Lawrence University News

Memorial Service June 21 Celebrates the Life of Professor Emeritus Dorrit Friedlander

A memorial service commemorating the life of Lawrence University Professor Emeritus of German Dorrit Friedlander will be conducted Saturday, June 21 from 9-10 a.m. in the Nathan Marsh Pusey Room of the Warch Campus Center.

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Professor Emeritus of German Dorrit Friedlander, 1925-2013.

The service will include remarks from Dave Burrows, provost and dean of the faculty, Brian Pertl, dean of the conservatory, and Friedlander’s niece Rabbi Ariel Friedlander. Several alumni will share stories from their time with her in Germany. It will also feature music from her favorite composers and a slideshow. The room will remain open until noon for faculty, staff, alumni, family and friends to spend time celebrating her special life.

One of the college’s most beloved teachers and, with 61 years, the longest-serving faculty member in the college’s history, Friedlander died peacefully Nov. 14 at her Appleton home at the age of 88 after a battle with liver cancer.

Friedlander  joined the faculty in 1951 for what was supposed to be a one-year appointment and never left.  She taught both German and Spanish for her first seven years before focusing solely on her primary passion, German. Although she officially retired in 1993, she continued to teach at least one course each year up through the fall of 2012.

A dedicated but demanding teacher, Friedlander always held her students to high standards, both in the mastery of good German as well as the manners of good living and she insisted that civility and kindness prevail. Known affectionately to generations of students as “Tante Dorrit” or “Frau Friedlander,” she won the admiration and affection of students through the personal interest she showed each of them as well as the delicious cheesecakes she made.

Her teaching prowess was honored in 1980 when she was recognized with Lawrence’s Excellent Teaching Award. In presenting her the award, then President Richard Warch praised Friedlander for her “commitment to teaching and devotion to the university, qualities that make Lawrence a place of distinction.”

Friedlander’s love of teaching extended beyond the campus borders as well. She was instrumental in establishing Lawrence’s first foreign language study program in 1967, a venture in Bönnigheim, Germany, and was a frequent and popular director of the college’s study-abroad programs in Eningen and Munich, Germany.

She proudly embraced the role of university matriarch in various forms, overseeing faculty office assignments in Main Hall for many years and making sure the receiving line at the annual year-opening reception for new faculty moved along at an acceptable pace. Each fall, Friedlander organized the Main Hall holiday collection, providing a year-end bonus for the building’s staff in appreciation of their efforts throughout the year.

She also served as a “house mother,” first at Sage Cottage, a former women’s dormitory (now the International House) and later at Ormsby Hall. Long after the practice of house mothers ended, Friedlander continued to regularly reserve a lunch table in Lucinda’s for Ormsby students so she could stay connected. She diligently supported her students outside of the classroom as well, often attending their recitals, theatre performances and art exhibitions.

During her life, Freidlander’s genuine affection for people helped her cultivate a large and very diverse group of friends from around the world and from all walks of life.

Born in 1925 in Berlin, Germany, Friedlander and her family fled the Nazis in the late 1930s, catching one of the last boats leaving Germany and winding up in Havana, Cuba as a young teenager. She emigrated to the United States in 1940, resettling with her family in Mississippi.

She attended the University of Cincinnati, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Romance Languages and a master’s degree in German. She spent a year teaching German and Spanish at the University of Oklahoma before coming to Lawrence.

At her request, memorial contributions can be made to Lawrence’s Dorrit Friedlander Scholarship Fund.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Senior Elizabeth Perry Awarded Fulbright Commission Teaching Appointment in Austria

Hiking boots may seem a bit nontraditional as a college graduation present, but Elizabeth Perry can’t imagine anything she’d appreciate more.

The Lawrence University senior voice performance major from Portage, Mich., will spend the coming year in the midst of the hike-friendly Austrian Alps as the recipient of a United States Teaching Assistantship through the Fulbright Commission in Austria.

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Elizabeth Perry ’14

Beginning in October, Perry will begin an eight-month appointment as an English teaching assistant at two secondary schools in Reutte, a small town in the Tirol region of western Austria.

“I plan to spend plenty of time outdoors in the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived,” said Perry. “My parents have already told me they bought me a pair of hiking boots for graduation. I’ll be completely surrounded by mountains and I’m from the flatlands of the United States, so I plan to put those boots to good use.”

Perry’s teaching appointment will send her back to Austria. She spent the fall term of 2012 in Vienna on an off-campus study program there.

“I went specifically because Vienna’s such a fantastic city for music, art, culture and especially opera, which is what I study,” said Perry, who performed in Lawrence’s 2012 production of Henry Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen.”  “I sort of came back with German. I went in for music and I came back and changed my whole degree to fit German in somehow.”

Although a bit late in her college career, Perry decided to add a minor in German, the official language of Austria, in her fourth year at Lawrence.

“It was the last addition to my degree and the first of it that I completed,” she says proudly.

Perry is no stranger to traveling abroad. She went to Italy for a summer voice program, participated in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland and spent time before her off-campus study program in Vienna began as an au pair in Switzerland.

With no prior formal teaching experience, she sees her appointment as an ideal launching pad to what she hopes will be a career in music education.

“I’ve done a lot of one-on-one teaching and am currently working with three Lawrence students. They don’t study voice, they are just interested in singing. But this will actually be my first official classroom teaching experience,” said Perry, who has sung with one of Lawrence’s three different choirs — concert choir, Cantala women’s choir and Viking Chorale — each of the past five years.

“I definitely model my pedagogy on what I’ve learned from my professors here, and I’d love to teach within a liberal arts environment.”
— Elizabeth Perry

Joanne Bozeman, Perry’s vocal teacher and academic advisor, calls her “a remarkably well-rounded singer.”

“She is truly immersed in the liberal arts with two minors (German and English) in addition to her voice performance degree and interest in singing pedagogy,” said Bozeman.

“With her previous sojourns in Vienna, Italy and Switzerland, she is primed to be an effective English teacher through the Fulbright program.”

The news of her acceptance in the program did put on Perry’s original post-graduation plans on hold. She had been admitted to the vocal pedagogy program at Ohio State University.

“I’ve worked it out and have deferred my admission so that when I return to the United States I’ll study at OSU in the fall of 2015,” said Perry, who will receive her bachelor of music degree Sunday, June 15 at Lawrence’s 165th commencement.

“Someday I would love to teach at Lawrence or a school like Lawrence. I definitely model my pedagogy on what I’ve learned from my professors here. I’d love to teach within a liberal arts environment. I have a feeling I won’t be able to help myself but to bring a little bit of my liberal arts experience into the classroom next year. It’s a tradition I hope to continue throughout my teaching.”

Perry is one of approximately 140 college graduates from the United States selected to  teach in Austria under the auspices of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Women’s Affairs Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship Program, which brings talented young people from abroad into the classrooms of secondary schools in communities large and small throughout Austria.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Book by Voice Professor Kenneth Bozeman Provides Vocal Acoustic Principles for Teachers, Singers

For more than 30 years, Lawrence University Professor of Music Kenneth Bozeman has studied the relationship between singing and vocal acoustics.

acoustics.inddThe long-time voice teacher in Lawrence’s conservatory of music has turned that research into the 16-chapter book “Practical Vocal Acoustics: Pedagogic Applications for Teachers and Singers” (Pendragon Press), a methodical approach designed to help voice teachers better apply the principles of vocal acoustics to their instruction. The book is available through Pendragon Press and Amazon.com.

“There are many important facets to a comprehensive pedagogy and the acoustic piece is but one,” said Bozeman, who holds the Frank C. Shattuck Professorship in Music. “However, due to our increasing knowledge of the effects of vocal tract resonances on vocal fold function, and of how awareness and anticipation of those effects can make our teaching more effective, there is a rapidly growing interest among voice teachers in mastering the basic acoustic principles involved.”

In his book, Bozeman provides a general understanding of acoustics, explains how harmonics and formants interact to create resonance and offers specific science-based exercises. He also provides perspective on two software programs — Madde voice synthesizer and VoceVista — outlining the strengths and limitations of each.

Christian Herbst, contributing author to the “Oxford Handbook of Singing” and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Voice, Logopedics and Phoniatrics and Vocology, hailed Bozeman for succeeding “in condensing state of the art voice science into a well-digestible and concise tutorial.”

“With its solid scientific background, ‘Practical Vocal Acoustics’ helps to establish a modern approach in teaching how to sing: less myth and more facts,” said Herbst.

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Voice Professor Kenneth Bozeman

Bozeman will teach a seminar at Bjorklunden, Lawrence’s northern campus, next summer (July 19-24, 2015) based on the principles in his book.

A member of the Lawrence faculty since 1977, Bozeman is chair of the voice department, teaching voice, voice science and pedagogy. He also serves as chair of the editorial board of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Journal of Singing. He has been recognized with both of Lawrence’s teaching awards — the Young Teacher Award in 1980 and the Excellence in Teaching Award in 1996 — and his students have sung with the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin and San Francisco Opera, among others.

Last summer, Bozeman was honored as one of only four master teachers selected for the (NATS) Intern Program, a national mentoring program in which master teachers spend two weeks working with select younger teachers in vocal pedagogy.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Pianist Catherine Kautsky Closes 2013-14 Convocation Series

Lawrence University Professor of Music Catherine Kautsky explores the ways composers speak through their music in the college’s annual Honors Convocation.

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Professor of Music Catherine Kautsky

Kautsky presents “Whispered Doubts and Shouted Convictions: What are These Composers Saying?” Thursday, May 29 at 11:10 a.m in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel in the final address of the 2013-14 convocation series. The event is free and open to the public.

The convocation also will be live streamed.

Playing music ranging from John Phillip Sousa’s patriotic “Stars and Stripes Forever” to works filled with question marks, Kautsky will discuss what composers can tell us about their personal convictions, struggles and fallibilities and how they use keys, harmonies and rhythms to convey world views.

The Honors Convocation publicly recognizes students and faculty recipients of awards and prizes for excellence in the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, languages and music as well as demonstrated excellence in athletics and service to others. Students elected to honor societies also will be recognized.

An accomplished pianist, Kautsky was chosen to speak as the recipient of Lawrence’s annual Faculty Convocation Award, which honors a faculty member for distinguished professional work. She is the fifth faculty member so honored.

Chair of Lawrence’s keyboard department, Kautsky has performed throughout the United States and abroad as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra and chamber musician, appearing in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall in New York and Boston’s Jordan Hall to the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Cultural Center in Chicago.

She has traveled widely, performing frequently in France and England and recently has presented concerts and classes in China, Korea, Brazil and South Africa.

She has soloed with the St. Louis Symphony, Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra; performed chamber music at the Aspen, Tanglewood and Grand Teton summer music festivals; and appeared frequently on the radio in Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Madison.

Many of her recent performances have centered around social or literary themes, locating musical masterpieces in their historical moment. She has presented lecture-recitals on the music of the Holocaust, French music and World War I, and Schumann and the writings of ETA Hoffmann. Her repertoire runs the gamut from Bach to Rzewski and Crumb, with a special emphasis on French music and the music of the first Viennese school.

Kautsky, who taught in the Lawrence conservatory of music from 1987-2002 and then returned to the faculty in 2008, holds a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory, a master’s degree from the Juilliard School and a doctoral degree in performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Fulbright Fellows: Four Lawrence Students Awarded Teaching, Research Fellowships

For only the second time in school history, Lawrence University has been awarded four student Fulbright Fellowships in the same year.

Katie Blackburn and Helen Titchener have received fellowships as English teaching assistants in Taiwan and Germany, respectively, while Inanna Craig-Morse and Abigail Wagner received research fellowships in India and Austria, respectively.

Operating in more than 155 countries, the Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.

Since 2008, 21 Lawrence seniors have been named Fulbright Fellows, including four in 2009, the only other time the college has earned that many in one year.

The four Fulbright awards brings to six the number of national awards Lawrence students have received this spring. Anthony Capparelli was awarded a $28,000 Watson Fellowship in March, while junior Zechariah Meunier was named one of 50 national recipients of a $5,000 Udall Scholarship in April.

Katie Blackburn — “Enthusiastic, Intellectually Curious”

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Katie Blackburn ’14

Fluent in Mandarin, Blackburn she will spend 11 months beginning in August as an English teacher working with Taiwanese seventh and eight graders on the island of Kinmen.

This will be her third trip to the Far East for the senior from Brookfield. A linguistics and Chinese language & literature double major, Blackburn spent the 2012 fall term in Beijing on a study-abroad program. She returned to China for seven weeks last year as the recipient of a U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Scholarship for the 2013 Associated Colleges in China Summer Field Studies Program, which provided a peek at China’s education system by working with teachers and students in rural areas.

“I’m looking forward to interacting with the people and learning about this different culture,” Blackburn said of her first visit to Taiwan. “I’m excited about getting to know these people and hopefully make some connections in ways I wasn’t able to on my previous trips to China. This time I’ll have a full year to get to know people.

“On my earlier trips, people would get excited to see people who weren’t Chinese,” Blackburn added. “I’m hoping I can get past the whole ‘You’re white, I want to be friends with you,’ scenario. I’d like to make friends because they actually want to get to know me personally, rather than just because I’m some foreigner.”

Ruth Lunt, associate professor of German and Blackburn’s linguistics advisor, called her “an enthusiastic, intellectually curious student.”

“With her background in linguistics, her passion for Chinese language and culture and her desire to teach Chinese and English as a second language in the future, this Fulbright teaching position in Taiwan is a perfect fit for Katie.”

Helen Titchener  — “Motivated, Intelligent, Mature”

Teaching English as a second language has long been a career interest of Titchener’s. She sees her Fulbright fellowship as the perfect opportunity to give it a test drive.

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Helen Titchener ’14

“I applied for the Fulbright to give myself a chance to see if that’s what I want to do before pursuing graduate school for it,” said Titchener, a German and English double major from Concord, Mass.

Beginning in September, Titchener will spend the 2014-15 academic year as an English language teaching assistant in a “secondary school” (middle and high school) in Berlin, Germany. She previously visited Berlin in the fall of 2012 as part of a study-abroad program.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Titchener also will have a chance to further explore her other passion — opera directing.

“I’ve had a little experience with the opera world through some internships. Germany has some really great opera houses, and you can get really cheap tickets, so I’m hoping to take advantage of that. By the end of my fellowship, I should know if I want to pursue ESL or opera.”

Assistant Professor of German Alison Guenther-Pal hailed Titchener as “simply one of the most motivated, intelligent and mature students I have had in nearly 15 years of university teaching.”

“I am thrilled that Helen has been given the opportunity to participate in the Fulbright Program in Berlin,” said Guenther-Pal. “She will be an outstanding representative both of Lawrence University and the U.S.”

Inanna Craig-Morse — “A Global Citizen”

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Inanna Craig-Morse ’14

Craig-Morse came to admire the women involved in politics she met while in India on an off-campus study program in 2012.

That admiration sparked a research project that will send the senior from Sebastopol, Calif., back to the world’s largest democracy. In addition to her Fulbright research fellowship, she also received a Critical Language Enhancement Award (CLEA).

Beginning in August, she will embark on a nine-month project to expand on previous research she conducted on Indian women’s political efficacy and their power to effectively lead others. Working in Mumbai, much of her research will entail interviewing area leaders, including women in political positions, NGO officials and law enforcement authorities. She also will spend part of her stay studying Marathi, the region’s most widely-spoken language.

“The impetus for this project is why so many of the cultural factors we expect to contribute to women’s political ambitions don’t seem to be present in India,” explained Craig-Morse, a government major. “I want to look at what factors enable women to enter politics and their belief that they have the capacity to lead others. The hope is to better enumerate what factors can promote more women to get involved in politics in the region and beyond.”

This will be Craig-Morse’s third trip to India. As part of a study abroad program in Pune two years ago, she conducted a series of interviews with women in high-profile political positions. She returned last fall for six weeks on a Mellon Foundation-supported Lawrence Senior Experience grant, conducting interviews with members of a women’s Communist Party.

Lawrence government professor Claudena Skran praised Craig-Morse for her “deep commitment to understanding global issues, especially those concerning women in developing societies.”

“Inanna has specialized in comparative politics and international relations,” said Skran. “Her work both on the Lawrence campus and abroad demonstrates her drive and quest for understanding as well as her cultural awareness and role as a global citizen.”

Abigail Wagner — “Stellar Student”

Ever since Wagner spent the fall of 2011 in Vienna on an off-campus study program, she has been determined to return to Austria.

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Abigail Wagner ’14

Beginning in September, the classically trained violist from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., will spend a year in Vienna teaching English and conducting research on Austrian folk music.

“Finding out that I actually get to go back, do research, teach and spend more time with people I’ve come to respect and appreciate, I just can’t describe that feeling,” said Wagner, who earned a bachelor’s degree in viola performance and general/instrumental music education in January.

Wagner will hold an assistant English teacher position at a private school in Vienna that fast tracks students into the business world through a university preparatory-type program.

She also will reconnect with Austrian ethnomusicologist Rudolf Pietsch, who she met on  her study abroad program. When she began her Fulbright application process, she contacted Pietsch to see if they might collaborate on a research project. They came up with a proposal to compare the music of Austrians living in Austria with the folk music of Austrians now living in the United States.

“He has lots of field recordings and some interviews from when he had done some of his doctoral research in the U.S.,” said Wagner. “He has all this material he hasn’t even looked at yet. He thought it would be really helpful and a good project for me to listen to the field recordings and compare them to modern-day Austrian folk music or Austrian folk music of the past and see if there are any similarities.

Professor of Music Matthew Michelic, Wagner’s academic advisor, said her Fulbright fellowship is well-deserved.

“Abby has been a stellar student in both her performing and academic pursuits since day one at Lawrence,” said Michelic. “Her term of study in Vienna opened new avenues of thought and inquiry and I am thrilled this Fulbright grant will allow her to combine her many areas of developing expertise in a unique path of discovery.”

Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, education, and athletics. Forty Fulbright alumni have been awarded the Nobel Prize and 75 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Senior Brynley Nadziejka’s Research Recognized by Geology Institute

Brynley Nadziejka’s study of metamorphosed igneous rocks relevant to understanding earthquake risk in tectonically active regions earned honorable mention recognition in the student research paper competition at the annual Institute on Lake Superior Geology (ILSG) conference.

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Senior Brynley Nadziejka earned honorable mention recognition at the annual Institute on Lake Superior Geology conference’s student research paper competition.

A senior from Kentwood, Mich., Nadziejka was recognized for her research at the Institute’s recent annual meeting held in Hibbing, Minn. This was the second year in a row Nadziejka was honored by the ILSG. She won the best student poster award in 2013. This was the fourth consecutive year a Lawrence geology student has been recognized at the ILSG’s annual meeting.

Nadziejka was among 33 student presenters from around the country at the annual conference. Amanda van Lankvelt, a 2010 Lawrence graduate currently pursuing a Ph.D. in geology at the University of Massachusetts, won the best paper award this year.

Nadziejka’s research focused on metamorphosed igneous rocks in Wisconsin’s Marinette County. The rocks represent the deep interior of the 1.8 billion-year-old Penokee Mountains, which formed in a tectonic collision when Wisconsin was at the edge of the ancient North American continent.

Micro-scale features on the rocks indicate slow ductile deformation at elevated temperatures and pressures, corresponding to depths of 7-9 miles in the crust. The rocks also contain pseudotachylyte, a glassy-type rock that is formed only by frictional melting during large earthquakes. The evidence reveals that as the mountains were growing, large earthquake ruptures sometimes propagated downward to depths where rocks are typically too warm to fracture.

The ILSG is a non-profit professional society that provides a forum for the exchange of geological ideas and scientific data and promoting better understanding of the geology of the Lake Superior region, whose rocks record more than 2.5 billion years of geologic time, more than half of Earth’s entire history.

The annual meeting draws American and Canadian geologists from academe, industry and state and provincial agencies for four days of presentations and field trips.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Student Pianist Jon Hanrahan Wins State Music Competition

For the third straight year, a Lawrence University pianist has earned first-place honors at the Wisconsin Music Teachers Association’s Wisconsin Badger Collegiate Performance Competition.

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Jon Hanrahan ’16

Jon Hanrahan, a sophomore piano performance major from Johnsburg, Ill., received $200 for his winning performance in the competition held May 17 at UW-Stevens Point. Senior Daniel Kuzuhara earned honorable mention honors in the competition. Lawrence was well-represented with three other student pianists also competing: Emily Blandon Kovar, Mingfei Li and Evan Newman.

Lawrentians Julian Delfino and Thomas Lee won the 2013 and 2012 Badger Collegiate Performance Competitions, respectively.

A student in the piano studio of Michael Mirzahi, Hanrahan performed the first movement of Haydn’s Piano Sonata, Missy Mazzoli’s “Heartbreaker” and Chopin’s Nocturne in B Major for the competition.

The WMTA Badger Collegiate Piano Competition is open to college students under the age of 28. Participants must perform from memory a solo recital program of 20-30 minutes in length with works representing contrasting styles from three of five historical periods: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, Contemporary.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Annual Senior Art Exhibition Opens May 23 at Wriston Galleries

Fifteen Lawrence University art majors will have their creative work featured in the annual Senior Art Exhibit opening Friday, May 23 in the Wriston Art Center galleries.

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Charles Mann’s screen print and ink jet print “Reflect.”

The exhibition, which runs through July 18, opens at 6 p.m. with a reception with the student artists. The event is free and open to the public.

The exhibition includes ceramics, drawings, graphic novels, installations, paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture and video.

The seniors whose work will be featured are:

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Ariel Garcia’s “Maybe it’s Marylline” is an inkjet print with make-up.

• Olav Bjornerud
• Rose Broll
• Kyla Erickson
• Kelsey Fraleigh
• Ariel Garcia
•Haley Hagerman
• Korapin Kuo
• Sadie Lancrete
• Shea Love
• Charles Mann
• Emma Moss
• Elle Qu
• Sarah Jane Rennick
• Lorraine Skuta
• Maggie Vincent.

The Wriston Art Center galleries are free and open to the public Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays. For more information on the exhibition, call 920-832-6890 or visit www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

Junior Nicolas Bizub Wins Pair of Composition Competitions

Nicolas Bizub clearly has a way with…notes. Musical notes, that is.

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Nicolas Bizub ’15

The Lawrence University junior recently was named grand prize winner of a pair of composition competitions.

A composition and viola performance major from Mukwonago, Bizub earned $500 for winning the 2014 Wisconsin Cello Society Composition Competition. His meditation piece “Dark Waves” will be featured at an upcoming Wisconsin Cello Society event.

Bizub also captured top honors in the 2014 Sewanee Summer Music Festival’s King Beetle Composition Competition, earning a $300 grand prize for his winning composition “The Legend of King Beetle.”  All participating composers had to submit a work based around the story of a famous, if not mythical, beetle on the Tennessee campus of Sewanee — The University of the South.

Written for flute, harp and bassoon, Bizub’s “The Legend of King Beetle” will be performed during Sewanee’s annual summer music festival June 21-July 20. Patricia George, mother of Lawrence violin professor Samantha George and a member of the Sewanee summer music festival faculty chamber group, will play the piece’s flute part.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.

 

Spring Theatre Production Celebrates the Absurd

Lawrence University’s theatre arts department celebrates the theater of the absurd with four performances of its spring production “‘B’Srd Shrts,” a program of four short plays May 15-17 in Stansbury Theatre of the Music-Drama Center.

Performances are 8 p.m. each night with an additional 3 p.m. matinee Saturday, May 17. Tickets, at $10 for adults and $5 for students/seniors, are available through the Lawrence box office, 920-832-6749 or boxoffice@lawrence.edu.

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Freshman Kara Taft, senior Shallion Dixon and sophomore Aiden Campbell rehearse a scene from the Samuel Becket’s “What Where,” one of four tributes to the theater of the absurd in Lawrence’s production “‘B’Srd Shrts.”

The production is an artistic attempt to exploit the world of the absurd through relatively unknown works. Each play, 10-15 minutes long, represents a different era of the theatre of the absurd, a dramatic genre that employs disjointed, repetitious and meaningless dialogue, confusing situations and plots that lack logical development.

Each of the plots are unforgettable: Antonin Artaud’s 1925 “Jet of Blood,” calls for severed limbs to rain from the ceiling. “What Where,” Samuel Beckett’s final play, explores concepts of torture and interrogation. Caryl Churchill’s “This is a Chair” includes politically charged titles  — “The War in Bosnia,” “Genetic Engineering” — to each scene while the action is entirely unrelated to the titles. The fourth play, Johnny Meyer’s “Cryptomnesia,” was specially commissioned by Lawrence as an example of current perspective on absurdist theatre.

Timothy Troy and Kathy Privatt, professor and associate professor of theatre arts, respectively, share directing duties for the production, each overseeing two of the plays.

The inclusion of “Cryptomnesia” in “‘B’Srd Shrts” grew out of a meeting between Troy and Meyer at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. The Austin-based playwright’s “rigorous and playful writing” impressed Troy enough to extend an offer.

“It seemed natural to ask Johnny to write a piece so we could include a current perspective on the century-old absurdist impulse in theatre,” said Troy. Prior to launching a career as a playwright and actor, Meyer served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The production’s unique title was a deliberate choice on the part of the production team. Trying to simplify the complex ideas found within works of absurdist theatre, is “an impossible task” according to senior Ciara Stephenson, the production’s dramaturg.

“How do you simplify the ideas of plays that are simply not capable of being defined?,” said Stephenson. “These playwrights do not intend for the plays to be understood by our definitions of intellectual understanding. The ideas are about discovering self and human instinct.”

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,500 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries.