Press Releases

Category: Press Releases

Grammy-winning Composer/Conductor Maria Schneider Closes Lawrence University Jazz Series

APPLETON, WIS. — Internationally renowned jazz composer and conductor Maria Schneider will be featured in the final concert of the 2006-07 Lawrence University Jazz Series Friday, June 1 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Schneider will conduct the award-winning Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble (LUJE) and showcase Lawrence jazz faculty soloist Lee Tomboulian.

Tickets, at $22 and $20 for adults, $19 and $17 for senior citizens and $17 and $15 for students, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749.

The concert program will include LUJE performances of Schneider’s compositions “Hang Gliding” and “Three Romances,” along with two works from her forthcoming CD “Sky Blue,” which is slated for release June 14. Her recent composition “Aires de Lando” will feature Tomboulian as accordion soloist.

A native of Minnesota, Schneider settled in New York City in 1985 after studying at the University of Minnesota, the University of Miami and the Eastman School of Music. She studied composition with jazz giant Bob Brookmeyer and became an assistant to legendary composer/arranger Gil Evans, preparing Evans’ music for the 1987 Gil Evans/Sting tour.

In 1993, she formed the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, which performed weekly at Visiones in Greenwich Village for a stretch of five years. Since then, her orchestra has performed around the world, earning 2005’s “Large Jazz Ensemble of the Year” award from the Jazz Journalists Association.

Her first three recordings — “Evanescence,” “Coming About” and “Allégresse” — all were nominated for Grammy Awards, while “Allégresse” was selected by both Time and Billboard magazines for their list of “Top Ten Recordings of 2000,” which included all genres of music.

Schneider’s “Concert in the Garden” CD, which was released only through her website, won the 2005 Grammy Award for “best jazz recording,” becoming the first CD to earn that honor through Internet-only sales. The CD also was named 2005’s “Jazz Album of the Year” in the DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalist Awards. Both organizations recognized Schneider as “Composer of the Year” and “Arranger of the Year.”

“Watching Maria’s ascent to international jazz recognition has been a personal joy for me,” said Fred Sturm, director of jazz studies and improvisational music at Lawrence, who has been a friend of Schneider’s since the early 1980s and collaborated with her in the creation of “Maria Schneider: Evanescence,” a 1995 Universal Edition text featuring her original scores. He also co-conducted a concert of Schneider works with her in New York in 2001.

“I count Maria among the finest large ensemble composers in jazz history. And she is peerless as a conductor of jazz music,” Sturm added. “Our jazz students, faculty and audience will no doubt be inspired by Maria’s artistry, warmth and sincerity.”

Schneider’s extensive list of commissions includes new works by the Danish Radio Orchestra, Metropole Orchestra, Stuttgart Jazz Orchestra, Orchestre National de Jazz, Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, Monterey Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. She also received the Doris Duke award to compose a dance work for the Connecticut-based Pilobolus Dance Theatre and her orchestra at the American Dance Festival and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Tomboulian, who joined the Lawrence jazz faculty in 2005 as assistant professor of jazz improvisation, jazz small group performance and applied jazz piano, has performed with noted jazz artists Airto, Nat Adderly, Doc Cheatham, Larry Coryell, Jack DeJohnette and Bucky Pizzarelli. He is a founding member of the Brazilian and Uruguayan ensemble Circo.

Earlier this month, LUJE was named the recipient of DownBeat magazine’s 2007 “Outstanding Performance Award” in the college big band category of its annual student music awards competition. It was the second time in seven years LUJE had earned the prestigious award and the third time overall. The group was cited for the seven-track CD “Witnesses,” which featured compositions and arrangements written exclusively by Lawrence students.

Two Lawrence University Musicians Earn Top Honors at State Piano Competition

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University musicians Helen Kashap and Daniel Schenk earned first- and second-place honors, respectively, at the annual Wisconsin Music Teachers Association Badger Collegiate Piano Competition held May 19 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both are students in the piano studio of Associate Professor of Music Anthony Padilla.

Kashap, a freshman double major in piano performance and history from Saskatoon, Canada, played two movements from Beethoven’s “The Tempest Sonata,” Chopin’s “Nocturne,” and “Danzas Agentinas” by Alberto Ginastera. She received a first-place prize of $200 for her winning performance. This summer, Kashap will spend a month studying at the Orford Arts Academy in Montreal. Students are selected for the program by audition.

Schenk, a junior double major in piano performance and biology from Royal Oak, Mich., performed works by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, and Scriabin in the competition.

Participants in the WMTA competition, which is open to students attending any college or university in Wisconsin, are required to play a solo recital of between 20 and 30 minutes in length. The program must include at least three selections from one of five historical periods: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic and Contemporary.

Annual Senior Art Major Exhibition Opens May 25 at Wriston Art Center Galleries

APPLETON, WIS. — Eight Lawrence University senior art majors will showcase their work developed while students at Lawrence in the “Senior Art Major Exhibition 2007” in the Leech, Hoffmaster and Kohler galleries of Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center, 613 E. College Ave., Appleton.

The exhibition, featuring painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography and lamp-worked glass, runs May 25 to August 5. A free exhibition-opening reception with refreshments will be held Friday May 25 from 6 – 8:30 p.m.

The students participating in the show are Blair Allen, Arlington Heights, Ill., Daniel Knowles Butler III, Philadelphia, Pa., Alissa Karnaky, Charleston, S.C., Allison Lara Manasse, Chicago, Ill., Kate Ostler, St. Charles, Ill., Gabrielle Prouty, Mineral Point, Clare Raccuglia, Chicago, Ill., and Chelsea Wagner, Mendota Heights, Minn.

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 920-832-6621 or visit www.lawrence.edu/news/wriston.

Stephen Kellogg and Sixers, Dropping Daylight Perform at Lawrence University

APPLETON, WIS. — Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers bring their unique blend of classic folk-rock tradition and fun-loving showmanship to Lawrence University Tuesday, May 22 for a performance in Stansbury Theatre. The Minneapolis-based quartet Dropping Daylight will open the concert at 7 p.m.

Tickets, at $3 for Lawrence students, $7 for general admission, are available through the Lawrence University Box Office, 920-832-6749.

Kellogg, who began as a solo performer before adding his three-member band that, beyond the standard guitars, bass, and drums incorporate kazoos, accordions and even the keytar into their sound, has sold out East Coast venues with a juxtaposition of heartfelt songs delivered with unabashed flair.

The band’s live show features a heavy doze of what Kellogg calls “shenanigans,” acts of goofy band humor that provide a more festive flavor to the performance than is typically found in the more staid environs of the singer/songwriter world. They’ve been known to add full replications of Napoleon Dynamite’s infamous dance or Patrick Swayze’s quasi-risque lift of Jennifer Grey from “Dirty Dancing” into their performances, which usually include a fair number of covers as well.

Frontman Kellogg released the first of his three solo albums in 2002 and has since released three more with the Sixers, including the breakthrough disk “Bulletproof Heart” in 2004 and their 2005 self-titled CD, which has been described as “a rock album that replaces attitude with sincerity.”

Founded originally as Sue Generis in 2001, Dropping Daylight, with its piano tinged sound, has been compared to alternative rock favorites like Ben Folds Five, the Eels and the New Radicals.

Dropping Daylight was part of the 2006 Vans Warped Tour and also has toured with Breaking Benjamin, Monty Are I, and Jason Mraz. Their first full-length disk, “Brace Yourself,” which featured the track “Tell Me,” was released in the spring of 2006.

The concert is sponsored by Lawrence’s Student Organization for University Programming (S.O.U.P.).

I Voted for Kodos, Bomb the Music Industry! Headline Lawrence University’s Skappleton 2007

APPLETON, WIS. — The five original members of Madison’s I Voted for Kodos will play their final concert together Saturday, May 19 as one of the headliners of Skappleton 2007, Lawrence University’s annual salute to ska.

I Voted for Kodos and Bomb the Music Industry! will close a 12-hour “skavaganza” featuring 15 bands on two stages in Lawrence’s Buchanan Kiewit Recreation Center. Doors open at 11 a.m. and music begins at 12 noon. Tickets for Skappleton, at $15 each, can be purchased at the door the day of the event.

Winners of the 2005 purevolume.com Bamboozle on-line voting competition, I Voted for Kodos has earned a national following with its catchy hooks and tight harmonies. The band has completed five national tours and shared the stage with such notables as Fall Out Boy, Reel Big Fish, Bowling For Soup and Mustard Plug. But following Saturday’s concert, the band mates will go their separate ways.

Under the direction of producer and lead songwriter Jeff Rosenstock, Bomb the Music Industry! has counted more than 15 different musicians as band members since its founding. BtMI is known to offer fans a chance to perform on stage if they learn a song and bring their instrument to the show.

Their discography includes four albums and their first CD, “Get Warmer,” will be released on Asian Man Records this summer.

Other bands on the 2007 Skappleton line-up include: Reaching Scarlet, Catch of the Day, Chicken Poodle Soup, Hired Geeks, T.U.G.G., Car Full of Midgets, Offend Your Friends, 4th and Michigan, The Skamikazes, The Invaders, Piper Club, Small Kitchen Appliances and Sajak.

Award-winning Author K.C. Frederick Conducts Reading at Lawrence University

APPLETON, WIS. — Author K.C. Frederick, winner of the 2007 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, reads from his latest novel, “Inland,” Monday, May 21 at 4:30 p.m. in Lawrence University’s Main Hall, Room 201. A book signing and reception with the author will follow the reading. The event is free and open to the public.

Frederick’s fourth novel, “Inland” is set on a small Midwestern state college campus in the fall of 1959. It follows graduate student and freshman English teacher Ted Riley as he navigates love, loss, family and new relationships during the Cold War.

In April, Frederick, a resident of suburban Boston, received the L.L. Winship/ PEN New England Award for fiction for “Inland.” Established by The Boston Globe in 1975 to honor long-time Globe editor Laurence L. Winship, the award is presented annually to a New England author or a book with a New England setting. Previous recipients have included E.B. White, Susan Cheever, Anita Shreve, Stanley Kunitz and Leo Damrosch, among others.

In addition to his other three novels — “Accomplices (2003), “The Fourteenth Day,” (2000) and “Country of Memory,” (1998) — Fredericks has written nearly 50 short stories, several of which have been selected as “distinctive stories” for inclusion in the annual “Best American Short Stories” series. He was included in the “Outstanding Writers” Pushcart Prize in 1986 for “Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart.” His short stories also have appeared in numerous periodicals, including Epoch, Shenandoah, Kansas Quarterly, Ascent and Ohio Review.

The recipient of a 1993 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Frederick has taught creative writing as a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

His appearance is sponsored by the Marguerite Schumann ’44 Lectureship Fund.

Noted Author, Social Commentator Explores Cultural Reaction to 9/11 in Lawrence University Honors Convocation

APPLETON, WIS. — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and social commentator Susan Faludi, whose examinations of modern gender stereotypes earned her national acclaim, explores America’s psychological response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks Tuesday, May 22, in Lawrence University’s annual Honors Day convocation.

Faludi presents “Sexual Politics and the Tragedy of 9/11” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. She also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in Riverview Lounge of the Lawrence Memorial Union. Both events are free and open to the public.

Based on her forthcoming book, “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America,” which is scheduled for release this fall, Faludi’s address will explore the reasons American culture responded to an assault on U.S. global dominance by calling for a return to “traditional manhood, marriage and maternity.” She will share her insights on why she feels Americans reacted as if the hijackers had attacked the family home and nursery, rather than symbols of the country’s commercial and military might.

Faludi rose to national prominence following the release of her first book, 1991’s “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,” which won the National Critic’s Circle Award and spent nearly nine months on the best-seller lists.

From plastic surgery advertisements to male harassment of female co-workers to Hollywood films that often depicted single career women as “desperate and crazed,” “Backlash” examined the societal attacks Faludi observed on feminism and the progress women had made on social, economic and political fronts. The book landed Faludi on the cover of Time magazine, which said her writing “set off firecrackers across the political landscape.”

In 1999, Faludi released a follow-up to “Backlash” that proved to be equally controversial. “Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man” explored the cultural forces that were shaping men’s lives and attitudes. According to Faludi, men’s hostile response to feminism was part of a larger social problem within a “consumer-driven, celebrity saturated culture” where civic engagement is undervalued.

A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she was the managing editor of the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, Faludi began her professional career as a copy clerk at the New York Times. She also worked as a reporter at the Miami Herald, Atlanta Constitution, San Jose Mercury News and the Wall Street Journal, earning a reputation as a “superb crusading journalist.”

Her expose on the leveraged buyout of the Safeway supermarkets as an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal earned Faludi a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1991.

A native of Queens, New York, Faludi, whose father was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and her mother a journalist, today makes her home in San Francisco.

Lawrence University’s Felix Awarded Fulbright Grant to Teach English in Germany

APPLETON, WIS. — Monica Felix has never ventured outside the friendly confines of the United States, but she is about to get an extended education on living abroad courtesy of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

The Lawrence University senior from Thiensville has been named a 2007-08 Fulbright Scholar and awarded a fellowship that will send her to Germany for 10 months. Beginning this September, Felix will work as an English teaching assistant at a school equivalent to an American high school in the western state of Hessen.

This is the second straight year a Lawrence student has received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach English in Germany. Felix is the sixth Lawrence student named a Fulbright Scholar since 2001.

Felix admits to experiencing a momentary state of “utter disbelief” when she was informed she had been selected for the program.

“I never expected anything like this would happen to me,” said Felix, who will graduate in June with a double major in German and linguistics. “I actually didn’t believe it until I received the second letter of confirmation.”

In addition to honing her language skills, Felix says she is excited about the invaluable opportunity to spread her cultural wings during her time abroad.

“All I’ve known and been exposed to are American customs. I’m really looking forward to discovering the day-to-day differences between German culture and ours,” said Felix.

Felix said she has always found language fascinating. She is fluent in Spanish as well as German and “as a hobby,” taught herself Russian to the point she’s now proficient reading and speaking it. She began dabbling in German as a seventh grader because she wanted to learn something outside the Romance languages.

“After my initial exposure, I discovered I really liked it and just stuck with it.”

This spring, Felix completed an honors project in German on 19th-century author Theodor Fontane, in which she analyzed the speech of characters from six of his novels. Her project examined the way the characters in the novels talked about women and expressed their expectations of women and then compared that to actual historical representations of 19th-century women to see how well they matched.

“While my research for this project has given me a better insight into German literature and cultural norms of the time, I’m looking forward to seeing what present day German culture is like.”

While her immediate plans are focused on coping by herself for the first time in a foreign country, Felix says her long-range goals include graduate school to pursue studies in German literature or possibly linguistics.

“There’s a lot of exciting things being done with discourse analysis,” said Felix.

The Fulbright Program was created by Congress in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright, who sponsored the legislation, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict.

Since its founding, the Fulbright Program has become the U.S. government’s premier scholarship program. Coordinated by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright Program has supported nearly 280,000 American students, artists and other professionals opportunities for study, research and international competence in more than 150 countries. Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, CEOs, university presidents, professors and teachers. Thirty-six Fulbright alumni have earned Nobel Prizes.

Role of Fear of Mortality Focus of Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium

APPLETON, WIS. — Was it commonality of values or a non-conscious fear aroused by reminders of the events of September 11, 2001 that fueled George W. Bush’s re-election as president in 2004?

Sheldon Solomon, professor of psychology at Skidmore College, discusses the role subtle reminders of death may play in voting patterns in the Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium “Fatal Attraction: Fear of Death and Political Preference” Thursday, May 17 at 4:30 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. The event is free and open to the public.

While many pollsters, pundits and Republican Party officials felt Americans voted for Bush because he shared their moral and traditional values or were comfortable with Bush’s approach to the war on terror, Solomon argues in favor of John Kerry’s assertion that the terrorist attack on 9/11 was the “deciding” issue of the presidential election.

Solomon will present research demonstrating that reminders of death or the events of 9/11 increased Americans’ support for President Bush and his policies in Iraq. The research is based on the idea that reminders of death “increase the need for psychological security and the appeal for leaders who emphasize the greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil.”

He also will examine recent studies that document the psychological commonalities between conservative Americans and Islamic fundamentalists and discuss the implications these findings have for democratic political institutions.

Co-author of the 2002 book “In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror,” Solomon was one of three psychologists who developed the Terror Management Theory in the late 1980s, which held that people deal with death through two distinct modes of defense: direct and rational, which reduce an individual’s perception of his or her vulnerability to life-threatening conditions; or symbolic and cultural, which embed an individual as a valuable part of an eternal conception of reality that is bigger, stronger and more enduring than any single individual.

The Courtney and Steven Ross Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore, Solomon earned a bachelor’s degree from Franklin and Marshall College and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.

Lawrence University Receives $2.5 Million Gift to Establish Endowed Professorship in Environmental Studies

APPLETON, WIS. — A $2.5 million gift from a long-time benefactor of Lawrence University to establish an endowed professorship in environmental studies has been announced by Lawrence President Jill Beck. It is the largest gift given toward an endowed professorship in Lawrence’s 160-year history.

Marcia Bjornerud, professor of geology, will be the first holder of the new Walter Schober Professorship in Environmental Studies, effective July 1, according to Beck.

Appointments to endowed professorships are made in recognition of academic distinction through teaching excellence and/or scholarly achievement.

“Professor Bjornerud demonstrates passionate dedication equally to her scholarly discipline and to her students and their intellectual development,” Beck said in announcing the appointment. “The international relevance of her research in earth science and the evidence of global climate change over time is evident through the translation of her published work into several languages.

“Lawrence is extremely fortunate to have Marcia Bjornerud on our faculty and to be able to recognize her contributions through Mr. Schober’s generosity.”

Schober’s motivation in establishing the professorship grew out of his own concern for the future of the planet and the need to educate young people about the importance of environmental stewardship.

“Man cannot continue to exploit the finite resources of this Earth without affecting his own well-being and that of other species on this planet,” said Schober, a retired resident of Pentwater, Mich. “We must respect all forms of life or consider the probability of widespread extinctions.”

Schober, whose only connection to Lawrence is a niece, Amanda Schober, who graduated in 2001, first became interested in Lawrence after a campus visit that left him impressed with the campus community. He made the gift out of admiration for Lawrence’s educational mission as articulated by former and current presidents Richard Warch and Beck.

“The type of undergraduate scholarship practiced at Lawrence is consistent with my concept of a great liberal arts school,” said Schober. “May it always be so!”

The donation for the endowed professorship is the third major gift Schober has made to Lawrence in the past six years. He previously made a gift of $1.3 million in 2001 to renovate the first floor of Seeley G. Mudd Library. Two years later he donated $300,000 for a digital database for the library.

Bjornerud, a structural geologist who studies mountain building processes, joined the Lawrence faculty in 1995 after six years with the geology department at Miami University in Ohio. She has served as the chair of the Lawrence geology department since 1998 and helped establish the college’s environmental studies program as a major in 2000, serving as its director through 2006.

Elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2003, Bjornerud is the author of two books, the science textbook “The Blue Planet: A Laboratory Manual in Earth System Science” and “Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth,” which was published in 2005.

A storyteller’s history of the Earth and the toll human activity is exacting on the planet, “Reading the Rocks” draws upon field research Bjornerud conducted in 2000 as a Fulbright Scholar on exposed rock complexes on the island of Holsnøy in western Norway. The book has since been reprinted in French, Dutch and Japanese, with a Chinese edition for Taiwan slated for publication later this year.

In collaboration with six students, she also recently produced the pamphlet “Building Stones of Downtown Appleton,” an illustrated layman’s guide to the geological and historical context of the rocks used in the construction of a dozen downtown buildings, including the Zuelke Building and the Outagamie County Museum.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in geophysics at the University of Minnesota, Bjornerud earned master’s and doctorate degrees in geology at the University of Wisconsin.