Press Releases

Category: Press Releases

Magnificent “Magnificat” Gets Triple Treatment in Lawrence University Holiday Choral Concert

Johann Sebastian Bach’s famed “Magnificat,” with its spectacular opening chorus, will be one of three different versions of the biblical Canticle of Mary performed by a trio of Lawrence University choirs and the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra in the holiday concert “A Bach Family Christmas.”

The concert, featuring three conductors and guest soloist Chad Freeburg, a 1999 Lawrence graduate, will be performed Friday, Dec. 2 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave., Appleton. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors/students (free to LU students, faculty and staff) and are available at the Lawrence Box Office, 920-832-6749.

The 46-member Lawrence Concert Choir and the symphony orchestra will open the concert with a performance of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach’s 1749 version of the “Magnificat” conducted by David Becker, director of orchestral studies. C.P.E. Bach, the second-oldest surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach, wrote his version of the “Magnificat” in 1749 in Berlin while serving an appointment as chamber musician to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. It will be the latest of the three versions that will be performed during the concert.

The Lawrence Women’s Choir, under the direction of Phillip Swan, associate director of choral studies and accompanied by the string orchestra, will sing Italian baroque composer Nicholai Porpora’s “Magnificat.” Porpora, who collaborated with J.S. Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian Bach in England, wrote his “Magnificat” for the famous all-girl choirs of the Venice “ospedali” — charitable orphanage-conservatories that provided musical training for orphaned, abandoned and illegitimate children of the city. The four ospedalis in Venice attracted many of Europe’s greatest composers of the time.

The concert finale, conducted by Richard Bjella, director of choral studies, will combine more than 180 voices and the symphony orchestra as the Lawrence Chorale joins the concert choir and women’s choir on stage in a performance of J.S. Bach’s 1732 D major version of the “Magnificat.” Bach’s first “Magnificat,” in E flat, was originally written to be first performed at Vespers on Christmas Day 1723 at the Church of St Nicholas in Lepizig along with four Christmas interludes in German.

“Even though they each use the same words, the text in each version is displayed quite differently,” said Bjella. “These remarkable works encompass much of the ‘best of’ from each composer. In a span of 30 minutes, J.S. Bach’s version explores many very dramatic, romantic and ancient music traditions. And the C.P.E. Bach ‘Magnificat’ may have the most incredible soprano solo written during the 18th century. I think this will be an absolutely breath-taking concert.”

Freeburg, a 2001 national semifinalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, returns to his alma mater as the concert’s featured soloist.

A tenor currently living in New York City, Freeburg has established himself as an accomplished singer of both opera and concert literature. Count Almaviva of “The Barber of Seville” has become a signature role for Freeburg, who has performed it with Opera Roanoke, Opera Delaware and Washington Summer Opera. He also will reprise the role in upcoming appearances with Utah Opera, Austin Lyric Opera and Lyric Opera of San Antonio.

Already in his young career Freeburg has performed with the American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera, the National Chorale at New York’s Lincoln Center, the Portland Symphony Pops, the Indianapolis Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has performed “Diary of One Who Vanished” with pianist Richard Goode at the Marlboro Music Festival and sang as tenor soloist for “Bach Weekend” under the baton of Blanche Moyse.

“Magnificat” is the title commonly given to the Latin text and translation of the Canticle of Mary taken from the Gospel of St. Luke.

Internationally Acclaimed Composer Samuel Adler Conducts Guest Residency at Lawrence University

At the age of 25, Samuel Adler wrote the first of his six symphonies. It was a harbinger of what was to become a highly distinguished five-decade career that has produced a prodigious body of work encompassing more than 400 published compositions, including five operas and three books.

The internationally acclaimed composer and author will be Appleton Nov. 15-20 to participate in a guest residency in the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music that will include a pair of concerts featuring some of his work.

In addition to working with students, as part of his residency Adler will discuss his prolific 50-year career in a free public address Nov. 17 at 1 p.m. in Harper Hall of the Music-Drama Center.

A New Music Concert Friday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. in Harper Hall will feature student soloists and ensembles as well as the five-member Lawrence Brass performing several Adler compositions, including 1997’s “Brahmsiana” and 1999’s “Be Not Afraid: The Isle is Full of Noises.”

Adler will serve as guest conductor of the Lawrence Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band in a concert Saturday, Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Both the Friday and Saturday concerts are free and open to the public.

Highlighting Saturday’s evening program will be performances of Adler’s “To Celebrate a Miracle” featuring Hannukah selections and “Pygamalion,” a recent and energetic work composed for the Southern Methodist University Wind Ensemble.

“Many musicians have lengthy and impressive resumés, but the breadth, depth and variety of Samuel Adler’s seems peerless to me,” said Andrew Mast, assistant professor of music and Lawrence’s director of bands. “Not only is the volume of his work, with more than 400 published compositions, staggering, but he’s written for virtually every conceivable musical medium. And he’s still composing at 77 years of age.

“To have someone of Adler’s experience, accomplishments and stature come to Lawrence will be invigorating for the entire campus,” Mast added. “And for all he’s accomplished, he has been steadfast in his desire to work with as many students as possible while he’s here, which clearly demonstrates his commitment to teaching and passing his knowledge on to the next generation.”

Born in Germany, Adler immigrated to the United States when he was 11 to escape the Nazi regime. He studied at Boston University and Harvard University and worked with famed American composer Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. He wrote the first of his six symphonies four years before joining the faculty of the University of North Texas as a professor of composition in 1957.

Adler later spent 29 years teaching at Eastman School of Music, serving as chair of the composition department there from 1974 unitil his retirement in 1995. Since 1997, Adler has been a member of the composition faculty at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

During his career, Adler has given master classes and workshops at more than 300 universities around the world and has taught at virtually every major music festival in this country and abroad.

His compositions have been commissioned by the National Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the American Brass Quintet, the Berlin-Bochum Brass Ensemble and the American String Quartet, among others, and his works have been performed by many of the finest orchestras in the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Mannheim Nationaltheater Orchestra.

Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001, Adler’s life work has been widely recognized with numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, “Composer of the Year” honors by the American Guild of Organists and election to the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts for “his outstanding contribution to the world of music as a composer.”

While in the Army in the early 1950s, Adler founded and conducted the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra’s psychological and musical impact on European culture under his direction earned Adler the army’s Medal of Honor.

In addition to his music, Adler is the author of the books “Choral Conducting” (1971), “Sight Singing” (1977) and “The Study of Orchestration” (1982).

Lawrence Conservatory, Academy Musicians Place in State Cello Competition

Appleton student cellists Stephanie Smith and Joe Loehnis placed second and third, respectively, at the Wisconsin Cello Society competition conducted Nov. 6 at UW- Stevens Point.

Smith, a home-schooled 11th grader and a student at the Lawrence Academy of Music, and Loehnis, a Lawrence University senior, both study in the cello studio of Lawrence professor of music Janet Anthony.

Students in the competition performed 15-20 minutes of music of their own choosing. Smith played the first movement of the Shostakovich first concerto, op. 107 and Paganini’s “Variations on one String,” while Loehnis performed the first two movements of the “Cassado Suite for solo cello” and “Lo how a Rose” by Mark Summer, cellist of the Turtle Island quartet.

Monique Ross, a student at the String Academy of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, won the competition, which was open to all Wisconsin students aged 14-22 who have studied privately for more than one year. This year’s competition, the Wisconsin Cello Society’s first, featured 11 cellists from around the state.

Founded in April, 2000, the Wisconsin Cello Society is a state-wide organization that promotes the art and appreciation of cello playing, furthers the musical development of its members and provides performance opportunities for professional, amateur and student cellists.

Dochnahl, Pieper, Share 2005 Lawrence Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition Title

Senior saxophonist Jesse Dochnahl and freshman pianist Jesse Pieper were named co-winners of the 12th annual Lawrence University Symphony Orchestra concerto competition. They each will perform as soloists in upcoming concerts.

Pieper, a student of assistant professor Dmitri Novgorodsky, will play Prokofiev’s “Piano Concerto #1” during the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra’s Jan. 28, 2006 concert. He is the first freshman in the history of the LSO concerto competition to win it.

Dochnahl, who studies in the studio of professor Steve Jordheim, will be the featured soloist in the March 10, 2006 LSO concert, performing “Scaramouche: Suite for Saxophone and Orchestra” by Darius Milhaud. In April, Dochnahl earned first-prize honors in the national finals of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Woodwind Young Artists competition held in Seattle, Wash.

Pieper, Fond du Lac, and Dochnal, Ennis, Mont., were chosen as this year’s winners from a field of 12 finalists. Lawrence conservatory faculty members serve as judges for the competition. Each finalists is required to memorize a full concerto and then play up to 15 minutes worth from memory any part or parts of the concerto chosen by the judges.

The Lawrence concerto competition was started in 1994 to give students the opportunity to perform a full-length work with the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra.

Famous British Transsexual Divorce Trial Focus of Lawrence University Address

April Ashley was a British supermodel and fashion icon in the 1950s and ‘60s. And when she announced her marriage to Arthur Corbett, the heir of Lord Rowallen, she also became Great Britain’s most famous transsexual.

Dan O’Connor, a lecturer in the University of Wisconsin’s department of medical history and bioethics, explores the gaps between the medical and legal definitions of sex and the popular cultural signs of gender in the Lawrence University address “‘Wife a Man’: The April Ashley Divorce Trial and the Definition of Sex in Postwar Britain.”

O’Connor’s presentation, Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 4:15 p.m. in Lawrence’s Science Hall, Room 102, is free and open to the public.

A one-time member of the British merchant navy, Ashley spent two years as a showgirl at the Carousel, Paris’ famous female impersonator nightclub before undergoing sex reassignment surgery in 1960. Three years later in Gibraltar, she married Corbett, a transvestite and likely a homosexual, who was well aware of the facts of Ashley’s gender. Their marriage was never consummated, leading to a landmark court battle.

In a 1969 trial — the first case in which an English court has been called upon to decide the sex of an individual — the judge rules ‘wife a man’ on the grounds that although Ashley had a sex change operation, she was, by three biological criteria, a male “at birth” and the marriage was annulled.

The ruling was subsequently applied beyond the scope of marriage to deny transsexual British citizens basic civil rights and left them unable to legally change their sex in the UK until 2003 when it was repealed.

O’Connor is teaching at UW as a visiting research fellow from the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick in England. He is currently completing his Ph.D. dissertation “Sex Signs: Transsexuality, Writing and the Languages of Male and Female in Britain and the U.S., 1950-2000.”

Lawrence University Students Earns Seven Firsts at State Singing Competition

With her fourth consecutive state title, Alisa Jordheim was one of seven Lawrence University students who earned first-place honors at the 2005 Wisconsin chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition held Nov. 4-5 at Viterbo College in La Crosse.

Lawrence students dominated the annual state competition, winning seven of 11 divisions with 21 students advancing to the finals.

Jordheim, a student in the voice studio of KrisAnne Weiss, ’97, was awarded first-place honors in the college sophomore women division. She won the college freshman women division last year and girls’ high school categories in 2003 and 2002.

Patrick Ireland, Appleton, earned his third NATS title, winning the men’s upper college musical theatre division, while Matthew Vitti, New Caanan, Conn., a 2003 NATS winner, won the senior men division. Ireland, a 2001 and 2003 NATS winner, and Vitti are both students of professor of music Ken Bozeman.

Other first-place Lawrence finishers included Lacey Benter, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the freshman women division; Alex Tyink, Appleton, in the freshman men division; Andrew Lovato, Waukesha, in the sophomore men division; and Becca Young, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the senior women division.

Tyink, Lovato, and Young are also students of Ken Bozeman, while Benter studies in the voice studio of Joanne Bozeman. First-place finishers were awarded $100 for their winning efforts.

A total of 39 Lawrence students and one student from the Lawrence Academy of Music participated in this year’s competition. In addition to the seven first-place winners, five students earned second-place honors: Emily Shankman (freshman women), Garth Neustadter (freshman men); Emily Fink (sophomore women); Scott Sandersfeld (senior men); and Brad Grimmer (men’s upper college music theatre).

The 2005 NATS competition featured 417 singers from colleges and high schools throughout Wisconsin. Depending upon the category, competitors are required to sing two, three or four classical pieces from different time periods with at least one selection sung in a foreign language.

Rob Engelhart, associate professor of music at Northern Michigan University, Susan Jones, vocal/opera/choral program coordinator at the University of Iowa and Larry Weller, professor of music at the University of Minnesota, served as guest judges for the competition.

Lawrence University Hosts African-Jamaican Dinner Nov. 13

Lawrence University’s international student organization will host an African-Jamaican dinner Sunday, Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. in Lucinda’s in Colman Hall, 212 S. Durkee St. Tickets, at $7 per person, can be reserved by calling 832-6509. Seating is limited to 200.

The two-continent cuisine will feature West African peanut pork, Jamaican curried chicken, African yellow raisin rice, West African greens, Mafe (a Senegalese stew made from ground peanuts and sweet potatoes), tropical fruit salad, banana cake with banana sauce and Jamaican fruit punch. The dinner also will include an exhibition of cultural items and traditional music from both areas.

Lawrence International is a student organization of nearly 100 active members representing more than 50 foreign countries.

Lawrence University Theatre Department Presents “Language of Angels”

A young girl’s disappearance and the fate of eight friends who survive her will be explored in the Lawrence University theatre department production of Naomi Iizuka’s “Language of Angels.”

Performances are scheduled Nov. 17-19 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 20 at 3 p.m. in Cloak Theatre of the Lawrence Music-Drama Center, 420 E. Collge Ave., Appleton.

First performed in 2000 in San Francisco, “Language of Angels” follows a group of working-class friends who are haunted by the disappearance of a young girl in a backwoods cave in North Carolina. The small-town tragedy provides a vehicle for a chilling mystery of fate and redemption.

“I am constantly fascinated by the question ‘why live theatre?,’” said Kathy Privatt, associate professor of theatre arts and director of the production. “This play answers that question with sound, lights, movement and a story that dares you to explain away what you saw.”

The production, which includes strong, adult language that may not be suitable for chilrden, features an original sound score written by senior Bryan Teoh. Annette Thornton, postdoctoral fellow in theatre arts, served as movement coach for the out-of-time sequences in the production.

Tickets for “Language of Angels” are $10 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens (LU students, faculty and staff are free) and are available at the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749, or at the door (based on availability).

“Poet of the Guitar” Performs at Lawrence University

World-renowned guitarist Francesc de Paula Soler will conduct a pair of performances and lead a master class during a two-day visit to the Lawrence University campus. All events are free and open to the public.

Soler will pay tribute to the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote with a lecture and performance featuring music from 17th-century Spain Thursday, Nov. 3 at 11 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Union Coffeehouse. The performance will include participation by members of ¡VIVA!, the student organization dedicated to promoting and expanding awareness of Hispanic culture.

Also on Thursday, Soler will conduct a guitar recital at 4 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The two-part recital will offer a panoramic view of Spanish music, from the 16th-century vihuela to the modern-day guitar as well as works by some of the most well-known composers of the Latin American guitar, including Heitor Villa-lobos and Isaias Savio.

On Friday, Nov. 4, Soler will conduct a classical guitar master class at 1 p.m. in Harper Hall of the Music-Drama Center.
Known as “the poet of the guitar,” Soler has been hailed as one of the most notable names of the guitar world for his wide international activity as a performer. The son of a well-known Spanish artistic family, Soler began piano lessons at the age of six and took up the guitar at 11. He received highest honors in the prestigious Conservatorio Superior de Música competition in Barcelona and later served as the master guitarist at the conservatory there for many years.

Soler has been widely honored for his musical artistry. He received the Medal of St. Vladimir from the Russian Orthodox Church, been named a member of the Royal Order of Christopher Columbus and been recognized on three separate occasions by U.S. House of Representatives in recognition of his artistic merits.

Soler’s appearance is supported by the Marguerite Schumann Memorial Lectureship. Established in 1986, the lectureship brings guests to campus on a variety of topics that represent the depth and diversity of Schumann’s interests, including history, music, and writing. Schumann served the college from 1945-68 as director of publicity and publications and is the author of “Creation of a Campus,” a history of the buildings of Lawrence University.

Three New Exhibitions Open Nov. 11 at Lawrence University Wriston Art Center Galleries

An exploration of the organization of knowledge, a traveling display of photographs of Acropolis monuments and ancient pottery are featured in the latest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. The exhibition opens Nov. 11 and runs through Dec. 18.

Chicago artist Antonio Contro presents “A to Z” in the Hoffmaster Gallery. Contro also will deliver the exhibition’s opening address on Friday, Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. The address is free and open to the public and a reception with the speaker will follow.

“A to Z,” a 27-piece, collage-based exhibit begun in 2003, features works on paper that merge drawing and Polaroid photography to recombine facts and information in ways other than alphabetical or disciplined. Collectively, the works become their own unique “encyclopedia.”

“Photographs of the Athenian Acropolis – The Restoration Project” will be shown in the Kohler Gallery. The traveling exhibition features large scale photographs by Socratis Mavrommatis, the chief photographer of the Acropolis Restoration Service and document the interventions and transformations of the Acropolis monuments since 1975. The exhibit opened in Athens in 2002 and has since traveled to Brussels, Paris, Rome and London. Lawrence is just the second venue in the United States to host the exhibit.

The Leech Gallery will host “Ceramics of the Classical World,” a selection of ancient Greek and Etruscan pottery from the Wriston Art Gallery permanent collection and from the Ripon College Classical Antiquities Collection.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon -4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 920-832-6621 or visit http://www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston/.