PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 26, No. 21, June 7, 2007

brief notes

Summer Piano Institute
Pianists featured in summer performances
An intensive learning opportunity for pianists wishing to polish their skills is being offered for the first time this summer at the UI.

The School of Music’s new Summer Piano Institute will take place June 11-15 on the UI campus, and will include a series of public concerts. The performances, scheduled at 7:30 each night during the institute, will take place in the recital hall of Smith Hall.

The first four evening concerts will feature institute faculty members, with a final gala concert performed by institute participants deemed ready for public performance.

Institute faculty members include two UI music professors: pianist and conductor Ian Hobson, who also is music director of the university’s Sinfonia da Camera, and William Heiles, chair of the piano program. Guest faculty members include internationally known artists Jeanne Stark-Iochmans and identical-twin duo-pianists Richard and John Contiguglia.

“The purpose (of the institute) is to start some high quality piano recitals in a series involving guest artists who will attract pianists to master classes, private lessons and recitals on campus during the summer,” said music school associate director Edward Rath.

The Adams Foundation, established by Stephen Adams, of Santa Barbara, Calif., is providing support for participation by Hobson, Stark-Iochmans and the Contiguglias.

Rath said about 20 participants were selected to take part through an audition process.

For more information about the institute or public concerts, contact Hobson at ihobson@uiuc.edu.

Krannert Center
Summer play schedule announced
The Summer Studio Theatre Company announced its 2007 repertory season in the Studio Theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

This year’s featured selections: “The Lion in Winter,” by James Goldman; “Pasta,” by Tom Griffin; and “Bus Stop,” by William Inge. Performances rotate Tuesday-Sunday, beginning June 15 and continuing through July 29. The summer season also will feature benefit performances of “Bus Stop” and a musical revue, “5 From 55,” at 7 p.m. July 20 and 21.

Tickets also are on sale for a benefit show to support the Apprentice/Internship Programs. The performance, “Scenes and Singles,” is at 2 p.m. July 29.

For more information and to purchase tickets go to KrannertCenter.com.

Krannert Art Museum
New acquisitions featured through July 29
With more than 9,000 works of art in its collection, the UI’s Krannert Art Museum houses the largest public art collection in Illinois, outside of Chicago. Where does all the art come from?

“Primarily through the generosity of Illinois residents and alumni,” according to museum director Kathleen Harleman. “Another important strategy for acquisition involves cultivating gifts and making purchases from the exhibitions KAM organizes,” she said, noting that recent purchases have been made from “Uninterrupted Flux: Hedda Sterne, A Retrospective”; “Branded and On Display”; and the forthcoming “The Strange Life of Objects: The Art of Annette Lemieux.”

Through July 29, the exhibition “New Acquisitions at Krannert Art Museum” will give visitors an opportunity to see the most recent additions to the collection all in one place.

June 9-10
UI Library, UI Press at Printers Row
Anyone planning to attend the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair on June 9 and 10 in Chicago, is invited to stop by Tent D. The UI Library and the UI Press will share space at the fourth tent from the north end of the fair from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The library will be selling used books as well as “Great Moments in Illini History” bookmarks. UI Press will feature new books from its list of Chicago titles. On Saturday, at 2 p.m., the Press will host author Andrew Suozzo (“The Chicago Marathon”) at the booth for a book signing.

Three press authors will give presentations including Brian Dirck, “Lincoln the Lawyer”; Charles Fanning, editor of the James Farrell re-issue series; and Anne Meis Knupfer, “The Chicago Black Renaissance and Women’s Activism.” A schedule of author presentations is available at www.chicagotribune.com/about/custom/events/printersrow/ (click on authors). 

The 2007 Book Fair features more than 150 booksellers and more than 100 programs celebrating books and reading. The fair is located in downtown Chicago in the South Loop at Dearborn and Polk streets.

Music Library exhibition
Computer music pioneer featured
Through the end of the summer, the UI Music Library is hosting an exhibition of computer graphics by former School of Music faculty member Herbert Brün, who died in 2000. Born in Berlin in 1918, Brün studied at the Jerusalem Conservatory and later at Tanglewood and at Columbia University. After a lecture tour of the U.S. in 1962, Brün was invited by Lejaren Hiller (another pioneer of electronic music composition) to join the faculty of the UI.

Several of Brün’s musical compositions have computer-generated graphics associated with them, and it is these graphics that are on display. A short printed guide to the exhibit is available from the Music Library at 1114 W. Nevada St. The exhibit can be viewed any time that the library is open. For summer hours, go to www.library.uiuc.edu/mux/.

School of Art and Design
Summer art program offered
The 2007 Summer Art Enrichment Program invites students of all ages to participate in summer art classes. All classes will meet Monday through Thursday for two weeks at the School of Art and Design.

Pre-school and kindergarten classes will be June 11-21. Classes for first- through third-grade students will be June 25 through July 6. Classes for students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade will be July 9-19. Classes for students in grades seven through 12 will be July 23 through Aug. 2. Registration is under way and the fee is $65. The program is sponsored by the School of Art and Design and the College of Fine and Applied Arts. For more information, contact Carole Smith at 333-1652 or cssmith2@uiuc.edu.

Russian, East European and Eurasian Center
Wife of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to speak
The wife of Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn will be the featured speaker at a UI conference devoted to her husband’s contributions to modern Russian literature, history and political life.

Natalia Solzhenitsyn will present the keynote talk at the Ralph and Ruth Fisher Forum, beginning at 6:30 p.m. on June 14 in Room 314 of the Illini Union. The theme of this year’s forum is “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as Writer, Myth-Maker and Public Figure”; the title of the keynote talk is “Another Time, Another Burden: Solzhenitsyn After His Return to Russia.”

Also participating in the conference will be Solzhenitsyn’s sons, Ignat and Stephan, who will chair panels. Ignat is the music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia; Stephan, an urban planner in Moscow.

The Fisher Forum, which takes place June 14-17, is one of the highlights of the annual Summer Research Laboratory on Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia, hosted by the UI’s Russian, East European and Eurasian Center. The forum is named for the summer lab’s founder, UI professor emeritus of history Ralph Fisher, and his wife.

The lab, a campus tradition since 1973, draws scholars from throughout the world to conduct research and take part in other scholarly pursuits. This year’s lab runs from June 11 through Aug. 3. In addition to providing scholars with access to the UI Library, which houses the largest Slavic collection west of Washington, D.C., the lab features workshops, discussion groups and film screenings.

Fisher Forum organizer Richard Tempest, a professor and the acting head of the UI department of Slavic languages and literatures, is writing a book about Solzhenitsyn.

The dissident author – who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 – returned to Russia in 1994 after living in exile in the United States for 20 years. Tempest said the 88-year-old Solzhenitsyn remains active and continues to write, but rarely travels far from home. Instead, he said, Natalia is Solzhenitsyn’s public face.

More information about the forum and the summer lab is available online at www.reec.uiuc.edu.

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