honors

Tag: honors

Lawrence To Honor Nobel Prize Winner with Building Renaming Ceremony on Friday

Science Hall signs have been taken down to make way for the building's new name.
Science Hall signs have been taken down to make way for the building's new name.

Thomas Steitz

The Appleton community is invited to attend a special ceremony at Lawrence University Friday, June 11 when the college’s Science Hall will be renamed Thomas A. Steitz Hall of Science in honor of 1962 Lawrence graduate and 2009 Nobel Prize winner Thomas Steitz.

The ceremony, which begins at 6 p.m. in the Science Hall atrium, will include brief remarks by Lawrence President Jill Beck and Robert McMillan Professor of Chemistry Jerry Lokensgard.  The ceremony will conclude with the unveiling of a display commemorating Steitz’s Nobel Prize.

Steitz, who will not be in attendance at Friday’s ceremony, will be the featured speaker at Lawrence University’s 161st commencement on Sunday, June 13 beginning at 10:30 a.m. on the Main Hall green.

“This is a fitting way for Lawrence to recognize one of our most distinguished graduates, by naming for Dr. Steitz the facility in which our current students are learning cutting-edge science,” Beck said. “His dedication and accomplishments serve as inspiration to all of our young, aspiring scientists. Having the building they learn and conduct research in bear his name will motivate them to consider all that is possible in their own careers.”

Last October, Steitz was named one of three recipients of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research that revealed the structure and function of ribosomes.   A few weeks later, the Lawrence University Board of Trustees voted unanimously to rename the nine-year-old Science Hall in Steitz’s honor.

A Milwaukee native and graduate of Wauwatosa High School, Steitz called the building renaming “a great honor from a university to which I owe so much.”

Steitz is the Sterling professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and professor of chemistry at Yale University, where he has taught since 1970.

Pianists, Saxophonist Share Top Honors in State Music Competition

Lawrence University student musicians accounted for three of the five winners at the 15th annual Neale-Silva Young Artists competition held March 27 in Madison.

Pianists Marshall Cuffe and David Keep and saxophonist Sumner Truax shared top honors with trumpet player Ansel Norris, a senior at Madison East High School and clarinetist Matthew Griffith, a senior at Sheboygan North High School, in the state competition sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio.   Each received $400 for their winning performances.

This was the fifth straight year and 10th time in the past 12 years that Lawrence students have won or shared top honors in the Neale-Silva event.

The competition is open to instrumentalists and vocal performers 17-26 years of age who are either from Wisconsin or attend a Wisconsin college.  Lawrence musicians accounted for seven of the competition’s 13 finalists, who were selected from 15 entrants. In addition to the three winners, also advancing to the finals were pianists Laura Hauer, Dario LaPoma and Karly Stern, and oboist Cayden Milton.

Cuff, Keep and Truax will reprise their winning performances Sunday, April 11 at 12:30 p.m. in the Wisconsin Union Theater in Madison.  The concert will be broadcast live statewide on the Classical Music Network of WPR and can be heard locally at 89.3 FM.

For the April 11 concert, Cuffe, a sophomore from Salem, Ore., will perform Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy” and “Fantasy on Themes from Wizard of Oz” by William Hirtz while Keep, a junior from Traverse City, Mich., will play three movements from Alberto Ginastera’s“Sonata No. 1.” Both are students in the studio of Anthony Padilla.

Truax, a junior from Chicago, Ill., will perform “Buku”by Jacob Ter Veldhuis and “Tableaux De Provence I, II & III”by Paule Maurice.  He studies with Steven Jordheim and Sara Kind, a 2004 and 2006 Neale-Silva Young Artist winner herself.

The Neale-Silva Young Artists’ Competition was established to recognize young Wisconsin performers of classical music who demonstrate an exceptionally high level of artistry.  It is supported by a grant from the estate of the late University of Wisconsin Madison professor Eduardo Neale-Silva, a classical music enthusiast who was born in Talca, Chile and came to the United States in 1925.

The Nation’s Best: Lawrence University Musicians Earn Top Honors from DownBeat Magazine

APPLETON, WIS. — One is fun. Two is twice as nice.

Two distinctly different sets of Lawrence University musicians have been honored as the nation’s best by DownBeat magazine in its 32nd annual student music awards competition.

The Lawrence University Wind Ensemble, under the direction of assistant professor of music Andy Mast, was named the winner in the classical group division, which encompasses chamber ensembles, bands and orchestras from around the country. The seven-member student band Fatbook shared top honors with the Funk Fusion Ensemble of the University of Miami in the magazine’s blues/pop/rock category as the nation’s best college band.

Winners will be announced in DownBeat’s upcoming June edition, which hits newsstands on May 19. Known as “DBs” and presented in 15 categories in four separate divisions (junior high, high school, performing high school and college) the DownBeat awards are considered among the highest music honors in the field of jazz education.

The two latest awards push Lawrence’s DB total to 15 since the competition was launched in 1978, and the college’s fifth DB since 2005.

“What a thrill,” said Mast. “I really had no idea what our chances would be, so it was very exciting to receive the news of this honor. I’m proud to be associated with the ensemble.”

The audition CD Mast submitted for the competition was a collection of pieces performed in concerts in the winter and spring of 2008 and the fall of 2008.

“There really are two groups of students who contributed to winning this award,” said Mast. “It’s so gratifying to have the ensemble students recognized like this because they so richly deserve it. They work incredibly hard, are extremely dedicated to being the best musicians they can be and are a true privilege to work with.

“The external recognition is certainly great because it shines a national spotlight on Lawrence as the first-rate school that it is,” Mast added, “but I am even happier for the internal satisfaction this brings the students who work so hard on a daily basis to make it that way.”

Fatbook, which started out strictly as a reggae band in the fall of 2007, becomes a footnote in Lawrence history as the college’s first non-curricular ensemble to be recognized by DownBeat.

The band features three home-grown musicians — senior Harjinder Bedi, lead vocals and guitar, junior Jake Crowe, tenor saxophone and Ted Toussaint, trumpet, all from Appleton — as well as senior Nick Anderson, bass, from Verona, Wis., senior Evan Jacobson, trombone, from Oak Park, Ill., junior Dario LaPoma, piano, from Eugene, Ore., and senior Kyle Traska, drums/ percussion, from Oregon, Wis.

While Fatbook musical style has evolved into a more diverse sound, it hasn’t completely abandoned its original sound and reggae remains a central influence on the band.

“We don’t like to categorize ourselves in any one genre of music. We like to draw on a wide variety of influences, including rock, pop, jazz, reggae and even a little bit of hip-hop,” said Jacobson.

Fatbook’s entry in DownBeat’s student music awards competition was a disc of three original compositions. They will be releasing their first CD, “No Time to Lose,” a 10-track disc of all original material, later this month.

According to Toussaint, much of the original material they perform is a result of “shared composition.”

“Someone will suggest a core idea, but we’ll flesh it out together as a group,” said Toussaint. “All the guys in the band listen to and participate in a wide range of musical styles, so we naturally bring that diversity to the table.”

The band, which also performs cover material ranging from The Police to Bela Fleck to Bob Marley, has made inroads in the local club scene, performing at such area venues as Mill Creek Blues, Stone Cellar Brewery and Cranky Pat’s.

Fred Sturm, director of jazz and improvisational music at Lawrence, has served as a mentor to the fledgling band and has watched with pride as they’ve evolved.

“These are all talented young musicians who are beginning to realize some of their musical dreams while still college students. That’s a thrill to witness,” said Sturm. “They’re striving to establish a unique musical identity and they’ve got enormous heart for the task of making it all happen. Earning a DownBeat award is a great first step for them.”

This year’s DownBeat competition drew a total of 832 ensemble and individual entries for all categories in all four divisions.

Five Lawrence University Musicians Earn Top Honors in State Music Competition

APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University student musicians accounted for three of the six winners at the 14th annual Neale-Silva Young Artists competition conducted March 22 in Madison.

The percussion trio of Felicia Behm, David Ranscht and Stacey Stoltz, along with bass-baritone Derrell Acon and pianist Leonard Hayes shared top honors with clarinetist Ching-Chieh Hsu and violinist Elias Goldstein, both from the UW-Madison and saxophonist Phillip Dobernig of Mukwonago High School in the state competition sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio. Each received $400 for their winning performances.

Lawrence students have won or shared top honors in the Neale-Silva event four years in a row and nine of the past 11.

The competition is open to instrumentalists and vocal performers 17-26 years of age who are either from Wisconsin or attend a Wisconsin college. This year’s competition attracted a total of 23 soloists and ensembles, 14 of which advanced to the finals. In addition to the three winners, Lawrence had two other finalists: pianist Dario LaPoma and the piano trio of Laura Hauer, Anna Henke and Megan Karls.

Acon, Hayes, and the members of the percussion trio will reprise their winning performances Sunday, April 26 at 12:30 p.m. in the Wisconsin Union Theater in Madison. The concert will be broadcast live statewide on the NPR News and Classical Music Network of WPR.

For the April 30 concert, Behm, a senior from Monument, Colo., Ranscht, a junior from La Crosse, and Stoltz, a sophomore from Aurora, Ill., will share a single marimba in a highly visual performance of Mark Ford’s “Stubernic” and an arrangement of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” written by Behm. All three study in the percussion studio of Dane Richeson.

Acon, a junior from St. Louis, Mo., will sing “Il lacerato spirito” by Giuseppe Verdi, Howard Swanson’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “All the Little Horses” by Aaron Copland and “Amiamo” by Gaetano Donizetti. He studies in the voice studio of Patrice Michaels.

Hayes, a sophomore from Dallas, Texas, will play “Piano Sonata Op. 7 in E- flat Major,” by Beethoven and Olivier Messiaen’s Noel from “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus.” Hayes, who studies in the piano studio of Catherine Kautsky, also will perform as accompanist for Acon.

The Neale-Silva Young Artists’ Competition was established to recognize young Wisconsin performers of classical music who demonstrate an exceptionally high level of artistry. It is supported by a grant from the estate of the late University of Wisconsin Madison professor Eduardo Neale-Silva, a classical music enthusiast who was born in Talca, Chile and came to the United States in 1925.