Press Releases

Category: Press Releases

Choral Conductor Rick Bjella Recognized for Service to Local Arts Community

Since 1986, Lawrence University Professor of Music Rick Bjella has devoted 40 Sunday evenings a year to rehearsals with the White Heron Chorale.

Next month, Bjella will be recognized as the 2006 recipient of the Hanns Kretzschmar Award for Excellence in the Arts for his 20 years of dedicated service as artistic director of the 65-member mixed voice community choir of volunteer singers.

Bjella will be one of eight community award winners honored Thursday, April 20 for their outstanding efforts at the annual “Celebrating Our Volunteers” dinner at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel in downtown Appleton. The event, sponsored by The Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, Inc. and The Post-Crescent, has saluted deserving area individuals for their volunteerism since 1998.

The Hanns Kretzschmar Award for Excellence in the Arts “recognizes an individual for leadership and volunteer service in local arts organizations and activities; for long-standing commitment to the local arts community; and for noteworthy personal involvement in developing and promoting arts within the community.” Sponsored by Thrivent Financial For Lutherans, the award includes $5,000 to be donated to a charity of the recipient’s choosing.

“I was completely humbled by being nominated and then selected for this prestigious award,” said Bjella, who has served as director of choral studies at Lawrence since 1984. “There are so many people that have given and continue to give so much to this community to make the arts come alive in many powerful ways. I am honored to be considered among these fine men and women.

“The White Heron Chorale, which I am privileged to conduct, all give of their individual time and talent to make that organization flourish,” Bjella added. “Some members drive more than 50 miles one way for each rehearsal without a penny of compensation. These people are among my heroes.”

When the Chorale went looking for an artistic director in the mid-1980s, they wanted someone who combined good musicianship and sound vocal technique with an inspiring personality. According to Carol Jegen, one of the founding members of the Chorale, the search committee hit the trifecta in choosing Bjella.

“His enthusiasm for what he does was a perfect fit for a chorus of amateurs — those who pursue excellence because of their love for singing,” said Jegen in nominating Bjella for the Kretzchmar Award.

The White Heron Chorale will celebrate Bjella’s anniversary as the organization conductor with a concert of his favorite choral pieces entitled “How Can I Keep from Singing?” on Saturday, March 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

In addition to his work with the White Heron Chorale, Bjella directs Lawrence University’s Concert Choir, Chorale and Collegium. He’s also previously conducted the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Singers and the Choral Society at Lawrence.
He is past president of the Wisconsin Choral Directors Association and is the current chair of the Repertoire and Standards Committee for the North Central division of the American Choral Directors Association.

Bjella has conducted in concert halls around the world, including Paris, Prague, London and Lucerne and has guest conducted more than 350 festivals and workshops in 25 states.

Lawrence University Artist Series Concludes With Ethos Percussion Group

The 2005-06 Lawrence University Artist Series will conclude on April 1 with Ethos Percussion Group. The concert, which takes place at 8:00 p.m., will be held in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Tickets are available at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, 420 E. College Ave., or by phone at 920-832-6749, and range from $15 for students to $22 for adults.

For more than 15 years, Ethos Percussion Group has inspired audiences throughout the country with its exceptional music-making and collective devotion to the diverse world of percussion.

Ensemble members Trey Files, Eric Phinney, Yousif Sheronick, and David Shively are accomplished classical and world music artists, each with a distinctive background and musical perspective. Their combined expertise is the source of Ethos’ innovative programming, which integrates global instruments and playing styles into the conventions of Western chamber music to create a visually and aurally compelling experience. The ensemble’s critically-acclaimed performances regularly feature numerous commissions and world premieres, traditional rhythms from India, West Africa, and the Middle East, and landmark works by composers such as John Cage, Lou Harrison and Steve Reich.

Individually, the members of Ethos have performed with Philip Glass, Branford Marsalis, Yo-Yo Ma, New World Symphony, New Music Consort, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Sospeso, New York City Ballet, De La Guarda, and Mabou Mines.

Previous concert seasons have included shows across the United States and the United Kingdom, with major engagements at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, the Bermuda Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. Recent collaborations include the Kansas City Symphony, Grammy-winning frame drummer Glen Velez, and Indian tabla master Pandit Samir Chatterjee.

Ethos’ discography includes Sol Tunnels (2003), The Persistence of Past Chemistries (1999) and Ethos Percussion Group (1996).

For additional information on this and other “Performing Arts at Lawrence” series concerts, please visit www.lawrence.edu/news/performingartsseries.

Three Lawrence University Horn Students Shine at Regional Music Competition

Three Lawrence University students won honors at the recent (Feb. 24-26) 2006 Midwest Horn Workshop, a regional workshop of the International Horn Society conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Dan Severson, a freshman from Edina, Minn., earned first-place honors in the low horn orchestral excerpts competition. Anna Suechting, a sophomore from Elk Mound and Karen Oliver, a freshman from Lexington, Mass., both received second-place recognition in the solo horn and high horn orchestral excerpts competitions, respectively. All three students are horn performance majors in the studio of Associate Professor James DeCorsey.

“Lawrence was certainly well represented at this workshop by the performances of Dan, Anna and Karen,” said DeCorsey. “What really puts their accomplishments in perspective is the fact that many of the students they were competing against were upperclassmen and graduate students. Given their relative youth and lack of experience with the format, such early recognition bodes well for further competitive successes as their careers progress.”

Nearly 50 undergraduate as well as graduate horn students from eight states in the Upper Midwest competed in five different categories at the workshop. Participants in the solo competition performed one required piece and one work of their own choosing. Students who advanced to the finals then played a piece commissioned specifically for this workshop. Students in the orchestral competition performed six short excerpts selected from a wide range of standard orchestra repertoire. The competition was juried by a panel of well-known horn soloists and music professors.

Two Lawrence University Choirs Selected to Perform at Regional Convention

The voices of two Lawrence University choirs will be showcased Friday, March 3 on the stage of the Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha, Neb., as part of the North Central — American Choral Directors Association division convention.

Only five college-level choirs were selected for the convention and Lawrence pulled off a rare double invitation by having both its Concert Choir and Women’s Choir chosen to perform. The ACDA North Central division includes institutions in a six-state area — Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota and Nebraska.

Choirs are chosen by a review committee through a blind audition tape process. The audition CDs submitted feature “live” concert performances from the previous three years. Joining Lawrence as college division performers will be the Dordt College Choir, Concordia University A Cappella Choir and the Minnesota State University – Mankato Concert Choir.

“Only the best auditions are chosen to perform at the convention, so for Lawrence to have two of the five college choir ensembles selected is really quite an honor,” said Phillip Swan, conductor of the women’s choir.

The Lawrence Concert Choir, under the direction of Richard Bjella, will perform at 9:35 Friday morning, while Swan’s Women’s Choir will take the stage at 1:30 p.m. The Concert Choir was selected for the honor of performing the ACDA’s prestigious Raymond Brock Commission Composition, which was composed by Mack Wilberg, the associate director of the Morman Tabernacle Choir.

The Women’s Choir will perform a program entitled “In Praise of…” that will feature three distinct sections: “In Praise of the Sacred,” “In Praise of Music” and “In Praise of Cultural Diversity,” which will include compositions from Venezuella, Czechoslovokia and the United States.

Founded in 1959, the American Choral Directors Association is composed of more than 20,000 choral musicians from schools, colleges, and universities, industry and institutional organizations, places of worship and community and professional choirs representing all 50 states.

Music and Motor Movement Examined in Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium

The relationship between music and physical coordination and the clues music may offer for basic motor coordination research will be examined Thursday, March 2 in a Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium.

John Paul Ito, assistant professor of music at Lawrence, presents “What Performing Musicians and Motor Control Scientists Can Learn from Each Other” at 4:15 p.m. in Science Hall Room 102. The lecture is free and open to the public.

A former professional violist, Ito investigated modes of physical coordination and their expressive consequences for his Ph.D. in music theory. In his address, he will discuss some of the ground-breaking work on movement coordination formulated by famed Russian neurophysiologist Nikolai Bernstein during the first half of the 20th-century. He will argue that the outdated theories of Bernstein’s predecessor, Ivan Pavlov, may in some cases continue to haunt performing musicians, leading them to conceive of their tasks in ways that may not be maximally effective. According to Ito, musicians may benefit from looking at performance from a more Bernsteinian perspective.

The address also will explore the ways in which studying several smaller, embedded motions within the context of a larger, single motion, such as those performed by musicians, could help lead scientists to a better understanding of the organization of movement.

A member of the Lawrence conservatory faculty since 2004, Ito earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master of music in viola performance from Boston University and Ph.D. in music theory from Columbia University.

Role of “People Power” as Democratic Accelerator Examined in Lawrence University International Studies Address

The power ordinary citizens can generate through mobilization and engagement of their opponents/oppressors and strategies that can fuel democratic reforms will be the focus of the third installment of Lawrence University’s four-part international studies lecture series “Pariah States and Policy Responses.”

Jack DuVall, president and founding director of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, D.C., presents “The Right to Rise Up: People Power and the Virtues of Civic Disruption” Wednesday, March 1 at 7 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Countering Osama bin Laden’s assertion that “the walls of oppression and humiliation cannot be demolished except in a rain of bullets,” DuVall will explain how nonviolent, civilian-based strategies — using tactics such as strikes, boycotts, mass protests and civil disobedience — have won human rights and produced better democracies in nations as diverse as the Philippines, South Africa and Ukraine.

In his lecture, DuVall will focus on three key elements present in such struggles: unity among civic groups and activists who want an open and just society; planning, based on targeting the oppressor’s sources of power; and nonviolent discipline, which enables great numbers of ordinary citizens to participate and thus broaden the scope of the conflict.

Those dynamics of nonviolent struggle, according to DuVall, are frequently not seen or understood by most policymakers and media organizations.

“They only notice people power when mass protests occur,” says DuVall. “They invariably act as if every nonviolent campaign erupted spontaneously in the moment.”

The executive producer of the Emmy-nominated PBS series “A Force More Powerful” and co-author of its companion book of the same name, DuVall helped establish the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in 2002. The ICNC disseminates educational tools and resources on a global basis that assist the development of nonviolent resistance.

Prior to co-founding the ICNC, DuVall spent 16 years as a television executive, producing non-fiction programming for The Learning Channel, Turner Broadcasting, as well as more than 30 other commercial television and non-profit organizations. He previously served as vice president of WETA Television/Radio and director of corporate relations of The University of Chicago.

A graduate of Colgate University, DuVall is a member of the board of sponsors of Atlanta’s Morehouse College and serves as an associate of the Centre for Justice and Peace Development at Massey University in New Zealand.

The series will conclude Tuesday, April 4 when John Merrill, chief of the Northeast Asia Division, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. State Department, discusses North Korea.

The “Pariah States and Policy Responses” lecture series is sponsored by the Mojmir Povolny Lectureship in International Studies. Named in honor of long-time Lawrence government professor Mojmir Povolny, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on issues of moral significance and ethical dimensions.

Planning Expert Discusses “Sustainable Neighborhoods” in Lawrence University Environmental Studies Lecture

The critical importance of fundamental land use planning in the efforts to build truly “sustainable” communities will be the focus of the final installment of Lawrence University’s environmental studies lecture series dealing with issues of “green” building.

Judy Corbett, founder and executive director of the Local Government Commission in Sacramento, Calif., presents “Beyond Green Buildings: Planning for Sustainable Neighborhoods and Regions” Thursday, March 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102 on the Lawrence campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Going beyond a mere call for increased use of “green” building principles, Corbett will argue that careful land use planning is the critical element to becoming sustainable due to its potential to reduce air and water pollution, limit the loss of agricultural land and cut excessive energy use that results from the nation’s over dependence on the automobile.

Corbett will discuss the role “Smart Growth” — also known as “New Urbanism” or “Livable Communities” — is playing in making communities more transit-friendly, walkable and bike-able. She will outline the growing acceptance and implementation of Smart Growth plans around the country as well as the barriers that still need to be cleared to transform Smart Growth concepts into business-as-usual practices.

Named a “Hero for the Planet” by Time magazine in 1999, Corbett has served as executive director of the Local Government Commission for the past 24 years. The commission analyzes current social, economic and environmental problems and provides strategies that local elected officials can use to address them. The commission was awarded the American Planning Association’s national Public Education Award in 1997 and Corbett herself was honored with the APA’s 2005 National Award for “Distinguished Leadership by a Citizen Planner.”

Corbett has co-authored three books on resource efficient land use and building design, including “Designing Sustainable Communities: Learning from Village Homes,” and has published more than 50 policy guidebooks for local government officials on topics ranging from hazardous waste reduction, recycling, energy conservation and resource-efficient land use patterns. She holds a master’s degree in ecology from the University of California.

Corbett and her husband were responsible for creating Village Homes, a 60-acre pioneering experiment in ecological living that began in the late 1970s in Davis, Calif., and completed in 1981. Considered “the granddaddy” of green developments, the project successfully combined residential, commercial and agricultural elements.

Village Homes features 240 houses that incorporate the latest in solar technology. They are built in clusters and oriented toward the backyards, which open onto large common areas. The streets are narrower than normal — 23 feet wide as opposed to a more standard 36 feet — and end in cul-de-sacs. The land is contoured to capture most rainwater, with the excess flowing into ditches and ponds rather than concrete storm sewers. Winding walkways connect homes to a small courtyard of offices, reinforcing the theme of a community built for people, not cars.

The environmental lecture series is sponsored by the Spoerl Lectureship in Science in Society. Established in 1999 by Milwaukee-Downer College graduate Barbara Gray Spoerl and her husband, Edward, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on the role of science and technology in societies worldwide.

Lawrence University Qualifies Two Teams for National Semifinals of Mock Trial Competition

Competing against such long-time mock trial “Goliaths” as the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University, Lawrence University’s fledging second-year squad of make-believe defense attorneys, prosecutors and witnesses acquitted themselves so well at the recent American Mock Trial Association regional competition that they earned an invitational to the national semifinals.

Lawrence’s two entries in the 20-team (representing 13 institutions) regional competition at Marquette University Feb. 18-19 both earned bids to the 48-team national semifinal tournament March 17-19 at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. The other national semifinal will be held March 10-12 at Stetson University in Florida. The top six finishing teams at each semifinal advance to the national championship tournament April 7-9 in Des Moines, Iowa.

A maximum of two teams from any one school is allocated bids to the national semifinals following regional competition. Lawrence’s two teams earned invitations by finishing seventh and 10th. Only UW-Madison (1st, 6th) and Northwestern University (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th) finished ahead of Lawrence’s top team. While both teams qualified, Lawrence declined its second bid and will select just one eight-person squad from among its 15-member team to represent the college at the national semifinals.

In addition to qualifying both teams for the national semifinals, two Lawrence students were recognized with individual awards. Senior Loni Philbrick-Linzmeyer and sophomore Caitlin Gallogly were two of 12 students cited with “outstanding witness awards” for their work portraying various witnesses in the trial.

“At most of the larger schools, mock trial is part of the curriculum in communication arts,” said John Peterson, an Appleton attorney who serves as the team’s trial coach. “It’s particularly gratifying to see Lawrence’s program progress so fast as an extracurricular activity.”

First held in 1985, the mock trial program is designed to provide undergraduate students opportunities to learn first-hand about the work of trial attorneys, understand the judicial system, develop critical thinking and enhance communication skills.

This year’s mock trial competition was based on a kidnapping case involving a 13-year old child. All teams are given pertinent information about the case in question, then 30 minutes before the start of each round, team members are assigned roles as either prosecutors, defense counselors or witnesses. Testimony and arguments are then made before practicing attorneys who serve as judges for the competition.

Members of Lawrence’s seventh place finishing team included seniors Philbrick-Linzmeyer and Tim Ruberton, juniors Candice Gangle and Maggie Helms, sophomores Katie Gladych and Leila Sahar and freshman Matt Sennewald.

Representing Lawrence’s 10th-place team in the regional were Gallogly, seniors Jeremy Bamsch, Evan Fye, Jonathon Horne, Serene Sahar and Markus Specks. Sophomore Valerie Raedy is also a member of the mock trial team but performed in Lawrence’s opera production last weekend and was unable to make the trip to Marquette. Marti Hemwall, dean of student academic services, serves as faculty advisor for the team.

Finishing behind Lawrence’s top team, UW-Madison and Northwestern at the regional competition were the host institution Marquette, the University of Chicago, Carthage College, Luther College, Northern Michigan University, St. John’s/St. Benedict’s College, Winona State University, UW-La Crosse, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Platteville.

Lawrence University Artist Series Presents Russian Pianist Olga Kern

The Lawrence University Artist Series will continue March 9 with pianist Olga Kern. The concert will take place at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Tickets are available at the Lawrence University Box Office, located in the Music-Drama Center, 420 E. College Ave., or by phone at 920-832-6749, and range from $15 for students to $22 for adults.

Kern’s career began in 2001 when she was awarded the gold medal at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition — the first woman to have achieved this distinction in more than 30 years. Since that time she has been captivating fans and critics alike with her passionately confident musicianship and vivid stage presence.

In 2004, Kern made her New York City recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s new venue, Zankel Hall. Eleven days later, she returned to New York to play again, this time on the stage of the Isaac Stern Auditorium at the invitation of Carnegie Hall.

Kern’s orchestral engagements include performances with the Delaware, Houston, Fort Worth, Youngstown, and Mobile Symphony Orchestras. Kern has given recital performances at the Kennedy Center Honors with Reneé Fleming, and in Atlanta, Boulder, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Portland, and San Juan. Internationally Kern has toured throughout Europe and Russia, and made an extensive tour of South Africa in 2002, where she returned to tour again in 2005.

She will be making her debut with the Taipei Symphony in June 2006; her debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in Spring 2006; and in 2006-07, Kern will tour the United States with the National Philharmonic of Russia, under the director of Vladimir Spivakov.

Kern has performed in many of the world’s most important venues, including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Symphony Hall in Osaka, Salzburger Festspielhaus, La Scala in Milan, Tonhalle in Zurich, and the Châtelet in Paris.

Kern, a Yamaha artist, records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi. Her releases include the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman, a Rachmaninov recording of Corelli Variations and other transcriptions, and her newest recording, which was released in 2005, contains works by Rachmaninov and Balakirev. She was also featured in the award-winning documentary about the 2001 Cliburn Competition, “Playing on the Edge.”

For additional information on this and other “Performing Arts at Lawrence” series concerts, please visit www.lawrence.edu/news/performingartsseries.

Latest Robotic Developments Focus of Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium

Paul Rybski, a systems scientist at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, discusses his research and contributions to the development of robots that can determine their own internal “state” as well as that of other nearby robots Thursday, Feb. 23 in a Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium.

A 1995 Lawrence graduate, Rybski presents, “Robust State Estimation for Intelligent Physically-Embodied Systems” at 4:30 p.m. in Science Hall Room 102 The lecture is free and open to the public.

Due to limited on-board computational power and imprecise sensing systems, researchers are working on novel artificial intelligence techniques by which robots that operate in natural real-world settings can perceive and interact with humans as well as other robots.

Rybski will discuss new research developments in the field of robotics and intelligent sensing which include: spatial reasoning techniques for small robots with limited on-board sensing that allow them to explore and build maps of their environments; algorithms that allow multiple robots to share information about their world and develop consistent world models in the face of sensor and communications errors; and recent results on an algorithm for visual object recognition that “learns” objects by observing how they are used by people.

Rybski, whose research interests include robust high-level environment modeling for sensor-poor robotic systems and distributed control of robot teams, started his robotics research at Lawrence as part of his senior honors project. He was a mathematics/computer science major at Lawrence with an interdisciplinary emphasis in cognitive science and earned a master’s and doctorate degree in computer science at the University of Minnesota.

After completing his Ph.D., he accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at CMU’s Robotics Institute in 2003 and was appointed to the faculty there as a systems scientist last July.