Topic: APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts

APSU students and faculty read and serve soup at 15TH Annual ‘Bread and Words’

November 17, 2009 |

Some people, carrying tureens and slow cookers, walk slowly into the APSU Morgan University Center, careful not to spill any soup. Others are a little more relaxed, rushing up the stairs to the MUC ballroom with loaves of fresh bread and packets of plastic bowls and spoons. A very select few seem distracted. They’re the ones who keep glancing into battered composition notebooks or stacks of loose paper filled with poems or short stories or essays.

It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and this strange parade of pilgrims can mean only one thing – Bread and Words. For the last 15 years, the University’s languages and literature department has hosted the benefit reading and dinner, showcasing the school’s literary talent while raising money for the local Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen.

The readers at this year’s 15th Annual Bread and Words Benefit are (from left) Chris Burawa, director of the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, Barry Kitterman, APSU professor, Ashley Wakefield, graduate student, Bethany Ann Cooper, undergraduate student, and William Boakes, graduate student. (Photo By Charles Booth/APSU Public Relations and Marketing)

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Pippin has a little “magic to do” at the Trahern Theatre

By Bill Larson | November 17, 2009 |

We’ve got magic to do, just for you. We’ve got miracle plays to play. We’ve got parts to perform, hearts to warm. Kings and things to take by storm. As we go along our way.

So begins the story of Pippin, a young man seeking his way in the world. This young man just happens to be the son of Emperor Charlemagne. Pippin knows with all his heart that there are great things in store for his life, but he has a hard time figuring out just what they may be. So he sets off to figure out the purpose of his life. Along the way Pippin is manipulated into a variety of situations by the mysterious Leading Player. Intrigue, plots to bring disaster! Humor, handled by a master! Romance, sex presented pastorally! Illusion, fantasy to study! Battles, barbarous and bloody!

The leading player is being played by Chris Hardin an assistant professor of voice and movement at APSU. He brings an intensity to the role worthy of Ben Vereen from the 1973 Broadway Production.

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Gateway Chamber Ensemble Performs Wind Serenade Concert at APSU Monday

November 15, 2009 |

The annual Wind Serenade concert begins at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 16 in the APSU Music/Mass Communication Concert Hall, it features a dazzling transcription of Rossini’s overture to Semiramide, Dvorak’s beautiful Serenade in D minor for winds as well as Richard Strauss’ virtuosic late symphony for winds, From an Invalid’s Workshop.

When a group of wind musicians approached Richard Strauss in the early 1940s about writing them some music, the German composer apparently created one of the “most difficult pieces ever written for wind instruments.”

The Gateway Chamber Ensemble

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New APSU Downtown Gallery Set to Open for First Thursday Art Walk with “Whatever”

November 1, 2009 |

The new Austin Peay Downtown Gallery is housed in a small, two-story building, tucked away in downtown Clarksville’s Strawberry Alley. The galley is located at 116 Strawberry Alley, Strawberry Alley was formerly a part of Legion Street.

The inside has that newly renovated odor of fresh paint and clean floors. It’s only a mile or less from the main campus, but the new gallery is strategically located in the heart of Clarksville’s growing art district. On the first Thursday of every month, this area’s many galleries open their doors to crowds of art enthusiasts.

“We’re going to add to what’s going on around here,” Gregg Schlanger, APSU professor of art, said. «Read the rest of this article»

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Bravo and Brava for Paris Between the Wars 1918-1939 at APSU

By Bill Larson | September 15, 2009 |

When you think about Paris, you can’t help but to think of the arts. In addition to the wonderful paintings from that period, Paris was also the center of what amounts to a perfect storm in music. The rise of Jazz in America had reached Paris with the influx of Americans musicians, after the end of the first World War. That was what was showcased during the Dimension’s New Music Series a free concert hosted by the Austin Peay Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts. The evenings program delved into the wonderful music that came out of the city of Paris Between the Wars: 1918-1939.

Patricia Halbeck playing the Noble and Sentimental Waltzes by Maurice Ravel

The first set featured Maurice Ravel’s Noble and Sentimental Waltzes, which were a look back at a France that could no longer exist after that city passed through the maelstrom of the first world war.

Patricia Halbeck takes her seat and The piano starts to play a series of almost harsh and somewhat discordant notes with an upbeat refrain hinting at that innocence that was lost never to be found again.

Stanley Yates playing the Twelve Études for Guitar by Heitor Villa-Lobos

She was followed by Stanley Yates who played a selection from Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, his Twelve Études for Guitar which was written in 1928. In his playing You could hear the intertwining of European and Latin sounds and rhythms.

“To some degree, his guitar works also pay homage to Chopin, whose piano etudes were clearly the model for Villa-Lobos’s Estudos for Guitar. These are true concert Études for the guitar and, like the Chopin works, are meant for the stage; they are not limited to the status of mere pedagogical tools. Villa-Lobos’s Estudos also represent an attempt, consciously or subconsciously, to legitimatize the guitar as a concert instrument and raise it to the level of the piano…”

- Choro: a social history by Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour and Thomas George Caracas Garcia

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Dimension Concert Series returns with music from Paris between the wars

September 9, 2009 |

For artists living in the years between World War I and World War II, only one city mattered – Paris. Ernest Hemingway scribbled down short stories in its cafes. Pablo Picasso hurried down theChamps-Élysées with paint-stained fingers to make a dinner party.

The great figures of all artistic genres came and worked in the city. But what inspired them? Maybe it was the music, created by other artists seeking the inspiration provided by Paris.

That eclectic blend of music will be the focus of the next Dimensions New Music Series Concert, “Paris Between the Wars: 1919 – 1939.” The free concert, which begins at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 14 in the APSU Concert Hall, will feature works by a wide range of musicians swept up by the city’s creativity.

The APSU Concert Hall

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The Todd Hill Orchestra raises the roof at Austin Peay State University

By Bill Larson | September 1, 2009 |

The 2009-10 Community Concert Series kicked off last night with the smooth stylings of the Todd Hill Orchestra. The group’s repertoire features an amazing selection of Swing and Jazz, including numbers from Bennie Goodman, Count Baise, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Frank Foster, George Gershwin, Glenn Miller, and many more.

The Todd Hill Orchestra has been entertaining for twenty-four years. The Orchestra has been featured at a number of venues, ranging from Mississippi Casinos to upscale Concert Halls. The vast majority of the musicians in the Orchestra have been members for more than fifteen years, eight members have served over twenty years.

The Todd Hill Orchestra

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CCCA concert series returns this Monday

August 29, 2009 |

The Clarksville Community Concert Series swings back into town this Monday evening with the big band stylings of The Todd Hill Orchestra.

The Orchestra, which has been performing throughout the mid-south for the last 24 years, takes the stage at 7:30 p.m., Aug. 31 in the APSU Music/Mass Communication Building. Once the lights go down, the up-tempo and nostalgic sounds of 1930s and 1940s America will ring through the auditorium as they perform classic arrangements from great bandleaders such as Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman.

The Todd Hill Orchestra

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The Clarksville Community Concert Association announces their 2009-10 Community Concert Series schedule

August 12, 2009 |

The Clarksville Community Concert Association (CCCA) along with the Austin Peay State University Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts is proud to announce the schedule for the 2009-10 Community Concert Series. The CCCA strives to present musical performances of high artistic merit in the Clarksville-Montgomery County area, and to promote the interest in. and enjoyment of live concerts through community outreach and education. The Community Concert Series is one of the major cultural resources for our community. Help support them by becoming a member.

The series kicks off at 7:30 p.m., on Monday, August 31st in the Music/Mass Communication Building Concert Hall with the Todd Hill Orchestra. Also appearing this year is Gabriela Montero, The Massenkoff Russian Folk Festival, The Gateway Chamber Ensemble, and closing out this years series in April 2010 is the Joel Frahm Jazz Quartet. «Read the rest of this article»

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APSU’s Summer Dance Concert is poetry in form and motion

By Bill Larson | August 12, 2009 |

Dance is the noblest of the Arts. Using a human body as their canvas, a dancers’ performance treats the audience to a visual poetry written with their bodies in both form and motion. That is how I felt this evening when I watched the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts and the APSU Dance Program holding their Summer Dance Concert. One performance remains;  on Wednesday, August 12th, at 7:30PM, Clement Auditorium.

Tick leads the show with three dancers clad in green, Laquimah van Dunk, Alaina Runions, and Caitlin Proctor to the sounds of Tashweesh (interference) by Kronos Quartet.

Followed by the lovely Brittany Hardaway performing a ballet called Gentle Lullaby to the sounds of Se Ymnumen by George Skaroulis. Many of the dancers held neutral expressions on their faces when they performed not so with Brittany. You could see her love and passion for dance etched on her face with every leap and pirouette.

Gentle Lullaby performed by Brittany Hardaway

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