor of the Seattle Symphony. Previously, he was assistant conductor of Orchestre National de France and also associate conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. With the Orchestre National de France, Hong participated in various tours all over Europe, including most recently a momentous occasion where Maestro Kurt Masur performed the complete Beethoven symphonies in Frankfurt and Baden-Baden.

With the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Hong was in charge of programming and conducting all educational and outreach concerts, including four performances as part of Carnegie Hall’s LinkUp! music education program, serving all fourth grade students in the Fort Worth Independent School District. Other appointments in the past include assistant conductor of the Curtis Opera Theatre, visiting assistant professor at Haverford College, and music director of Delaware County Youth Orchestra, as well as First Korean Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, where he served as organist and choir director for many years.

Other orchestras that Hong has conducted include the Spokane, Richmond, and Winnepeg symphony orchestras, as well as the Seoul, Buffalo, and Lutosławski philharmonic orchestras.

Among his operatic and vocal performances are Copland’s The Tenderland, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, and Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. His most recent operatic production was Donizetti’s L’exisir d’Amore at the Wortham Opera Theatre in Houston. Awards that he has received include the Leopold Stokowski Fellowship and the Whitaker Fund for Opera. Most recently, he was awarded the fellowship by the Brahms society of Baden-Baden offering residency for several weeks in the studio of Brahms’ only remaining summer home in Germany.

As an educator, Hong was on the faculty of the Shepherd School Pre-College at Rice University, teaching piano to young students. He was also a part of the Just for U Music Program (JUMP!) at the university, dialoging and interacting with children as well as performing for them. In 2006, he was an integral part of forming a new musical organization, working closely with the executive and artistic directors as the founding conductor. Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, Youth Symphony for United Nations, or YSUN’s, guiding principle continues to be “a gathering of sound for world peace.”

Hong was born in Incheon, Korea, and emmigrated to the United States with his family in 1978. He began his musical training at the age of fifteen on the piano and continued his studies with Dr. Samuel Hsu at Philadelphia Biblical University. Later, he went on to earn a master’s degree in choral conducting at Temple University and an artist diploma in orchestral conducting from the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with Maestro Otto Werner Mueller. He concluded his artistic training with Maestro Larry Rachleff at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

The program Hong will conduct for the Performance Plus concert includes Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony—more commonly known as the “Pastoral” Symphony—and Overture to “The Creatures of Prometheus.” Also featured will be IUP piano professor Henry Wong Doe performing Beethoven’s second piano concerto with the orchestra.

Tickets for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performance are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus or online at IUP Tickets.com. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the performance.

Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $10 for students and children, and $14 for seniors (age sixty-two and older). For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Performance Plus is presented by the College of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association,African American Cultural Center, Office of International Education, and Liberal Studies Program. This project is additionally supported by grants from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts provided through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance.

The performance will feature the Indiana Junior High School Jazz Band and the IUP Wind Ensemble, with guest soloists Marvin Stamm and Kevin Eisensmith. The concert begins at 2:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center and follows the special evening performance April 2 featuring Stamm with the IUP Jazz Band and Jazz Ensemble.

The Indiana Junior High School Jazz Band, under the direction of Nevin Saylor, enjoys a long tradition of excellence. In addition to conference performances, the ensemble performed across southeastern Australia during a ten-day tour in 1993. In 2003, the Indiana Area School District (IASD) Jazz Trio performed at the International Association for Jazz Education Conference and at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Den Haag, Netherlands.

In the late 1990s, the IASD initiated the Jazz Artist in Residence program, which has enabled the district jazz ensembles to rehearse and perform in concert with such artists as Jon Faddis, Slide Hampton, Chris Vadala, Rex Richards, Jim McFalls, Steve Wilson, James Moore, Louis Bonilla, Phil Kuehn, Joe Saylor, and Jonathan Batiste.

Following a brief intermission, the IUP Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Jack Stamp, will present the premiere performance of Greg McLean’s “The Twain Have Met.” This work, originally written for symphony orchestra and two solo trumpets, will receive its band arrangement premiere at IUP.

Composer Greg McLean, trumpet player, composer, and arranger, is one of Atlanta’s busiest musicians. He  has performed abroad numerous times with Hotlanta Dixieland Jazz, (a six-piece New Orleans style jazz group), including at the Singapore Arts Festival and tours of Poland and Russia in 1996.

Assisting in the performance will be IUP music faculty members Michael Kingan, drums, and Nathan Santos, bass. Guest artist Peter Dugas will play piano.

For more information about this concert, please contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547.

College of Fine Arts

As part of the festival, a concert on Saturday, April 2, will feature guest soloist Marvin Stamm on trumpet. He will perform with the IUP Jazz Band, under the direction of Keith Young, and the IUP Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Kevin Eisensmith. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center.

Also part of the festival, a free concert will be presented April 3 at 2:00 p.m. featuring the Indiana Junior High School Jazz Band and the IUP Wind Ensemble, with guest soloists Stamm and Eisensmith. Find more information about the April 3 jazz concert.

Throughout his distinguished career, Stamm has been praised for both the art and the craft of trumpet playing. A graduate of North Texas State University, he has performed with and been a member of the Stan Kenton orchestra, the Woody Herman band, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, and the Duke Pearson Big Band as well as performing with Frank Sinatra and the Benny Goodman Sextet, among others.

More recently, Stamm has focused his attention on his first love: playing jazz. Over his career, he has been a member of John Lewis’ American Jazz Orchestra, the Bob Mintzer Band, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, and Louis Bellson’s big band and quintet and, on a number of occasions, performed with the big band of composer Maria Schneider.

Currently, Stamm spends much of the year touring. His activities include performing as a soloist, touring with his jazz quartet, and playing in a duo with pianist Bill Mays. Stamm and Mays recently formed and are touring with a new group, the Inventions Trio, which includes cellist Alisa Horn. Stamm performs with symphony orchestras throughout the country and maintains his ties with the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band.

Consciously acknowledging his debt to the influence and guidance of former teachers and fellow musicians, Stamm also commits a good deal of his time to helping young music students develop their own voices.

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building and will be sold at the door starting one hour before the performance. Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for senior citizens, and $6 for students and children.

For more information about this concert, please contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547.

Stamm’s appearance at the IUP Jazz Festival has been made possible in part through grants from Shire’s Trumpets and Volkwein’s Music.

The IUP Wind Ensemble of the Department of Music will present a Concerto Competition Finale Concert on Monday, March 21, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. as part of the Sound Choices series.

Originally scheduled for Fisher Auditorium, the concert will instead be performed in Gorell Recital Hall, on the second floor of John Sutton Hall.

Following a rigorous competition process starting in December, four students have been selected to perform a concerto with the IUP Wind Ensemble. The process began with students performing a ten-minute excerpt on their solo instrument, followed by judging by Music faculty and students. After several weeks of rehearsal, the finale concert will feature the finest IUP student musicians in this very special performance. The IUP Wind Ensemble is under the direction of Jack Stamp.

The first student will be Marisa Youngs performing Alexander Arutiunian’s Concerto for Trumpet. Next will be Louise Vranesevic, who will perform Maria von Weber’s Concertino for Oboe. IUP oboe professor Stephanie Caulder will serve as guest conductor.

Following intermission and a performance of Gustav Holst’s “March” from the First Suite in E-flat, will be Paul Creston’s “Lively” from Concertino for Marimba, featuring Brett Landry as soloist.

The program will end with the world premiere of Anthony O’Toole’s Concerto for Euphonium, performed by Michael Waddell.

Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for seniors (age sixty-two and older) and for groups of fifteen or more, and $6 for students and children. A special $5 price for high school groups is available by calling the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu. All seating is by general admission.

Music Theater at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the uniquely inspired production of Trial by Grand Jury. It will be performed March 17, 18, and 19, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. and March 20, at 2:00 p.m. on the Waller Hall Mainstage.

According to director Sarah Mantel, the production was assembled “With apologies to William S. Gilbert and Arthur S. Sullivan in a ‘grand’ reworking of their first true collaborative effort, Trial by Jury,” which premiered in 1875 at London’s Royalty Theater.

In Trial by Jury, Edwin, tiring of his sweetheart, Angelina, falls in love with another. Angelina promptly hauls him into court for breach of promise. Though both jury and judge indicate that they have had similar episodes in their own past, they have little sympathy for Edwin and are plainly captivated by the beauteous Angelina.

Mantel goes on to explain, “The resolution of this ‘nice dilemma’ is accomplished, in our production, with the help of some familiar characters and songs from The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance.

“A grand jury must be chosen and our presiding judge is none other than the Mikado of Japan. So imagine the comic chaos that might accompany a gala reunion of some of Gilbert’s most memorable characters singing some of Sullivan’s most delightful melodies.

"What if, for example, the Mikado actually met Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. of the good ship H.M.S. Pinafore or the lovely Mabel of The Pirates of Penzance?" These are just a couple of the comic combinations poised in Trial by Grand Jury.

Trial by Grand Jury will be sung in English and is appropriate for all ages.

Tickets for Trial by Grand Jury are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before each performance. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Box Office at 724-357-1313 or purchasing online at IUP Tickets.com.

For more information, contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail us at lively-arts@iup.edu.

Tickets are priced at $15 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of 15 or more, and $9 for children and students.

This production is a Lively Arts event presented by the IUP Music Theater. It is produced by the Department of Music within the College of Fine Arts and funded, in part, by the Student Cooperative Association.

Pictured above (top) are Esther Hull as Mabel and Adam Fladd as Frederic; (middle, left to right) Hull, Frankie Mosley as the Usher, and Leanna McGiboney as Angelina; (bottom), McGiboney and Mark Pavlecic as Edwin.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has invited concert pianist and IUP assistant professor of piano Henry Wong Doe to perform a solo with the orchestra when it presents its concert in Indiana in March 2011.

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of the partnership between the PSO and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the concert will be presented Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center. The concert is part of the Lively Arts’ Performance Plus series.

Wong Doe will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the world-acclaimed orchestra. The young musician has made an impressive name for himself, performing in major concert halls around the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

Wong Doe began his studies at the age of five in his native New Zealand and was the recipient of numerous national awards there before embarking on further study in the United States. He earned a master’s degree from Indiana University Bloomington and a doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York. He joined the IUP faculty in Fall 2009.

Wong Doe’s debut with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra was received with great acclaim, and he has since been a regular performer on its main concert series. He won Audience Favorite prizes at both the Rubinstein and Busoni international piano competitions and continues to enthrall audiences around the world with his uniquely captivating style.

He was recently awarded grants to record the complete piano work of renowned New Zealand composer Gareth Farr. The recording is set to be released this summer.

The Pittsburgh Symphony has presented a style of musical brilliance around the world since 1898. Under the direction of Manfred Honeck, the orchestra has embarked on its 2011–2012 season, including European tour appearances in Paris and Lithuania.

The Indiana engagement, under the baton of PSO resident director Thomas Hong, will perform an all-Beethoven concert, including the Sixth Symphony—more commonly known as the “Pastoral” Symphony—and Overture to “The Creatures of Prometheus.”

Tickets for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performance are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus or online at IUP Tickets.com. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the performance.

Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $10 for students and children, and $14 for seniors (age sixty-two and older). For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Performance Plus is presented by the College of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association,African American Cultural Center, Office of International Education, and Liberal Studies Program. This project is additionally supported by grants from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts provided through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance.

The Department of Music will host a Brass Day on Saturday, March 5, 2011, which will feature guest soloist Demondrae Thurman and the HoodleBug Brass, IUP's faculty brass quintet.

In addition to special events for brass musicians, Thurman, a renowned euphonium and trombone soloist, will perform a recital at 4:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall with an at-the-door admission fee of $5.

The day will culminate with a free concert at 7:00 p.m. in the Dicco Rehearsal Hall, Room 121 of Cogswell Hall. This concert features performances by the 2011 Brass Day ensembles in trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba, and euphonium and a Massed Brass Ensemble. Also performing will be Thurman and the HoodleBug Brass.

Thurman is considered one of the stars of the formidable generation of brass soloists. His euphonium playing has been described as "awe inspiring," and he is touted as "an amazing musician." He has a firm international reputation as a euphonium soloist, having performed in France, Germany, England, Norway, and Romania and throughout North America.

Over the last ten years, Thurman has been an invited guest artist/clinician at many of the world's prestigious euphonium festivals, including the International Tuba/Euphonium Conference, U.S. Army Band Tuba and Euphonium Conference, and the Leonard Falcone Competition. His primary teachers are John Stevens, J. Michael Dunn, James Jenkins, and Daniel Drill.

The IUP Wind Ensemble, Chamber Singers, and University Chorale will premiere a new work by African American composer Stephen Michael Newby during a concert on Saturday, February 26, 2011, at 8:00 p.m.

The concert, presented in celebration of Black History Month, will be performed in Fisher Auditorium of IUP's Performing Arts Center. The concert is presented by the IUP Department of Music.

The work, titled “Our Enduring Spirit,” written for chorus and wind ensemble, is partially based on speeches by President Barack Obama.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Newby earned his Bachelor of Arts in vocal music education and flute performance from Madonna College in Livonia, Michigan. He earned his M.M. in jazz composition and arranging from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and his D.M.A. in composition from the University of Michigan. There, he studied with William Albright, Michael Daugherty, George Wilson, Fred Lerdahl, and Pulitzer Prize winners William Bolcom and Leslie Bassett.

Newby’s compositions have earned him numerous awards and grants, including the National Endowment of the Arts Continental Harmony Grant, the King County Arts Commission of Washington Grant, and the Rackham School Fellowship for Ethno-musicological Research in Dakar, Senegal.

Newby is director of the Office of University Ministries and the Center for Worship, an associate professor of music, and director of the Gospel Choir at Seattle Pacific University.

The concert will also include the world premiere of senior IUP music major Anthony O'Toole's “Concerto for Tuba,” with IUP faculty member Zach Collins as soloist. The IUP Symphony Band will open the concert with works by noted American composers Robert Russell Bennett and Norman Dello Joio.

Tickets are available through Friday, February 25, at the Hadley Union Building on the IUP campus and will be sold at the door starting Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for seniors (age sixty-two and older) and for groups of fifteen or more, and $6 for students and children. A special $5 price for high school groups is available by calling the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or by e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu. All seating is by general admission.

Currently showing in Kipp Gallery, “Inspired” features art works by regional high school teachers and their students. The exhibition runs through March 3, 2011.

Teachers invited to participate were also asked to choose one of their students to exhibit along with them. The result is a “best of the best” exhibition in the field of art education.

Kipp Gallyer is located in Sprowls Hall on the corner of Eleventh and Grant streets on the IUP campus. Gallery hours are noon to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday through Friday.

College of Fine Arts

An exhibition featuring posters designed by faculty and students from Poland will open in Kipp Gallery's Annex space on Tuesday, March 1, 2011. A reception for the exhibit will follow a special music program being performed on Saturday, March 19, featuring music by Chopin.

The exhibit, along with a music recital, commemorates the bicentennial (1810–2010) of the birth of composer Frederic Chopin. The exhibit is brought to Indiana in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Council.

The key event of this celebration will be the opening of an exhibition of posters celebrating the life and works of Chopin created by faculty and students from Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski University in Krakow, Poland. Art professor Kyle Houser is curating the exhibit.

Kipp Gallery is located in Sprowls Hall on the corner of Eleventh and Grants streets on the IUP campus. Gallery hours are noon to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and the exhibit will be on display from March 1 through April 8.

IUP piano students, faculty, and visiting judge David Allen Werhr, of Duquesne University, will present a public recital and competition on Saturday, March 19, as part of the celebration. It will be peformed in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of Sutton Hall. The program will begin at 3:00 p.m. with a competition featuring IUP piano students, with each contestant performing up to five minutes of music by Chopin. The recital will be immediately followed by a reception in Kipp Gallery.

All events are free.

Local student Jamie Latson will join the Evidence Dance Company when they perform Wednesday evening, February 23, 2011, in Fisher Auditorium.

He will perform as part of their work titled “Two Year-Old Gentleman.”

The event is part of the Lively Arts’ Performance Plus season.

Jamie, age seven, is in the first grade at Horace Mann Elementary School and is the son of Kelly Latson of Indiana. He is the grandson of Irwin and Elizabeth Marcus, also of Indiana.

Jamie has been involved in gymnastics for four years and dancing for two years at Sharon’s School of Dance. Last year, he took hip hop, adding ballet this year. He is also a wrestler for Indiana Wrestling Boosters.

“Two Year-Old Gentleman” is a piece loosely based on the relationship between the nephew of Evidence founder and artistic director Ronald K. Brown and the young boy’s grandfather. The work poses questions about the responsibility of men as well as paying homage to traditions passed down from one generation to another.

Evidence will also peform “One Shot: First Glance,” based on the photojournalism of a Pittsburgh African American, the late Charles “Teenie” Harris.

Tickets for the Evidence performance are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus or online. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the performance.

Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $10 for students and children, and $14 for seniors (62 and older). For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Performance Plus is presented by the College of Fine Arts. This event, presented in celebration of Black History Month, is sponsored by the Massaro Corporation and is additionally funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, African American Cultural Center, Office of International Education, and Liberal Studies Program. Additional support has been provided by Pan-African Studies, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the international touring troupe Evidence: A Dance Company, as part of the Performance Plus series in Fisher Auditorium, on Wednesday, February 23, 2011, at 8:00 p.m.

Founded by Ronald K. Brown in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, New York, Evidence is a thriving contemporary dance ensemble, widely recognized as one of the finest in the country. With a focus on sharing history and traditions, the group uses music, movement, and spoken word to paint vivid pictures.

The company celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last year, which included a ground-breaking tour of Africa with the support of DanceMotion/USA. Evidence has also appeared at major performance venues across the U.S. and abroad. Brown also received the Astaire Award in June 2010 and his career was celebrated with an exhibit at the Peg Alston Fine Arts Gallery in NYC.

Sarah Kaufman, of the Washington Post, recently wrote of Evidence, “The dancing is undeniably powerful; it sweeps you up in its physical tumult and strong emotions. There is nothing cool and restrained about Brown’s works…”

For their Indiana appearance, the company is scheduled to perform two pieces of Brown’s original choreography. The featured work of the evening, “One Shot: First Glance,” is based on the photography of late Charles “Teenie” Harris. Harris, a noted photojournalist with the Pittsburgh Courier, documented everyday African American life in the city. Using the photography as inspiration, Brown interprets the Harris photography through video, music, and movement.

The dance work is done in conjunction with a University Museum exhibit that features the work of Harris, along with quilts by Tina Williams Brewer and paintings and prints by Ben Shahn.

The company’s other selection, “Two Year-old Gentleman,” is a piece loosely based on the relationship between Brown’s nephew and his grandfather. The work poses questions about the responsibility of men as well as paying homage to traditions passed down from one generation to another. Local student and dancer James Latson will perform with the company as the young gentleman.

Tickets for the Evidence performance are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus or online. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the performance.

Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $10 for students and children, and $14 for seniors (62 and older). For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Performance Plus is presented by the College of Fine Arts. This event, presented in celebration of Black History Month, is sponsored by the Massaro Corporation and is additionally funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, African American Cultural Center, Office of International Education, and Liberal Studies Program. Additional support has been provided by Pan-African Studies, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

All workshops are led solely by professionals, including the touring artists visiting as part of our Performance Plus series. One, in relation to the Pittsburgh Symphony appearance, will be led by IUP music professors and musicians Dr. Matthew Baumer and Dr. Henry Wong Doe, himself an active world touring pianist.

Here is a list of a few recent activities and things coming up. Please let us know if you would like more information or would like to attend. As always, most educational sessions are open to the general public, and all are free of charge with funding provided by a variety of grants and other support.

• Adrienne Danrich presented a lecture/demonstration on her work and performance: Wednesday, February 9, 12:20–1:20 p.m., Gorell Recital Hall
• New York-based composer Drew Hemenger presents a talk about his compositions and career with “Meet the Composer”: Thursday, February 10, 2011, 3:30–4:30, Room 201, Cogswell Hall (area school music directors provided special invitation)
• Meet the Artists post-show reception for all audience members following the Thursday evening performance, February 10, of An Evening in the Harlem Renaissance, performed by international touring artist and soprano, Adrienne Heinrich; composer Drew Hemenger; and Serbia native and pianist Djordje Nesic.
• A Text and Movement workshop with Evidence Dance Company founder and artistic director, Ronald K. Brown: February 21, 2:30–3:30 p.m., Fisher Auditorium stage (Teachers/high school seniors: If you would like to attend, we would love to have you join us. Just let us know by e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu).
• Available for High School Music Teachers: We are offering a limited number of opportunities for area high school students to learn more about the upcoming March 29 performance of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Two of our music faculty members, including pianist Henry Wong Doe, who will be a soloist for the concert, will visit schools to give students special insights into the performance and this all-Beethoven concert. We have sent information to several schools. If you did not get it, please let us know by e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu.
• More: When the the New York-based dance company Ben Munisteri Dance Projects comes to town in April, we will be providing additional opportunities where founder and director Ben Munisteri will be available to lead several workshops and open rehearsals in preparation for a special world preview performance. We will let you know more in a future eLetter.
• ArtsPath: These services above, along with our extensive artist residency program provided for schools in a five-county area, offer in-depth arts experiences to three to five thoudand students annually.

To receive regular updates about all of our activities, "Go Live!" by subscribing to our eLetter.

Next up in the Theater-by-the-Grove 2010–2011 season at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will be the powerful drama The Crucible.

Written by Arthur Miller, performances are slated for February 17–19 and 23–26, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. with a matinee on Sunday, February 20, at 2:00 p.m. Performances will be presented on the Waller Hall Mainstage of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

The play centers on the events of the Salem witch trials of 1692 and 1693. Based on actual occurrences, it is about a town whose citizens begin a mad hunt for following accusations from a few young girls.

Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953 in response to the hearings lead by Joseph McCarthy from the late 1940s though the 1950s. Miller, himself, was brought before the House of Un-American Activities Committee and found guilty of beliefs in Communism. The theme of unsupported hysteria brought to the forefront by “McCarthyism” is conveyed through the struggles of the main character in the play, John Proctor.

Jason Chimonides, the production's director, stated, “Our approach to The Crucible is animated most by a primary interest in the psychological dimension of the material, with the political dimension being of secondary emphasis.”

Chimonides, a member of the IUP theater faculty, also continued to explain, “As director, my approach to the play has been one of full collaboration with my student actors and staff. Together we have researched the history, events, and culture of the play's origin and worked cooperatively to develop characterization, staging and performance.

“Our production is one in which every member of the team feels a strong sense of ownership. What you will see on the stage is our work: theirs as much as mine.”

Tickets for The Crucible are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before each performance. Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more, and $8 with a university I-card. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Box Office at 724-357-1313 or online. For more information, contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail us at lively-arts@iup.edu.

The play contains themes and subject matter that may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

Theater-by-the-Grove is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and the College of Fine Arts. It is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

World-renowned soprano Adrienne Danrich will perform An Evening in the Harlem Renaissance on Thursday, February 10, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall, John Sutton Hall.

The concert is part of the Lively Arts’Performance Plus series, which brings touring artists from around the globe to Indiana throughout the year.

Danrich will lead the audience on a journey through the sights and sounds of the Harlem Renaissance. Presented in a documentary style, the performance will chronicle one of the most exciting times in American history for African American writers, singers, and composers. It will include recordings, pictures, and songs that were hits from the 1920s through the early 1940s, highlighting the music of Billie Holiday, Margaret Bonds, Harold Arlen, and George Gershwin, among others.

The program will bridge these decades through the premiere of four new works by New York-based composer Drew Hemenger. Set to the writings of Langston Hughes, one work will be a duet with Danrich and IUP voice professor Joseph Baunoch. Four IUP music students will also assist Danrich with the production. The performance is presented in collaboration with pianist Djordje Stevan Nesic.

The four new works are co-commissioned by the Lively Arts. Hemenger will be in attendance for the concert and, as part of the Lively Arts extensive school outreach activity, will provide a workshop for area high school students and IUP music majors engaged in composition.

Danrich made her professional debut as Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zaubeflöte with Kentucky Opera and made her San Francisco Opera stage debut as Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen. She made debuts with Sarasota Opera, Opera Pacific, and Dayton Opera as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, her Lyric Opera of San Antonio debut as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte. Most recently, she returned to the Dayton Opera stage as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.

She has also performed lead opera roles with the Lyric Opera of San Antonio, the Cincinnati Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and others. She has performed with the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Bryan Symphony, St. George’s Choral Society, Dayton Philharmonic, Northern Kentucky Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, and Cape Cod Symphony, among others.

In October 2009, Danrich performed with the Kenya Opera in various venues throughout Africa in Nairobi and Mombasa. On the concert stage, Danrich made her soloist debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall with the New England Symphonic Ensemble and her Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center debut with the Little Orchestra of New York.

Danrich, a native of St. Louis, Mo., is an alumna of Eastman School of Music and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and has several recordings to her credit, including A Tribute to William Warfield with the Eastman School of Music.

Hemenger’s works have been commissioned by distinguished artists and institutions, both here and abroad, including Madrid’s Jones-Maruri Duo and most recently by Pascal and Ami Rogé to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, titled “Four Places in New York,” for piano.

Tickets for An Evening in the Harlem Renaissance are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office or online. Remaining tickets may be purchased at the door beginning forty-five minutes prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $14 for seniors (sixty-two and older) and groups of fifteen or more, and $10 for students and children. For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

This performance is presented by the Lively Arts in celebration of Black History Month and in cooperation with the IUP African American Cultural Center. Additional support for this project is being provided by the Office of Social Equity.

The Performance Plus series is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Office of International Education, and IUP’s Liberal Studies Program.

The Department of Music at Indiana University of Pennsylvania has announced that it will honor the memory of longtime choral professor James Dearing in a concert on Sunday, January 16, 2011.

The event will feature over 125 current and past students of the IUP choral program in a grand concert befitting of a fine teacher, conductor, singer, and friend.

The concert will begin at 3:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of John Sutton Hall. Music planned for the program includes “The Awakening” by Joseph Martin, “Dixie” arranged by Norman Luboff, “Wanting Memories” by Ysaye M. Barnwell, “David's Song Upon Absalom” edited by James Dearing, “Ave Verum Corpus” by Mozart, “The Mansions of the Lord” arranged by Benjamin Harlan, “Ain'a That Good News” by William Dawson, “O Magnum Mysterium” by Morten Lauridsen, “My Soul's Been Anchored in the Lord” arranged by Moses Hogan, and “Sing Me to Heaven” by Daniel Gawthrop. Former music students will serve as conductors, and the program is subject to change.

For alumni of the IUP choral program who would like to participate, please contact Sarah Piper by Wednesday, December 22, at shpiper@gmail.com. Please include your voice part and year of graduation. A rehearsal will be held on Saturday afternoon as well as on Sunday prior to the concert.

Dearing joined the IUP faculty in 1982 and most recently served as director of Choral Studies at IUP. He was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Music, where he studied with Otto-Werner Mueller and Robert Fountain. Before coming to IUP, Dearing was assistant director of the 7th U.S. Army Soldiers Chorus and director of Choral Studies at the University of Virginia, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and California Polytechnic State University.

In his earlier career, he served as tenor soloist with the Roger Wagner Chorale touring throughout the former Soviet Union, the Far East, South America, Europe, and across North America under the auspices of the U.S. State Department and Sol Hurok Productions. In recent years, he was also a frequent guest conductor and adjudicator for high school and collegiate choral festivals throughout North America.

In announcing Professor Dearing’s passing in late November after an extended illness, David Werner, interim president at IUP, said, “While I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know Mr. Dearing, I’ve heard a great deal about his talent, his passion for music, and his tremendous impact on decades of Music Department students.”

Professor Dearing’s wife, Kristi, is also a Department of Music faculty member. A community memorial service was held on December 13 at Calvary Presbyterian, where Prof. Dearing served as choir director for many years.

As an ongoing way to honor Prof. Dearing’s legacy, the department and the Foundation for IUP have set up an account for donations that will go towards naming of the James C. Dearing Ensemble Library in Cogswell Hall, home of the Department of Music. Those wishing to contribute may send their tax-deductible contribution to the Foundation for IUP, G-1 Sutton Hall, 1011 South Drive, Indiana, PA 15705, payable to Foundation for IUP—Dearing Library Fund.

A ceremony will be held immediately following the concert dedicating the ensemble library in Prof. Dearing’s name.

Admission to the concert and dedication ceremony is free, but donations will be gratefully accepted.

The first exhibit (left), which is open through Friday, December 10, 2010, features work by Richard Meyers in an exhibit titled “KT.” Randy Baker will then present his thesis (below, right) show in our annex gallery, located inside the Sprowls Hall lobby (room 118-B) December 14–17. Baker's exhibition is titled “Mass Self Consumption.”

Sprowls Hall is located on the corner of 11th and Grant streets on the IUP campus. Please visit the Fine Arts Galleries and Museum website for further details as they are confirmed, or find us on Facebook.

The conference, which meets annually in New York City, serves as a think tank in support of the development and the health of the American theater, and has been particularly engaged in encouraging new playwrights and plays, as well as making awards to outstanding theater artists, administrators, educators, and companies.

Membership in the conference is by election and cannot exceed 150.

Theater-by-the-Grove and Music Theater at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will swing into the holiday season with Irving Berlin’s classic family musical, White Christmas. The show opens on December 2, 2010, with performances slated for December 2-4 at 8:00 p.m. and a matinee on Sunday, December 5, at 2:00 p.m. Performances will be presented on the stage of Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

Based on the popular film classic of the same name, the story begins at the end of the Second World War, where two of the show’s lead characters, Bob and Phil, met as soldiers. Soon after, we are taken into the 1950s, where Bob and Phil have risen to the level of a highly successful entertainment duo.

The team is booked to perform during the holidays at a Vermont lodge, and soon meet Betty and Judy, a sister performance act that is equally as successful. The duo of duos strike up a romantic relationship, and simultaneously find the lodge, which has fallen on hard times, is owned by none other than the Bob and Phil’s former army commander.

White Christmas’ amazing score by Irving Berlin features some of the greatest songs ever written, including “Blue Skies,” “Count Your Blessings,” “I Love a Piano,” and certainly “White Christmas,” the most popular-selling single of all time.

The director of the show, Lisa Ann Goldsmith, commented on the show, saying it’s not just about songs and the wish for a white Christmas, “It’s about relationships.”

One of the most important aspects of the 1950s that the young actors had to recognize was the simplicity of the people and the time. Goldsmith explained, “We’ve lost some of that one-on-one human interaction that was presented so clearly in the 1950s. Today, we’re not used to people’s feelings being so simple. Technology can take away from openly communicating with someone face-to-face.”

Goldsmith, a member of the IUP theater faculty, added, “It’s a lovely show, and it’s perfect for the holiday season. It’s warm. It’s funny. It’s touching—a great Christmas gift. There’s a reason that pieces like this hold up for so long.”

Tickets for White Christmas are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting one hour before each performance.

Tickets are priced at $15 for regular admission, $13 for senior citizens and groups of 15 or more, and $9 for children and students. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Box Office at 724-357-1313, or bought directly online.

For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail us at lively-arts@iup.edu.

Theater-by-the-Grove is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance. IUP Music Theater is produced by the Department of Music. Both are housed within the College of Fine Arts and funded, in part, by the Student Cooperative Association.

Photographs are courtesy of the Indiana Gazzette; Danielle Burglund, photographer.

IUP will also host two area high school bands on campus for clinics with Ticheli, who will also visit the Indiana Area High School to work with their wind ensemble and symphonic band.

Dr. Ticheli's music has been described as being “optimistic and thoughtful” (Los Angeles Times), “lean and muscular” (New York Times), “brilliantly effective” (Miami Herald), and “powerful, deeply felt crafted with impressive flair and an ear for striking instrumental colors” (South Florida Sun-Sentinel).

Ticheli is well known for his works for concert band, many of which have become standards in the repertoire. His orchestral and choral works have received considerable recognition in the U.S. and Europe.

The IUP Chorus will open the program with “Let There Be Rest” before the IUP Symphony Band takes the stage and performs “Nitro,” a recent composition titled “San Antonio Dances,” and “Vesuvius.” The IUP Concert Band will close the first half of the program with “Simple Gifts: Four Shaker Songs,” “Amen!,” and the very popular “Cajun Folk Songs.”

The second half of the program features the choral work “Earth Song,” performed by the IUP Chamber Singers, and concludes with three works performed by the IUP Wind Ensemble: “Postcard,” “Angels in the Architecture,” and “Blue Shades.”

Ticheli, born in 1958, joined the faculty of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in 1991, where he is professor of Composition. From 1991 to 1998, Ticheli was Composer in Residence of the Pacific Symphony. In addition to composing, he has appeared as guest conductor of his music at Carnegie Hall, at many American universities and music festivals, and in cities throughout the world.

Ticheli is the winner of the 2006 NBA/William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest for his Symphony No. 2 and was named by the American School Band Directors Association as the 2009 recipient of the A. Austin Harding Award, bestowed to individuals ”who have made exceptional contributions to the school band movement in America.”

Ticheli received his doctoral and master’s degrees in composition from the University of Michigan. His works are published by Manhattan Beach, Southern, Hinshaw, and Encore Music and are recorded on the labels of Albany, Chandos, Clarion, Klavier, Koch International, and Mark Records.

Tickets for the concert are available now at the Hadley Union Building box office. Tickets will also be available at the door starting at 1:00 p.m. the day of the concert. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 for senior citizens, and $6 for students and I-card holders.

For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The talk will focus on his body of work from the last thirty years. The gallery will be open for viewing immediately following the artist talk. If you missed the opening, this is an excellent opportunity to engage with the works as well as with Dr. Nestor.

The Kipp Gallery is located in Sprowls Hall on the IUP campus at the corner of 11th and Grant streets. The exhibit runs through November 19, and hours are Tuesday through Friday from noon to 4:00 p.m. Admission to the presentation and the exhibit are free.

Additional information and photos can be seen in the exhibit’s recent news post, the Kipp Gallery website, or the Kipp Gallery Facebook page.

Martynuik, joining the IUP music faculty in 2001, explained, “This will be the first time that the Marching Band has performed in Fisher Auditorium since before the extensive renovations to the Performing Arts Center in 2007.

“We will perform music from over the course of the entire Fall season, including Gustav Holst’s classic masterpiece “The Planets,” Martynuik said. “We will also perform music that was made famous by Eric Clapton.”

The IUP Marching Band was formed in 1921 under the leadership of D.O. Slyker, who was followed by a succession of directors that continued to build on a tradition of musical excellence and precision. Disbanded for two years during World War II, the band, often referred to as “The Legend,” has always been considered synonymous with exuberance, excellence, and extraordinary imagination.

Over the years, the Marching Band has been featured at a host of band festivals, parades, and special events throughout the region. They have performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, at the Statue of Liberty, and in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. In 1987, the IUP Marching Band was the official band at the U.S. Constitution bicentennial celebration, and represented the U.S. in 1989 in Paris during the French Bicentennial.

The Marching Band is also a popular group performing for many major professional sports teams, having performed for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, and the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes.

The IUP Marching Band continues to be a great source of pride for the university and the Indiana community, and is in high demand for special appearances around Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

Tickets for Band in Review are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus, or online at IUP Tickets.com. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the performance.

Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for seniors (age sixty-two and older) and for groups of fifteen or more, and $6 for students and children. A special $5 price for high school groups is available by calling The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu. All seating is by general admission.

Sound Choices is produced by the Department of Music and presented by the Lively Arts, a program of the College of Fine Arts. The IUP Marching Band is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

The concert will feature English conductor and IUP graduate Stephen Gregson. Also included are Christine Clewell, organist and an assistant professor of music at IUP; the HoodleBug Brass, IUP's brass quintet-in-residence; and Joseph Banouch, baritone soloist and member of the IUP voice faculty. Lynne Jones, music director at the Newman Center, will also perform as soloist.

Combining forces for this special program are choir members from Indiana and United high schools along with choir members from several church choirs in Indiana. Others providing prelude music are music majors Melanie Davis, Maximillian Esmus, and Randall Frye; Zion Lutheran Church parish organist Kay Thorell; and Calvary organist Roberta Jones.

A native of Dorset, England, Gregson studied piano and percussion at Trinity College, London, and conducted under Jack Stamp at IUP, where he was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 2000. He has enjoyed a substantial career in music education, and has also worked as a freelance conductor, pianist, and percussionist.

Gregson is currently a choral conducting trainer for the International Sing for Pleasure movement, an examiner for the Royal Schools of Music, and director of the Broadstone Community Choir. He is also a published arranger through Oxford University Press, and has been a guest conductor for the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association and the South Wessex Opera Company, in addition to directing the Milton Abbey Festival and working with the Bournemouth Symphony Youth Chorus.

The concert will feature a wide variety of music ranging from “O magnum Mysterium,” by sixteenth-century composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, to “Open Thou Mine Eyes” by polpular choral composer John Rutter. Of special note are the “Five Mystical Songs” by Ralph Vaughan Williams, which are dedicated to the late William Kelly, husband of former IUP faculty member and organist Carol Teti.

Since its establishment in 1993, the challenge and mission for the Carol Teti Memorial Organ Scholarship Committee has been working to overcome the continually growing trend of fewer organists in the U.S. on the local, state, and national levels. In the effort to combat this trend, the committee’s primary focus is raising scholarship money through fall and spring fundraising events for students who wish to pursue the study of organ and church music at IUP. To date, the committee has awarded over $30,000 to nearly thirty-five students.

The concert is free, but donations will be gratefully appreciated. A reception will follow the performance.

For additional information, please call (724) 463-8046, or e-mail Dr. Clewell at orgel@iup.edu.

The Lively Arts

Founded in 1995 as an interdisciplinary ensemble, Pig Iron Theatre Company is dedicated to the creation of new and exuberant performance works that defy easy categorization. In the past fourteen years, the company has created twenty-four original works and has toured to festivals and theaters in England, Scotland, Poland, Lithuania, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Romania, and Germany, as well as across the U.S.

Pig Iron is composed of three artistic directors and four company members in addition to a production and administrative staff and board of directors. Many of their works, including one they are working on during extended residencies at IUP this year, are often developed in residency at other theaters and universities. The company made Philadelphia its permanent home in 1997.

Chekhov Lizardbrain is a loose and provocative comedy about the thought process of a mildly autistic mind. The performance captures his character as he zigzags over troubling memories in an attempt to piece the stream of events together.

Directed by Dan Rothenberg and created in collaboration with the ensemble, Chekhov Lizardbrain received a highly prestigious Obie Award for its New York Off-Broadway run in 2008. The New York Times named it one of the top ten theater events of the 2008 season, and stated that the show is “Peculiar, hypnotic, and unexpectedly moving. . . A wonderful production that glimmers with a quirky fascination.” (The full review is available through a link on the Performance Plus webpage.)

The theme of the story is brewed both from Anton Chekhov’s writings and Paul Maclean’s controversial “Triune [three] Brain” theory, originally formulated in the 1960s. MacLean has proposed that our skull holds not one brain, but three, each representing a distinct evolutionary stratum, including the reptilian brain. He further postulates that the three brains are connected by nerves, but that each seems to operate as its own brain system with distinct capacities, allowing the ability to highlight one’s own memory and subjectivity.

The play is further described as a “parade of unsettling and comic recollections that spins a web of memory and vaudeville.” It also contains situations and language to which some audience members may object and which may not be appropriate for children.

Tickets for the Chekhov Lizardbrain are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus, or online at IUP Tickets.com. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the performance. Seating is limited.

Tickets are $10 for students and I-Card holders, $14 for seniors (62 and older) and for groups of fifteen or more, and $16 for regular admission. For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Performance Plus is presented by the College of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, African American Cultural Center, Office of International Education, and Liberal Studies Program. Performance Plus is additionally supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts provided through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance.

This project is also made possible through a New Directions grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, a program developed and funded by the Heinz Endowments; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the Pew Charitable Trusts; and administered by the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

The show will be performed October 29 and 30, 2010, at 7:00 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, October 31, at 2:00 p.m. Performances will be presented on the stage of the Zink Hall Dance Theater, located on Grant Street on the IUP campus.

This whimsical, wild, colorful, and comical dance performance bases its updated setting in the town of Pennsyltucky. Throughout the performance, the audience will be taken on a journey with the sixteen spoiled sisters as they sneak out of the house each night, leaving their youngest and ignored tomboy sister at home with their obliviously inattentive parents.

The sisters, in search of the perfect dance club, experience a variety of dance styles from the fifties, sixties, and seventies to Ballroom and Western. Each morning, the parents become more suspicious as to what is happening during the night. Their parents’ plan to stay awake and keep watch over their daughters as they sleep is foiled by yet more devious activities.

The production’s director, Holly Boda-Sutton, has incorporated aspects into the show from other recognizable fairy tales as well, such as Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, giving the show a very Disney-esque quality.

Boda-Sutton, a member of the IUP dance faculty, went on to explain, “The show is fast paced, funny, and shows a wide range of dance styles and techniques. The show is something everyone can enjoy.”

Tickets for Sixteen Dancing Divas are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before each performance. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Box Office at 724-357-1313 or online.Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more, and $8 for children, students, and those with a university I-card.

For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

IUP’s Dance Theater is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and the College of Fine Arts. It is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

The performance will include works such as Ralph Vaughn Williams’ “In Windsor Forest” featuring Wong Doe and adapted from the opera Sir John in Love. 

Antonacos will be featured in the performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s 1842 chorus from Nabuko titled “Va Pensiero” as well as a piece from Don Carlo, which premiered in 1867.

Collaboratively, four works from the American composer Irving Fine’s 1942 Alice in Wonderland series will be performed. Fine has been commended on his skill of creating pieces that are filled with innocence as well as sophisticated irony.

The performance will also include works from Neue Liebeslieder, Op. 65. This collection of Romantic pieces was written by Johannes Brahms for four soloists and four hands on the piano. The love songs were written between 1869 and 1874 and include fellow faculty musician Mary Logan Hastings, soprano.

Wong Doe, a New Zealand native, received his D.M.A. degree in piano from the Juilliard School and his master’s degree from Indiana University Bloomington. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Auckland.

Wong Doe has performed in major concert halls around the world including Lincoln Center, New York, Mann Auditorium, Tel Aviv, and the Sydney Opera House. Lending his experience and knowledge, Wong Doe now teaches applied piano and introduction to music classes at IUP and maintains an active performance schedule as recitalist, accompanist, and soloist.

Holding a doctorate in piano performance from Indiana University in Bloomington, Antonacos has presented notable performances around the world as a solo recitalist and chamber musician. She has played in locations such as Greece, Russia, France, and Belgium, as well as various places throughout the U.S., including Washington D.C. Antonacos joined the IUP Music faculty in August 2010.

Tickets for IUP Chorus and Premiere Piano are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus or online. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for seniors (age sixty-two and older) and for groups of fifteen or more, and $6 for students and children.

For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The IUP Jazz Band, led by Keith Young, will begin the concert. Among the works to be performed are Gershwin’s popular “Strike Up the Band” as arranged by Sammy Nestico, an arrangement of “Soul Sacrifice” by Carlos Santana, and two works by saxophonist/composer Bob Mintzer titled “Techno-Pop” and “Carla.”

Following a brief intermission, the IUP Jazz Ensemble, led by Kevin Eisensmith, will perform. The group will begin its portion of the concert with W. Roy Mitchell’s arrangement of “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Also scheduled for performance are original compositions written by numerous composers, including “Sleight of Hand” by Bret Spainhour, “Street Music” by Fred Sturm, and “Seventh Street Stomp” by Eric Richards. Zach Collins, IUP tuba professor, will join the ensemble for this final work.

The IUP Jazz Ensemble was started in 1938 as a dance band and was led by Valgene Roush. It was later known as The Mellowmen, directed by Charlie Davis. It continued through the 1970s and 1980s under the direction of Daniel DiCicco, evolving with the changes of jazz and popular music. Gary Bird led the band from the late 1980s until 1998.

The Jazz Band was begun in 1977 by Bird and was later led by Christian Dickinson.

Each band performs a mixture of jazz styles from Latin to Swing and ballads to fusion, and performs approximately thirty times annually. With venues including high school jazz festivals, assembly programs, and competitions throughout the state, the groups also host their own annual Jazz Festival scheduled for April 2-3, 2011. It will feature trumpeter Marvin Stamm.

Throughout the years, many well-known guest artists have performed with the Jazz Band and Jazz Ensemble, including trumpeters Vince DiMartino and Doc Severinsen, drummers Peter Erskine and Steve Houghton, pianists Ellis Marsalis, Jr., and Peter Nero, vocalists Cleo Laine and Rosemary Clooney, and saxophonist Chris Vadala, to name a few.

The concert is being presented by the IUP Department of Music and as part of IUP’s annual Family Weekend.

All three performers teach at the University of Southern Mississippi. The program will include works by Roger Kellaway, Sigurd Berge, John Stevens, Charles Ingram, and David Gillingham.

Admission is free.

The Symphony Band will open the program with Vincent Persichetti’s “Psalm for Band.” It will also perform “Variations on a Theme of Glinka” for oboe and military band, which will feature Stephanie Caulder as oboist. The band will conclude with the “Praetorius Suite” by Jan Bach.

The Concert Band will begin with Howard Hanson’s “Chorale and Alleluia,” a staple of the concert band repertoire, which was written in 1954. Jason Worzbyt, professor of bassoon and associate director of bands, will be the featured soloist performing Burrill Phillips’ “Concert Piece” for bassoon and wind band. The band will close with British composer Philip Sparke’s delightful “A Yorkshire Overture.”

The Wind Ensemble will open its portion of the concert with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Toccata Marziale.” The work was composed in 1924 for the British Empire Exhibition. It is considered one of the cornerstones of concert band literature. The work to follow is by American composer Clark McAlister, titled “This is the Day: Russian Easter Music.” McAlister, vice president and editor-in-chief of Edwin F. Kalmus Music Co., based this work on Russian Orthodox liturgical materials.

The highlight of the Wind Ensemble’s performance will be the world premiere of Eric Ewazen’s “On Wings of Song: Concerto for Piccolo and Wind Ensemble.” The work was commissioned by IUP’s flute professor, Therese Wacker. The work is cast in four movements: 1. Over Distant, Murmuring Waves; 2. Under Serene Moonlight; 3. All Earthly Cares Entwining; 4. Shall Fade Away in Dreams. The composer will be in attendance.

The Wind Ensemble concludes with Steven Bryant’s “Stampede,” written for the Calgary Stampede in Canada. The work combines stylistic elements from Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo” and John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.”

Tickets for the concert are available now at the Hadley Union Building box office. Tickets will also be available at the door starting at 2:00 p.m. the day of the concert. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 for senior citizens, and $6 for students and I-card holders.

For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Lively Arts

Since Sol y Canto’s beginning in 1994, the crystalline voice of lead singer Rosi Amador paired with Brian Amador's lush Spanish guitar have established a reputation for their quirky original compositions that address matters of the heart and social and global conscience. They are joined by virtuoso musicians from Uruguay, Perú, Panamá, and Argentina on piano, winds, bass, and percussion, all known for their unique and driving interpretations of contemporary Latin music.

Sol y Canto is also lauded for making their music accessible to Spanish- and non-Spanish-speaking audiences of all ages. The sextet has presented their sound from the Kennedy Center to the White House to the California World Music Festival. Stops in between include Boston’s Symphony Hall, Puerto Rico’s Museo del Arte, and dozens of major community and university concert venues across the U.S. Their mission is simply to create music and performances that move, delight, excite, and connect.

One of many recordings, the band’s latest release, Twice as Many Friends/El Doble de Amigos, is a collection of bilingual children's songs for singing, dancing, and learning. It has won over hearts, young and old, and garnered a Parent’s Choice Award. “With simplicity, tenderness, and extraordinary professionalism, Sol y Canto renders a beautiful homage to Latin American music,” says People en Español. 

As part of their visit to Indiana, members of Sol y Canto will present a free and open workshop on Tuesday, October 5. The musicians will discuss and demonstrate “Latin Rhythms,” their origins, and how the music contributes to our history and culture. The session is scheduled for noon in the Hadley Union Building’s Susquehanna room.

This workshop and the performance are presented as part of International Education Week.

Tickets for Sol y Canto, translated to “sun and song,” are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus, IUP's on-line ticket site, or by calling the HUB Ticket Office at (724) 357-1313. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door forty-five minutes prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $14 for senior citizens (62 and older), and $10 for students and children. For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu, or visit the Lively Arts website.

Performance Plus is presented by the Lively Arts and the College of Fine Arts. Performance Plus is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, the African American Cultural Center, the Office of International Education, and the Liberal Studies Program.

It is additionally supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, provided through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance. This engagement and tour of Sol y Canto is additionally made possible by a grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

A selection of video and information links can be found on the Performance Plus webpage.

Theater-by-the-Grove will open its 2010–2011 season with the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy Crimes of the Heart, written by Beth Henley. The play, directed by Barb Blackledge, opens October 7, 2010, with performances October 7–9 and 13–16 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, October 10, at 2:00 p.m. Performances will be presented on the Waller Hall Mainstage of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

This rollercoaster of a play takes place in less than twenty-four hours in the lives of the three McGrath sisters. They have just reunited in the small southern town of Hazlehurst, Mississippi, after their youngest sister is accused of shooting her husband.

As the play unfolds, Mississippi is still recovering from the devastating Camille, a category 5 hurricane. Simultaneously, each sister is dealing with her own level of personal disaster, each having to deal with their own “crimes” of the heart.

Director Blackledge explains, “Crimes of the Heart seems like it might be a love story, but it’s not. It’s a fast-paced comedy full of laughs and tears about how these three ‘criminals’ have come to terms with what they have done to what should have been love in their lives.”

Blackledge, a professor of theater at IUP, goes on to say, “The show is set in 1974. It is a period piece for the cast, a majority of the audience, and basically anyone that’s younger than fifty and wasn’t raised in the Deep South.”

Tickets for Crimes of the Heart are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Tickets are also available online at IUP Tickets.com, or by calling the Hadley Union Building box office at 724-357-2547. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before each performance.

Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of 15 or more, and $8 for students and I-Card holders.

The play contains some situations that may not be suitable for younger children. For more information, contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or e-mail us at lively-arts@iup.edu.

Theater-by-the-Grove is funded, in part, by the Student Cooperative Association and is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and the College of Fine Arts. 

Pictured above are, left to right, Carolyn Chiurco and Whitney Weimer. The other picture shows, from left to right, Tiffany Hall-Campbell, Weimer, and Chiurco,

The University Museum opens its first exhibition of the season, Beyond City Limits: Associated Artists of Pittsburgh at IUP, on Tuesday, September 28, 2010. The exhibit celebrates the centennial of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, while highlighting the works of AAP members with a connection to IUP as faculty, alumni, and other artists living and working in the Indiana area.

Oil and watercolor paintings, drawings, pastels, photography, ceramics, and sculpture will be exhibited in the show. AAP member, professional artist, and former chairperson of the IUP Department of Art Vaughn Clay serves as curator with his works represented in the exhibit.

The show will feature forty other current and former regional members the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, including Skip Allen, Marjorie Arnett, Janice Barone, Michael Begenyi, Charles Biddle, Daniel Bolick, Emily Bowser, Edward Burda, Kathleen Burk, Peter Calaboyias, Michael Campbell, Ron Donoughe, John Dorinsky, John Dropcho, Norma Ed, Julie Engelmann, Sue Foster, Donn Hedman, Adrienne Heinrich, and Gloria Hersch.

Completing the list of artists represented are Karen Howell-Elder, Maura Keeney, C. Richard Kenawell, Ronald Korczynski, Robert Scott Lloyd, Alisha McCurdy, Katherine McLean, Judith H. Musser, James Myford, Ronald Nigro, Charles Olson, Susan Pollins, Anna Marie Schnur, Kitty Spangler, James Rettinger, Richard Stoner, Melissa Vertosick, Chris Weiland, Ned O. Wert, Kamal Youssef, and Hisham Youssef.

Through the run of the exhibit, there will be a series of five lectures that will be presented by artists included in the exhibit. Proceeds support the University Museum’s exhibitions and other activities at the museum, including exhibition-related gallery talks and workshops, docent-led group tours, and other events for youth and adults. Admission to public exhibitions and most programs is free.

The exhibition will be open September 28 through December 4, 2010. Museum hours are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 2:00 to 6:30 p.m.; Thursdays from 12:00 to 7:30 p.m.; and Saturdays from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. The museum is closed Sunday, Monday, and university holidays. For more information, visit The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Pictured above are works by Kamal Youseff (top) and Ronald Korczynski.

In an effort to showcase upperclassmen and graduate students, a new percussion ensemble experience called Intensity was initiated in Spring 2005. An extension of the IUP Percussion Ensemble, this chamber group explores contemporary chamber music literature centered on percussion, occasionally incorporating other instruments. Repertoire is performed on a separate evening from the full IUP Percussion Ensemble Concert since smaller groups of musicians with sometimes large setups are involved, making it less practical to program during the same event.

Intensity is considered to be a premiere group performing interesting and challenging percussion chamber music at a high artistic level.

This concert features the music of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb, as well as works by Mark Ford, Brett Dietz, and Russell Peck. Two original compositions by IUP Percussion alumni Vince Wallace and Dana Difilippantonio will be premiered. The concert features guest mezzo-soprano Jane Potter Baumer.

The quartet consists of IUP faculty members Stanley Chepaitis, violin, and Linda Jennings, cello. They are joined by Swana Chepaitis, violin, and Donna Lorenza, viola. The quartet is named in honor of Robin Litton, an IUP alumnus who created an endowment to help fund the quartet.

For this premiere concert, they will perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Quartet in C Major (K.465).” The last of a set of six quartets by Mozart, completed in 1785, it was dedicated to Franz Joseph Hadyn. Often referred to as the “Dissonance” Quartet, the work begins with a high level of dissonant tension not often found in works of this era.

Next, the ensemble will perform an original work by Stanley Chepaitis titled “Dances in Time” String Quartet. This work is a series of four dance pieces drawing on Jazz, Latin, Native American, and African musical traditions.

Also planned is the “American” String Quartet in F Major (opus 96) by Antonin Dvorak, written in 1892. Dvorak came to America to teach in New York. While in America, he found close connections between American folk music and that of his Czech homeland, and wrote this piece while vacationing in Spillville, Iowa.

Stanley Chepaitis received his D.M.A. from the Eastman School of Music and serves as chair of the strings program at IUP. Recent appearances include the University of Oregon, School for Strings in Buffalo, N.Y., Eastman’s Killbourne Hall, and the music academies in both Zagreb, Croatia, and Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Swana Chepaitis received her diploma in violin pedagogy from the Hochschule fuer Kuenste in Bremen, Germany, and is a former member of L’Arco, a baroque orchestra based in Hannover, Germany.

Lorenza holds degrees in music performance from the Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music. She has been principal violist with Solisti chamber orchestra of Venice, Italy, and is currently teaching at Houghton College.

Jennings, an assistant professor of music at IUP, holds an M.M. degree from USC and a D.M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. She was the director of the internationally-acclaimed UT-Austin String Project and has been principal cellist of the Fairbanks Orchestra in Alaska and the Chamber Orchestra of the Alleghenies.

Tickets for the performance are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building or online now. Tickets remaining will be sold at the door start at 2:15 p.m. on Sunday, September 12. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 for senior citizens, and $6 for students and children.

For more information about this concert, the Sound Choices series, and other events scheduled by the IUP College of Fine Arts, contactThe Lively Arts by calling 724-357-2547 or e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu.

Pictured above: Sitting, Stanley Chepaitis; Standing, left to right, Donna Lorenza, Linda Jennings, and Swana Chepaitis

This is the second time this workshop will be offered. Those who attended the first session in May are welcome to attend this session.

The workshop, open to the general public, will be held on Saturday, October 2, 2010, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with participants meeting at the University Museum in Sutton Hall. The cost is $75 per person, and people can register by e-mailing Sally Daskivich by September 28 at sdaskivi@iup.edu, or by calling 724-357-2397. Registrants are asked to provide their own paint and materials along with a bag lunch.

Originally from Loretto, Pa., Donoughe is a graduate of IUP’s Art Department, having charted a highly accomplished career. His recent exhbit in the University Museum featured an eighty-piece mural wall of plein air paintings, celebrating the beauty and warmth of Indiana County.

We invite you to view Donoughe's website for more information on him and plein air painting.

Music Department

The program will include jazz and classical selections with piano and a jazz combo. Young will be joined by fellow faculty members Henry Wong Doe, piano; Michael Kingan, drums; Nathan Santos, bass; and alumnus John Burgh, jazz piano.

The Lively Arts

The first subscription event is scheduled for Sunday, September 12, 2010, with the premiere of the Litton String Quartet performing on the Sound Choices series. This series of five performances highlights the best performances from the IUP Department of Music, including faculty, students, alumni, and honored guests. The Litton is IUP’s new faculty string quartet in-residence. Those subscribing to any event in the Sound Choices season will also receive vouchers good for the two other concerts of the Litton String Quartet's inaugural season.

Other concerts in this series includes the return of the popular Band in Review, featuring the IUP Marching Band, a concert performed by IUP voice and brass faculty, and more.

The Performance Plus series includes six of the finest touring performers from across the globe, including “I, Too, Sing the Weary Blues,” an original collection of music sung by soprano Adrienne Danrich, centered around the works of Langston Hughes.

Performance Plus also includes the critically acclaimed Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Thomas Hong; Evidence, one of the world’s leading contemporary dance companies; Pig Iron Theatre Company performing Chekhov Lizardbrain; Ben Munisteri Dance Projects in a world-preview performance of an original work; and Sol y Canto, a Pan-Latin salsa sextet based in Boston.

Theater-by-the-Grove and Dance Theater subscribers receive tickets to six events, including two special dance concerts; the Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimes of the Heart; Arthur Miller’s The Crucible; Irving Berlin’s White Christmas; and Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. Music Theater subscribers will also be treated to Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Grand Jury. 

A variety of combination packages are available for subscription events, including Totally Theater, which combines all theater, dance, and music theater events, and Totally Everything, which offers 20 percent off the single-ticket price for all nineteen events. Subscribers can also build their own subscription with the Flex Pak by choosing at least five events from any of the nineteen for the season. Subscribers following The Lively Arts on Facebook and Twitter can save up to $4 more off their order.

Season brochures detailing all subscription events, deadlines, and an order form are available online, by e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu, or calling 724-357-2547.

The Lively Arts is the umbrella for all performing and visual arts events presented by the IUP College of Fine Arts and its departments of Music, Art, and Theater and Dance. In addition to these subscription events, it offers the campus and area community nearly two hundred visual and performing arts events annually.

Performance Plus is funded, in part, by the Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, IUP Student Cooperative Association, African American Cultural Center, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Office of International Education.

The program presents three sonatas from three contrasting periods: Classical, Romantic, and the twentieth century. The first half is composed of an early Beethoven sonata: Op. 10 No. 3. This will be followed by the First Piano Sonata by Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera. Ginastera's composition, now a staple in the piano literature, was commissioned and premiered for the 1952 Pittsburgh International Contemporary Music Festival.

The program concludes with Franz Liszt's mighty B Minor Sonata, one of the pinnacle works of the Romantic piano literature.

Prize-winner of several major international piano awards, such as the Sydney (Australia), Rubinstein (Tel Aviv), and Busoni (Italy) competitions, Wong Doe first joined the IUP faculty last year and performed on several programs, including a solo recital in January and a performance in Heinz Hall as part of IUP Plays Pittsburgh.

A native of New Zealand, Wong Doe received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Juilliard School and has performed in major venues worldwide, including Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, and the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv.

College of Fine Arts

The board has taken the theme from Vincent Van Gogh’s painting Starry Night, and will transform the Blue Room in Sutton Hall into a turn-of-the-century bistro a la Maxim’s in Paris circa 1910. The evening will be filled with high-kicking can-can dancers, wonderful music, and fabulous food and drink.

The gala event will also feature a preview of the exhibition Beyond City Limits: Associated Artists of Pittsburgh at IUP, which opens the University Museum’s 2010–2011 season and celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. The exhibit will highlight the works of AAP members with a connection to IUP, including faculty, alumni, or artists living and working in the region surrounding the university.

The gala also includes a cocktail reception, auction of specially selected art pieces, and a raffle drawing for a beautiful 14-karat white gold and 1.10 TW diamond pendent in an exciting starburst design. Raffle tickets are available in advance from board members and cost $10 each.

Reservations are required, and the cost is $125 per person It is a black-tie optional event. To receive an invitation or for raffle tickets, call the University Museum at 724-357-2397, or e-mail sdaskivi@iup.edu. Invitations with RSVP forms, due by September 17, are also available online.

The Lively Arts

The award given to the Lively Arts was also the only funded under PennPAT’s New Directions program, which supports Pennsylvania-based professional touring artists in exploring new creative endeavors and developing new connections with the presenter and the community.

Founded in 1995 as an interdisciplinary ensemble, Pig Iron Theatre Company is dedicated to the creation of new and exuberant performance works that defy easy categorization. In the past twelve years, the company has created twenty-two original works and has toured to festivals and theaters in England, Scotland, Poland, Lithuania, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Romania, and Germany. The body of Pig Iron's work is eclectic and daring.

In Indiana, Pig Iron will be performing one of its latest works, Chekhov Lizardbrain. In this ensemble-created performance piece with its base centered on Russian tragic-comedy style, a mildly autistic botanist conjures up a parade of unsettling and comic recollections. This is all with an attempt to shape his fractured memories into a comforting fiction. Pig Iron's virtuosic physical performers spin a web of memory and vaudeville and the impossible task of telling a story straight.

As part of the IUP project, the troupe will also work with IUP students as well as local groups in deconstructing the play to better understand its origins and the creative process. This will include the performances in November on the IUP campus and a visit by local project participants to Philadelphia over the winter months. Members of the Pig Iron company will then return to Indiana in the spring as they continue working on a new piece—their interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Indiana-based participants will assist in interpreting and creating the production; and, during this final visit, Pig Iron will present an open workshop preview performance of parts of the new work.

Chekhov Lizardbrain will be presented as part of the Lively Arts’ Performance Plus series November 10 and 11, 2010, at 8:00 p.m. on the Waller Hall Mainstage. Tickets for this performance will be part of a subscription package with information and order forms being sent by mid-August. If you wish to be placed on the mailing list, you may call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu. You may also sign up for the mailing list by visiting the Lively Arts website and following the Go Live! link. Individual tickets will be sold, as available, starting the end of October.

PennPAT is a program developed and funded by the Heinz Endowments; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the Pew Charitable Trusts. It is administered by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Who is “the answer lady?” Newspaper readers of a “certain age” will recognize her as advice columnist Ann Landers. Now, she is the subject of a new play by David Rambo that had its regional premiere with an IUP connection at The Electric Theater Company (ETC), a professional theater in Scranton, Pa.

IUP professor of theater Barb Blackledge selected the play and drew great reviews at ETC. She will reprise her role of Ann Landers—whose given name was Eppie Friedman—as Keystone Repertory Theater (KRT) presents The Lady With All the Answers. In this one-woman show, Friedman speaks directly to the audience about her now-legendary struggles in writing a particularly difficult column about relationships, including her own.

The four performances will be held June 17–20, 2010, in the Waller Hall Studio Theater of IUP’s Performing Arts Center. All performances begin at 8:00 p.m. Seating is limited and advance purchase is highly recommended.

Blackledge acted the role at ETC this past spring while on sabbatical from IUP. She spent weeks studying Friedman in books and videos, gaining a sense of the nuances that make her come to life with human interest and conflict.

“It was terrifying,” she remarked. “I’ve never done a one-woman show before. In most plays, you have at least one other partner on stage to save you if something goes wrong. But in this one, I’m out there all by myself.”

Strong reviews of the original production have led to added performances, with a re-engagement in Scranton to be presented this November. The production is also tentatively scheduled for additional performances at IUP in late October.

The production was originally directed by Mary Ethel Schmidt. “It’s a real eye-opener: What a life she had, how funny she was, her wit and her courage,” explains Schmidt. “I think that visiting Ann Landers is going to be an extremely surprising look of who she was, and you’ll enjoy the visit.” Schmidt will be in Indiana to re-stage the KRT production.

Department of Theater and Dance chairperson Brian Jones looked to include Blackledge’s one-woman show in the offerings produced at IUP this summer. “KRT exists to provide theater for the university community during the summer, and by extension the greater Indiana community,” said Jones. “This play is a perfect show for our intimate studio theater, where Friedman, a.k.a. Landers, can speak right to them about what are often very intimate subjects.”

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building on the IUP campus. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB ticket office at 724-357-1313. Tickets are available on line at IUP Tickets. The cost is $7 for regular admission, $6 for senior citizens, and $4 for students.

The production deals with some sensitive and personal issues and is not recommended for younger children. For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Keystone Repertory Theater is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance of IUP’s College of Fine Arts. It is funded, in part, by the Student Cooperative Association.

The University Museum is offering a stunning diamond pendant as part of its 2010 fundraising initiative. Tickets will be available at summer Picnics in the Grove every Wednesday from June 2 through August 4, 2010. Tickets are priced at only $10 each.

The Starry, Starry Night pendant is a beautiful 14-karat white gold starburst holding nineteen .06 ct. Brilliant Cut diamonds. All are individually set for a total diamond weight of over 1.10 ct. The pendant comes with an eighteen-inch, 14-karat white gold rope chain and will be one of the centerpiece items at the museum’s Starry, Starry Night Gala, set for September 24. Ticket sales for this pendant, which has an appraised value of over $1,800, will support the University Museum and its activities.

For further information or tickets, see board members or call 724-357-2397.

The board of the University Museum would like to offer a special thanks to the Indiana Arts Council in assisting in this fundraising effort and for their general support to the museum.

The seventy voices of the IUP Chorale and Chorus will join the University Orchestra for an All-Haydn concert on Sunday, May 2, 2010. The concert, a Sound Choices series event presented by the Department of Music, begins at 3:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of John Sutton Hall.

The concert will feature Franz Joseph Haydn’s famous “Drum Roll Symphony” with its charming waltzes, Scottish snaps, and Croatian folk melodies. That work will be followed by the “Maria Theresa Mass,” a symphonic work from 1795.

Following Haydn’s return to the continent from London in 1795, his inexhaustible energies found new outlets, especially after hearing a performance of Handel’s “Messiah.” The flamboyance of Haydn’s masses matches the ornate architecture of the Austrian Baroque churches in which they were performed.

The occasional criticism that his sacred music was too cheerful prompted Haydn to respond that, at the thought of God, his heart “leaped for joy,” and he doubted God would scold him for praising the Lord “with a cheerful heart.”

Tickets will be sold at the door starting at 2:15 p.m.

The annual Sidewalk Commentary Contest, a.k.a. “Chalk-on-the-Walk,” was held on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, with awards announced at the end of the day. The contest was organized by the campus chapter of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), along with the College of Fine Arts.

Chalk-on-the-Walk has become an all-campus tradition involving hundreds of students and employees participating and several hundred more viewing the dozens of incredible entries on the walks of the Oak Grove throughout the day. The contest has always served as a vehicle for students to express their political and social views through drawings across the Oak Grove.

The contest is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, with additional donations provided by IUP Communications, The Lively Arts, Common Freshman Reader program, Lea Massiello, and Susan Palmisano.

Judges were Toni Apryasz, Judy Bouton, Patti Cornman, Susan Dawkins , Linda Dreischalick, Lisa Holmes, Cara Houser, Rick Kutz, Karen Pizarchik, Teresa Spearman, Susan Stossel, and Sherri Yachup.

The winners of this year's contest are as follows:

• First Place: Maurice Jackson, Art, senior, Philadelphia, Pa. (above right)
• Second Place: Lauren Cruz, Art, junior, Philadelphia, Pa. (above left)
• Third Place: Morgan Foster, Communications Media, St. Marys, Pa. (right)
• Social Issues: Mary OÕBrien, Theater, sophomore, Fairfax, Va.
• Political Issues: Hayley Faight, Theater, senior, Johnstown, Pa.
• Diversity Issues: Katie Bebar, Art Education, junior, Greensburg, Pa.
• Health and Education: Brandon Baskerville, Art, junior, Reading, Pa.
• Human Rights: Stephen Harvey, Theater, Richmond, Va.
• Freshman Common Reader: Annie Shearer, Fashion Merchandising, freshman, Johnstown, Pa.
• Paige McFarland, Psychology, freshman, Schnecksville, Pa.
• NAEA Choice: Matthew Pekala, Art, sophomore, Windber, Pa.
• Rebecca Mir, Art, Delmar, Md.

The Department of Music, in association with the Carol Teti Memorial Organ Scholarship Committee, will present two organ recitals. The first will be held at 7:30 p.m., Friday April 30, 2010. This recital features world-renowned organist, Ann Labounsky. The second is at 1:00 p.m. Saturday, May 1, 2010, and features three high school aged organists in the final round of the fourth annual Carol Teti Memorial Organ Competition. Both programs will take place at Zion Lutheran Church, located on the corner of 6th and Church streets.

Labounsky is the author of the biography Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music, published in 2000 by Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon. She has completed recording the complete organ works by Langlais for the Musical Heritage Society and recently narrated and performed in a DVD of his life based on this biography, a project sponsored by the Los Angeles American Guild of Organists Chapter.

She oversees undergraduate and graduate programs at Duguesne University as their chair of organ and sacred music. An active member of the American Guild of Organists and National Pastoral Musicians, she holds the Fellow certificate and served as director of the National Committee on Improvisation, Councilor for Education for the AGO and as national director of certification for the National Pastoral Musicians. Labounsky also serves as organ artist in residence at First Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh.

The recital is free, with donations to the scholarship fund gratefully accepted. A dessert reception will follow the recital.

The fourth annual Carol Teti Memorial Organ Competition recital features three high school students who are competing for prizes in the amounts of $1,500, $1,000, and $500. This year’s competition includes Andrew Earhart from Indiana and Daniel Enlgish and Bethan Neely from the Pittsburgh area. Each will have twenty-five minutes to perform, with Dr. Labounsky serving as this year’s adjudicator.

Now in its fourth year, the organ competition recital is another facet of the organ committee’s mission to promote the study of organ and church music. This recital is also free, and the prizes will be awarded at a reception immediately following the program.

A nineteen-year tradition will continue on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, as the campus chapter of the National Art Education Association, along with the College of Fine Arts, once again presents the Sidewalk Commentary Contest (a.k.a. Chalk-on-the-Walk).

Chalk-on-the-Walk has become an all-campus tradition involving hundreds of students and employees participating and several hundred more viewing the dozens of incredible entries on the walks of the Oak Grove throughout the day.

The contest has always served as a vehicle for students to express their political and social views through drawings across the Oak Grove. As we face a wide variety of dynamic local, national, and world issues, this year's contest will again serve as a unique outlet of free expression. We encourage all students and student organizations to participate as a class, a group, an office, or an individual.

No matter what your involvement, we do hope everyone, including community members, will join us on the Oak Grove Wednesday, April 28 (in case of inclement weather, we will reschedule if possible). Creation of the drawings commences at 9:00 a.m. and continues through mid-afternoon. Prizes will be awarded around 5:00 p.m.

We are also seeking individuals, organizations, businesses, and offices who would like to contribute to the student awards, which usually total at least $500. If you are able to do this, please e-mail Hank Knerr at lively-arts@iup.edu. We will acknowledge your contribution during the contest, but will wait to collect those pledges until after the contest is held.

The Department of Music will present the IUP Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band in their Spring finale concert on Saturday evening, April 17, 2010, at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

Featured performers will include the IUP Faculty Woodwind Quintet. The quintet, comprised of faculty members Therese Wacker, Stephanie Caulder, John Kuehn, Jason Worzbyt, and Jack Scandrett, will appear as soloists on Roger Cichy’s “Windsicle.”

The concert will also include the music of Leonard Bernstein, Darius Milhaud, Paul Hindemith, Jennifer Higdon, Morten Lauridsen, Donald White, Bruce Yuko, and Jack Stamp.

Stamp and Jason Worzbyt, both members of the music faculty, will be conducting the ensembles. Graduate conducting associate Adam Hilkert will also appear on the podium.

Tickets will be sold at the door starting at 7:00 p.m. and are $9 regular admission, 8$ for senior citizens, and $6 for students and children.

The exhibit and reception will be held in Kipp Gallery, on the first floor of Sprowls Hall at the corner of Grant and Eleventh streets.

Works will be shown by thirteen students graduating from the Art Department’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program.

In addition to Kipp Gallery, works will be exhibited in the new Gallery C, adjacent to Kipp. On exhibit will be works in painting, drawing, sculpture, print media, and video. The exhibit will run from April 22 to May 7. Gallery hours are noon to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday–Friday, and admission to the exhibit and reception are free.

Theater-by-the-Grove at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will close its 2009–2010 season with the comedy A Servant to Two Masters, opening April 15, 2010.

Written by Carlo Goldoni and translated and adapted by Lee Hall, performances are slated for April 15–17 and 21–24 at 8:00 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, April 18, at 2:00 p.m. Performances will be presented on the Waller Hall Mainstage of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

This hilarious classic centers around young love mixed with disguises and confusion, colorful characters, and high-stakes, farcical antics. The story unfolds as Beatrice, posing as her dead brother, attempts to claim money to marry her lover, who also happens to be her brother's murderer. As confusion grows surrounding the dead brother's fiance and new betrothed, the servant Truffaldino unknowingly takes on secretly serving two masters—Beatrice in disguise and her lover, Silvio.

The production's director, Rick Kemp, said, “As well as being extremely witty, this production offers the audience a fascinating glimpse of a performance style called ‘Commedia dell’Arte.’”

Kemp, a member of the IUP theater faculty, went on to explain that “this form of theater was popular in Renaissance Europe, presenting masked characters in improvised street performances. Our show uses hand-made leather masks, beautiful period costumes, and a set inspired by Renaissance designs.”

Tickets for A Servant to Two Masters are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before each performance. Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more, and $8 with a university I-card. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Box Office at 724-357-1313.

For more information, contact The Lively Artsat 724-357-2547 or e-mail us atlively-arts@iup.edu.

Theater-by-the-Grove is produced by the Department of Theater and Danceand theCollege of Fine Arts. It is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the Nichole Canuso Dance Company in Wandering Alice, a unique dance and movement work. The piece, limited to fifty audience members per performance, will be held in and around Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center. Performances are set for Wednesday, April 14, 2010, at 7:00 and 9:30 p.m.; Thursday, April 15, at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.; and Friday, April 16, at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.

The touring dance company will be joined by members of the IUP Dance Theater, taking the audience on a guided journey that wanders through the performance spaces. The work travels through slippery identity into a sea of unruly memories, creating a surreal and ever-changing voyage for the senses.

Initially inspired by the writings of Lewis Carroll and Haruki Murakami, Wandering Alice will transform the Performing Arts Center into a dreamlike landscape where audiences are free to watch, wander, get lost, and be found. The audience will follow along as creator and choreographer Nichole Canuso becomes Alice, a curious wanderer who moves from one adventure to another in this distinctive dance experience.

Carolyn Huckabay of The Philadelphia City Paper described the work as “magical…winsome, wonderful…unexpected, exquisite, at times otherworldly. That we get to experience it, too, was like being let in on a secret and promising to keep it to yourself.”

She continued by explaining, “you just can’t get that feeling sitting in a theater, removed from the fantasy. I left the show feeling a little lighter.”

Wandering Alice premiered during the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in September 2008. The Indiana performances marks the second time the full work will be performed. The piece features an original score by three-time Barrymore Award-winning composer James Sugg and musician/composer Michael Kiley.

Tickets for Wandering Alice, a Performance Plus series event, are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus, on line at IUP Tickets, or by calling the HUB Ticket Office at (724) 357-1313.

Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door one hour prior to the start of each performance. Tickets are $15 for regular admission, $10 for students and children, and $14 for seniors (62 and older) and for groups of fifteen or more. Advance purchase is highly recommended.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu, or visit The Lively Arts.

This production is not recommended for younger children.

Performance Plus is presented by the Lively Arts and the College of Fine Arts with support from the IUP Student Cooperative Association, the Office of International Education, the Liberal Studies program, and the Career Development Center.

Additional support haas been provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts’ Partners in the Arts program managed by the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance. This project is additionally funded by a generous New Directions grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour.

An opening reception will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The reception will held in conjunction with the awards ceremony for the Undergraduate Scholars Forum.

Our juried exhibition showcases the best and most creative works from the Art Department’s undergraduate class. This year’s juror, Lenore Thomas, is an assistant professor of printmaking at the University of Pittsburgh. She is also half of the collaborative team of Satan’s Camaro, which presented an exhibit in Kipp Gallery last semester.

For this exhibit, Thomas has chosen a diverse selection of pieces, including painting, sculpture, metals, and digital projection.

The reception and exhibit are free. Regular hours for Kipp Gallery are noon to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. The exhibit runs through April 9.

Those performing include music faculty members Laura Ferguson, vocals; David Ferguson, trumpet; Keith Young, piano; Nathan Santos, bass; Michael Kingan, drums; and Stanley Chepaitis, violin.

Admission is free.

The concert will feature contemporary and classic jazz selections, including “In a Sentimental Mood” and “Night in Tunisia” as well as an original work by Santos titled “Kristen.”

Vadala is one of the country’s foremost woodwind artists. He has appeared on more than one hundred recordings as well as innumerable film, television, and commercial scores performing on saxophone, flute, and clarinet. A native of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., he graduated from the Eastman School of Music, earning the honor of the Performer’s Certificate in saxophone as well as a B.M. in music education. He received an M.A. in clarinet from Connecticut College and pursued postgraduate study in woodwinds at Eastman.

Vadala’s performing career has been highlighted by a long tenure as standout woodwind artist with the internationally recognized Chuck Mangione Quartet. During his time with the quartet, gigs included performances in all fifty states, Canada, Australia, Japan, Philippines, China, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, England, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, and Switzerland. With Mangione, it also included performing credits on five gold and two platinum albums, two Grammies, one Emmy, one Georgie (AGVA), and one Golden Globe.

Vadala, director of jazz studies and a saxophone professor, is a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland.

Tickets for the concert are available at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. They are also available with a credit card by calling the HUB ticket office at 724-357-1313. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door for $9, regular admission; $8, senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more; and $6 for students and children.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra and a variety of IUP faculty members and students performing in a concert that is both unique and impressive. The concert will be presented on Friday, March 26, 2010, at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center.

The program will begin with a three-movement piece by contemporary composer Christopher Theofandis titled “Visions and Miracles.” Written in 1997, Theofanidis had the distinction of being the 2006–2007 composer-of the-year for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, along with a host of other highly prestigious accomplishments throughout his career.

Next will be two movements from Felix Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The movements, titled “Notturno” and “Scherzo,” are part of a larger suite of incidental music completed in 1842 based on the comedy by William Shakespeare.

Both works will be performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble comprised of members from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and under the direction of PSO concertmaster and violinist Andrés Cárdenes.

A specially-formed twenty-six-piece brass and percussion ensemble of IUP faculty members and students joined by five members of the PSO will then perform the electrifying piece “Icarus.” The work, which is also scored for two concert grand pianos, was commissioned by a consortium of eighteen universities and premiered by IUP’s own Keystone Winds Brass at the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles International Conference in Cincinnati in July 2009.

“Icarus” was written by current PSO composer-of-the-year and frequent visitor to IUP, Richard Danielpour. Danielpour dedicated the work to Jack Stamp, chair of the IUP Music Department, with the piece receiving its Pennsylvania premiere last November when it was performed in Heinz Hall as part of the IUP Plays Pittsburgh concert. The ovation following the performance was wildly enthusiastic and prolonged. Stamp will conduct.

The Friday evening concert will close with the rarely-heard “Eighth Symphony” by Ludwig van Beethoven. For this work, the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra will be joined by twelve IUP string students performing on violin, viola, and cello. Cárdenes will conduct this program finale.

Tickets for the Friday, March 26, concert are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door starting at 7:00 p.m.

Tickets are $16 regular admission, $14 for seniors and groups, and $10 for students and children.

For more information, call the Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu, or call the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313. Tickets are also available at IUP Tickets.

Pictured above are composer Richard Danielpour (top) and PSO concertmaster and violinist, Andres Cardenes.

The Lively Arts at IUP and Department of Music will present visiting artists Juan Hermida, cello, and Miso Ito, piano, as part of its next Sound Choices series in a concert titled “An International Exchange in Music.”

They will perform alongside IUP music faculty members Therese Wacker, flute, and Linda Jennings, cello. The concert will be presented on Wednesday, March 31, 2010, at 8:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of IUP’s John Sutton Hall.

Hermida and Ito are on the music faculty at the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico. They will perform works by Mexican composers Arturo Marquez and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Japanese composer Michio Mamiya. Wacker and Jennings will join the duo for chamber works of Normon Dell Joio and Gian Carlo Menotti.

The Hermida-Ito Duo has been heard in the United States, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Italy, Central America, and Mexico. Ito has been a soloist with orchestras such as the Nagoya Symphony, the New Japan Symphony, and the Texas Christian University Orchestra. She has made concert tours in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and her native Japan.

In 2004, the duo presented its album Candelabra: Latin American Music for Cello and Piano, sponsored by Conaculta-Fonca. Since 1995, the Duo Hermida-Ito has provided intense pedagogic activity at the University of the Americas, Puebla. Performers, teachers, and parents of the pair are currently celebrating the duo’s twenty years as a musical tem.

Ito graduated summa cum laude from the University of Tennessee and received master’s and doctorate degrees in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati.

Hermida is a soloist with major orchestras in Mexico, the TCU Orchestra, and the Cincinnati Philharmonia. He was awarded the Mozart Medal in 1999 from the Austrian Embassy, first prize at the first Carlos Prieto Cello Competition (1998) and the UNAM Cello Competition (1988). He holds a Master of Music degree and an artist diploma from the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music.

In addition to the concert on March 31, Hermida and Ito will also work with IUP music majors in master classes during their visit to IUP.

The concert is part of the IUP College of Fine Arts International Exchange Program. IUP Music Department faculty members Jennings, Wacker, and Christine Clewell initiated the exchange with presentations of a concert and master class at the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico, in January of 2009.

Tickets for the March 31 concert are available at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. They are also available at IUP Tickets or by calling the HUB ticket office at 724-357-1313. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door for $9, regular admission; $8, senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more; and $6 for students and children.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Theater and Dance will present IUP Dance Theater in the Spring Dance Performance March 26 and 27, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. and on Sunday, March 28, at 2:00 p.m. The performances will be presented in Zink Hall Dance Theater, located on Maple Street adjacent to IUP’s Memorial Fieldhouse.

Visiting guest choreographer Rebecca Inman joins the student and faculty troupe for the performances. She is a member of the Inlet Dance Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio.

Directed by Holly Boda-Sutton, this popular production offers a collection of original works ranging from poignant to entertainingly playful that appeal to all ages, filled with a wide range of energy and expression.

The performance opens with a serious look at the prison chain gangs of the 1940s. This piece is sharply contrasted by a more playful worked titled “La Fiesta de Loca” (“The Crazy Party”).

Inman choreographed two works to be performance, including “Grandma’s Hands,” which highlights the love and guidance that comes from family members.

The IUP Dance Theater is performing several works within the concert which are dedicated in memory of Erin A. (Potthast) Burkett, a former member of the IUP Dance Theater.

Tickets for the Spring Dance Performance are available at the Hadley Union Building located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by calling 724-357-1313.Tickets remaining will be sold at the door starting 45 minutes before the performance. Tickets are $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of 15 or more, and $8 with a university I-card.

For more information, please contact The Lively Arts at IUP by calling 724-357-2547 or e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu. IUP Dance Theater is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

The string program of the IUP Music Department will present a concert on Tuesday, March 30, 2010, to benefit music education programs in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. The concert will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of IUP’s John Sutton Hall. In addition to various faculty and ensembles, the concert will feature Fabienne Fanord, a Haitian cellest and music educator for Port au Prince, currently a visiting scholar this semester at IUP (pictured at right).

The concert includes the IUP String Ensemble, IUP Cello Choir, and IUP Bass Ensemble under the direction of faculty members Stanley Chepaitis, Linda Jennings, and Nathan Santos, respectively. Faculty member and soprano Mary Logan Hastings will be a featured soloist along with Christine Clewell.

This benefit concert is part of a larger project titled “Music Beyond the Mountains of Haiti: Keeping Music Alive in Haiti.” The program involves IUP music students undertaking several fundraising events that support the reconstruction of St. Trinity Music School, the main musical center of Haiti. It also involves the Dessaix-Baptiste Music School in Jacmel, a city on the southern coast also devastated by the earthquake.

The primary founder of the educational programs at Holy Trinity, Sister Anne Marie, was convinced that even in a country as poor as Haiti, music is not a frill, but is a basic ingredient of life. Many consider the music program of Holy Trinity to be one of the most successful projects ever begun in Haiti. Until the earthquake, Fanord served as a cello teacher and member of the orchestra at the St. Trinity Music School. She also traveled regularly to teach students at the music school in Jacmel.

The IUP Cello Choir will perform a beautifully lyrical piece, “Claire de Lune,” by Sabrina Louis, one of Fanord’s cello students in Jacmel. The program will also feature a short film presentation highlighting the importance of music programs in Haiti during intermission.

Any students interested in becoming involved in this project should contact faculty advisors Linda Jennings at ljenning@iup.edu or Mary Hastings at mologhas@iup.edu.

Admission to the concert is free, but audience members will be invited to make donations to advance the work of “Music Beyond the Mountains of Haiti.”

Pictured above is the Orchestra of St. Trinity performing prior to the January 12, 2010, earthquake. The last picture shows the church following the earthquake.

The Lively Arts at IUP, with the Department of Music, will present the Festival of Women Composers Finale Concert as part of its Sound Choices series on Saturday, March 20, 2010. The concert will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium, IUP Performing Arts Center. The festival, bringing participants from across the globe, concludes four days celebrating the work of women composers with this public performance featuring works and performances by festival composers-in-residence Rosephanye Dunn Powell and Deborah Kavasch.

In addition to several solo performances, ensembles performing include the IUP Wind Ensemble, IUP Symphony Band, and a specially-assembled Community Honors Chorus conducted by Powell and comprised of students selected from four area high schools. Those schools include Clarion Area High School, Freeport Senior High School, Purchase Line High School, and Blairsville High School.

Some of the works that will be performed include “Amor” by Kavasch, “The Word Was God” by Powell, “Early Light” by Carolyn Bremer, and “Cathedrals” by Kathryn Salfelder. Additional works will include “Strut,” “Fanfare Ritmico” by Grammy-winner Jennifer Higdon, and “Danza de los Duendes” by Nancy Galbriaith.

Kavasch—composer, soprano, and specialist in extended vocal techniques—frequently presents clinics on new music and women in music and has premiered a variety of new works. She has been described as a “multifaceted, multi-timbral vocalist” with “articulate radiance” and “astonishing range and agility.” She holds a B.A. in German and B.M. and M.M. degrees in music from Bowling Green State University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California–San Diego and was also a 1987 Fulbright Senior Scholar to Stockholm. Kavasch currently is the chair of the Department of Music at California State University–Stanislaus.

Powell, an associate professor of music and coordinator of voice studies at Auburn University, holds degrees from Alabama State University (B.M.E), Westminster Choir College (M.M.), and Florida State University (D.M.). She is an accomplished composer and arranger of choral music. During her career, Powell has distinguished herself as a researcher, interpreter, and performer of solo vocal works by William Grant Still and the African American spiritual. She has presented numerous recitals and lectures at churches, concert halls, universities, and professional meetings around the country.

This year celebrates the ninth Festival of Women Composers founded and hosted by Indiana University of Pennsylvania and includes a variety of other concerts that are free and open to the general public. For a complete schedule, visit the Ninth Festival of Women Composers webpage.

Tickets for the Festival of Women’s Composers Finale Concert are available at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus or can be purchased by calling the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313. Tickets are also available on line at IUP Tickets. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door starting at 7:00 p.m. the night of the concert. Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for senior citizens (62 and older) and groups of fifteen or more, and $8 for I-card holders and all students. For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra as part of its 2009–2010 Performance Plus season. The program, conducted by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster Andrés Cárdenes, will be presented on Friday, March 26, 2010, at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center.

The concert will feature several works, including two performed with IUP faculty members and students. To bring the chamber orchestra to a full concert size, PSO members will play side by side with selected faculty members and students in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F Major.

Another group of students, alumni, and faculty members from the IUP Wind Ensemble and Keystone Winds will be joined by several members of the PSO for “Icarus.” The piece, by Richard Danielpour—PSO’s composer of the year and a frequent guest to IUP—received its Pittsburgh premiere when the IUP Keystone Winds performed it last November in Heinz Hall for the annual IUP Plays Pittsburgh concert.

The chamber orchestra will open the concert with “Vision and Miracles” by Christopher Theofandis, written in 1997. They will also perform the Scherzo from Felix Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The work was written in 1841 at the invitation of King Frederick of Prussia when Mendelssohn served as music director of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin.

Cárdenes brings a great degree of passion and dedication to his performances. Cuban-born, he has garnered international acclaim from both critics and audiences alike for his technique balanced by a remarkable tonal subtlety. He was appointed concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra by Maestro Lorin Maazel in 1989, and he holds the Rachel Mellon Walton endowed chair.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, starting in the early 1900s, has confirmed its ranking as a world-class orchestra, earning critical acclaim for over twenty-five international tours. The orchestra has also showcased itself in all of America’s major cities and music centers. In 2007, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra became the first orchestra to receive both the Bank of America and MetLife Awards for Excellence in Orchestra Education.

Tickets for the March 26 event are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door starting at 7:00 p.m.

Tickets are $16 regular admission, $14 for seniors and groups, and $10 for students and children.

For more information, call the Fine Arts Public Events Office at 724-357-2547 or the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313. Tickets are also available at IUP Tickets.

The concert is funded by various individual donors. Performance Plus is presented by the Lively Arts and the College of Fine Arts with support from the IUP Student Cooperative Association, the Office of International Education, the Liberal Studies program, and the Career Development Center. Additional support is provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts’ Partners in the Arts program managed by the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance.

The concert, under the direction of James Dearing, will be rescheduled for sometime later in the semester and will be announced as soon as a date and time have been confirmed. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Department of Fine Arts

The performance, under the direction of James Dearing, will feature organist Christopher Pardini from Shadyside Presbyterian Church and faculty bass-baritone Joseph Baunoch. They will perform in Ernest Bloch’s “Avodath Hakodesh,” which is a Jewish Sabbath service sung in Hebrew.

In addition, the ensemble will sing nineteenth-century French and twentieth-century Canadian sacred music.

In Service presents the experiences of Western Pennsylvanians serving in Iraq as soldiers and government officials, and of those recording events as journalists. The film weaves first-hand video recordings, interviews, and still photography as individuals from the region recount their tales unfolding on an international stage. At the foreground are authentic voices, images, and narratives. The tales coalesce as a cohesive narrative of how world events affect local communities and touch the lives of those just down the street from ourselves.

To facilitate class credit, attendance vouchers will be available following the film.

Department of Fine Arts

The ceramics studio of the IUP Department of Art will once again present its Empty Bowls event to benefit the Indiana County food bank. This event takes place Tuesday, March 2, 2010, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. It will be held at the University Square Complex at the corner of Grant Street and Oakland Avenue, adjacent to the Commonplace Coffeehouse in Indiana.

IUP alumni and local area potters Nancy Smeltzer, Josh Floyd, and Harmony Ritchie are working in conjunction with the IUP ceramics studio to organize this charitable fundraiser.

For the cost of only $10, you can select a handmade pottery bowl, fill it with delicious soup and a slice of bread, and then keep the bowl. Beautiful handmade bowls have been donated by local potters, and the soups have been donated by local businesses and individuals who wanted to lend a hand. Empty Bowls is a national organization that functions at the grassroots level.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Theater-by-the-Grove and Music Theater will jointly present the musical comedy Sweet Charity in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center, Fisher Auditorium. Performances will be held Thursday, February 25, 2010, through Saturday, February 27, at 8:00 p.m. A matinee is also scheduled for Sunday, February 28, at 2:00 p.m.

Based on the book by Neil Simon with lyrics by Dorothy Fields and music by Cy Coleman, Sweet Charity is the story of Charity Hope Valentine, the Fan-Dango Ballroom dance hostess. Valentine is an eternal optimist, a dreamer, and a bit of a chump. Her middle name certainly describes her, as she is always in vigorous pursuit of love.

Set in 1960’s New York, Sweet Charity is a classic musical in every sense of the word. Coleman’s tremendous score includes the memorable musical hit numbers “Big Spender,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” and “Baby, Dream Your Dream.” Fields’ urban vernacular in the lyrics perfectly captures 1960’s New York. This is all set against Neil Simon’s overwhelming talent for quick wit and rapid-fire dialogue.

“I feel a bit biased about this show,” said director and IUP theater faculty member Rob Gretta. “I have always been a great fan of Bob Fosse, who directed the stage and screen versions. Ever since I saw the movie with Shirley MacLaine, I have wanted to direct it on stage. The show is going to be a wonderful experience for everyone.”

Tickets for Sweet Charity are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus or can be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door one hour prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $15 for regular admission, $13 for seniors (62 and older) and for groups of fifteen or more, and $9 for students. The production contains strong situations that may not be appropriate for younger children.

For more information, call 724-357-2547, e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu, or visit The Lively Arts. Sweet Charity is presented by the Department of Music and the Department of Theater and Dance of IUP’s College of Fine Arts. This production is funded, in part, by the Student Cooperative Association.

Photos are courtesy of the Indiana Gazette and show Erika Pealstrom as Charity and Jim Nash as Oscar Lindquist.

Jack Stamp, chairperson of the IUP Department of Music and director of band studies, is celebrating his twentieth year of teaching at IUP by inviting several of his former students to return to campus and guest conduct the IUP Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band in an evening of band classics. The concert, titled “Twenty Years at IUP: A Celebration of Alumni Conductors,” will be presented February 13, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

Joining Stamp will welcome five former graduate students and two former undergraduates, including Jason Worzbyt, Donald McKinney, John Wacker, Hugh Whaley, Christian Zembower, Janet Wright-McCaskill, and Robert Hunter. Each was asked to select a classic work for the concert, with selected composers ranging from Bach, Schuman, and Mendelssohn to Bruce Yurko, Peter Menin, Walter Piston, and more. Stamp, himself a 1976 IUP graduate, will conduct “Trauermusik” by Richard Wagner.

Worzbyt is a professor of bassoon and associate director of bands at IUP and also the conducs the Westmoreland Symphonic Winds, a professional wind ensemble in residence at Seton Hill University. He holds a B.S. in Music Education from IUP, an M.M. in Wind Conducting from the University of North Texas, and a D.M.A. in Bassoon Performance from the University of North Texas. Worzbyt lives in Sarver, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Michelle, and newborn son, Christian James.

McKinney is the newly appointed band conductor for Interlochen Arts Academy located in Interlochen, Michigan. He is currently a candidate for the D.M.A. degree in conducting from the University of Michigan, received his M.M. in 2004 from IUP , and holds a B.S. from Duquesne University. His primary conducting teachers include Michael Haithcock, Stamp, and Robert Cameron.

John Wacker is an associate professor of Music at Western State College of Colorado, where he conducts the Symphony Band and Varsity Band and teaches brass lessons and music education courses. Wacker holds a J.D. degree from the University of Wyoming, an M.M. degree in Conducting from IUP, and a bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Northern Colorado. Wacker is an active performer on trumpet and recently completed a D.M.A. degree in trumpet performance at the University of North Texas.

Zembower is director of bands and assistant professor of music at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. He holds a D.M.Ed. from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg; an M.A. degree in Music Education from IUP, where he studied with Stamp and Gary Bird; and a B.S. degree in Music Education from Frostburg State University (Md.). An avid performer on euphonium and trombone, Zembower is a member of the Keystone Winds, a professional wind ensemble founded by Stamp and comprised of IUP music alumni and faculty.

Whaley is director of bands at Trexler Middle School in Richlands, North Carolina. He holds a B.M. degree with honors from East Carolina University and an M.M. degree from IUP, where he served as the graduate conducting associate under Stamp. As a performer on horn, Whaley can be heard on all compact disc recordings of the Keystone Wind Ensemble and in his regular performances with the Wilmington (N.C.) Symphony.

Janet McCaskill is lecturer of music and director of the Warrior Marching Band and Pep Band at Wayne State University. She also conducts the campus band and low brass ensemble and teaches euphonium and tuba. McCaskill holds a B.S. in Music Education from IUP, an M.M. in Tuba Performance from Arkansas State University and is currently a doctoral candidate in Music Education at the University of Missouri in Columbia. She is highly active as a guest conductor, clinician, performer, and adjudicator.

Robert C. Hunter is the director of bands at William G. Enloe High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has served as music director and conductor of the Triangle Wind Ensemble since 2004. A native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Hunter received his B.A. in Applied Trumpet and B.S. in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and his M.A. in Instrumental Conducting from IUP. Hunter met his wife, Jennifer, in 1998 when she played horn in the IUP Wind Ensemble. They are expecting their first child in June.

Tickets for this special IUP Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band concert are available now at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. the night of the performance. Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for seniors (62 and older), and $6 for students and children. For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The program, titled An American Voyage, includes Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”; Bernstein’s “Three Dance Episodes” from On the Town; a song cycle by PSO guest composer Richard Danielpour (pictured here) titled “Pastime,” which is a tribute to baseball legends Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson, and Hank Aaron; and “Liquid Interface” by Mason Bates, which combines traditional orchestra with electronic music to explore the nature of water, from breaking ice, water droplets, and the destructive force of hurricanes to the gentle flow of a stream.

The deadline for purchasing tickets is Monday, Feburary 8. Tickets, which include coach transportation, are $32 for the gallery, $45 for the family circle, and $55 for the main floor. To reserve tickets to the concert, download the order form and return with your payment to the IUP Music Department. If you have questions, please contact Dr. Matt Baumer at 724-357-5646 or e-mail mbaumer@iup.edu.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania continues its 2009–2010 Performance Plus season as it presents the Chestnut Brass Company on Sunday, January 31, 2010. The concert will start at 3:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center and includes a performance with students from three area high schools and IUP.

Since beginning as a street band in Philadelphia in 1977, the Chestnut Brass Company (CBC) has performed in forty-nine U.S. states and in Europe, Asia, South America, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. The group has been guests at noted venues and festivals, including Italy’s Academia di Santa Cecilia, Munich’s Gasteig, and the Académie Internationale de Musique in Dijon, France. In the U.S., they have performed at Wolf Trap Farm and National Music Camp at Interlochen, among others.

The Grammy-winning brass quintet includes Marian Hesse, horn; Bruce Barrie and John Charles Thomas; trumpet; Larry Zimmerman, trombone; and Jay Krush, tuba. Committed to the music of the past and present and performing and recording on brasses and wind instrument, the CBC has been featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Fresh Air, Radio Times, and Performance Today and numerous other radio and television stations across the U.S.

The quintet is also active in commissioning and recording new works for modern instruments from composers representing a wide variety of contemporary styles. The ensemble has won numerous awards for its twelve CD releases, including a Grammy Award for its recording of brass music by Peter Schickele.

Last November, the Chestnut Brass Company visited the Indiana area and worked with brass quintets from Burrell, Hempfield, and Indiana high schools, along with four IUP Department of Music student brass quintets. For their concert Sunday, the CBC will join with the students and the IUP HoodleBug Brass for Tylman Susato’s “Three Dances from ‘The Danserye.” A total of forty brass musicians will be on stage performing the work. (Due to scheduling problems, students from Hempfield High School will be unable to join the performance as previously planned.)

Other works to be performed by the CBC include three traditional American folk songs and two pieces by Irving Berlin. They will also perform several American brass band pieces by Stephen Foster and Francis Johnson performed on instruments of the 1830s and 1860s.

Tickets for the Chestnut Brass Company are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus or on line at IUP Tickets. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning at 2:00 p.m. on the day of the performance. Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $14 for seniors (62 and older), and $10 for students and children. For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Performance Plus series is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance, Office of International Education, Liberal Studies Program, and the Career Development Center. This project is additionally funded by a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour.

An exhibit titled “The Far Side of Function: Contemporary Works in Wood” will be presented in Kipp Gallery from February 2 to March 5, 2010. A public opening reception will be held Tuesday, February 2, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the gallery, which is located in Sprowls Hall on the IUP campus.

The exhibition, presented by the Department of Art, showcases some of the most important names in contemporary furniture design and wood sculpture throughout North America. The exhibition was curated by IUP art alumnus Michael Stadler and was originally shown at the Dairy Barn Art Center in Athens, Ohio. There will also be several pieces from this show exhibited both on the Grand Balcony and directly in front of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

When asked about curating the exhibit, Stadler said, “The selection of these artists is based on their involvement with the contemporary wood art movement. Many of the participants are renowned furniture makers, educators, and demonstrators.”

He added, “A range of emerging artists and collaborators representing the directions and future of wood art are also included in the exhibit. All of the artists represent the freshest approach and farthest stretch of imaginative ideas in the fields of woodworking and contemporary sculpture.”

Exhibit hours are Tuesdays through Fridays from noon until 4:00 p.m.

Henry Wong Doe,

Prize-winner of several major international piano awards such as the Sydney (Australia), Rubinstein (Tel Aviv), and Busoni (Italy) competitions, Wong Doe will perform a varied and exciting program, including Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasy, Op. 61; an etude by the twentieth-century Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti; and Mussorgsky's magnificent "Pictures at an Exhibition." He will also play a short work recently composed by the acclaimed New Zealand composer Gareth Farr, titled "The Horizon from Owhiro Bay."

A native of New Zealand, Wong Doe received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Juilliard School and has performed in major venues worldwide, including Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, and the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv. Joining the IUP faculty in Fall 2009, Wong Doe was featured in the IUP Plays Pittsburgh performance at Heinz Hall. This will be his first solo recital on campus.

Kuhn’s area of study is in ceramics. His works involve many issues associated with technical high fire and atmospheric firings, as well as photography and print media.

In addition to the reception, the exhibit will be open from noon to 4:00 p.m. through Saturday, January 23.

As the participants and regional leadership followed the news on television, radio, and the Internet, it was clear that the attendees needed to respond in whatever way they could.

To that end and prior to the introduction of the keynote speaker—actor Bill Pullman—on Thursday, January 14, 2010, the chairperson of the IUP Department of Theater and Dance, Brian Jones, announced that a collection would be started and every attendee would be asked to donate whatever they could. Spontaneous and heartfelt cheers and applause erupted in the near-capacity crowd in Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

In his appeal to the highly receptive audience, Jones, who also serves as the festival’s local host chairperson, commented, “We serve our common humanity by using these gifts to create reflections that help mankind view itself on stage. Our festival is an example of how we help each other by coming together and sharing our talents and knowledge.

“Today, we also reflect on the privilege we experience by gathering together for such a festival. When a tragedy such as the earthquakes in Haiti occurs, we are reminded that our artistic gifts carry with them a responsibility to serve our common humanity worldwide.”

Regional KCACTF chair Juliet Wunsch, from West Chester University, announced this morning (Friday, January 15) that the festival’s leadership had chosen Partners in Health to be the conduit for distributing the funds. “This is a well-established and highly regarded health and human service organization with decades of sustained humanitarian success in Haiti,” Wunsch said.

In reaction to this effort, the dean of IUP’s College of Fine Arts, Michael Hood, added, “The College of Fine Arts at IUP congratulates and commends the regional and local leadership of the Region 2 KCACTF for their efforts to support the victims of the earthquakes. We have been touched by the willingness of the festival participants to take time from their celebrations and competitions to give thought and donations to those in such desperate need.”

The amount collected will be announced at the festival’s closing ceremonies, to be held at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 16. If others would like to donate to the cause on behalf of the Region 2 KCACTF, they may send a check, payable to “Partners in Health,” to the Department of Theater and Dance, IUP, 104 Waller Hall, Indiana, PA 15705

The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival honors excellence of overall production and offers student artists individual recognition through awards and scholarships in playwriting, acting, criticism, directing, and design. KCACTF is divided into eight regions, with IUP being part of Region 2, encompassing Pennsylvania, seven neighboring states, and the District of Columbia.

Macbeth 3, a three-person adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of witchcraft, ambition, betrayal, and bloodshed, was presented in June at the Open Stage in the Strip District. The play, an expressionist vision featuring extensive light and sound effects, excellent set and costume design, tight ensemble acting, exciting fight choreography, and casting across gender—the cast included two women and one man, with the man playing Lady Macbeth—was also selected by the Pittsburgh City Paper for 2009 honors.

Bill Pullman made his silver screen debut in the Danny DeVito-Bette Midler comedy Ruthless People in 1986. He followed that with lead roles in Spaceballs, The Serpent and the Rainbow, and The Accidental Tourist. With his All-American nice guy looks, Pullman was, for many years, cast as a decent but ineffectual man who almost inevitably got dumped on by his significant other. This trend lasted until 1995 when Pullman starred opposite Sandra Bullock in the crowd-pleasing While You Were Sleeping.

Born in rural Hornell, N.Y., on December 17, 1953, Pullman was the sixth of seven children. He grew up with an interest in construction work, and, after graduating from high school, he enrolled in a technical college to pursue this interest. A random visit to a local drama club and subsequent meeting with a drama teacher convinced Pullman that he wanted to perform on the stage rather than build it. He went on to earn a B.A. in theater from the State University of New York at Oneonta. After attaining an M.F.A. degree in directing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Pullman joined a theater company and performed throughout South Dakota and Montana. He later took a job teaching drama at Montana State University, where he became chairman of the theater department.

Pullman then moved to New York to further his stage career. He became very active in regional theater and won acclaim for his work at such places as New York’s Lincoln Center and Washington, D.C.’s Folger Theatre. In 1985, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue more theater work and the following year made his film debut in Ruthless People. Following several other films, he was cast in 1992 in A League of Their Own, followed by Singles, Sleepless in Seattle, Casper, Lost Highway, and as the president in Independence Day. In addition to his work in front of the camera, Pullman began to work behind the scenes in 1995 when he founded his own production company, Big Town.

His television directing credits include the anthology series, Night Visions, and the TNT movie, The Virginian (Wrangler Award/Best Picture, 2000). His theater acting work includes the Broadway world premiere of Edward Albee's The Goat (Drama Desk nomination) as well as productions of new plays by Beth Henley (with Holly Hunter) and Thomas Babe (with Tom Waits). He was also nominated for the Helen Hayes award for his work in the Kennedy Center production of The Subject Was Roses.

Tickets, which are free, for this event will be available starting at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, January 14, in the Performing Arts Center lobby. In addition to seating for an estimated 1,000 festival participants, up to 300 seats will be made available to the general public.

The festival will bring students and educators from college and university theater programs representing eight mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia. In addition to the keynote address, five productions performed over four days in Fisher Auditorium will be open to the general public.

Additional activities and events provided to the festival registrants include competitions and sessions in acting, directing, playwriting, research, and design. There will also be a variety of other productions, workshops, and social events provided for the participants.

For more information about the public events, call The Lively Arts at IUP at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu. The Lively Arts office will be closed December 22 through January 3.

The final set of chapters of the performance and recitation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderful will be presented this Saturday, December 19, 2009, at 11:00 a..m. With an original score by Alec Wilder, the IUP Faculty Woodwind Quintet will play as Michael Hood, dean of the College of Fine Arts, recites and sings the final chapters of this Lewis Carroll classic.

The performance will be presented in the lower level of the Indiana Free Library, located along Philadelphia Street at Oakland Avenue.

Admission is free, but due to limited seating, the Indiana Free Library requests that seats be reserved in advance by calling 724-465-8841. The first two performances were technically “sold out.” However, there were several people that had reservations that could not attend, so seats did go empty. Therefore, those still wishing to see the performance are encouraged to call for seats and also show up for the performance should seats become available. It is also requested that only children over the age of five be brought to the performances.

The IUP project is led by John Kuehn, professor of music and coordinator of music education at IUP. The publishers of the music informed Kuehn that, to their knowledge, the presentation at the Indiana Free Library will be the first public performance of the complete work.

For more information, contact the Indiana Free Library at 724-465-8841 or e-mail IUP Lively Arts at lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and the IUP Department of Theater and Dance recently confirmed the productions that will participate in the KCACTF Region 2 festival to be hosted on the IUP campus, at the IUP Performing Arts Center. Five productions will be presented in Fisher Auditorium on January 13–16, 2010, and will be open to the general public. An additional four productions, open to festival registrants only, will be presented in the smaller Waller Hall mainstage.

Public Performances

Fisher Auditorium, IUP Performing Arts Center

Tickets will be available at the Performing Arts Center Grand Lobby Ticket Office only, starting two hours prior to curtain for the public ($10 each) and KCACTF registrants (included in registration fee). Those with vouchers may exchange them for tickets at the same time, starting two hours before each performance. We are sorry, but receiving tickets prior to two hours before the performance is not possible. Seating is by general admission, and printed programs will serve as your admission ticket. For more information about tickets, contact The Lively Arts at IUP, e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu, or call 724-357-2547.

Some of these plays contain language and situations to which some audience members may object. Productions, information, and times are all subject to change. Please check this website regularly for updates.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010; 12:30 p.m.

A Comb and a Prayer Book: A Survivor’s Story
By Pamela Hendrick
Produced by Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Pomona, N.J.
Directed by Pamela R. Hendrick
A Comb and a Prayer Book: A Survivor’s Story is based on Elizabeth Blum Goldstein’s memoir. By the age of nineteen, she had survived six concentration camps. After sixty years of silence, she opens her heart to her granddaughter Shana. What emerges is a moving and compelling chronicle of courage, endurance, and survival. What you will see is the triumph of the human spirit rising above tremendous adversity.

Thursday, January 14, 2010; 8:30 p.m.

Home
By Samm-Art Williams
Produced by Arcadia University, Glenside, Pa.
Directed by Mark Wade
Home is the story of Cephus Miles, a young farmer in fictitious Cross Roads, N.C., who is content to work the land until his life is turned upside down by his girlfriend’s sudden departure. The play is an exploration of the true meaning of “home” and wrestles with the notion that it may be far more challenging to cut ourselves free from our roots than we realize.

Friday, January 15, 2010; 12:30 p.m.

Increased Difficulty of Concentration
By Vaclav Havel
Directed by Vanessa Lancellotti
Produced by Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa.
The Increased Difficulty of Concentration is a student-directed, fast-paced comedy about a sex-crazed sociologist who is the subject of a government-sponsored experiment involving artificial intelligence.

Friday, January 15, 2010; 8:30 p.m.

Shot!
By Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon
Produced by Temple University, Philadelphia
Directed by Douglas C. Wager
Shot! gauges the effects of violence on residents of Beirut. In this production, “Beirut” refers to the area around Twelfth and Huntingdon streets, the back yard of Temple University’s main campus. Students portray an ensemble of interview subjects including teens, grandmothers, doctors, cops, and community organizers. (pictured at top)

Saturday, January 16, 2010; 12:30 p.m.

Rent
By Jonathan Larson
Produced by Robert Morris University, Moon Township, Pa.
Directed by Ken Gargaro
This Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical is based loosely on Puccini’s opera, La Bohéme. It follows a year in the lives of seven friends living the disappearing Bohemian lifestyle in New York’s East Village.

Festival Registrant Performances

Waller Hall, IUP Performing Arts Center

These productions are open to KCACTF registrants only. Tickets for registrants will be available starting one hour before each performance on a first-come, first-served basis. Advance tickets are not available, and seating is by general admission.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010; 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

A Year with Frog and Toad
By Willie and Robert Reale
Produced by Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pa.
Directed by Rob Gretta
This story follows two great friends—the cheerful and popular Frog and the rather grumpy Toad—through four fun-filled seasons. Waking from hibernation in the spring, they proceed to plant gardens, swim, rake leaves, and go sledding. Along the way, they learn many of life’s lessons including a very important one about friendship and rejoicing in the attributes that make each of us different and special.

Thursday, January 14, 2010; 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Miss Witherspoon
By Christopher Durang
Produced by Keuka College, Keuka Park, N.Y.
Directed by Mark Wenderlich
Miss Witherspoon is the story of middle-aged Veronica, who commits suicide, and the Christian secularists who reincarnate her. With the help of Maryamma, a young Hindu woman, a female Jesus, and a wizard suspiciously named Gandalf, Veronica must journey from here to eternity and back again to cleanse her brown tweedy aura and learn the necessity of reengaging with life.

Friday, January 15, 2010; 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Love @1stPlight
By Drew Aloe
Produced by Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa.
Directed by T.S. Frank
This play centers around finding what you need even when you don’t know what it is you want. It is the tale of Spools, Rich, Flow, and Daisy all trying to get through freshman year happy, and sane. Along the way, they might learn that just being honest about—and to—themselves is sometimes the only way to achieve all of that.

Saturday, January 16, 2010; 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Widows
By Ariel Dorfman
Produced by Alfred University, Alfred, N.Y.
Directed by Steve Crosby
Widows is a smoldering political allegory set during the dictatorship of General Pinochet in Chile. The play dramatizes, in a mythical style, the consequences of abuses to human rights under ruthless regimes.

The IUP Department of Music and The Lively Arts at IUP, as part of its Sound Choices series, will present the annual Holiday Music Festival on Sunday, December 13, 2009. The concert will begin at 3:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of Sutton Hall.

The one hundred voices comprising the IUP Chorus, Chamber Singers, and Chorale will be joined by the HoodleBug Brass and by baritone Joseph Baunoch. The choral ensembles are under the direction of James Dearing.

The festive concert of new and traditional music of the season includes a wide variety of sacred and secular songs from Australia, Mexico, Italy, France, Germany, Quebec, and England. The program will also offer music celebrating Hannukah and a sing-along for audience members.

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building or at IUPtickets.com. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 discount (senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more), and $6 with a university I-Card. Tickets will also be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before the performance.

For more information regarding this and other programs, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2546 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Department of Music will present four unique concerts this weekend as it brings the 2009 Fall semester to a close.

On Saturday, December 12, the IUP Concert Band will be joined by the the IUP Horn Ensemble. The concert begins at 8:00 p.m. on the Fisher Auditorium stage, IUP Performing Arts Center. Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building thorugh Friday and will be sold at the door starting at 7:00 p.m. Saturday.

On Sunday, December 13, two concerts will be presented. The thirty-seventh annual High School Honors Band concert will begin at 2:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium. This ensemble is comprised of eighty-five of the finest high school musicians in the area. Tickets will be sold at the door.

At 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, the IUP Choral Department, under the direction of James Dearing, will present the department’s annual Holiday Concert in Gorell Recital Hall.

On Monday, December 14, the IUP Symphony Band and Chamber Winds provide the department’s final concert of the semester. The program begins at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium. Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building thorugh Monday afternoon and will be sold at the door starting at 7:00 p.m. Monday evening.

For more information regarding this and other programs, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2546 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The IUP Department of Music and Indiana Free Library are collaborating on a three-part performance of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. With an original score by Alec Wilder, the IUP Faculty Woodwind Quintet will play, as Michael Hood (pictured below), dean of Fine Arts, recites and sings the work over three consecutive Saturdays starting December 5, 2009.

The performances will be presented in the lower level of the Indiana Free Library, located along Philadelphia Street at Oakland Avenue. Admission is free, but due to limited seating, the Indiana Free Library requests that all seats be reserved in advance by calling 724-465-8841. It is also requested that only children over the age of five be brought to the performances.

The book, first released in 1865, and music score were first recorded together in 1957 and issued on four records through the Riverside Records label. Cyril Ritchard read and sang the script while the New York Woodwind Quintet played the music.

The IUP project is led by John Kuehn, professor of music and coordinator of music education at IUP. The publishers of the music informed Kuehn that, to their knowledge, the presentation at the Indiana Free Library will be the first public performance of the complete work.

The Faculty Woodwind Quintet includes Therese Wacker, flute; Stephanie Caulder, oboe; Kuehn, clarinet; Jason Worzbyt, bassoon; and Jack Scandrett, horn. Michael Kingan, percussion, will join the quintet.

Each performance will be from 11:00 a.m. to noon, with chapters 1–4 performed on December 5, chapters 5–8 performed December 12; and chapters 9–12 performed on December 19.

For more information, contact the Indiana Free Library at 724-465-8841 or e-mail IUP Lively Arts at lively-arts@iup.edu.

Music Theater at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will open its presentation of the light-hearted musical The Merry Widow on Thursday, December 3, 2009. Performances will run December 3–5 at 8:00 p.m. and on Sunday, December 6, at 2:00 p.m. on the Waller Hall Mainstage, IUP Performing Arts Center.

This classic operetta by Franz Lehar will be performed in English by a cast of thirty IUP students. The comedy and love story features a translation by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein, originally commissioned in 2004 for the San Francisco Opera.

Set at the turn of the twentieth century, the story depicts a recently widowed commoner who inherits millions after the death of her banker husband. It is essential to the finances of the widow’s near-bankrupt home country of Pontevedro—a tiny mythical eastern European kingdom—that she remarry a Pontevedrian rather than a foreigner, thus keeping her fortune in the country and saving it from ruin.

Along the way, the ambassador to France hatches a scheme to set the now-independent widow up with a Pontevedrian count, who turns out to be the widow’s original true love.

"The Merry Widow is a timeless, fun story," said Sarah Mantel, IUP professor of music theater and voice, who also serves as the production’s director and producer.

"It’s beautiful and sweet and passionate," she explained. She further pointed out that “as with many operettas of the same time period, it has the popular ‘can-can’.” Mantel added that “the last act is set in Maxim’s in Paris; and the ‘can-can’ girls, who are called ‘grisettes,’ do a high-kicking dance number while everybody joins in.”

In addition to the can-can, the audience will be treated to waltzes and even the cake-walk, which was all the rage in the late nineteenth century. The production is choreographed by Patricia Lommock, IUP professor emeritus of dance.

Tickets are available now at the Hadley Union Building on the IUP campus, but the ticket office will be closed Thursday through Sunday, November 26–29, for the Thanksgiving holiday. Seats remaining can be purchased at the door beginning 45 minutes prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $15 regular admission, $13 for seniors (62 and older) and for groups of fifteen or more, and $9 for students and children. For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

IUP Music Theater is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association. It is an ensemble program of the Department of Music and College of Fine Arts. The Department of Music is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.

Kipp Gallery, part of the IUP Art Department, will present a highly unique exhibit as visiting artist Justin Shull stops at IUP during his national tour with his award-winning traveling art piece, “The Porta-Hedge: Mobile Observation Lab.” The work will be on display on the Oak Grove on Wednesday, December 2, 2009, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and on Thursday, December 3, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Shull will present a talk on December 2 at 5:00 p.m. in room G-43, Delaney Hall.

Shull has provided the following Artist’s Statement:

My projects investigate our representation of nature, our cognitive construction of ecologies, and the functional life cycle of material culture, with an expectation that the intersection of these three subjects provides insight into our basic understanding of our place in the world and our actions. Humor and provocation are central to my projects, and public participation in public spaces is often necessary to spark these qualities in the work.

Several recent projects are predicated on the reuse of synthetic plants in the landscape. Within these projects, an evolution develops, beginning with the utilization of the discarded material (i.e., artificial tree, flower, etc.) directly in the landscape, to an upcycling of the material to provide new social functions as a mobile park or a concealed observation laboratory. The trees, parks, lawns, hedges, and bushes that I introduce to the landscape purport to alter the ecology of the space; but the target in these projects could also be described as the social ecologies into which the objects insert themselves.

Porta Hedge—Mobile Observation Lab

Like all hedges, the Porta Hedge is a physical barrier that provides a certain amount of privacy in the guise of greenery. Unlike most hedges, the Porta Hedge is mobile, artificial, and accommodates people in its interior Mobile Observation Lab, offering insiders an opportunity to observe what is going on around the Hedge. Built within the “green” paradigm, the Porta Hedge features several eco-conscious design features, including solar power, a small physical footprint (two tires and a swivel jack), recycled Christmas trees on the exterior, living plants and wood finishing on the interior, and the relaxing sound of birdsong audio on the interior and exterior.

This past July and August, a team traveled the country with the Porta Hedge, siting it in landscapes as diverse as Cape Cod and Las Vegas, introducing it to the public, and field testing it. Along the way, the team broke a hedge land-speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats (90 mph), explored the possibilities of airlifting the Hedge into the Grand Canyon, documented branch thinning, observed Wal-Mart parking lots overnight, and even staked out a Kansas City neighborhood for reported gangs.

Video, photos, and written documentation on the trip can be found at the Porta Hedge website.

The Department of Music will present the IUP Wind Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble as they share the stage this Sunday, November 15, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. They will perform their annual Fall concert in Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

The Wind Ensemble, conducted by Jack Stamp, will feature the world premiere of IUP alumnus’ Michael Barnett’s “The Hot Winds of Death.” The ensemble will also perform Christopher Marshall’s “Emily Dickinson Suite,” based on nine poems by the famous poet. Marshall, composer-in-residence at the University of Central Florida, will be in attendance; and theater major Veronica Wilt will portray Emily Dickinson.

The Wind Ensemble concludes the first half of the concert with Philip Sparke’s “Manhattan.” Faculty member Kevin Eisensmith, trumpet, will be the featured soloist. Following his performance, Eisensmith will then lead the IUP Jazz Ensemble on the second half of the program.

The Jazz Ensemble will begin with “Back Home Again in Indiana,” arranged by IUP alumnus W. Roy Mitchell. They will also perform Mark Taylor’s “Granada Smoothie” and “Don’t Feed the Animals” by Mike Pendowski.

As a tribute to trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who passed away in December 2008, the ensemble will perform his “Red Clay.” The concert will conclude with an arrangement of “Joy Spring.” The work was written by John Morris, who wrote and arranged many works for The Mellowmen—the original name of the IUP Jazz Ensemble—during his career at IUP.

Admission is free. For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The HoodleBug Brass will present a Sound Choices series concert on Tuesday, November 17, 2009. The program will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Gorell Recital Hall, located on the second floor of Sutton Hall. The program is being presented by the Department of Music and College of Fine Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The HoodleBug Brass is the brass quintet-in-residence at IUP and is comprised of the five brass faculty members within the Department of Music. The ensemble performs regularly on the IUP campus and presents numerous clinics and concerts in public schools and churches throughout the region each year. The quintet released its first compact disc, Brass Fac’s, in March 2004. Their second disc, Off the Trac’s, was released in October 2009. The ensemble performs works of all styles, from the Baroque to contemporary, pop, and jazz.

A “HoodleBug” is a local term for “doodlebug,” the name given to a single-car, self-propelled train or trolley. At the southern end of the IUP campus , one will find the Hoodlebug Trail, which leads to Homer City and beyond. This is now a six-mile recreation and commuter trail located in the central portion of Indiana County.

The recital will begin with a performance of “In resurrectione tua Christe” by Jacobus Gallus. The work was transcribed for two brass quintets by Carl Kandel and will feature the Chestnut Brass Company, a brass quintet based out of Philadelphia. The CBC will be completing two residencies at IUP and surrounding high schools during the 2009–2010 school year. Their work in Indiana will culminate in a Performance Plus concert to be held in January 2010 in Fisher Auditorium. “In resurrectione tua Christe” will be conducted by Jack Stamp, director of bands and chair of the IUP Department of Music.

The first half of the program will conclude with Ingolf Dahl’s “Music for Brass Instruments.” Joining the HoodleBug Brass for this work will be Kelsey Mlnarik, euphonium, and a sophomore music education major from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

The second half of the program will feature works by three IUP alumni, including Jim Self, Jack Stamp, and Ron Hickey. Self is a 1965 graduate of IUP and is currently a professor of tuba at the University of Southern California. He is also the top studio tuba player in Los Angeles with over a thousand movie and television credits.

His piece, “Mo’Ments,” is a three-movement work written for brass quintet and percussion and will feature Stamp on percussion. Stamp, a 1976 graduate of IUP, is the composer of the next work, titled “Three Turns.” The work was written when Stamp was just nineteen years old and a student at IUP.

The final offering of the concert, “Variations on Themes by Lennon and McCartney,” was arranged by Hickey, a 1970 IUP graduate. Following graduation, he spent twenty years as a staff arranger for the U.S. Army Band in Washington, D.C.

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building or on line. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 discount (senior citizens and groups of 15 or more), and $6 with a university I-Card. Tickets will also be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before the performance.

For more information regarding this and other programs, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2546 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The exhibit explores the imaginative engagement of poets and fiction writers with the tools of new media. With the end of the traditional book in sight, these writers are inventing a post-Gutenberg space for literature. It is being presented in cooperation with the IUP Center for Digital Humanities and the Culture and Graduate Program in Literature and Criticism at IUP.

Kipp Gallery is located in Sprowls Hall on the corner of 11th and Grant streets on the IUP campus. Hours are noon to 4:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

Department of Fine Arts

What the Audience Said on Opening Night!

The work features Gossip!, a musical written by IUP theater major Joe York; The Embalmer: A Love Story, written by IUP theater major Tyler McPherson; The Noosemaker, written by IUP alumnus John Trevellini; and High on Golgotha, written by IUP alumnus Phillip Keeling. Directiing the production are IUP theater professor Jason Chimonides, with IUP students Hayley Faight, Nick Hrutkay, and Vikki Marcocelli.

When asked why Theater-by-the-Grove chose to do original student and alumni work on the main stage, Chimonides commented, “This is an educational institution where we can nurture our actors and playwrights. Choosing to do New Works/New Voices allows us to give not only our actors, but also our playwrights, an opportunity to receive a level of support on the main stage. Having student work done on this stage offers a chance to have it seen by a greater audience.”

Chimonides added, “This is a totally new process—a learning curve. While working, we need to be patient and flexible with each other. What we’re doing is good work. At the end of the day—even when the going gets tough—we need to keep in mind that this is a really important and positive project.”

The plays contain language and situations to which some audience members may object and is not recommended for younger children.

Tickets for New Works/New Voices are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before the performance. Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more, and $8 with a university I-card. For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail us at lively-arts@iup.edu.

Theater-by-the-Grove is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and the College of Fine Arts. It is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

Individuals or teams may pick up their pumpkin in front of Sprowls at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday. Judging will take place promptly at 7:00 p.m. Pumpkins may be carved, painted, or decorated in whatever way the contestant wishes, with creativty being the priority. First prize is a $100 certicate to the Student Co-op Store. Second prices is a $75 certificate, and third prize is a $25 certificate. Pumpkins will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

This event is made possible by the Living and Learning Community, Reeger’s Farm, and Yarnick’s Farm.

The two musicians will perform music by composers from England, France, and the United States. Featured repertoire includes Staples’ “Concert Piece for Trombone and Piano,” Gordon Jacob’s “Concertino for Trombone and Wind Orchestra,” and Paul Bounneau’s “Capriccio.”

Students that have applied and who have been accepted by IUP will receive a letter of invitation from the appropriate department identifying the Fine Arts Days available. Possible dates for these sessions include Thursday, December 3, 2009, and January 28, February 18, March 4, March 18, and April 8, 2010. Activities for the Thursday events include presentations by each department, tours, lunch, and other meetings. Also present are representatives from Housing and Residence Life, Campus Security, Office of Advising and Testing, and Financial Aid, each of whom is prepared to address questions from the students and their families.

An additional Fine Arts Day will be held on Saturday, February 6, 2010. Space is limited in this session, and students are encouraged to respond to their invitation in a timely fashion to assure acceptance. However, please note that for the Saturday Fine Arts Day, personnel from Housing and Residence Life, Campus Security, Office of Advising and Testing, and Financial Aid will not be available, and that all department offices are closed on this day. This is strictly an audition/art portfolio review date, and tours of campus or the ability to view housing suites will not be available. If it is important for you to speak with Financial Aid or Housing, to tour campus, or to see the housing suites, please plan on scheduling your audition or art portfolio review on a Thursday session.

The IUP Symphony Band will begin the evening’s performance with “Divertimento for Band” by Vincent Persichetti. Persichetti was a native of Philadelphia and a faculty member at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Graduate music student Adam Hilkert will conduct “Wild Blue Yonder” by James Barnes, which was composed to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the U.S. Air Force. The Symphony Band will also present the world premiere of “Chorale Prelude on ‘Beach Spring’” by IUP faculty member and director of band studies Jack Stamp. They will conclude their portion of the program with “Exultate,” by Pittsburgh native Samuel Hazo.

The IUP Jazz Band will open their segment with George Gershwin’s classic “Strike Up the Band,” as arranged by former Count Basie Orchestra arranger Sammy Nestico. Their program will also include the beautiful ballad “Consummation,” composed and arranged by Thad Jones. This piece will include additional instrumentalists from the Symphony Band.

The concert will close with a big band arrangement “5-5-7,” an intricate composition by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. The Jazz Band will also perform a “take-off” of Benny Goodman’s classic “Sing, Sing, Sing” composed by the contemporary big band leader Gordon Goodwin.

This event is now free admission. If you already purchased a ticket and need a refund, please contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu. You will need to send us your tickets so we can process your refund.

Join us Monday, November 2, 2009, at Heinz Hall for IUP Plays Pittsburgh, a musical celebration featuring a number of IUP music ensembles, including the Wind Ensemble, Opera Theater, Trombone Choir, Keystone Winds, and Marching Band.

Tickets are available by calling the box office at 412-392-4900 or toll free at 800-743-8560, or by going to the Heinz Hall ticketing website. Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens, and $10 for students and children. Seating is by general admission.

Also featured will be Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra composer of the year Richard Danielpour and world-touring Steinway artist and IUP assistant professor of piano Henry Wong Doe.

WQED-FM host Ted Sohier will serve as master of ceremonies.

Ticket holders are invited to a pre-concert dessert reception starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Heinz Hall lobby. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m.

Other components of this event are as follows:

• An alumni reception at nearby Olive and Twist
• Tickets for interested high school groups
• Buses from Indiana to Heinz Hall

Get all the details at IUP Plays Pittsburgh.

OcTUBAfest is a national event started by Harvey Phillips at Indiana University to feature the tuba and euphonium in solo and chamber settings. Gary Bird, a retired IUP Music Department professor and student of Phillips, made OcTUBAfest an annual event at IUP during his tenure at the university.

Øystein Baadsvik is a virtuoso on the tuba who has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s greatest orchestras as well as in New York’s famed Carnegie Hall. He has also led master classes at international conferences and universities across the United States. Baadsvik’s diverse program at IUP will include Three Tangos by Astor Piazzola, Encounters II by William Kraft, and "Winter" from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, originally composed for violin.

The 2009 IUP OcTUBAfest Schedule

• October 21, 8:00 p.m., Gorell Recital Hall, Zach Collins, Faculty Recital, accompanied by James Staples
• October 22, 2:00 p.m., Cogswell Hall 121. Øystein Baadsvik Master Class
• October 22, 8:00 p.m., Gorell Recital Hall, Øystein Baadsvik, Guest Artist Recital, accompanied by Henry Wong Doe
• October 23, 8:00 p.m., Gorell Recital Hall. Student Showcase, IUP tuba and euphonium students perform solos
• October 23, 11:00 a.m., Gorell Recital Hall, Student Showcase, addiional performances
• October 23, 2:00 p.m., Cogswell Hall 121, Tubaphonium Ensemble Concert

All events are free.

Dance Theater at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present a new work titled The Collector of Beauty. This theatrical dance piece features an original score by Derek Cooper and choreography by Holly Boda-Sutton. The performances run October 23–24, 2009, at 7:00 p.m. and October 25, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. in the Zink Hall Dance Theater, located on Maple Street on the IUP campus.

This production is loosely based on the film Perfume and follows the life of John Beringer, a man who realizes he has the ability to extract the souls of beautiful women to keep for himself.

On the differences between the film and the dance production, choreographer Holly Boda-Sutton explains, “We have moved it into a later time and different place from the film. Our version is set in England during the Victorian period. We have also made changes in the story to make it more audience accessible. The original film is quite dark and brutal. Our version is dark, but in a more romantic way.”

Composer Derek Cooper stated, “Most of the original ideas for the score were based on the movie. Things throughout the plot and other aspects changed during the planning process, but a lot of the basic themes and ideas are still present. My original inspiration was purely based on the film and the thoughts that it provokes.”

This production contains situations and subject matter to which some audiences may object. It is not recommended for younger children.

Tickets for The Collector of Beauty are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus. Seats remaining will be sold at the door starting forty-five minutes before the performance. Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of 15 or more, and $8 with a university I-card.

IUP Dance Theater is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and the College of Fine Arts at IUP. It is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

As a reminder, tickets are now available for IUP Plays Pittsburgh, to be held Monday, November 2, 2009, at Heinz Hall.

This musical celebration will feature a number of IUP music ensembles, including the Wind Ensemble, Opera Theater, Trombone Choir, Keystone Winds, and Marching Band.

Also featured will be Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra composer of the year Richard Danielpour and world-touring Steinway Artist and IUP assistant professor of piano Henry Wong Doe.

WQED-FM host Ted Sohier will serve as master of ceremonies.

Ticket holders are invited to a pre-concert dessert reception starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Heinz Hall lobby. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m.

You can charge tickets by calling the box office at 412-392-4900 or toll free at 800-743-8560, or by going to the Heinz Hall ticketing website. Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens, and $10 for students and children. Seating is by general admission.

You may be interested in other components of this event as well:

• An alumni reception at nearby Olive and Twist
• Tickets for interested high school groups
• Buses from Indiana to Heinz Hall

Get all the details at IUP Plays Pittsburgh.

The IUP Bands will kick off the Sound Choices series, presented by The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and produced by the Department of Music, with the Annual Homecoming Concert. The performance, featuring the IUP Concert Band, Symphony Band, and Wind Ensemble, will be presented on Sunday, October 11, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium, IUP Performing Arts Center. Under the direction of Jack Stamp, the concert also features the HoodleBug Brass, a faculty quintet in residence at IUP.

The Concert Band will open with a performance of Gustav Holst’s classic “Second Suite in F.” The four-movement work includes the popular British folksong “Greensleeves.”

Following in the British tradition, the Wind Ensemble will perform the recently rediscovered “Vanity Fair” by Percy Fletcher. The work, originally published in 1924, went out of print and was virtually ignored for the second half of the twentieth century. Brant Karrick created a new edition of the work in 2006 so that current bands could enjoy this original work from the early twentieth century.

The Wind Ensemble continues with Walter Hartley’s “Sinfonia No. 9,” written during the first Gulf War, reflecting the composer’s reaction to that war. Hartley, a long-time professor of music at SUNY at Fredonia, has been quite prolific for band, his “Concerto for 23” and “Sinfonia #4” considered classics in the wind band repertoire.

The Wind Ensemble will close the first half with the world premiere of Jim Self’s “Tour de Force.” Self is a 1965 graduate of IUP and a Distinguished Alumnus. Currently a professor of tuba at the University of Southern California, Self is actively involved as a studio musician in Los Angeles, most infamously performing as the “mother ship” in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

The second half features the IUP Symphony Band, opening with Paul Creston’s work from the 1950s titled “Celebration Overture.” Creston, known for his solo saxophone and marimba works, penned less than a dozen works for band, with this lively overture being his most popular.

The concert finale, performed with the HoodleBug Brass, will be selections from Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass,” transcribed by Mike Sweeney. Bernstein originally wrote the work for the opening of the Kennedy Ceanter for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. This version, brilliant scored for solo quintet and band, captures the essence of one of Bernstein’s most celebrated works.

Tickets for the Homecoming Concert are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus or on-line at IUPTickets.com. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning at 2:00 p.m. on the day of the performance. Tickets are $9 for regular admission, $8 for students and children, and $6 for seniors (62 and older) and groups of fifteen or more. For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the Jones-Maruri Duo as part of the Performance Plus series in Gorell Recital Hall, John Sutton Hall, on Thursday, October 8, 2009, at 8:00 p.m.

Since joining forces in 1990, Michael Kevin Jones, cello, and Agustin Maruri, guitar, have played concerts in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia. British-born Jones first picked up the cello at the age of thirteen and has studied in both London and Germany, touring and conducting master classes throughout Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

While in London, Jones won numerous prizes for his solo and chamber music playing, was chosen to perform for the British Royal Family, and was awarded a scholarship from the German government to study cello under Johannes Goritski in Dusseldorf.

Also in high demand as a solo artist and teacher, having toured five continents, Maruri hails from Madrid, Spain. Maruri has received scholarships and awards as a result of, and towards, his work as a musicologist, discovering many lost or forgotten works in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, the Munich Library, and the British Museum.

As a duo, their discography includes the first recording in the world of original compositions from the nineteenth century for cello and guitar, including music by Leonhard von Call, Thomas Matiegka, and Friedrich Dotzauer. They have also recorded most of the original repertoire of the twentieth century for this combination and have inspired living composers to write for them, such as Pedro Saenz, Jose Maria Sanchez Verdu, and Satoshi Tanaka. Their recording, “Original Music for Cello and Guitar,” was a top ten in the classical market in Hong Kong for one year.

Since performing their first U.S. tour in 1991, the duo has returned to the U.S. each year, giving recitals across the country at venues such as the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hancock Center. They also performed in cities throughout China during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, including Beijing and Shanghai.

Tickets for the Jones Maruri duo are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus or on-line at IUP Tickets.com. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning at 7:15 p.m. on the night of the performance. Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $10 for students and children, and $14 for seniors (62 and older) and for groups of fifteen or more. For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Jones-Maruri Duo is being presented as part of IUP’s International Education Week through the Office of International Education. The Performance Plus series is produced by The Lively Arts of IUP’s College of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (pending state budget adoption and appropriations), Office of International Education, Liberal Studies Program, and the Career Development Center.

The Lively Arts

As reported by Newsweek on Sept. 12, 2009, Hamlisch is one of only eight living artists in the world to win entertainment’s “grand slam”—an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony award. The pianist, composer, and arranger has earned four Emmys, four Grammys, three Oscars, and a Tony, along with three Golden Globe awards.

Barbra Streisand, with whom Hamlisch has collaborated on several projects, tops the list with seventeen “grand slam” awards, with director Mike Nichols receiving thirteeen. Completing the list are Mel Brooks, Liza Minnelli, Whoopi Goldberg, Rita Moreno, and Jonathan Tunick.

Hamlisch also shared in the kudos when the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to A Chorus Line in 1976 and was inducted to the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2008. He is the composer of more than forty motion picture scores, including his Oscar-winning score and song for The Way We Were and his adaptation of Scott Joplin’s music for The Sting, for which he received a third Oscar. Most recently, he wrote the score to Steven Soderbergh’s film The Informant, starring Matt Damon, which opened in wide release September 18.

Hamlisch was musical director and arranger of both Streisand’s 1994 concert tour of the U.S. and England and the television special Barbra Streisand: The Concert, for which he received two of his Emmys.

“Music can make a difference,” Hamlisch says, “There is a global nature to music, which has the potential to bring all people together. Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can.”

Tickets for Mr. Hamlisch’s performance are available now at the Hadley Union Building Ticket Office on the IUP campus or on line. Remaining tickets can be purchased at the door beginning at 7:00 p.m. on the night of the performance. Tickets are $20 for regular admission, $12 for students and children, and $16 for seniors (62 and older) and for groups of fifteen or more.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Helwig Distinguished Artist is funded by the Helwig Distinguished Artist Endowment, and additional funding is provided by the Helwig Family. It is produced by The Lively Arts of IUP’s College of Fine Arts. Previous receipients of the Helwig Distinguished Artist award include Itzhak Perlman, Chita Rivera, Doc Serverinsen, Dave Brubeck, Rosemary Clooney, and others.

The Performance Plus series is funded in part by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (pending state budget adoption and appropriations), Office of International Education, Liberal Studies Program, Office of Social Equity and Civic Engagement, and the Career Development Center.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Theater-by-the-Grove, produced by the Department of Theater and Dance, opens this year’s season with a production of the comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, written by the Irish poet, author, and playwright, Oscar Wilde. Performances are scheduled on the mainstage of Waller Hall, IUP Performing Arts Center, on October 1–3 and 7–10, 2009, at 8:00 p.m., with a matinee on October 4, 2009, at 2:00 p.m.

The original production, considered by some to be the climax of Wilde’s career, premiered in 1895 at the St. James’s Theater in London. The play revolves around the courtships of two society bachelors who invent friends to be used as excuses to avoid their annoying social duties.

The production’s director, Barb Blackledge, is setting the production in the high-society atmosphere of the 1920s instead of the Victorian age, as it is usually done. Blackledge stated what she, the cast, and the crew would like the audience to experience is “a great deal of laughter. In addition, through a lobby display, we will share some of the actual world of the 1920s in England, including the jazz era in music and the ‘Bright Young People’ in its society.”

She added, “It should be great fun for so many students and community members to be able to see a staged version of a play that so many of them have read and studied throughout their education—both in English and Theater.”

Tickets for The Importance of Being Earnest are available at the Hadley Union Building, located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus, and at the door forty-five minutes before the performance. Tickets are priced at $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of 15 or more, and $8 with a university I-card.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547. Tickets may be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313. Theater-by-the Grove is produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and College of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the Student Cooperative Association.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania is proud to present a musical celebration—IUP Plays Pittsburgh—in the majestic surroundings of Heinz Hall. Performances will feature various IUP Music Department ensembles, including the IUP Wind Ensemble, Opera Theater, Trombone Choir, Keystone Winds, and Marching Band. WQED-FM host Ted Sohier will serve as master of ceremonies.

The event will be held of Monday, November 2, 2009. Ticket holders are invited to a pre-concert dessert reception starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Heinz Hall lobby followed by a 7:30 p.m. concert.

Tickets will be available through the Heinz Hall box office starting Monday, September 14, 2009. You can charge tickets starting on September 14 by calling the Heinz Hall Box Office at (412) 392-4900, toll free 1-800-743-8560, or through Heinz Hall’s on-line ticketing website. Tickets are $16 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens, and $10 for students and children. Seating is by general admission.

Further information about this concert, charter bus availability, a special alumni event planned, and tickets for high school students is available on our website. 

On the same day—Monday, September 14, 2009—The Lively Arts at IUP will begin selling tickets for the appearance of award-winning composer, arranger, and conductor Marvin Hamlisch. Hamlisch will offer a solo performance combined with several numbers with the IUP Jazz Ensemble.

Hamlisch is this year’s Helwig Distinguished Artist and will perform at 8 p.m. on Monday, October 5, 2009, in Fisher Auditorium, IUP Performing Arts Center. The concert is presented by The Lively Arts, a program of the College of Fine Arts, as part of the Performance Plus series.

Tickets for Marvin Hamlisch will be available at the Hadley Union Building and on line through the HUB Box Office. Tickets are $20 for regular admission, $16 for senior citizens, and $12 for students and children, and all seats are reserved.

Persons wishing to receive further discounts and preferred seating may order season subscriptions through October 1, 2009, by downloading the season brochure and order form, by calling The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547, or by e-mailing lively-arts@iup.edu.

The Performance Plus series is funded in part by Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, IUP Student Cooperative Association, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (pending state budget adoption and appropriattions), Office of International Education, Liberal Studies Program, Office of Social Equity and Civic Engagement, and the Career Development Center.

We are once again offering five great performances, including international touring artists in our Performance Plus season. The line-up ranges from Helwig Distinguished Artist Marvin Hamlisch to the UK and Spain team of the Jones-Maruri Duo. The season also includes the Chestnut Brass Ensemble, Nichole Canusso Dance Company, and the return of the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra.

We also have a wide selection of offerings bring produced by Theater-by-the-Grove/Dance Theater and Music Theater, starting with the high-style comedy of The Importance of Being Earnest. Other theater productions include a collection of short plays titled New Works/New Voices, and The Servant of Two Masters. Dance Theater weighs in with The Collector of Beauty in the fall and the Spring Dance Performance. Music Theater presents the light opera The Merry Widow, then combines with Theater-by-the-Grove for the hit musical Sweet Charity.

For something very different, we are offering a spectacular second season of Sound Choices, featuring six special concerts presented by the Department of Music. The season starts with the annual Homecoming Concert and includes several of our premiere ensembles throughout the season. The concerts also highlight some of our faculty members and alumni as well as visiting artists, including Juan Hermida and Misa Ito visiting from the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico.

If you become a fan on The Lively Arts’ Facebook page and follow us on Twitter, we will discount your subscription order up to $4. That works out to as much as 10 percent off your ticket order. Just check the brochure for more details.

If you have any questions, please call us at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

As noted in an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, the IUP Music Department was lauded as one the school’s “greatest strengths.” The publication also noted the “fantastic fine arts program” and the “solid program in theater,” among other excellent programs across all of IUP’s academic colleges.

Information for The Best 371 Colleges—2010 Edition came from 122,000 students at 371 top colleges who were asked to rate their schools on dozens of topics and to report on their campus experiences.

The Lively Arts at IUP is proud to announce that award-winning composer, arranger, and conductor Marvin Hamlisch will perform October 5, 2009, in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center.

This will mark the seventeenth Helwig Distinguished Artist Award recipient since the honor was created in 1987 by Florence Helwig in honor of her late husband, Wilfred E. Helwig. More information about the Helwig award is available on our website.

As part of his visit to IUP, Hamlisch will conduct an open rehearsal with the IUP Jazz Ensemble and will perform as many as three big-band arrangements with the ensemble for the concert. The IUP Jazz Ensemble is under the direction of Kevin Eisensmith. 

Hamlisch’s life in music is notable for its great versatility as well as substance. As composer, Hamlisch has won virtually every major award that exists: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony, and three Golden Globe awards. His groundbreaking show, A Chorus Line, received the Pulitzer Prize.

He is the composer of more than forty motion picture scores, including his Oscar-winning score and song for The Way We Were and his adaptation of Scott Joplin’s music for The Sting, for which he received a third Oscar. His prolific output of scores for films includes original compositions and/or musical adaptations for Sophie’s Choice, Ordinary People, The Swimmer, Three Men and a Baby, Ice Castles, Take the Money and Run, Bananas and Save the Tiger.

His latest effort, The Informant, starring Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh, is scheduled for release this October.

Hamlisch holds the position of principal pops conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and San Diego Symphony.

He was also musical director and arranger of Barbra Streisand’s 1994 concert tour of the U.S. and England as well as of the television special, Barbra Streisand: The Concert, for which he received two of his Emmys.

Hamlisch is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and Queens College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. He believes in the power of music to bring people together. “Music can make a difference. There is a global nature to music, which has the potential to bring all people together. Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can.”

PennPAT works to increase opportunities for professional Pennsylvania-based professional performing artists to obtain successful touring engagements. Created as a unique public/private partnership administered by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, PennPAT is funded by the Heinz Endowments, William Penn Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The Chestnut Brass Company (CBC) is a Grammy-winning quintet that performs music from Bach to Broadway. Their enormous repertoire and uncompromising skill have made them one of America’s most beloved brass groups, captivating audiences for more than thirty years.

The funded project with CBC includes an advance visit to Indiana in November 2009, working with selected area high school brass programs in open classes and rehearsals as well as direct work with IUP brass students. A return visit in January will include a regional high school brass festival hosted by IUP and additional rehearsals. The culminating performance is scheduled for Sunday, January 31, in Fisher Auditorium of the IUP Performing Arts Center. The performance will include signature pieces by CBC along with combined and solo performances by IUP’s Hoodlebug Brass, IUP brass students, and up to four high school brass quintets.

The Nichole Canuso Dance Company (NCDC) creates dance to explore and expose the complex beauty of seemingly mundane behavior and celebrate the awkwardness, humor, and surprise in human experience. Through collaborative creation, NCDC invites the vulnerability and idiosyncrasies of the performers to permeate the work.

The project with NCDC is funded by PennPAT’s New Directions program, which supports more complex projects that involve a long-term residency with a PennPAT roster artist. These projects develop relationships among the PennPAT artists, local artists, and community members through collaborative activities, helping to expand the artist and their work.

For The Lively Arts, NCDC will make at least two advance trips to Indiana and provide at least twenty days of residency activities. They will work with IUP Dance Theater and community members in further developing and incorporating students dancers into their newest work, Wandering Alice. One of the unique aspects of this provocative, humorous, and ground breaking production is that it is a piece “on the go” where an intimate audience of no more than about sixty members will be taken from one location to another as the performance progresses—sometimes following the dancers and, at other times, leading them. Up to eight public performances will be presented in April 2010 in various locations of the IUP Performing Arts.

The remainder of the 2009–2010 Performance Plus season will be announced later in July with subscriptions available starting mid-August.

We are pleased to announce the following productions that will be presented as part of The Lively Arts season.

These productions will be produced by Theater-by-the-Grove, Music Theater, and Dance Theater of the Department of Theater and Dance and the Department of Music, College of Fine Arts. Information on subscriptions and single tickets will be sent through mail and e-mail later this summer. If you have any questions, please e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu. Events for The Lively Arts’ 2009–2010 Performance Plus and Sound Choices series will be announced in July.

The Importance of Being Earnest

By Oscar Wilde
Directed by Barbara Blackledge
October 1–3 and 7–10; 8:00 p.m.
October 4; 2:00 p.m.
Waller Hall Mainstage, Performing Arts Center
A Theater-by-the-Grove production

The Importance of Being Earnest comically reveals the adventures, mischief, and drama involved with two friends who both lead double lives. Jack, who was discovered in a bag as a baby, goes by the name “Earnest” in London. Algernon claims to have a needy friend in the country to where he frequently escapes. Troubles arise when Earnest falls in love with Gwendolyn, who is enticed by the name and Algernon pretends to be Earnest in order to meet Jack’s attractive ward, Cecily. As one can well imagine, things get out of hand and the truth is revealed when Gwendolyn and Cecily meet, both claiming to be engaged to Earnest.

The Collector of Beauty

Composed by Derek Cooper
Directed by Holly Boda-Sutton
October 23–25; 7:00 p.m.
Zink Hall Dance Theater
An IUP Dance Theater production

The Collector of Beauty features an original score composed by Derek Cooper, an IUP student. This dark story is loosely based on the film Perfume and is performed by the IUP Dance Theater as well as IUP musicians. The story follows the life of John Beringer, a man who realizes he has the ability to extract the souls of beautiful women to keep for himself.

New Works, New Voices

Directed by Jason Chimonides and IUP Students
November 5–7 and 11–14; 8:00 p.m.
November 8; 2:00 p.m.
Waller Hall Mainstage, Performing Arts Center
A Theater-by-the-Grove production

New Works, New Voices will be composed of three to four short plays in a variety of genres, written by IUP students and alumni. The plays will be announced during the summer following a selection process involving theater faculty and students.

The Merry Widow

Music by Franz Lehar
Directed by Sarah Mantel
December 3–5; 8:00 p.m.
December 6; 2:00 p.m.
A Music Theater production

Several years before the curtain rises, the love affair between a commoner and the dashing Count Danilo was ended by the Count’s family. Amidst romantic intrigue, high society balls, and the can-can line at the decadent Maxim’s, a bankrupt kingdom’s diplomats scramble to keep the beautiful and recently widowed commoner, Hanna, and her inherited millions, in their country. This light-hearted musical story, set in Paris, will be sung in English.

Sweet Charity

Book Neil Simon, Music by Cy Coleman, Lyrics by Dorothy Fields
Directed by Rob Gretta
Musical Direction by Sarah Mantel
Choreography by Joan Van Dyke
February 25–27; 8:00 p.m.
February 28: 2:00 p.m.
Fisher Auditorium, Performing Arts Center
A coproduction of IUP Music Theater and Theater-by-the-Grove

Charity Valentine, a dance hostess at the Fandango ballroom, has been taken advantage of too many times. After being forced to hide from a movie star’s mistress, Charity meets the good natured Oscar. A unflappable optimist, Charity’s misfortunes and bad luck with men and relationships are revealed in this wishful musical about trying to find love and a better life. In addition to the title song, this Tony Award winning musical also features hits such as “Big Spender” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now.”

Spring Dance Performance

Directed by Holly Boda-Sutton
Zink Hall Dance Theater
March 26–27; 7:00 p.m.
March 28; 2:00 p.m.
An IUP Dance Theater production

This popular production offers a collection of work ranging from humorous to dramatic to inspiring to quirky. The event brings visiting artists and students together for a performance overflowing with energy and expression.

The Servant of Two Masters

By Carlo Goldoni
Directed by Rick Kemp
April 15–17 and 21–24; 8:00 p.m.
April 18; 2:00 p.m.
Waller Hall Mainstage, Performing Arts Center
A Theater-by-the-Grove production

The Servant of Two Masters is a comical adventure resplendent with hidden identities, star-crossed lovers, and unmitigated lightheartedness. The story unfolds as Beatrice, posing as her dead brother, attempts to claim money to marry her lover, who also happens to be her brother’s murderer. As confusion grows surrounding the dead brother’s fiancé and new betrothed, the servant, Truffaldino, unknowingly takes on secretly serving two masters–Beatrice in disguise and her lover. Truffaldino’s mix ups only add to the overall confusion and hilarity of this antic-filled comedy classic.

Theater-by-the-Grove, Music Theater, and IUP Dance Theater are funded in part by the IUP Student Cooperative Association.

Pennsylvania Presenters is a statewide organization of over 150 members who represent performing arts venues from small community theaters to large university performing arts centers. Members work to bring touring performing artists to their communities for concerts, recitals, and outreach activities. Pennsylvania Presenters, formed over twenty-five years ago, is considered one of the most active and respected presenting consortium organizations in the country.

The award will be given on an annual basis to a presenter who has made a meaningful volunteer contribution to Pennsylvania Presenters and the presenting field. According to a resolution by the organization’s board of directors, it was given to Knerr “in appreciation for his presenting quality performances in his region and his tireless commitment to the PA Presenters organization. We applaud your loyal service.”

Knerr, who presents touring performance artists through Lively Arts’ Performance Plus series, came to IUP in July 1989. In addition to presenting touring performers, he also works to promote and manage a variety of other public events within the College of Fine Arts. He also directs ArtsPath, an arts-in-education partnership with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts that serves a five-county region. Additionally, he heads the facilities management for the IUP Performing Arts Center and leads the College of Fine Arts’ web team.

Knerr has been a member of Pennsylvania Presenters for most of his twenty years at IUP and has served on their board of directors and as president. He served as the cochair of the organization’s 2002 state conference and numerous other committees. More recently, he served as the chairperson of the first Pennsylvania Spring Arts Conference held in Pittsburgh in May 2009, which brought over 250 presenters and other community arts leaders from Pennsylvania and neighboring states to Pittsburgh.

Locally, he has served on the boards of the Indiana County Tourist Bureau, Indiana Arts Council, and Indiana County Humane Society and on the advisory committee for the Indiana Players. He has presented professional sessions and workshops at numerous state, regional, and national conferences; served as a consultant in presenting and arts-in-education; and participated as a panelist for numerous granting organizations in the arts.

Macbeth 3, a tour de force for only three actors, is based on Lisa Wolpe's adaptation of Shakespeare's masterpiece. The play is set in hell, where the damned Macbeth is forced to relive his rise to power and fall to eternal punishment.

The production features the requisite sword fights, “fog and filthy air,” and has the added enticement that actors will play multiple roles, often across gender. For tickets, contact ProArts, 412-394-3353, or call Unseam'd at 412-621-0244.

They will perform a new, contemporary, English-language noh play, Pagoda, and provide support for the traditional play Kiyotsune, with stops scheduled in three cities in the United Kingdom, including London and Oxford (as part of the Japan-UK 150 Festival celebrations), and in Dublin. They will then perform in Paris as the final stop of the two-week tour.

The Oshima Noh Theatre (Kita-ryu school) of Hiroshima, Japan, is collaborating with Theatre Nohgaku, based in Tokyo and New York, in this joint production of classical and contemporary theater.

Kiyotsune is a popular classical fifteenth-century “Warrior” noh play by Zeami, often regarded as the founding father of noh in its present form. Pagoda is a new English-language noh play by Jannette Cheong with music by Richard Emmert. It is rooted in the true story of the author’s grandmother who sent her youngest son away to sea when he was a young boy to save him from the famine ravaging rural China in the 1920s. He never returned. After his death in London in 1973, playwright Cheong went to find her father’s birthplace. Her experiences—at times tragic and other times uplifting—are combined with an ancient Chinese legend to form the basis of the play.

The project includes Getting to Noh, a program of public workshops, lectures, and eductional activities to introduce the dance, music, costumes, and masks of Japanese noh theater to a broader audience. This will be the first time a strictly English-language noh play has been written by a British playwright and produced in Europe as a fully realized noh performance.

Performance dates for the 2009 tour are December 2–3 at Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, London; December 5 at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin; December 7–8 at the O’Reilly Theatre, Keble College, Oxford; and December 9–10 at the Maison de la Culture du Japon, Paris.

The conference is organized through Pennsylvania Presenters and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Pennsylvania Presenters is an organization that supports organizations and universities that bring touring performing arts events to their venues. Knerr, who manages The Lively Arts at IUP, has served on its board of directors and is a past president of the organization, one of the most active presenting consortium groups in the country.

The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts is a state agency and part of the governor’s office. The conference brings together several of the council’s leading programs, including Pennsylvania Arts in Education Partnership, Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, Picture PA, the Folk and Traditional Arts Infrastructure, and the Cities and Communities Initiative.

The conference includes showcases for touring artists from across the country, workshops by leading experts in the field of arts and management, and keynote addresses by Grammy-winning singer Kathy Mattea and by Thomas Mulready, the founder of the Cool Cleveland Network.

This year’s conference will pay particular attention to the economy and the threat of losing state funding for the arts. Currently, the state senate has passed a budget bill eliminating all funding for the Pennsylvania Arts Council, which would eliminate hundreds of programs, jobs, and grants provided throughout the state. The house bill, currently in debate and scheduled for a vote later this month, restores that funding. Debate in conference committee and by the governor is expected to be intense. Advocay to protect these funds is underway through Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania and an on-line state petition open to all taxpayers.

The IUP Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Stanley Chepaitis and David Martynuik, will present a diverse evening of major orchestral works starting with Gustav Mahler’s symphonic movement from “Blumine,” originally composed for his “Titan” symphony. Chepaitis is featured as the soloist on Beethoven’s cosmic Violin Concerto, followed by Lou Harrison’s Symphony No. 3, heavily influenced by music from the Pacific Rim cultures.

Chepaitis holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree as well as a Performer’s Certificate from the prestigious Eastman School of Music. He has traveled around the world as a performer and composer.

Martynuik is an assistant professor of music and director of the IUP Marching Band. He earned a Ph.D. degree in music education from Florida State University. His compositions for large and small instrumental ensembles have been performed across the country.

Gustav Mahler was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was best known during his own lifetime as one of the leading orchestral and operatic conductors of the day. He has since come to be acknowledged as among the most important late-Romantic composers.

The Violin Concerto by Beethoven was premiered on December 23, 1806, in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. Beethoven wrote the concerto for his colleague, Franz Clement, a leading violinist of the time. It has been one of the most important works of the violin concerto repertoire.

The orchestra is preparing for a tour of Maryland and Eastern Pennsylania. That tour will culminate performing this repertoire at the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association State Convention in Valley Forge.

Tickets for the April 21 ensemble are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus starting Monday, April 6, 2009. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door starting forty-five minutes prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 for seniors and groups, and $6 for students and children. Tickets may also be purchased on line at IUPtickets.com.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313.

Written in 1988 by Howard Korder, Boys’ Life premiered at Lincoln Center in a production the Village Voice described as “a presence to take seriously” and the New York Times deemed “the most balanced and intelligent comment on the battle of the sexes seen in a long time.” That same year, Korder’s play was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Directed by IUP theater professor Rick Kemp, Boys’ Life is a bitingly funny, post-modern comedy of manners which follows three former college buddies now seeking to make their way in the big city—and with various women of their acquaintance.

In a series of fast-paced, sharply etched scenes, the play uncovers the drives, pretensions, and fears of Jack, Phil, and Don. In the end, it is made clear that it is actually the women who possess the qualities to which they lay claim.

The play contains language and situations to which some audience members may object, and it is not considered appropriate for children.

Tickets for Boys’ Life are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building located on Pratt Drive of the IUP campus.

Tickets may also be purchased with a credit card by call the HUB box office at 724-357-1313. Tickets remaining will be available at the door starting forty-five minutes before each performance. Tickets are $14 for regular admission, $12 for senior citizens and groups of fifteen or more, and $8 with a university I-card.

Theater-by-the-Grove is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association and produced by the Department of Theater and Dance and the College of Fine Arts.

The Lively Arts

Based on the concept of entanglement and quantum physics, “Spooky Action” gets its title from Albert Einstein’s description in describing the theory. When discussing the somehow romantic way subatomic particles simultaneously spin and become fatefully entwined, Einstein was reported to explain it as “spooky action at a distance.”

The world premiere has been commissioned by The Lively Arts at IUP with Miro Dance Theatre creating dance, music and video that explores concepts of connection, the power of the observer, and the way in which lives—like particles—can become enigmatically entangled.

Behind the creative genius of Miro are choreographer Amanda Miller and video artist Tobin Rothlein. The New York Times says that the dance troup "does better than most at combining visuals and movement to make a third, poetically expressive form."

According to Hank Knerr, director of public events for The Lively Arts and commissioner of the piece, “It is very exciting to see all the pieces coming together. From a concept discussed two years ago and through the joining of an original music score, phenomenal video created to work together with the concept and dancers, to the vibrant production design, I believe it is something that Indiana audiences will find truly enlightening and entertaining.”

Also directly involved with the creation and development of the work over the past year was the IUP Dance Theater, under the direction of Holly Boda-Sutton, and IUP physics professor, Muhammad Numan.

Tickets for the April 7 premiere are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office or by calling 724-357-1313. Tickets are also available on line. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door one hour prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $16 regular admission, $14 for seniors and groups, and $10 for students and children.

For more information call The Lively Arts (lively-arts@iup.edu) at (724)-357-2547 or the HUB Ticket Office at (724)-357-1313.

The project is being funded, in part, by a New Directions grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour. Additional funding for Performance Plus has been provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance, IUP Student Cooperative Association, Office of International Education, Liberal Studies Program, African American Cultural Center, Office of Social Equity and Division of Student Affairs.

The IUP Jazz Band and the IUP Jazz Ensemble will host featured guest trombonist Harry Watters. The IUP Jazz Band is led by Keith Young, and the IUP Jazz Ensemble is directed by Kevin Eisensmith.

New Orleans trombonist and Jupiter Artist Harry Watters serves with both the Army Blues Jazz Ensemble and the U.S. Army Brass Quintet in Washington, D.C. His recordings include Love Songs; Centaur Records’ S’Wonderful: The Music of George Gershwin, with arranger and conductor William Grimes; and Summit Records’ Brothers, Brothers II, & Brothers III, with trumpeter Ken Watters.

A native of Huntsville, Alabama, and a graduate of the University of North Texas, Watters spent four years touring and recording with the Dukes of Dixieland. While working at night on Bourbon Street, a sleep-deprived Watters attended the University of New Orleans by day, serving as the graduate assistant to professor Ellis Marsalis.

Watters has performed with Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, Erich Kunzel, Shirley Jones, Peter Nero, Kevin Mahogany, Wycliffe Gordon, Bernadette Peters, Lou Rawls, Maureen McGovern, Bill Watrous, Carl Fontana, Jiggs Whiggam, Tom “Bones Malone,” and James Moody. He has also appeared as a featured soloist with the West Virginia Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Tulsa Pops, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Janacek Philharmonic, the University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band, the Kishinev Festival Orchestra, and the U.S. Army Orchestra.

Watters is constantly on the move. His clinic, “Power Practicing,” has been presented at the American Band College, the Association of Concert Bands National Convention, the University of North Texas, Southeastern Louisiana University, New Mexico State University, the University of Tennessee, East Carolina State University, Baker University, the University of Central Florida, Virginia Commonwealth University, Louisiana State University, Loyola University, and the University of New Orleans and in high schools throughout the United States.

Watters’ appearance at the IUP Jazz Festival has been made possible, in part, through a grant from Jupiter and Volkwein’s Music, with additional support from the IUP Department of Music.

Tickets may be purchased in advance at the Hadley Union Box Office or by calling 724-357-1313. Tickets will also be sold at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. Regular admission is $9, $8 for senior citizens and students, and $6 for students and children.

For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail us (lively-arts@iup.edu).

The contemporary dance piece, commissioned by The Lively Arts at IUP, will receive its world premiere on the Fisher Auditorium Stage, IUP Performing Arts Center, on April 7.

The work centers on the theory of entanglement and quantum physics. Part of the delegation included IUP physics professor, Muhammad Numan, who also met with members of Miro on an earlier visit to IUP in February. During both visits, Numan provided critical assistance in the scientific accuracy of the content.

Others making the trip were Hank Knerr, director of public events for IUP’s College of Fine Arts; Galen Moore, residency coordinator for this project at IUP, and Meghan Moore, assistant for The Lively Arts. This trip was in advance of Miro’s return to IUP on April 1 to finalize the technical work and choreography.

Although still a work in progress, Knerr commented “It is very exciting to see all the pieces coming together. From a concept discussed two years ago and through the joining of an original music score, phenomenal video created to work together with the concept and dancers, to the vibrant production design, I believe it is something that Indiana audiences will find truly enlightening and entertaining.”

About Spooky Action
Any time two entities interact, they entangle. It doesn’t matter if they are photons, atoms, or bigger things made of atoms—like us. The entanglement persists no matter how far these entities separate, as long as they don’t subsequently interact with anything else—a difficult task for people. But the motions of subatomic particles are dominated by entanglement.

It starts when they interact; in doing so they lose their separate existence. No matter how far they move apart, if one is tweaked, measured, or observed, the other seems to instantly respond; even if the whole world now lies between them. No one knows how this happens.

Albert Einstein referred to this odd but somehow romantic phenomenon of quantum physics as “spooky action at a distance.” Miro explores this “spooky action” and the way in which our lives—like particles—can become enigmatically entangled.

Peformance and Ticket Information
Spooky Action, commissioned by The Lively Arts at IUP and funded, in part, by a PennPAT New Directions grant, will be presented in the newly-renovated Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center. Curtain is at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7.

Tickets are available on line at IUPTickets.com or by calling the Hadley Union Building box office at 724-357-1313. For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Photo Credits: Joe Bowman and Lindsey Browning

The Keystone Chamber Winds and the IUP Wind Ensemble will be joined by world-renowned and Grammy-winning composer Richard Danielpour for an evening of twentieth-century music. The second half will be devoted to the music of Danielpour with “Benediction” for brass and chimes opening the half. It was written for the New York City Ballet.

This will be followed by Danielpour accompanying faculty members Mary Logan Hastings, soprano, and Robert Peavler, baritone, on two arias from his opera Margaret Garner. The concert will conclude with a performance by the Wind Ensemble of Danielpour's powerful “Voice of the City.”

Danielpour studied at Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory of Music and later at the Juilliard School of Music, where he received a D.M.A. in composition. He teaches at both the Manhattan School of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music.

His current style favors a more ecumenical and “accessible” expression. He cites the Beatles—along with John Adams, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner—as influences on his more recent compositions. He also makes frequent references to Hemingway and Whitman, saying, “The emotion in prose and verse can be translated to music.”

The first half of the program will feature works by British composer Malcolm Arnold and American composer Robert Kurka. Arnold’s “Water Music” was written for the opening of a Shakespearean theater in England. Kurka’s “The Good Soldier Schweik Suite” is music taken from his ballet.

The Keystone Winds is a chamber ensemble comprised of IUP music alumni, faculty members, and advanced music students. The IUP Wind Ensemble is one of the premiere university ensembles, with both groups under the direction of University Professor and department chairperson Jack Stamp.

Tickets for the April 1 concert are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. Tickets may also be purchased on line at IUPTickets.com. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door one hour prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 for seniors and groups, and $6 for students and children.

For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313.

Pictured above are composer Richard Danielpour (top), soprano Mary Logan Hastings, and baritone Robert Peavler.

Hood has been a member of the Rotary Club of Indiana since 1999, has served as president for the 2007–08 year, and has been on the board of directors since 2006. He has also been recognized with the Rotary District 7330 Governor’s Circle Award and the Shining Star Award for Outstanding Service to Rotary International and District 7330 and was selected as the Paul Harris Fellow in 2002.

Hood has been an advocate and supporter for a number of IUP programs specifically designed to provide arts experiences and immersion for community school children. He has been a board member and treasurer of the University Museum at IUP since 1998, providing leadership in the museum’s embrace of local and regional history.

As a member of the Pittsburgh Regional Champions, Hood continues to promote Indiana County in the ten-county region in order to enhance and encourage a larger awareness of local economic, artistic, and educational opportunities.

In his professional role as dean of the College of Fine Arts, he has worked to bring about a facilities renaissance that reflects a commitment to these facilitieis being available, accessible, and welcoming to the community as an important arts and cultural resource. Under his professional leadership, the College of Fine Arts has seen all of its degree programs achieve or be renewed in full professional accreditation.

The award presentation was held on March 19 at the Rustic Lodge in Indiana.

The IUP Art Department’s Kipp Gallery will open an exhibit March 10 of works by artist Lee Renninger, titled “Slipstich.”

In her ongoing work, Lee Renninger is exploring clay as fabric and explains, “Ceramic material is inherently dense and inflexible—qualities that have historically recommended it for utility. The transformation of this material into works that are soft and fluid, as well as visually weightless, is only one way of challenging some of the established uses of clay.”

The exhibit will run March 10 through March 27, and gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, noon to 4:00 p.m. Kipp Gallery is located on the first floor of IUP’s Sprowls Hall at the corner of 11th and Grant streets. Admission is free.

In addition to the exhibit, Renninger will present a talk at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10, in Delaney Hall room G43, with a reception following in Kipp Gallery.

Renninger is currently living in Gulfport, Mississippi, and did her undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Florida. She has recently shown her work at the Penland School of Crafts, Penland, N.C.; Mississippi Museum of Art.; Mint Museum of Craft and Design in North Carolina; Victoria, Australia; Houghton College, N.Y.; Kent State University, Kent, Ohio; and others. She has been a two-time recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and has also been the artist in residence for McColl Center for the Visual Arts in North Carolina, Virginia Center for the Arts, and Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, N.M.

General Artist Statement

Much of my work has evolved from a fascination with repeated patterns and multiple units. It is primarily ceramic based, but often incorporates other media in an installation format. Part of my intent is to challenge some of the long-standing beliefs associated with the use of clay: that it is a material confined to the realm of utility or conventional, sculptural forms. I choose to treat it antithetically, using the material in ways that defy its history and fundamental nature.

Currently, I am exploring clay as fabric. Ceramic material is inherently dense and inflexible, qualities that have historically recommended it for utility. The transformation of this material into works that are soft and fluid, as well as visually weightless, is only one way of challenging some of the established uses of clay. Many questions still remain about the possibilities of the material: how it might be used and in what ways it can speak of our time.

Couture Artist Statement

The Couture Project uses fashion as a means to explore questions of personal, political, ethnic, and historic identity. It continues my exploration of clay as fabric through ceramic- and fiber-based installations. The works of designers such as Balenciaga, Ghesquiere, and Gautier serve as the inspiration for these works, some complete garments and some fragments (partial garments) made of porcelain units and fiber, combined with other objects or materials when appropriate.

My primary interest is in creating works that mimic the visual models they are based on but defy utility. These works address—albeit somewhat subversively—issues of identity within larger personal and cultural contexts. I’ve chosen couture fashion as a metaphorical bridge because it exemplifies the blurring of historical lines between art and popular culture and serves as an effective platform for the issues and materials I am exploring.

The IUP Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Jason Worzbyt, will perform Samuel Barber’s “Commando March” and Morton Gould’s “American Salute.” With Michael Hood, dean of the College of Fine Arts, serving as narrator, they will also present Aaron Copland’s highly acclaimed and popular “Lincoln Portrtait.”

The Symphony Band, also directed by Worzbyt, includes “Vox Populi” by Richard Danielpour, Symphony Dances from “West Side Story” by Leonard Bernstein, and “Rush” by Sam Hazo.

The IUP Brass Ensemble, conducted by Christian Dickinson, will perform pieces by Jerrod Fisher and Edgar Crockett. They will also perform “Triskelion” by Charles Knox, featuring IUP faculty member Kevin Eisensmith as trumpet soloist.

Tickets for the February 22 ensemble are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP or on line at IUPtickets.com. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door starting one hour prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 for seniors and groups, and $6 for students and children.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547 or e-mail lively-arts@iup.edu.

Supernovaasteroidcometsun and Other Natural Wonders: Recent paintings by Clayton Merrell

Mr. Merrell is a professor of painting at Carnegie Mellon University who also has an extensive solo and two-person exhibition record. He has participated in many national and international exhibitions and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants. I hope that you can stop by the gallery, in Sprowls Hall, and view Clayton Merrell’s most recent body of work or even take time to hear him talk about his stunning paintings.

Talk and Reception

Talk by Mr. Merrell on February 5 in G43 of Delaney Hall (formerly Suites on Grant) and a free public reception from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in Kipp Gallery, Sprowls Hall.

Show runs February 3–27.
Gallery hours: 12–4 p.m., Tues.–Fri.

IUP Night at Heinz Hall, hosted by the Department of Music and College of Fine Arts, at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh on Friday, February 20

Program

Manfred Honeck, conductor

Carmina Burana by Carl Orff
Mojca Erdmann, soprano
Christopher Pfund, tenor
Hugh Russell, baritone
Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh

Beethoven and Haydn
Oboe Concertos
Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, oboe

And a “mystery piece,” to be determined

Prices for community members include bus transportation from Cogswell Hall to Heinz Hall as well as reduced-price concert tickets as follows: $37 for the gallery, $45 for the family circle, and $55 for the main floor. Buses will leave from Cogswell at 5:30 p.m., returning around midnight. Members of the IUP Tubaphonium Ensemble will perform in the lobby prior to the concert.

Tickets must be purchased by Friday, February 6.

Please see the IUP at Night at Heinz Hall Ticket Order Form.

Questions? Contact Matt Baumer or 724-357-5646.

The Lively Arts, as part of its Performance Plus season and celebrating the inaugural season in the new IUP Performing Arts Center, will present Squonk Opera in Indiana County: The Opera on Friday, January 30, at 8 p.m. This one-time only performance brings the world-touring performance company Squonk Opera together with dozens of Indiana County residents and IUP students to perform a spectacle that celebrates our region and the role we all play in a global community.

The multimedia production, taking place in Fisher Auditorium on the IUP campus, is filled with original music, local histories, video, dance, lights, and other theatrical spectacle. Local contributions include eighteen Indiana Countians interviewed by Squonk, over one hundred drawings by area elementary students, a community finale chorus of over thirty voices, local scenic video shot on the ground and in the air, and area dancers ranging from thirteen through adult. IUP students in the department of theater and dance have also participated in the creation of special puppets and properties and will also be seen on stage.

Tickets for the performance are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building, located off School St. on Pratt Dr. Tickets are also available on line at IUP Tickets or by calling 724-357-1313. Tickets remaining will be sold at the door starting at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $16 regular admission, $14 for seniors and groups of 15 or more; and $10 for all students and children. For further information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547.

Sponsored By…

This project is partially supported by a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, a program developed and funded by the Heinz Endowments; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Performance Plus is presented by the College of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the IUP Student Cooperative Association, African American Cultural Center, Office of International Affairs, Liberal Studies, Office of Social Equity, and Division of Student Affairs. Performance Plus is additionally supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts provided through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance.

The Indiana Arts Council will sponsor a reception in the mezzanine lobby following the performance.

More About the Production

Indiana County: The Opera is one installment of a national tour of Squonk Opera’s (put your hometown’s name here): The Opera. Pittsburgh: The Opera premiered the series in June 2006, and since then, the Squonkers have created College Park: The Opera for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland; Chester County: The Opera with the Delaware Valley Arts Consortium, Albany: The Opera at the University of Albany; South Orange: The Opera at the South Orange Performing Arts Center in New Jersey; Columbia: The Opera at the Columbia Festival of the Arts; Baltimore: The Opera at Baltimore Theatre Project, St. Louis: The Operetta for First Night St. Louis; Bloomington: The Opera at the Buskirk-Chumley in Indiana; Newark: The Opera at the University of Delaware; Charleston: The Opera at FestivALL Charleston (North Carolina); Charlotte: The Opera at the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center (North Carolina); and a special overseas version for the Busan International Performing Arts Festival in South Korea.

• “…uplifting and completely over-the-top” — Albany Times Union
• “…an abstract music video of the town” — Philadelphia Inquirer 
• “…stunning, sophisticated music” — The Washington Post
• “…a quirky, playful, music- and image-driven piece of performance art that offers a nontraditional view of a place you thought you knew” — Tribune-Review

To create these hometown operas, the Squonkers draw from half-time shows, centennial celebrations, political campaigns, tribal displays, and local mythologies. We videotape interviews with the local citizens. We research the town’s victories and scandals, icons and idiosyncrasies, and make movies of the local streetscape. Local children draw imagination maps that we project in animations onstage where local dance groups also join us.

We enjoy discovering how each community sees itself—as a whole and within its diverse communities. In having fun with this format of a celebration of the host city, we talk about the broader issues of shared humanity and the need for self-definition. Community is a vital issue and a comic creative challenge, allowing us to explore what makes opera life-like and life operatic... or not.

Our hometown operas were commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and Pittsburgh ROARS and was generously funded by the Heinz Endowments, Richard King Mellon Foundation, A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation, Anonymous, Mellon Financial Corporation, National Endowment for the Arts, and private donors.

• For more Squonk info, go to Squonk Opera.

• For Squonkumentary info, go to Bloom in Pictures.

• And check out the website of Steve O’Hearn.

More About Squonk Opera

Squonk Opera created its first show in a gritty Pittsburgh junkyard, with roaring choreographed cranes and earthmovers, over a decade ago. A flexible interdisciplinary group of artists led by collaborators Jackie Dempsey and Steve O’Hearn, we were interested in a theater created from sound and image. We were also inspired by a rust-belt love of spectacle and humor—we were competing with football, catholic ritual, and beer-fed bar bands.

Since 1992, Squonk Opera has created nine original shows and has performed in more than two hundred venues across the United States. In 1995, we were commissioned by Marc Masterson to create Night of The Living Dead: The Opera for Pittsburgh’s City Theatre. Bigsmorgasbordwunderwerk was an Off-Broadway hit in 1999—a show that Ben Brantley of The New York Times called “ingenious, hallucinatory, hypnotic.” The show was then transferred to Broadway in 2000, where it received an American Theater Wing Special Effects Design Award (previously won by Julie Taymor and Robert Wilson). Squonkumentary, a film about our time in NYC, was produced by independent filmmaker, Peggy Sutton, in 2005.

We have been touring internationally since 2003—to Scotland, Belgium, Germany, and South Korea, where we opened the World Music Theater Festival. Over 200,000 people have seen us around the world, and reviews include “insane majesty" from The Scotsman and “…surreal and poetic” from USA Today.

Squonk Opera has received more than sixty grants and awards over the years, including national grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Jim Henson Foundation, and three grants from the NEA. We have performed workshops and residencies at over fifty universities, middle schools, and museums all over the United States.

Squonk Opera is currently touring two very different shows. (Put your hometown’s name here): The Opera is a development of site-specific residency activities that we have done for years. Astro-rama, our most recent work, is a large-scale outdoor event joining its audience in a festive attempt to contact far-flung galaxies. A UFO is “discovered,” and the next day a four-story radio telescope dish is erected to mount a planetary response. Squonk musicians rise in scissor lifts and cranes, squabble with a giant supercomputer, and finally transmit their message: a self-portrait as a species. This communal revelry is a witty and timely exploration of science and belief, made accessible with pop sci-fi references.

Artistic directors Jackie Dempsey and Steve O’Hearn have an ongoing desire to make interdisciplinary work that is accessible to a broad and diverse public and have been working with a collective of between ten and twenty performers, designers, and artists at a time over the years.

The concert features all three IUP choirs—Chorale, Chrous, and Chamber Singers—totaling over one hundred singers. Under the direction of James Dearing, the program also highlights guest artists Lucy Scandrett, harp, and John Marstinizyn, guitar.

The program incorporates an international collection of Christmas and Chanukah music with songs performed in English, Latin, Spanish dialects of Catalonian and Ladino, Yoruba, Polish, and German. A work titled “Hispanic Carols and Lullabies” includes IUP percussion major and marimba player Sarah Hann.

In addition to several harp duets that Scandrett will perform with student Jacqueline Gordon, performance includes the popular “Ceremony of Carols” by Benjamin Britten for female voices and harp.

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building on the IUP campus. Tickets may also be purchased at the door starting at 2:15 p.m. on the day of the concert and in advance on line at IUP Tickets. For more information, contact The Lively Arts at 724-357-3547. To purchase tickets with a credit card, call 724-357-1313.

Tickets are $9 regular admission, $8 for groups and senior citizens, and $6 for students and children.

Music Theater at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present Gian Carlo Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera The Consul. Directed by Sarah Mantel, The Consul will be showing four nights from Wednesday December 3, through Saturday, December, 6, at 7:00 p.m. on the Waller Hall Mainstage.

This music drama centers on individual freedoms and the constant fight against oppression. Premiering in 1952, The Consul portrays issues that are still relevant all over the world today.

“You could pick any five places in the world right now,” stated director Mantel, “that could relate to these same issues. All over the world, people are looking for the freedom to live their lives happily and support their families without political regimes taking away those liberties.”

The opera is set in an unnamed 1940s postwar European country that is torn by civil strife. As the show begins, John Sorel, a resistance fighter, enters his home desperately searching for his wife, Magda.

Nursing a gunshot wound and hunted by the secret police, John explains to his wife that he must cross the frontier to safety. Since the trip is too dangerous for her and their family, they agree that Magda will go to the Consulate of a neighboring country to seek asylum. At the Consulate, however, Magda is met by a secretary whose main goal appears to be to stand in the way of justice.

Menotti used five characters from different backgrounds deliberately to show how everyone is going through the same struggles, regardless of race or nationality. The Consul is more contemporary than Menotti’s best-known work, Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Tickets for The Consul are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door forty-five minutes prior to the start of the performance. Tickets are $15 regular admission, $13 for seniors and groups, and $9 for students and children.

For more information, call The Lively Arts at 724-357-2547. Tickets may be purchased with a credit card by calling the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313.

This intense operatic work is not recommended for young children and contains some scenes of violence.

Music Theater is produced by the IUP Department of Music and College of Fine Arts and is funded, in part, by the Student Cooperative Association.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Camerata in a joint concert as part of its 2008–09 Performance Plus season. This special all-Vivaldi concert will be conducted by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Andrés Cárdenes, who will also be the featured soloist on four Vivaldi concerti. The concert will be held on Friday, November 14, at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium of IUP’s Performing Arts Center.

The program will begin with the two ensembles performing Vivaldi’s choral masterwork “Gloria.” Soloists include Joy Hess, soprano; Kate Clark, mezzo; Ann Cloutier, alto; and Jane Potter Baumer, alto.

The second half of the program features maestro Cárdenes as violin soloist performing four Vivaldi works for orchestra and violin. These works are recently rediscovered works written by Vivaldi.

Antonio Vivaldi, a composer of great renown making his mark in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, may be best known for his masterpiece “The Four Seasons.”

Cárdenes brings a great degree of passion and dedication to his performances. Cuban-born, he has garnered international acclaim from both critics and audiences alike for his technique balanced by a remarkable tonal subtlety. He was appointed concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra by Maestro Lorin Maazel in 1989, and he holds the Rachel Mellon Walton endowed chair.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, starting in the early 1900s, has confirmed its ranking as a world-class orchestra, earning critical acclaim for over twenty-five international tours. The orchestra has also showcased itself in all of America’s major cities and music centers. In 2007, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra became the first orchestra to receive both the Bank of America and MetLife Awards for Excellence in Orchestra Education.

The Pittsburgh Camerata, under the direction of Rebecca A. Rollett, is one of the region’s finest professional choral organizations. Founded in 1974, the group specializes in the entire choral repertory with a unique focus on Renaissance/Baroque and twentieth-century works.

A native of New Mexico, Rollett studied organ, composition, and choral conducting at Arizona State University. She completed her degree in organ performance at Oral Roberts University. She holds an associate certificate with the American Guild of Organists and earned her master’s degree in choral conducting under Robert Page at Carnegie Mellon University.

Tickets for the November 14 event are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $16 regular admission, $14 for seniors and groups, and $10 for students and children.

For more information, call the Fine Arts Public Events Office at 724-357-2547 or the HUB Ticket Office at 724-357-1313. Tickets are also available on line.

This performance is being made possible, in part, with support from Wilmoth Interests, Inc.; Ann Wilmoth; The Neal Fund; Indiana Symphony Society; Mark Piwinsky and Dolores Brzycki; and the IUP Department of Music.

Performance Plus is presented through funding from the Student Cooperative Association, African American Cultural Center, Office of International Affairs, Liberal Studies, Office of Social Equity, Division of Student Affairs, and a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts through Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance.

The IUP Jazz Band, directed by Dr. Keith Young, and the IUP Jazz Ensemble, led by Dr. Kevin Eisensmith, will perform Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. The IUP Alumni Jazz Band will be in concert Nov. 9 at 2 p.m. Both performances will be held in the IUP Performing Arts Center’s Fisher Auditorium.

The Nov. 8 concert is the second event in The Lively Arts’ Sound Choices premiere season. W. Roy Mitchell is the featured soloist.

Mitchell is a 1989 jazz studies graduate of IUP. As an undergraduate, he arranged for most university ensembles and composed original works for fellow students’ recitals.

While at IUP, his work caught the attention of high school and college band directors. Today, Mitchell’s arrangements can be heard worldwide and are played regularly by the Baltimore Ravens, University of New Mexico, Idaho State University, Messiah College, University of North Texas and Oklahoma State University, as well as dozens of other colleges, high schools and professional groups across the United States.

His arrangements for beginning jazz ensembles have been featured in master classes and music conferences throughout the United States, as well as in Nova Scotia and Australia.

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building or online by visiting www.iuptickets.com. Tickets are $9 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and groups, and $6 for children and I-Card holders. Remaining tickets will be sold at the door starting at 7 p.m.

The Nov. 9 concert includes some 40 alumni spanning six decades of jazz at IUP. It is free and open to the community.
The group will be led by two former directors: Dr. Daniel DiCicco and Dr. Gary Bird.

DiCicco is a 1954 IUP graduate. As a member of the IUP music faculty, he served as director of bands and led the Mellowmen from 1972 until his retirement in 1987.

Bird, who retired from the IUP music department in 2007, established and directed a second jazz band from 1977 through 1987, then assumed the position of director of the jazz ensemble from 1987 until 1997.

More information about the concerts is available by calling (724) 357-2547 or at www.iup.edu/finearts.

Monday, November 10, 2008

In the majestic atmosphere of Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall, enjoy a dessert reception before a performance by IUP’s highly acclaimed music ensembles, including the IUP Symphony Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, Percussion Ensemble, Gorell Trio, and Marching Band.

Dessert reception: 7:00 p.m.
Performance: 8:00 p.m.

Tickets for the performance and dessert reception are just $15 (additional tax and fees may apply). Special group rates are also available. Tickets are also available at the door.

Indiana Bus

A number of free bus seats are available for community members and students for the IUP Plays Pittsburgh concert. Persons interested need to e-mail IUP music faculty member Matthew Baumer at mbaumer@iup.edu. Concert tickets, which include a free reception in the lobby of Heinz Hall, can be purchased at the door upon arrival at Heinz Hall ($15 each plus Pittsburgh City tax). The pre-concert reception begins at 7:00 p.m. with the concert starting at 8:00 p.m. The bus will leave from Cogswell Hall at 5:30 p.m. and return shortly after the concert, leaving Pittsburgh between 10:15 and 10:30 p.m.

High School Groups and Alumni

Special school group rates ($5.00 each) are available by e-mailing Hank Knerr at hank.knerr@iup.edu or by calling him at 724-357-2547. The Office of Alumni Affairs is presenting a special event in conjunction with IUP Plays Pittsburgh, so IUP alumni can register for the event and the concert on line. For single tickets ($15 each plus fees), call the Heinz Hall Box Office at 412-392-4900 or toll free at 800-743-8560.

Purchase Tickets

Call Heinz Hall at 412-392-4900 or 800-743-8560 for individual tickets. Call the Fine Arts Public Events Office at 724-357-2547 for more information and for high school group reservations.

The Lively Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present the group Universes in “Live from the Edge” on Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. in the IUP Hadley Union Building Ohio Room.

Universes, based in New York City, offers a fusion of poetry, theater, jazz, hip-hop, political commentary, blues and Latin rhythms to create unique works of song and theater.

Universes is an ensemble company of writers and performers including its four core members, Mildred Ruiz, Steven Sapp, Gamal Chasten and William Ruiz.
A free post-show reception will be sponsored by Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

Tickets are available in advance at the Hadley Union Building ticket office on the IUP campus. Tickets may also be purchased online at iuptickets.com.

Tickets remaining can be purchased at the door 45 minutes before the start of the performance. Tickets are $16 regular admission, $14 for seniors and groups, and $10 for high school and college students. The production is not recommended for younger children.

For more information, call the Fine Arts Public Events Office at (724) 357-2547 or the HUB Ticket Office at (724) 357-1313.

Artist Alastair Noble will present a talk about the installation on October 22 in Sprowls Hall, Room 301, at 5:00 p.m. This will be followed by a reception in Kipp Gallery.

Installation Exhibit

Alastair Noble — Babel III: Random Access

The show will open to the public on October 14 and will run through November 14, open noon to 4:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

The following is an excerpt from the September issue of Sculpture magazine, written by Michael Howard, who has also written an essay that will be included in the catalog for this show.

“Alastair Noble is an English sculptor living and working in New York. His diverse and compelling body of work includes resonant sculptures and installations that invite viewers to engage in a creative collaboration, and in so doing, to undertake their own imaginative journeys into a terrain where material, space, and ideas coincide in objects of stunning visual power. Noble’s works can be seen as an artistic response to architecture and literature, creating a dialogue between two crucial activities by which we attempt to order and tame the world. Nurtured by the writings of Poe, Mallarmé, Joyce, and Borges, his sculptures are not empty academic exercises in intertextual reading; instead, they give occasion for a rich experience of aesthetic and intellectual delight.”

Annual juried exhibition by graduate students from the Department of Art

Public Reception: April 3, 6:00–8:30 p.m.

Selections from the University Museum collection and works from regional contemporary artists reflect on issues of their times. Curated by Vicky A. Clark.

Public Reception: February 7, 6:00–8:30 p.m.

Fossils and geological specimens from the Michael and Barbara Sincak Natural History Collection at IUP. Curated by Steven Hovan and John Taylor, Geoscience Department at IUP.

Public Reception: September 13, 6:00–8:30 p.m.

Special Geoscience Reception: October 3, 3:00–5:00 p.m.

This annual gala event includes a reception and exhibition preview in the University Museum followed by dinner and entertainment in the Blue Room. There will also be a silent auction featuring natural and manmade wonders.

Dates and Times: April 16–18 and 22–25 at 7:00 p.m.; April 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Location: Waller Hall Mainstage

Boys’ Life is a bitingly funny post-modern comedy of manners, which follows three former college buddies now seeking to make their way in the big city—and with various women of their acquaintance. In a series of fast-paced, sharply etched scenes, the play uncovers the drives, pretensions, and fears of Jack, Phil, and Don and in the end, makes it hilariously clear that it is actually the women who possess the qualities to which they lay claim. This play contains language and situations to which some audience members may object and is not considered appropriate for children.

Date and Time: March 28 at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Fisher Auditorium

In a one-night-only performance, this unique production takes on a different beat as the two groups explore the music and dance of different cultures and genres. Always a rousing evening, this exceptional program unites the efforts of two of the university’s most popular and engaging ensembles.

Dates and Times: February 18–21 at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Fisher Auditorium

Through a twisted set of scenarios, confused identities, mismatched lovers, and super-sized characters, this fast-paced farce of a musical sets sail on a path of true hijinks and adventure. Set on and below the deck of a luxury ocean liner, a young love-sick Wall Street broker stows away on the S.S. American in hopes of winning the heart of his beloved. In addition to its title song, this one-of-a-kind family American musical classic includes such mega-hits as “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “Take Me Back to Manhattan,” and “You’re the Top.” The newly-renovated Fisher Auditorium offers the perfect setting as Music Theater and Theater-by-the-Grove return with this period musical romp.

Dates and Times: December 3–6 at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Waller Hall Mainstage

The Consul brilliantly illustrates the desire of Everyman/Everywoman to live freely, to speak openly, to defy oppression, and to cry out against injustice. Grounded by Menotti’s lush and dramatic musical score, the opera is as relevant to our world today as it was at the Broadway premiere in 1949 during the Cold War. Presented by IUP Music Theater and sung in English, this work is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.

Dates and Times: November 6–8 and 12–15 at 7:00 p.m.; November 9 at 2:00 p.m.
Location: Waller Hall Mainstage

The luxury of beauty—its advantages and its consequences—are a few of the conflicts that take hold in this popular, Pulitzer Prize winning story by William Inge. Picnic presents a love triangle involving the beautiful Midge; her not-so-attractive sister, Millie; and the nomadic, charismatic, mysterious, and handsome, Hal. Things begin to unravel when a wealthy suitor, Alan, wants to marry Midge and forces her to choose between her mother’s hopes for a good life with Alan or her own affection for Hal. This play contains strong situations to which some audience members may object and which may not be appropriate for children.

Dates and Times: October 24 and 25 at 7:00 p.m.; October 26 at 2:00 p.m.
Location: Zink Hall Dance Theater

Based on the musical, IUP Dance Theater, with guests Mahoning Valley Ballet, brings Mother Goose Village to life. Follow the adventure of Tom Piper and Mary Contrary along with all the nursery rhyme characters as they save Mother Goose Village from the clutches of Barnaby and his minions. Audiences will be enthralled by the dancing, the costumes, and the music, including the signature tunes of “Toyland” and “March of the Toys.”

Dates and Times: October 2–4 and 8–11 at 7:00 p.m.; October 5 at 2:00 p.m.
Location: Waller Hall Mainstage

Violet Sharp is set against the backdrop of one of America's most notorious crimes: the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping case. Winner of the 2006 Julie Harris Playwright Award, Violet Sharp is about a twenty-seven-year-old domestic servant of Charles Lindbergh’s family that is suspected of kidnapping the Lindbergh's infant son. Having initially lied to the police as to her whereabouts on the night of the crime, Violet strives to clear her name but only manages to strengthen the conviction that she is guilty. As the police rigorously pursue a confession, it becomes clear that Violet is being pursued just as fervently by her own personal demons. This play contains strong situations to which some audience members may object and which may not be appropriate for children.

Simon Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. He dazzles his listeners as he deftly leaps from traditional Arabic sounds to jazz and Western classical styles as he works to incorporates a legacy of Arabic music while forging ahead to new musical frontiers. A Palestinian, born in the village of Tarshiha in the Galilee, Shaheen’s childhood was steeped in music. After graduating from the Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1978, he later moved to New York City to study at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University. His busy tour schedule keeps him traveling across the globe along with his three other musicians that will join him for the Indiana concert.

Fisher Auditorium and Waller Hall, on the Indiana University of Pennsylvania campus, have long been a central resource for the Indiana community and surrounding region. Since opening in 1939, Fisher Auditorium has served as IUP’s “town hall.”

Some of the world’s most accomplished performing artists, entertainers, and personalities have appeared on the Fisher stage. For almost seventy years, the auditorium has hosted a wide variety of university and community concerts and other events such as Swing Out, academic convocations, military bands, Mellowmen and other jazz concerts, community meetings and performances, and more.

Some of the luminaries who have graced its stage include Bob Dylan, Dave Brubeck, Judy Collins, Sandra Day O’Connor, B.B. King, Peter Nero, Run DMC, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Willie Nelson, Moscow Philharmonic, Dave Matthews, F.W. de Klerk, Cleo Laine, George Carlin, William F. Buckley, The Beach Boys, Ray Charles, Rosemary Clooney, Doc Severinsen, Bob Dole, Trisha Yearwood, London City Opera, Billy Joel, Tom Jones, Chita Rivera, and hundreds of others.

Originally built in the 1920s as a gymnasium, Waller Hall was completely renovated in 1989, providing state-of-the-art performance and teaching facilities for the Department of Theater and Dance. The department—through Theater-by-the-Grove, IUP Dance Theater, and the Acorn Project and in collaboration with Music Theater—has provided more than twenty productions annually, attracting more than twelve thousand people each year. 

The new IUP Performing Arts Center joins these two entities via a 20,000-square-foot addition and grand atrium lobby. The first meeting with the architects—IKM, Inc., of Pittsburgh—took place in January 2004, and construction commenced in January 2006. Construction is progressing, with expectation for completion sometime before the middle of August 2008, according to the director of public events for the College of Fine Arts, Hank Knerr.

In discussing the evolution of this project, Knerr explained, “Even when Fisher Auditorium was first built in the 1930s, items like additional lobby space, dressing rooms, and other necessities were eliminated, most probably due to budget concerns of that time. The dream to restore these amenities has been a priority for over a decade.

“With the current construction, we are finally bringing Fisher Auditorium to a level of audience and production space that fits the incredible variety of activities the auditorium, coupled with Waller Hall, presents.”

“Celebrating the Performing Arts Center”

The doors will officially open with a dedication celebration set for September 18. The event, starting at 7:00 p.m., will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony followed immediately by a concert featuring various IUP student and faculty performers and ensembles. The evening will also include guided tours and art exhibits. Open to the public, the event will include a postconcert reception held throughout the various spaces in the center. It will be free, and the general public is invited.

What the Center Brings to Indiana

To a greater extent than ever before, the center will provide up-to-date amenities for its venues, help attract and retain students, facilitate an appreciation for a global perspective throughout the town and gown community, act as a renewed resource for local economic development, and serve as the primary location for cultural life in the immediate southwestern Pennsylvania region. As a unified entity that combines the performances and activities in Fisher Auditorium and Waller Hall under one umbrella, the center will host nearly a quarter of a million people annually, playing host to more than three hundred events throughout the year.

Some of the highlights of what the new Performing Arts Center and related enhancements to Waller Hall will realize include the following:

• Air-conditioning throughout the center
• Completely new wood-back seats in Fisher Auditorium
• Two-story atrium grand lobby
• 1,400-square-foot multipurpose room for receptions, classes, rehearsals, and meetings
• Full wheelchair accessibility for both Fisher Auditorium and Waller Hall
• New dressing rooms able to accommodate up to seventy-five, complete with restrooms and showers
• New actors’ green room
• Heated walk areas
• Road crew locker room
• Two headliner dressing rooms
• Gallery and commissioned artwork locations
• New flooring throughout Waller Hall
• New administrative and production offices
• Enclosed production receiving area with two loading docks
• New ticket office and concessions areas
• New steps in front of Waller Hall, heated for safety and better maintenance
• New state-of-the-art sound system for Fisher Auditorium with sunken control area
• Enhanced lighting and refurbished reception areas with fresh paint throughout Fisher and Waller Hall
• Significantly expanded restroom facilities

Funding

Understanding the project’s unique mission as a community and campus resource, IUP and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education are investing nearly $7.8 million toward construction of and basic equipment for the Performing Arts Center. Additional funds are needed to complete the equipment and programming needs essential to the ongoing operation of the center, with these funds being sought through a seat-naming campaign and other gift opportunities.

For more information on contributing to the center, including the current Take Your Seat campaign, other major gift opportunities, and plans for the center, please visit our campaign website.