Dancing with Professors?!

by Daniel Bernstein on February 9, 2015

Hi again! It’s been such a busy couple of weeks here, and we are finally in the home stretch before our beloved mid-term reading period! Reading period is basically a long weekend (Wednesday through Sunday) that starts in the middle of 6th week, and it’s a great chance to relax a little bit, catch up on sleep, and rejuvenate before the second half of the term. It is also a good time to catch up or get ahead on class readings before the term gets crazy, though since most professors give their midterms before reading period, most people (including me) are pretty conked out by the time reading period hits, and we all savor the opportunity to get some good sleep!

Even though the academic load at Lawrence can be intense, we all still keep up our fun side with all of the great activities and events that happen every weekend (and during the week)! Last Friday, my friends and I went to the swing dancing club’s annual event called “Dancing with the Profs!” Created as a spoof of Dancing with the Stars, it’s an annual extravaganza where student swing dancers and professors perform full, choreographed dances with each other! The process of choosing which professors get to dance starts very early in the year; during fall term, the swing dancing club sets up a “Dancing with the Profs” polling both, where students get to vote for professors that they would like to see participate in the event. The top several professor candidates then get notified of their nomination, and the professors can then accept or decline the offer to compete in “Dancing with the Profs!” The professors that accept are then paired with an experienced swing dancer, and they are then assigned a choreographer, who helps the duo design and practice a fun, swing (or other style) dance that fits their personalities! This year, five professors accepted the offer, and they were all incredible to watch last Friday! My personal favorite of the night was Dr. Sieck, Co-Director of Choral Studies, who performed an amazing Michael Jackson style dance, complete with a moonwalk! There are three judges (just like in Dancing with the Stars) and they give each professor/dancing duo a special award (e.g. “Best Theatricality” or “Best Moves”). Below is Professor Matthew Arau (Associate Director of Bands) and student Rachelle Huffman, whose dance was quite the showstopper!

Photo courtesy of Hailie Nguyen

Last weekend was also very busy and exciting in the conservatory! Saturday was one of Lawrence’s four on-campus audition days, so there were lots of prospective music students about the conservatory and the campus. I got to have brunch with a few prospective clarinetists, and it was great to get a sense of their first impressions of the Lawrence campus and the conservatory. Later on Saturday, my fellow Lawrence Symphony Orchestra mates and I took to the chapel stage for our first orchestra concert of the term! The concert began with two seasons of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” with Professor Samantha George as the violin soloist, followed by Karel Husa’s Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, with our Professor of Trumpet John Daniel as soloist, followed by Vincent Persichetti’s Symphony No. 4. The repertoire of this concert (at least the Husa and the Persichetti) was quite a contrast from the more Romantic era pieces of our previous concerts, but the Husa and Persichetti were very stimulating to rehearse and perform. Our performance of the Husa Trumpet Concerto was actually the first performance of the piece in many years, and it turns out that Professor John Daniel’s CD recording of the concerto is actually the only known recording of this piece! Our conductor, Dr. Mast, is very passionate about the music of Husa and Persichetti, as they both composed heavily for the wind band (which Dr. Mast also conducts at Lawrence), so it was great to learn from Dr. Mast’s knowledge of their lives and compositional style.

That’s all for this week!– I’ll be back next time with tales of reading period and other Lawrence adventures!

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