Press Releases

Category: Press Releases

Paris-based Ebène String Quartet Opens North American Tour Feb. 5 at Lawrence University

Returning to the United States for the first time since May 2009, the Paris-based Ebène String Quartet opens its 2010 nine-city, North American tour Friday, Feb. 5 at Lawrence University as part of the college’s annual Artist Series. The quartet will perform a classical repertoire of Haydn, Brahms and Debussy at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

Tickets, at $20-22 for adults, $17-19 for seniors and $15-17 for students, are available through the Lawrence Box Office, 420 E. College Ave., Appleton, 920-832-6749.

Founded in France in 1999, the quartet is best known in Europe, where they have played many of the most prestigious venues, including Berlin’s Philharmonic, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein. Along with their performances of classical music, the quartet has a strong love of jazz, often incorporating jazz styles into their classical performances. Seen most clearly in their arrangement of the music from “Pulp Fiction,” the group is known for their creativity, teamwork, and adventurous spirit.

Samantha George, associate professor of violin at Lawrence and former long-time concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, says it’s the possibility of the unexpected that makes an Ebène String Quartet concert exciting.

“This group is notorious for being able to move between Haydn and jazz in the same concert and doing it all with eloquence, inspiration and honesty,” said George. “Their adaptability and versatility is inspiring. They are beautiful, accomplished musicians with a sense of whimsy and fun.”

London’s Daily Telegraph has hailed the Ebène String Quartet as “gifted…with something urgent and individual to communicate.”

The quartet’s most recent recording of Debussy, Ravel and Fauré received Gramophone’s coveted “Recording of the Year” as well as “Chamber Music Record of the Year” by ECHO-classik. A new disc, combining their interests in jazz and world music, is scheduled for release later this year.

Taking its name from ebony, the exotic wood used to make the fingerboards of stringed instruments, the quartet features Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure on violin, Mathieu Herzog on viola and Raphaël Merlin on cello. Each member plays unique Italian instruments, including Merlin’s cello, which dates back to 1850 and once was owned by the famous French cellist and composer Paul Tortelier.

International Relations Film Festival Examines Conflict, War

Issues of civil war and domestic conflict will be explored in Lawrence University’s four-part International Relations Film Festival which begins Monday, Feb. 1. Sponsored by the Lawrence government department, each film will be shown at 7 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema. All showings are free and open to the public.

“We wanted to explore a single topic through multiple lenses — cultural, geographic and time,” said Jason Brozek, assistant professor of government and Stephen Edward Scarff Professor of International Affairs, who organized the film series. “These films address universal themes of violence, nationalism and politics. We hope to make this an annual series with a different topic each year.”

The films and dates are as follows:

&#149 Feb. 1 — “Battle of Algiers,” 1966, 125 minutes, Not Rated

A documentary-style depiction of the Algerians’ struggle to liberate themselves from French colonial power. The film combines actual newsreel footage of the political torture and violence with staged sequences recreating the action.

&#149 Feb. 8 — “Bloody Sunday,” 2002, 110 minutes, Rated R

On January 30, 1972 in Derry, Ireland, a peaceful civil rights protest march that was staged to protest British laws was stopped by a heavily armed British militia. Seen through the eyes of one of the central organizers of the march, the film uncovers a shocking instance of excessive force, ending the hope for nonviolent resolution.

&#149 Feb. 15 — “The Devil Came on Horseback,” 2007, 85 minutes, Not Rated

As a military observer, U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle witnessed the horrors of the conflict between the Arab government and the black African citizens of Darfur, Sudan. Frustrated by the lack of response from the international community, Steidle returned to the U.S. to confront the urgent situation.

&#149 Feb. 22 — “Paradise Now,” 2005, 91 minutes, Rated PG-13

Palestinian childhood friends Said and Khaled are chosen to carry out a suicide bombing in Israel. After being separated while crossing the border, they must return and find each other to reconcile their conflicting views of the mission.

All Things Trivial Saluted During Lawrence University’s 45th Annual 50-hour Contest

Drew Baumgartner didn’t know it at the time, but he was destined to become grand master of Lawrence University’s Great Midwest Contest.

As a youth growing up in Detroit, Mich., Baumgartner spent countless hours trying to impress his friends with his vast array of useless knowledge.

“There was a group of us who would memorize the most worthless things and challenge each other and no one cared about it except us,” said Baumgartner.

Imagine his excitement when as a freshman he wound up at Lawrence, home to the nation’s longest-running trivia contest. A year older than the Super Bowl, the 45th edition of the 50-hour contest dedicated to all things obscure and irrelevant begins anew Friday, Jan. 29 at its usual offbeat time of 10:00:37 p.m. and continues through midnight Sunday, Jan. 31.

“It was unbelievable to come to a place where everyone was paying attention to trivia,” said Baumgartner, a senior pursuing a double degree with majors in biology and music composition. “The trivia contest seemed like the greatest thing in the world to me.”

After playing for the on-campus Plantz Hall team as a freshman, Baumgartner jumped to the other side of the contest, asking the questions as a trivia master instead of answering them. Three years as a trivia master earned him an anointment as “grand master” of this year’s contest.

“Hopefully we’ll continue to deliver the kind of manic entertainment trivia players have come to enjoy and expect,” said Baumgartner.

When it was founded in 1966 as an alternative for students who didn’t participate in a serious academic retreat with professors, the trivia contest was broadcast over Lawrence’s campus radio station, WLFM. But since 2006, the contest has switched to an Internet-based format and will be webcast at www.lawrence.edu/sorg/wlfm/ allowing people all over the world to join in the fun. Among those forming a team this year will be Baumgartner’s parents back in Detroit.

Baumgartner and his team of trivia masters hope to ask nearly 400 questions of varying point values during the 50-hour minutia marathon. On and off-campus teams have three minutes to call in correct answers to such brain busters as what year was the statue of Tom Thumb, who died in 1883, stolen from his graveyard monument in Bridgeport, Conn. (1973) or how long was the scoring drive that led to Brett Favre’s first “Lambeau Leap” (74 yards).

Theme hours throughout the contest focus questions on such topics as death and destruction or all things Batman.

Last year’s contest had one of its closest finishes in years, with nine-time defending champion Bank of Kaukauna coming from behind late on Sunday to edge out the Trivia Pirates – AARGH by a mere 15 points, 1,465-1,450.

John Brogan, the ringleader of the most successful team in the contest’s four-and-a half decades history, promises his team of nearly 40 players from Wisconsin, Florida, Minnesota, Iowa, Washington, D.C., Illinois, California, New York and New Jersey have their sights set on winning a record-setting 10th straight title in 2010.

“We’re like the New York Yankees of trivia,” said Brogan. “Everyone hates us. Everyone wants to beat us. Everyone is welcome to try.”

The Trivia Pirates, a core group of some 30 or so die-hard “mateys” ranging in age from 6 to 60, including a former Milwaukee Brewers’ bat boy, would like nothing better than to break the Bank’s stranglehold on the off-campus title and capture its first crown since it last won in 2000.

“We are confident we will plank the Bank,” said Rocco “Sacco” Lemke, a Trivia Pirate team member and former performer with the 1980s punk band The Dead Milkmen, who will be coming to town from Philadelphia for the weekend contest.

Despite the competitive posturing, the contest always was and continues to be all about just having fun.

“It’s the kind of release everyone needs,” said Baumgartner. “You spend the rest of your life going to bed at reasonable hours and only remembering the things that are important. The Lawrence trivia contest is the exact opposite of all that rationality.

Sometimes a change is good.”

Two things that won’t change are the time-honored traditions of having Lawrence’s president ask the first question, which, also by tradition, is always the final “Super Garrauda” question from the previous year’s contest.

While no one was able to correctly answer last year’s contest-ending stumper, President Jill Beck will give all teams a chance to start out the 2010 contest with 100 points by asking who was going to be married next to what was the “world’s largest cedar bucket” in Murfreesboro, Tenn., in June, 2005, before it mysteriously burned down the week before their wedding date. (James Walters and Jaki Neubauer).

Abigail Disney Receiving Honorary Degree, Delivers Convocation “Peace is Loud”

Award-winning film producer, activist and humanitarian Abigail Disney will be recognized Thursday, January 28 by Lawrence University with an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

As part of the degree-granting ceremony in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, Disney will deliver the convocation “Peace is Loud,” an address based on her award-winning 2008 documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which examines Liberia’s civil war.

A screening of “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” will be held in the Warch Campus Center cinema at 1 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer session with Disney at 2 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.

Disney’s film chronicles the inspirational story of the courageous women of Liberia, whose efforts played a critical role in bringing an end to a long and bloody civil war and eventually led to the 2005 election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as Liberia’s president, Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state.

Disney served as the producer of “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which has earned critical praise and collected more than 15 awards, including the Best Documentary Award at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival, the Cowboy Award Winner – Audience Choice Award at the Jackson Hole Film Festival, the Social Justice Award for Documentary Film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and the Golden Butterfly Award at the Movies that Matter Festival.

She founded and serves as president of the New York City-based Daphne Foundation, which supports grassroots and emerging organizations that deal with the causes and consequences of poverty, focusing on the creation and implementation of long-term solutions to intractable social problems.

The grandniece of Walt Disney, founder of the Disney media and entertainment empire, she also has played a leadership role in a number of other social and political organizations, among them the New York Women’s Foundation, from which she recently retired as chair, the Roy Disney Family Foundation, the White House Project, the Global Fund for Women, the Fund for the City of New York and the Ms. Foundation for Women.

Disney earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, a master’s degree from Stanford University, and her Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Lawrence University Hosts “Concert for Haiti”

The Lawrence University Memorial Chapel will be the backdrop for a special “Concert for Haiti” Wednesday, January 20, at 7 p.m. The concert is the inspiration of Lawrence student Carolyn Armstrong ’10 and Lawrence Professor of Cello Janet Anthony, who last month traveled to Haiti to teach music. The Holy Trinity Music School in Port-au-Prince, where many of the lessons took place, was destroyed in the earthquake January 12 that killed an estimated 200,000 Haitians and left many more injured and homeless.

The “Concert for Haiti” will feature performances by Lawrence students and faculty, Bob Levy and John Harmon, Jeremiah Nelson, world-renowned improvisational cellist Matt Turner and others. A collection will be taken to benefit Holy Trinity Music School. In addition, donations can be given to the American Red Cross Haitian Relief efforts. Haitian music and music composed at Holy Trinity Music School will be performed. Tickets are not required.

On Thursday, January 21, at 9:30 p.m., Fox 11 WLUK will broadcast the concert highlights, sharing the message and music with viewers across Northeast Wisconsin. “We are grateful for the opportunity to take this message to a larger audience,” Anthony said. “More than 40 Lawrence students have visited Haiti in the last 15 years, many of them working with music students at Holy Trinity. We care deeply about their welfare and we look forward to, when the time is right, bringing music education back to Haiti.”

Lawrence University is grateful for the support of the American Red Cross, Fox-11 WLUK and others for this “Concert for Haiti.”

To support Lawrence University’s fund-raising efforts for Haiti, click here.

Milwaukee’s Wild Space Dance Company Performs “Heads Up” at Lawrence University

An eclectic program of four new dances exploring narration in motion will be presented by members of Milwaukee-based Wild Space Dance Company in its performance of “Heads Up” Friday, Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. in Lawrence University’s Stansbury Theatre.

Tickets, at $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and students, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 420 E. College Ave., Appleton, 920-832-6749.

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The performance features “Trace Elements,” a whirlwind convergence of classic film-noir orchestrations and contemporary dance along with excerpts from the company’s recent premiere of “By Accident and Necessity,” featuring shifting video images by renowned Milwaukee photographer Tom Bamberger.

Landscapes, both human and natural, are at the heart of “Heads Up” according to Wild Space Artistic Director Debra Loewen. The vastness and sensual beauty of the natural world are explored in two dances, while landscapes of human interaction are revealed in the other two.

“One dance is a meditation on time and space and another becomes an elegant elegy for the loss of wilderness,” said Loewen. “The other two dances feature an intimate and complicated lover’s duet and a big, zany, over-the-top performance set to a collage of music from Alfred Hitchcock films. A veritable layered landscape of who done it.”

Wild Space Dance Company has served as a company-in-residence at Lawrence since 2000, bringing professional dance to the Lawrence community and providing students principles of dance art in performance through classes and workshops taught by Loewen and members of her company.

“Deb Loewen’s choreography is always literate and theatrical while testing the boundary of abstract dance and narrative power of theatre,” said Tim Troy, professor of theatre arts and J.Thomas and Julie Esch Hurvis Professor of Theatre and Drama. “The yearly showcase by Wild Space is an integral part of our theatre department’s season.”

Founded in 1986 and known for its artistic collaborations, Wild Space Dance Company combines dance with visual art, film, text, architecture and unusual environments in an effort to expand the audience for contemporary dance throughout Wisconsin.

Portrait Photography, Digital Media Highlight Latest Lawrence University Art Center Exhibition

Chicago photographer Liese Ricketts delivers the opening lecture Friday, Jan. 22 at 6 p.m. for the latest exhibition at Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center galleries. A reception with the artist follows the address.

The exhibition, which runs through March 7, features Ricketts photography in the Leech and Hoffmaster Galleries and “The Theory of the Meat Machine,” a collection of digital prints by Gina Rymarcsuk, in the Kohler Gallery.

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With an artists’ affection for the human face, Ricketts specializes in photography that documents an individual’s sense of identity and place. Inspired by 19th-century itinerant photographers who roamed the countryside, setting up portable photo studios to make images of local residents, Ricketts has made similar trips to Peru. In her portraits, she allows her subjects to decide how they present themselves, photographing them with pets, objects associated with their trade or dressed in a favorite article of clothing.

The Ricketts’ exhibition also features a story based on a box of old glass plate negatives documenting a pair of dogs that she found. Her story includes characters based on photo theorists Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes and American essayist Susan Sontag.

Ricketts, who earned an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has taught photography for more than 30 years, including at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools since 1988.

Rymarcsuk, also a photographer, works with digital media, specializing in the way artists deal with the evolving intersection of technology and nature. Her “Theory of the Meat Machine” is a lengthy and elaborate narrative created by combining images of the human body with machine parts. She borrowed from surrealist artist Max Ernst’s pseudo alchemical and metaphysical ideas about nature, creating a series of linearly mounted digital prints, each of which acts as the page of an elaborate book.

“The Theory of the Meat Machine” earned Rymarcsuk “Best of Show” honors at the 2009 Southeastern Aviation Art Exhibition, Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Ala. An assistant professor of photography at UW-Milwaukee, Rymarcsuk holds a M.F.A. in photography from the University of Washington.

Wriston Art Center hours are Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

LU Panel Discussion Follows Screening of Disney Documentary

A panel of three Lawrence University faculty members and a Sudanese student will lead a discussion of the award-winning documentary film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” Wednesday, Jan. 20 immediately following an 8 p.m. screening of the movie in the Warch Campus Center cinema. Both events are free and open to the public.

Claudena Skran, associate professor of government and Edwin and Ruth West Professor of Economics and Social Science, will moderate the discussion. Joining Skran on the panel will be Judith Sarnecki, professor of French, Alison Guenther Pal, post-doctoral fellow of German and film studies and sophomore Nidal Kram, who grew up in Sudan.

Produced by Abigail Disney, the film chronicles the inspirational story of the courageous women of Liberia, whose efforts played a critical role in bringing an end to a long and bloody civil war (1989-96) and restored peace to the country. The end of the war eventually led to the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as Liberia’s president, the first democratically elected female head of state in Africa.

“Pray the Devil Back to Hell” has collected more than 15 awards since its 2008 release, including the Best Documentary Award at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival and the Social Justice Award for Documentary Film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Lawrence will recognize Disney with an honorary degree on Thursday, Jan. 28 in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Following the degree presentation, Disney will deliver the convocation “Peace is Loud.”

LU Students Turning Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service into a Day On, Not a Day Off

More than 100 Lawrence University students are expected to take advantage of a day free of classes by participating in various community projects Monday, Jan. 18 as part of 2010’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

Coordinated by Lawrence’s Volunteer and Community Service Center (VCSC), students will volunteer several hours of their time Monday (12:30-3:30 p.m.) with nearly a dozen different programs and agencies in the Fox Cities.

MLK-Day-of-Service-logo-web.gifSome of the volunteer projects include working with Rebuilding Together Fox Valley to paint and clean at Holy Spirit School in Kimberly, helping prepare a meal at the Emergency Shelter of the Fox Valley and assisting the Appleton Housing Authority renovate a duplex.

As many as 30 students will be involved in a diversity activity with students at Appleton’s Richmond Elementary School.

Kristi Hill, Lawrence’s coordinator of internships and volunteer programs said it takes dedicated student leaders and collaborative community agencies to make the MLK Day of Service possible.

“This year we have created strong relationships with 12 community agencies that are hosting a Lawrence AmeriCorps member serving in a volunteer liaison capacity,” said Hill. “This partnership has resulted in some well-planned community projects. Both the Lawrence Volunteer and Community Service Center and the Day of Service are entirely student-led, which speaks volumes of the passion our students have for the Fox Valley community.”

Sophomore Brenda Zuleger, the VCSC’s events coordinator, said the MLK Day of Service “provides a great opportunity for both Lawrence students and the Appleton community to connect and serve the needs of others.”

“Lawrence students learn a little bit more about the service organizations throughout Appleton on their day off from classes while making a difference in someone else’s life. That is truly a phenomenal feeling.”

The Day of Service also includes a volunteer fair coordinated by the VCSC from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center featuring representatives from 40 area agencies and several Lawrence student organizations with a service focus.

A presentation on VCSC summer volunteer opportunity grants will be conducted in the Warch Center’s Kraemer Conference Room from 4-5 p.m. Lawrence seniors J.B. Sivanich, who taught English to academically talented children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds in Bangalore, India; Rebecca Bohl, who served as an intern for the Guatemala Human Rights Commission in Washington D.C.; Sylvie Armstrong, who worked as a dog adoption coordinator for Saving Paws Animal Rescue near Appleton; and Zachary Becker, who worked on the Ramchander Nath Foundation’s prisoner art project in New Delhi, India, will discuss their experiences as 2009 summer volunteer opportunity grant recipients.

The day’s events conclude with the 19th annual community-wide Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel at 6:30 p.m. Rev. Wanda Washington, pastor of Grace United Church of Christ in Milwaukee, will serve as the celebration’s keynote speaker.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service was founded in 1994 to transform the federal holiday honoring King into a national day of community service grounded in the civil rights leader’s teachings of nonviolence and social justice.

The Power of Hope: Milwaukee UCC Pastor Keynote Speaker for 19th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration

Rev. Wanda J. Washington, the first African-American female member of the United Church of Christ to start a new church in Wisconsin, will deliver the keynote address at the 19th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Monday, Jan. 18 at 6:30 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave.

The celebration, presented by Lawrence University and Toward Community: Unity in Diversity with the support of numerous organizations, individuals and churches throughout the Fox Valley, is free and open to the public. The Post-Crescent and WFRV-TV CBS 5 are media partners for the event.

The theme for this year’s celebration — “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that” — is drawn from King’s 1963 book “Strength to Love,” a collection of some of his classic sermons on social justice and non-violence.

“Those are more than just words Dr. King delivered, they resonate with me as the true essence of Dr. King and his life’s work,” said Kathy Flores, the chair of the MLK Committee and the intercultural relations coordinator for the city of Appleton. “Dr. King may have died by an act of violence, but he lived by acts of love and light. We hope that Fox Valley residents will join us for the celebration to hear Rev. Washington’s message of love conquering hate as we celebrate Dr. King’s life and are reminded that his legacy lives on through us.”

Pa Lee Moua, Lawrence’s assistant dean of students for multicultural affairs, said King’s message remains vitally relevant today.

“Although history reflects what has been done in the past, it’s still very much a part of our future,” said Moua. “Dr. King’s mission has and will continue to shape our nation and the lives of our children for many generations to come. Individually, it is our responsibility to continue his legacy by serving our community and striving for equality and social justice for all. As a community we need to stand together, lead by example and inspire others to make a difference.”

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Washington, who spent 20 years as a special education teacher working with deaf and blind students in Glen Ellyn, Ill., before pursuing a master’s of divinity degree, will speak on the power of hope, the many positive changes King hoped would occur in the country and the importance of people remaining hopeful in the face of adversity.

After graduating from the Chicago Theological Seminary, Washington served as associate pastor at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ for more than 10 years. In 2006, she moved to Wisconsin and started Grace United Church of Christ in Milwaukee. The church now serves more than 200 members.

Highlighting the evening’s celebration will be the annual presentation by Toward Community of the organization’s Jane LaChapelle McCarty Unity in Diversity Award, which recognizes an area individual who has made great strides in bringing different people in the community together.

The celebration also will feature area students reading their winning essays focused on King’s theme of love triumphing over hate as well as musical performances by the Menasha High School Marching Band and singer Sirgourney Tanner, a Lawrence senior.

A sign language interpreter will be present for the program and a reception for all in attendance will be held following the event.