Rick Peterson

Author: Rick Peterson

Conductor David Becker Leads Lawrence Symphony Orchestra Final Time Saturday May 26

Professor of Music David Becker works his baton for the last time as conductor of the 102-member Lawrence Symphony Orchestra at its concert Saturday, May 26 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public.

Becker, who has served as director of orchestral studies at Lawrence since 2005, is retiring at the end of the current academic year.

Director of Orchestral Studies David Becker

“The time has arrived in my life for my personal and professional journeys to head in a new direction,” said Becker, who is in his second stint at conductor of the orchestra, having spent four years at Lawrence early in his career in the mid-1970s. “The distinguished faculty, administration, cherished friends and exceptional students have all made my tenure at Lawrence a most cherished highlight in my professional career.”

Becker says each time he’s taken the stage with the orchestra over the past seven years has been a career highlight for him.

“Whatever repertoire we’re doing at the moment, to me is the pinnacle and the high point, so this next concert is the pinnacle and the high point. I don’t live very much in the past. They are all very important memories, but I’m totally absorbed right now in this group and this repertoire and what we can share together. So the pinnacle for me is to share this concert with these students. It’s going to be a tremendously emotional time. I have a suspicion that I’m going to see a number of these students in the future in various places.”

Becker, recipient of Lawrence’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at the college’s 2010 commencement, plans to dedicate his post-Lawrence time to guest conducting, workshops and clinics around the country, including leading the NAfME All-International Honors Orchestra in the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in June.

Saturday evening’s concert program will feature works by Debussy, Paulus and Tchaikovsky. Senior Daniel O’Connor, organ, the co-winner of the LSO 2011-12 Student Concerto Competition, will be the concert’s guest artist.

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a world-class conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. Ranked among America’s best colleges by Forbes, it was selected for inclusion in 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 1,445 students from 44 states and 35 countries. Follow us on Facebook.

Environmental Interests Earn Hava Blair ’13 Udall Scholarship

Hava Blair’s “green” passions have helped her earn a little “green.” The Lawrence University junior has been named one of 80 national recipients of a $5,000 Udall Scholarship.

She was selected from among 585 candidates nominated by 274 institutions from 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Lawrence was the only Wisconsin college or university to have a 2012 Udall Scholar.

Presented by the Arizona-based Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, the scholarships are awarded to students committed to careers related to the environment, tribal public policy or Native American health care.

“I’m passionate about developing sustainable food systems that incorporate the diversity of the natural world,” said Blair, a geology major from Jefferson who has been heavily involved in the Sustainable Lawrence University Garden (SLUG) since arriving on campus in 2009. “Practicing and teaching sustainable agriculture has the potential to improve not only the food we eat, but the communities we live in and the economies in which we participate.”

As a Udall Scholar, Blair will participate in a four-day orientation Aug. 8-12 in Tucson, Ariz., where she will meet with environmental policymakers and community leaders as well as other scholarship recipients and program alumni.

“I’m excited to attend the summit with fellow Udall Scholars and engage in a dialogue about current environmental challenges and solutions,” said Blair. “The funds from this scholarship will help to support the work I am doing in the Lawrence and Fox Cities community. I’m very grateful for the recognition.”

In addition to her role of manager of SLUG, Blair helped launch Lawrence’s first beekeeping operation in 2011, tending to five beehives and more than 200,000 European honeybees. Last fall, Blair harvested 110 pounds of honey — about $700 worth — half of which was sold to Lawrence’s dining service and the rest sold to faculty and staff. The sales are used to support the garden and beekeeping operation.

Beyond the campus, Blair has been an active volunteer with COTS, Inc., Appleton’s temporary, transitional housing program and its innovative Riverview community garden project.

Blair is the fourth Lawrence student to receive a Udall Scholarship in the program’s 16-year history, joining Jacob Brenner (1999), Gustavo Setrini (2001), and Stephen Rogness (2003).

Founded in 1992, the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation is one of five federal foundations established by Congress. Among the missions of the foundation is to increase awareness of the importance of the nation’s natural resources, identify critical environmental issues and provide educational outreach regarding environmental policy.

Keynesian Scholar Featured in Senior Experience/Economics Colloquium

Nationally-known Keynesian scholar Bradley Bateman examines the prospects of creating a morally acceptable form of capitalism Thursday, May 17 in a Lawrence University Senior Experience/Economics Colloquium.

Bateman’s presentation, “Keynes and the Crisis of the Welfare State” at 4:30 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium, is free and open to the public.

Provost and professor of economics at Ohio’s Denison University, Bateman is one of the country’s leading scholars on the British theorist John Maynard Keynes. He is the co-author of the 2011 book “Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes.”

Bateman is also the author of recent guest commentaries in the New York Times and The Guardian.

Annual Harrison Symposium Showcases Student Research in the Humanities, Social Sciences

Exceptional student research in the humanities and social sciences on topics as diverse as the history of Waldorf education and women’s changing roles in modern Chinese fiction will be showcased Saturday, May 19 beginning at 9:15 a.m. in Main Hall during Lawrence University’s 15th annual Richard A. Harrison Symposium.

Thirty-four students will deliver presentations during two sessions arranged into panels by topic or field that are moderated by a Lawrence faculty member. Presenters are nominated by faculty and invited to submit abstracts of their research. Students are selected for the symposium based on the abstracts and present their work in the format used for professional meetings of scholars in the humanities and social sciences.

Each presentation lasts approximately 20 minutes and is followed by a 10-minute question-and-answer session. Among the topics that will be explored in this year’s symposium are the condition of education in rural Ecuador, the detrimental effects of the loss of a parent in childhood, the politics of music in Sierra Leone and the work of the late painter Thomas Kinkade.

The symposium honors former Lawrence Dean of the Faculty Richard A. Harrison, who organized the first program in 1996. Harrison died unexpectedly the following year and the symposium was renamed after him to recognize his vision of highlighting excellent student scholarship.

Community Invited to “Louis XIV’s Versailles” for an Evening of Baroque Dance

The Lawrence Baroque Ensemble hosts “An Evening of Baroque Dance: Louis XIV Masque Ball” Friday, May 18 in the Warch Campus Center.

Members of the Lawrence and Fox Valley communities are invited to participate as dancers or as spectators in an “interactive performance” designed to transport everyone back to the splendor of King Louis XIV’s Versailles. The evening begins at 6:30 p.m. with hor d’oeuvres followed by a formal masque ball at 7 p.m.

Lawrence President Jill Beck and Visiting Professor of Dance Rebecca Salzer will provide instruction in two large-group French Baroque dances. No dance or music experience is necessary to participate. Etiquette tips on how to show proper reverence in the presence of a king also will also offered.

The evening will include a performance of a choreographed minuet and Lawrence music historian Sara Ceballos will provide historical context throughout the evening on the power of music at Louis’ court and the empowering effect of concealing one’s identity at a masquerade.

The Lawrence Baroque Ensemble, along with members of the Lawrence trumpet and oboe studios, will provide music throughout the evening, creating an authentic grand ball atmosphere. Complimentary masks will be provided.

The evening will culminate with the audience’s performance of the dances taught by Beck and Salzer.

Space is limited and reservations are requested online. Complete and submit the RSVP form. (Clicking “attend” will not register you.) Formal attire is requested and low-heeled shoes are recommended.

The Lawrence Baroque Ensemble was founded in 2010 by four students as part of the economics course “Entrepreneurship in the Arts & Society.” Its goal is to study, rehearse and perform baroque music that enriches students’ liberal arts experience, inspires passion for period-instrument performance, preserves tradition and celebrates individual creativity. Lawrence Baroque connects audiences to history through unique concert experiences.

Lawrence University Musicians Shine in State Piano Competition

Lawrence University sophomore Thomas Lee earned first-place honors at the recent 2012 Wisconsin Music Teachers Association’s annual Badger Collegiate Piano Competition conducted at UW-Marathon County in Wausau.

A double-degree candidate from Chicago, Ill., majoring in piano performance with an emphasis in pedagogy, Lee received $200 for his winning performance, which included five works: J.S. Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue 18 in G-sharp Minor”; Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata op. 31 no. 3”; Liszt’s “Sposalizio”; and Nikolai Medtner’s “Fairy Tale op. 8 no. 1”; and “Primavera op. 39 no. 3.”

Lawrence accounted for six of the eight students entered in the WMTA competition, with junior Julian Delfino, a double degree candidate from Irvine, Calif., with majors in piano performance and English, earning honorable mention honors.

Also representing Lawrence were freshman Seth King-Gengler, Waukesha, sophomores Daniel Kuzuhara, Madison, and Catherine Smith, Greenville, N.C., and junior Alex Hurlburt, Wausau.

All six students study in the piano studio of Associate Professor of Music Anthony Padilla.

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.

Emotions — Hidden and Shared — Explored in Lawrence University “Devised” Theatre Production

A collection of original, borrowed and collaboratively written scenes that explore feelings all people have, hide and sometimes share closes Lawrence University’s 2011-12 main stage theatre season with four performances May 10-12 in Cloak Theatre of the Music-Drama Center.

“Show Your Face(s): A Masque” will be staged at 8 p.m. each day, with an additional 3 p.m. matinee performance on Saturday, May 12. Tickets, at $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and students, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749.

Kathy Privatt, associate professor of theatre arts and James G. and Ethel M. Barber Professor of Theatre and Drama, describes the play as “as a devised theatre piece.” The work’s designation of “A Masque” is a reference both to physical masks and the Renaissance form of entertainment that featured a collection of scenes with acting, singing and dancing.

Unlike most traditional theatrical works, “Show Your Face(s): A Masque” is not based on a pre-existing script. Instead, Privatt and the production team created a script during the rehearsal process, drawing inspiration from the set, music and sound design, costumes, movement and mask work, improvisation and texts submitted by the cast, crew, Lawrence and greater Fox Valley communities.

Mask-making activities open to the Lawrence campus over the past year also served as inspiration for the production team.

“The play has been created collaboratively by both creating materials and using materials and texts that already exist to form a whole new production,” said Privatt, who director of the production.

Inspired in Part by Suicide Prevention Training

The play is being presented in conjunction with Lawrence’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grant for mental wellness and suicide prevention. The production represents a year of research and preparation by Privatt.

“I was specifically inspired by some material in the suicide prevention training that I received through the SAMHSA grant,” said Privatt. “That training reaffirmed that, just as we’re all human, we all experience the same emotions and we all make decisions about when to hide those emotions and when to share them.

“The process has been one of the most collaborative I’ve ever experienced, with each element having strong impact on our choices,” Privatt added. “We started with a basic framework of episodes, each chosen to explore a range of related emotions. We worked together, with mask expert Adam Pagdon, and movement experts Deb Loewen and Laura Murphy, to choose and create material for each episode. The performance showcases the pieces that we ultimately felt compelled to share.”

Panamanian Pianist Danilo Pérez Closes Lawrence University 2011-12 Jazz Series

Grammy Award-winning pianist and composer Danilo Pérez joins the Lawrence faculty jazz trio Friday, May 11 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel for the final concert of the 2011-2012 Jazz Series.

Tickets, at $22-20 for adults, $19-17 for seniors, and $17-15 for students, are available through the Lawrence Box Office in the Music-Drama Center, or by calling 920-832-6749.

The Panama-born Pérez began playing piano at age three as a student of his father, Danilo Sr., and later studied classical music at the National Conservatory in Panama. After moving to the United States, he completed a degree in jazz composition at Boston’s renowned Berklee College of Music. While at Berklee, Pérez began performing with jazz heavyweights Jon Hendricks, Terence Blanchard, Claudio Roditi and Paquito D’Rivera. In the late 1980s, Pérez became the youngest member of Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra. Today, in addition to his own trio, Pérez also performs as part of the Grammy Award-winning Wayne Shorter Quartet.

Pérez’ discography includes 15 albums, including 1998’s “Central Avenue” and 2010’s “Providencia,” both of which earned him Grammy Award nominations for best jazz album. He garnered two Grammy nominations for 2000’s “Motherland,” which was named that year’s best jazz album by the Boston Music Awards. The New York Times praised his 1996 album “PanaMonk,” a tribute to both Thelonious Monk and his Panamanian heritage, as “a masterpiece of jazz synthesis.”

“Danilo’s music has the capacity to connect your soul with the unique sonorities of the universe in perfect harmony. It is just beautiful,” said José Encarnacion, instructor of jazz and improvisational music and jazz performance coordinator at Lawrence.

Encarnacion, a saxophonist, along with Dane Richeson, percussion and Mark Urness, bass will join Perez on stage as the Lawrence Faculty Trio.

Based in Boston, Pérez serves as artistic director of the Panama Jazz Festival, artistic advisor of the innovative Mellon Jazz Up Close series at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and artistic director of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute.

Lawrence University Remembers the Holocaust in Multimedia Symposium

As the remaining voices of Holocaust survivors grow fewer and more far between, Lawrence University will examine that dark moment in human history May 11-13 in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary and multimedia symposium entitled “Austrian Jews: Exile and the Holocaust.”

The symposium will bring together Lawrence students, faculty and the larger community in a far-ranging examination of both the history and present-day implications of the Holocaust.

Full schedule of events

The timing of the symposium is tied to the anniversary of the end of World War II on May 8, 1945 and to the annual April 19 “Day of Remembrance,” which each year commemorates the Jewish genocide at the hands of the Nazis. All symposium events are free and open to the public.

Survivor Stories

Highlighting the program will be the first-person experiences shared by four Holocaust survivors who fled Vienna, Austria in 1938 to escape the Nazis. Curtis Brown from Neenah, and Anne Kelemen, Gerda Lederer and Renee Wiener, all from New York City, will share their personal accounts of topics covering life in Austria leading up to the war, escape via the Kinder Transport, working with the French Underground and life during the war in the labor camps.

Brown, Kelemen and Lederer star in the 1999 award-winning documentary on the Viennese emigration, “Abschied ein Leben Lang” (A Life-Long Farewell),” one of three films that will be shown during the symposium. Wiener was recognized in 2010 for her World War II work in the French Resistance with the Insignia of the Legion of Honor in a special awards ceremony at the French Consulate General in New York City.

“The chances of our students ever speaking to a Holocaust survivor are getting slimmer very rapidly,” said Professor of Music Catherine Kautsky, who organized the symposium. “It seems more and more urgent to give these survivors a forum in which to speak out, particularly to the younger generations of students for whom World War II may seem like ancient history.”

The inspiration for the symposium grew out of a series of round-robin letters circulated by Kautsky’s 90-year old father, John Kautsky, and a group of his Viennese high school peers, all of whom were forced by the Nazis to emigrate from Vienna in 1938.

The letters chronicle the experience of leaving their homeland and establishing citizenship in new countries. The letters are now being published, generating considerable interest in the United States, Austria and Germany. They will be featured in a presentation by Jacqueline Vansant, professor of German at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, including footage of Kautsky’s father discussing the letters, followed by clips of a present-day boy at the very same school reading from the very same letters during a December 2011 ceremony at that high school.

Multiple Perspectives

The symposium is designed to amplify the survivors’ experiences from multiple perspectives, among them:

film screenings: “God Does Not Believe in Us Anymore,” “Watermarks,” and “Abschied ein Leben Lang” (“A Life-Long Farewell”).
a pair of concerts, including staged scenes from the opera “Der Kaiser von Atlantis,” by Viktor Ullmann, written at the Theresienstadt labor camp and completed shortly before Ullmann’s death in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Prior to the Saturday, May 12 concert, Lawrence Associate Professor of Music Julie McQuinn will present the talk “Music and the Holocaust: Remembering the Inconceivable.”
an art exhibition featuring prints and paintings of Austrian and German Expressionists, with commentary by Elizabeth Carlson, Lawrence associate professor of art history and Frank Lewis, curator of Lawrence’s Wriston Art Gallery.
dramatic readings of letters, poetry and memoirs of survivors by theatre professors Timothy X. Troy of Lawrence and Susan Sweeney of UW-Madison and actress Jacque Troy of the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre.
a video created by Lawrence student members of Hillel, a Jewish student organization, featuring interviews with students and faculty members discussing their family connections to the Holocaust and the responsibility of sharing information about the Holocaust with future generations.
a discussion of dance choreography of the period by Rebecca Salzer, visiting professor of dance, with an introduction by Lawrence President Jill Beck.
a presentation by Jacqueline Vansant entitled “Making Connections over Space and Time: The Extraordinary Group Correspondence of Jewish-Austrian Schoolboys.”
a display of student art work and poetry that deals with Judaism, the history of the Holocaust and generational issues.

“The arts will be featured prominently in the symposium as mirrors of the society in which they were created,” said Kautsky. “Concerts produced by the Lawrence Conservatory of Music faculty and guest artists will feature works by Jewish composers written in or about the concentration camps and the presentation of poetry, dance and visual art should likewise serve as very visceral reminders of a period in history we can’t afford to forget.”

A reception featuring Viennese pastries and coffee will be held with symposium participants Saturday, May 12 afternoon.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and current Lawrence artist-in-residence Catherine Tatge is collaborating with students to produce a documentary about the symposium.

Lawrence members of Hillel are donating six native Wisconsin perennials to the Sustainable Lawrence University Garden (SLUG) as a remembrance tribute to the six million Jews who were lost in the Holocaust.

Full schedule of events

Latin American and Spanish Cinema Showcased in Lawrence Film Festival

Nine international films representing seven countries will be showcased May 9-13 in Lawrence University’s first annual Latin American and Spanish Film Festival.

The theme of the festival focuses on the body and sex. All films will be shown with English subtitles and are free and open to the public.

Highlighting the festival will be a presentation by Paul Julian Smith, internationally recognized literary and film critic in Hispanic cultural studies. Smith will discuss the work of acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar in the address ” Almodóvar’s Women” Friday, May 11 at 6 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium.

Smith has written dozens of reviews as the Spanish film critic for the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine. The author of “Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar,” he has established himself as one of the world’s leading scholars on the work of the Spanish filmmaker. Smith is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Ph.D. program in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at City University of New York

The film festival schedule includes:

• May 9 — “The Skin I Live In” (Spain)
A brilliant plastic surgeon, haunted by past tragedies, creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession. Warch Campus Center cinema, 6 p.m.

• May 9 — “The Fish Child” (Argentina)
A desperate love story between two young girls. Unable to find a place for their love in the world they live in, they are pushed to commit a crime. Warch Campus Center cinema, 8:30 p.m.

• May 10 — “Reverón” (Venezuela)
The story of the famous visual artist Armando Reverón from 1924 to 1954, including his personal relationship with the woman named Juanita who would become his inseparable companion. Warch Campus Center cinema, 6 p.m.

• May 10 — “Leap Year” (Mexico)
Laura’s personal life consists of one affair after another. She meets Arturo, and the pair begins an intense sexual relationship. As the days go by, Laura crosses them off on a calendar, revealing her secret past to her lover. Warch Campus Center cinema, 8:30 p.m.

• May 11 — “A Year Without Love” (Argentina)
A writer living with AIDS searches for a cure and human interaction in the hospitals and sex clubs of Buenos Aires. Wriston Art Center auditorium, 8:30 p.m.

• May 12 — “Undertow” (Peru)
An unusual ghost story set in the Peruvian seaside. A married fisherman struggles to reconcile his devotion to his male lover with his town’s rigid traditions. Warch Campus Center cinema, 6 p.m.

• May 12 — “Love For Sale” (Brazil)
In order to raise money, a young woman in the northeast of Brazil decides to raffle her own body. Warch Campus Center cinema, 8:30 p.m.

• May 13 — “Mosquita y Mari” (USA)
In a fast-paced immigrant community where dreams are often lost to economic survival, two young girls contemplate life as they awaken sexual desires in each other. Warch Campus Center cinema, 6 p.m.

• May 13 —“Chico & Rita” (Spain)
Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment. Warch Campus Center cinema, 8:30 p.m.

Spanish Department page about the Festival

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