Each year we present a plethora of fine arts programming, from award-winning musicians and artists to well-known poets and photographers. This fine blend of programming is known as the Spectrum Series.
To order tickets, call (814)362-5113 between 11:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
All events take place in Blaisdell Hall’s Bromeley Family Theater unless otherwise noted.
2008-2009 Schedule
The season begins with soprano Hanan Alattar performing in residence and recital as part of a grant from the Marilyn Horne Foundation. She has performed with the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and New World Symphony as well as at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and at Lincoln Center in New York. At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 27, she will take the stage at the Bromeley Family Theater to perform in concert. The cost to the public will be $6.
Three days later, poet Kevin Prufer will read from his works at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30, in Bromeley Family Theater. The reading is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. Prufer’s 2005 volume “Fallen from a Chariot” was named one of the best books of the last 25 years by the editors of Bloomsbury Review. The recipient of three Pushcart prizes, he lives in rural Missouri, where he edits “Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing.”
From Oct. 17 through Nov. 14, “Sprawlification” an installation art piece by Dylan J. Beck will be on display in the KOA Art Gallery of Blaisdell Hall. A free gallery talk will be held from noon to 12:30 p.m. Oct. 17 in the Webb/Bradford Forest Rehearsal Hall, followed by a reception in the KOA Electronics Lobby. In this exhibition, Beck will show work inspired by domestic architecture and urban and suburban planning.
The Southern Tier Symphony will return to the Bromeley Family Theater at 3 p.m. Oct. 26, when it will play a concert built around composer Joan Tower’s “Made in America,” a fantasy for orchestra based on “America the Beautiful.” Cost for the public is $20. Students may attend at no cost. The symphony will also perform a spring pops concert March 29.
Grammy award-winning classical guitarist Sharon Isbin will perform at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 8. She has given sold-out performances throughout the world inhalls, including New York’s Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls, Boston’s Symphony Hall and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center. She is a frequent guest on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and Garrison Keillor’s “A Prarie Home Companion” and has been profiled on “CBS Sunday Morning” and the A&E Network. Cost to the public is $14. Students are free.
Poet Aimee Nezhukumathil will read from her works at noon Nov. 11 in the Mukaiyama University Room. A reception will follow. Nezhukumathil is the author of “At the Drive-In Volcano,” winner of the Balcones Prize, and “Miracle Fruit,” which was the winner of the ForeWord Magazine Poetry Book of the Year and the Global Filipino Literary Award. She is associate professor of English at the State University of New York – Fredonia, where she has been awarded the Chancellor’s Medal of Excellence.
At 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3, the College-Community Choir will perform a mixed bag of choral music – a capella and accompanied, sacred and secular, ancient and modern. The choir is under the direction of Dr. Lee Spear, associate professor of music. The concert is free. The choir will also perform a concert March 18 for which details are not yet available.
The final offering of the fall term will be a senior capstone exhibition by Andrew Laganosky, an interdisciplinary arts major from Carlisle. Laganosky’s exhibit, “ Battle of the Brutes,” will be in the KOA Art Gallery Dec. 1-5 with a live music performance and gallery reception at noon Dec. 1. Laganosky’s show will feature a musical video presentation, digital prints, ceramic musical instruments, paintings and drawings. He will perform music he created for his capstone study during the exhibition opening.
Photographer and art professor Ward Roe will showcase his recent photographs in the exhibit “People, Places, Things” from Jan. 30 through Feb. 27 at the KOA Art Gallery. A gallery talk will be held at noon Jan. 30 in the Webb/Bradford Forest Rehearsal Hall, followed by a reception. Both are free and open to the public. Roe’s work will fall into three categories: figurative pieces, documentary work and miniature objects.
Author David Laskin will give a reading as part of the One Book Bradford project at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 9. In addition to the reading, the One Book Bradford committee, a group comprised of representatives from the university, Bradford Area Public Library and Friends of the Hanley Library, will sponsor many activities throughout the year that relate to Laskin’s 2005 book, “The Children’s Blizzard,” for which he won the Washington State Book Award.
The last Spectrum Series author of the year will be Joyce McDonald, who will read from her work at 7:30 p.m. March 2. McDonald is the author of several critically acclaimed books for teens and young readers, among them “Swallowing Stones,” an American Library Association/Young Adult Library Services Association 100 Best of the Best for the 21 st Century; “Shadow People”; and “Shades of Simon Gray.”
"Affairs of the Art,” the annual student art exhibition, will be take place from March 20 through April 15 in the KOA Art Gallery. An opening reception will be held from noon to 1 p.m. March 20 in the KOA Speer Electronics Lobby. Affairs of the Art 2009 will feature more than 80 distinguished artistic works, including mural, paintings, drawings, graphic design, digital prints, pottery and ceramic sculptures created over the past academic year by more than 40 Pitt-Bradford art and design students.
A second Marilyn Horne Foundation Residency/Recital will feature baritone Eugene Chan, who will perform romantic songs appropriate for his Valentine’s Day appearance at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14. The cost to the public is $6; students are free.
The spring play by the Division of Communication and the Arts will be "Art" by Yazmina Reza. "Art" received the 1998 Olivier Award for best comedy and the 1998 Tony Award for best play. "Art" concers the cataclysmic effect on three friends when one purchases an expensive abstract painting consisting of white lines on a white canvas. A heated, hilarious debate explodes when relationships are measured against the infuriating bare canvas. "Art" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. April 2-4 and at 2 p.m. April 5 in the Studio Theater in Blaisdell Hall. Cost for the public is $6; student tickets are $2.
The final event of the year will be a lecture by Dr. Marvin Thomas, professor of history, at 7:30 p.m. April 14 in the University Room. This year Thomas’s popular lecture series takes on a subject of historic and modern significance, the Suez Canal.