Please join us in the Mildred & Ernest E. Mayo Concert Hall (Music Building) on Fridays from 11:30AM – 12:20PM for these upcoming Brown Bag Series presentations. Feel free to bring your lunch and relax!
Boheme Opera NJ Presents: Excerpts from Don Pasquale & Faust
February 1st, 2013
Hosted by the Center for the Arts
Boheme Opera NJ unveils the comic genius of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and the lyric beauty of Gounod’s Faust in a brief showcase of their music and stories as a precursor to the company’s productions on campus in February and April. Two leading role singers from the casts will join BONJ Artistic Director Joseph Pucciatti as he chats about the plans of two very different old men, each seeking answers to life’s challenge of love. Memorable melodies abound in both works, as BONJ Managing Director Sandra M. Pucciatti accompanies at the Steinway. Meet world-class bass-baritones Edward Bogusz in the hilarious title role of Don Pasquale, and Frank Basile as the smooth and calculated Mephistopheles in Faust. To learn more about Boheme Opera NJ’s 24th Anniversary Season, visit www.bohemeopera.com.
Digital Strategy: New Media and the Musician Entrepreneur / Presented by Sean Hickey
February 8th, 2013
Hosted by the Department of Music
Sean Hickey, a prominent composer and National Sales & Business Development Manager with Naxos of America, will speak on his accomplishments in both art and the business of art, share his passion for the record industry, and impart a crucial piece of advice to prospective recording artists of the twenty-first century. In addition, the last movement of Mr. Hickey’s Trio, Avatar, will be performed by TCNJ’s own Dean John Laughton (clarinet), Professor Tomoko Kanamaru (piano), and Professor Ruotao Mao (violin). Avatar was commissioned by violinist Ilya Gringolts in 2006 but first performed at the New York Chamber Music Festival in 2011. The piece, in three distinct movements, explores the peculiarities of independence and ensemble among the three instruments: clarinet, violin and piano. The title refers to the embodiment of some of my explorations in the area of meter and rhythm in my work up to its time of composition.
Professor Kanamaru will also perform a reflective piano solo work, The Birds of Barclay Street. Regarding this piece, Mr. Hickey describes that it is “the only piece of music in which I made no change or alteration of any kind, nor have any real recollection of composing. I do, however, remember the date very vividly: September 12th, 2001. The title refers to an image that will stay with me forever: that of two ubiquitous New York City pigeons alighting on a street sign in lower Manhattan. As the towers fell, the birds fled into a darkening sky and toward the light.”
Print Culture, Past and Present / Presented by Professor Amze Emmons
February 15th, 2013
Hosted by the Department of Art & Art History
Professor Emmons will lead a lecture on Fear and Folly: The Visionary Prints of Francisco Goya and Federico Castellon currently on display in the TCNJ Art Gallery. He will explain the historical and lasting aesthetic value of the works on display, placing their other-worldly context in a light that connects them to the moment and culture in which they were created. He will also discuss the lasting appeal of the fantastic and strange in visual art, as well as the way the print and multiple has been used as a vehicle for commentary on current events and social change.
Following Professor Emmons’s lecture, the College Art Gallery will be open until 2:00PM. The College Art Gallery is located across from the Music Building in the Art and Interactive Multimedia (AIMM) Building, Space 115. All are encouraged to visit the gallery after this presentation to view Fear and Folly: The Visionary Prints of Francisco Goya and Federico Castellon.
Student Faculty Collaboration Video / Presented by Professor Johnson-Frizell and Karachi Ukaegbu
February 22nd, 2013
Hosted by the Department of Communication Studies
Join us for a film screening of “CONCRETE ROSE: Joe’s Story.” This is a portrait of a formerly homeless man who turned his life around through the services of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.
Students include: Karachi Ukaegbu, Farvelis Rodriguez, Eric Ryan, Jessica Ross and Thomas Mladenetz.
Making Digital Magic — Exploring the Underlying Psychology of Successful Interactive Media Design / Presented by Dr. Warren Buckleitner
March 1st, 2013
Hosted by the Department of Interactive Multimedia
Want to make the next Oregon Trail, Super Smash Bros., Angry Birds, Minecraft or an app like The Elements? Each were made by small teams of passionate designers who struck a vein of digital gold. Was it mere luck, or something deeper? In this guest lecture, Dr. Warren Buckleitner will peal back the layers of successful design to better understand why so many apps, sites and video games turn into train wrecks, while others earn millions of dollars and turn into classics.
*Note: Due to Spring Break, no Brown Bag lectures will be held on Friday, March 8th or Friday, March 15th.
The Process is the “Message”: From Public Art to Bartering to Solidarity Economies / Presented by Caroline Woolard
March 22, 2013
Hosted by the Department of Art & Art History
This lecture is in conjunction with TCNJ Art Gallery’s opening of Value Added: Artists’ Perspectives on the Meaning of Worth, an exhibition of multi-media artworks and installations that explore concepts of worth and valuation. The exhibition, which is being curated by Betsy Alwin, adjunct professor of fine art at the College, will be on view in the Art and Interactive Multimedia (AIMM) Building from March 20 through April 18, 2013.
Why Health Equity Matters – Building Community, Capacity, and Strategic Communication Resources for Health Equity / Presented by Dr. Renata Schiavo
March 29th, 2013
Hosted by the Department of Communication Studies
Dr. Renata Schiavo is a public health, health and organizational communication, and global health specialist with experience in developed and developing country settings, including the U.S. and several countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. She is the founding President and CEO of Health Equity Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building community, capacity, and strategic communication resources for health equity. Health equity is a new and complex concept for many people. In the US, only 59% of adults are aware of health disparities, and this includes also the groups that are most affected by them. Globally, awareness levels are not much higher. Yet, health disparities compromise the ability of vulnerable and under-served communities to thrive. Among many other definitions, health equity can be defined as providing every person with the same opportunity to stay healthy and/or effectively cope with disease or health-related emergencies- regardless of their race, gender, age, economic conditions, social status, environment, and other socially determined factors. This presentation will focus on making the case for health equity, and discussing the work of Health Equity Initiative.
Russian Folk Group Zolotoj Plyos
April 5, 2013
Hosted by the Center for the Arts
A talented and prolific trio named Zolotoj Plyos will give a concert-demonstration of Russian folk music. Zolotoj Plyos consists of three musicians: Alexander Solovov, Elena Sadina, and Sergeui Gratchev, who met at the conservatory in Saratov. They perform authentic Russian folk music from the villages in costume, both a capella and with instrumental accompaniment on over 20 authentic folk instruments (dutki, treshchetki, lozhki, balalaiki, garmoshki, etc.). The name of the group refers to a stretch on the Volga River.
The Value of Art / Presented by David Rago and Suzanne Perrault
April 12, 2013
Hosted by the Center for the Arts
David Rago, founder of the Rago Arts and Auction Center (known as “Rago’s”), and Suzanne Perrault, head of Rago’s Cataloguing Department, will present on topics relating to the value of art. “Rago’s” is the largest and leading auction house in New Jersey, as well as a venue for private sale and appraisal. Both David Rago and Suzanne Perrault are featured appraisers on the PBS series “Antiques Roadshow,” appear at major shows and conferences across the country, and have published a number of works in their fields. In addition, together they opened the Perrault-Rago Gallery.
The Music of Insects / Presented by Professor Rosalind Erwin and Nathan Erwin
April 19, 2013
Hosted by the Department of Music
TCNJ Center for the Arts together with the School of Science are pleased to welcome guest lecturers Rosalind Erwin, Adjunct Professor of Music at the College, and Nathan Erwin, entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and one-time French hornist. They will speak about how biology and music are intertwined in amazing and sometimes overlooked ways. Ms. and Mr. Erwin will lead a discussion about how and why insects were and continue to be the most diverse group of animal sound producers in nature, a follow-up to the April 18 Concert Band performance “Scrape, Bang and Blow”, featuring the works of contemporary composers David Gillingham, Jared Spears, Samuel R. Hazo and Thom Ritter George.
This brother-sister duo will discuss when and why animal sound production evolved about 240 million years ago and how humans employ the same techniques in developing instruments used in bands and orchestras. They will also discuss how rhythm, pitch, and tonal quality are used by insects and humans alike to convey information.
