MuseFlashes

Compiled by BONNIE WELLS

Published on February 08, 2008

Music and artwork of Oliver Lake at UMass' Augusta Savage Gallery

Oliver Lake is best known for his contributions to the world of contemporary music, especially jazz, but he is also an accomplished visual artist. Both specialties will be on display next week at Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, when Lake performs at the opening reception of an exhibit of his art Feb. 13, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Lake, a co-founder of the internationally acclaimed World Saxophone Quartet, has arranged for pop diva Bjork, rocker Lou Reed and rap group A Tribe Called Quest. He's collaborated with poets Amiri Baraka and Ntozake Shange, choreographers Ron Brown and Marlies Yearby, Native American vocalist Mary Redhouse, Korean komongo player Jin Hi Kim and Chinese bamboo flute player Shuni Tsou. He has appeared with Anna Devere Smith and has shared the stage with hip-hop artist Mos Def and pop star Me'shell Ndegeocello.

In a November, 2006 story in All About Jazz, Lake said, "When I paint, I have no idea where I'm going to go. I think my painting and my music go the same way."

On his Web site, www.oliverlake.net, he writes that painting relaxes him, much like meditation. He said he started painting as a teenager, but was creating about one painting a year until about three years ago, when he found he wanted to do more. "I told a friend of mine [saxophonist Douglas Ewart], that I wanted to paint more but didn't have the time. He said, Do you have 15 minutes a day?' I said yes, and he said, well you can start painting,' and that's what I did."

Now his collection, as seen on his online gallery, includes vibrantly colored, energetic abstract works, some with collaged elements, as well as a series of intricately painted sticks.

The opening of Lake's exhibit "He's Covered All His Tracks" and his performance on Feb. 13 is free and open to the public at the Augusta Savage Gallery in New Africa House at 180 Infirmary Way at UMass. The show is on view through March 12. Hours at the gallery are Mondays and Tuesdays, 1 to 7 p.m.; Wednesday through Friday, 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, call the gallery at 545-5177.

Violence & war decried in dance theater piece

When is war not the answer?

That's the question posed by writer and director Teo Castellanos in "Scratch and Burn," a powerful dance-theater piece about the primal urge to battle for supremacy and domination, in which ancient Zulu and Maori rituals mix with elements of butoh, hip-hop and urban street combat.

New WORLD Theater presents the piece Castellanos calls "a ritual and a cry for peace" Feb. 14 and 15 at 8 p.m. at Bowker Auditorium at the University of Massachusetts.

Castellanos, an award-winning actor, director and playwright, is the founder of the all-male company D-Projects, which brings together conservatory- and street-trained artists, fusing ancient traditions with contemporary performance to confront social issues. D-Projects'"Scratch and Burn" promises athletic dancing, spoken word, Tibetan Buddhist flags, projected text and live percussion, culminating in a breathtaking display of break dancing, all in the service of a searing critique of war, violence, racial stereotypes, the Bush administration and U.S. Imperialism.

Tickets for the show in Bowker Auditorium in Stockbridge Hall are $15; $8 for seniors and low-income patrons; $5 for students with valid I.D. They can be purchased through the Fine Arts Center box office by calling 545-2511, or visiting www.umass.edu/fac. For more information on New WORLD Theater, a multicultural arts organization based at the UMass Fine Arts Center, visit the Web site www.newworldthetaer.org.

Music of love & winter at Amherst concert

In the runup to Valentine's Day, a concert of vocal chamber music Sunday in Amherst treats the twin themes of love and winter. The Music at South Church concert series presents "Steps of Love," a concert featuring premiere performances of several new works by local composers, Sunday at 3 p.m. in the sanctuary of the church at 1066 South East St. in South Amherst, followed by a reception. Admission is free, but donations are welcome.

Featured performers will be tenor Peter Shea and hornist Jean Jeffries, both of South Amherst, with pianist David Kidwell of Leeds. Joining them will be soprano Brenda McDonals of Shrewsbury and flutist Susan Dunbar of New Salem.

Kidwell, who conducts the Holyoke Civic Symphony and is music director at Edwards Church in Northampton, has composed three of the works on the program, including a new song written for the concert - "The World is too Much with Us" - a setting of Wordsworth's poem for tenor, horn and piano. Other works composed or revised for the program include "Psalm 92" by Willis Bridegam, librarian emeritus of Amherst College; "Liebeslied" by Harry Seelig, retired professor of German at the University of Massachusetts; and three excerpts from "Steps of Love," a song cycle by Pelham composer John Craig Cooper; "Winter Dance," a duet for flute and horn by hornist and teacher Thomas Hooper of North Amherst; and the song cycle "Snow Storm," a setting of four Ralph Waldo Emerson poems by Zeke Hecker, retired teacher, oboist and composer from Guilford, Vt.

For more information, contact the church at 253-2977.

Legendary cellist in residence at UMass

Internationally acclaimed cellist Bernard Greenhouse, a student of Pablo Casals who has himself influenced many of today's most well-known cellists, will make a stop in Amherst this month. While in residence at the department of music and dance at the University of Massachusetts, Greenhouse will teach a three-hour master class Feb. 20, starting at 2:30 p.m., in Bezanson Recital Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

A founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, Greenhouse has performed nationally and internationally with some of the world's most respected ensembles, such as the Bach Aria Group, the Guarneri and Cleveland String Quartets, the Vienna Symphony and the U.S. Navy Symphony. His recordings have received numerous awards and he has been the subject of a PBS special as well as articles in Strad and the New York Times Magazine.

His visit was arranged by Astrid Schween, a professor of cello at UMass and a former Greenhouse student, who said, "This is an opportunity for our students to interact with and learn from one of the most celebrated artists of a generation."

Unfolding Images' at UMass Hampden Gallery

The architecture of Eastern Europe is the subject of an exhibit at the Central Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, opening with a reception Feb. 14, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

In "Unfolding Images: Accordion Books by Laura Holland," images of architectural details gathered in Berlin, Prague, Presov, Kosice and other Eastern European cities unfold across connecting pages, yielding more than the sum of their parts.

Holland is an artist, writer and lecturer in the UMass art department. In her artist statement she writes:

"Intriguing juxtapositions emerge when the formerly elegant, often dilapidated, history-laden architecture of Eastern Europe crushes up against the hustle, rush and bustle of life today.

"Sometimes these buildings reel out of the collision covered in graffiti and stencil art; other times they are lovingly restored or elegantly remodeled; still other times they are razed to the ground and replaced by a completely new structure.

"In the fragments of these old buildings, I look for the eloquent details that, piece by piece, combine to convey some vital sense of the larger scene."

"Unfolding Images" is on view at the gallery in Wheeler House, on Informary Way, across from New Africa House, through March 12. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 3 to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 2 to 5 p.m.

Wide-ranging history of The Fairest College'

They are long gone now, the fraternities at Amherst College that a committee report once delicately described as being the source of occasional "gross social behavior."

Though they were abolished in 1984, Douglas C. Wilson, the editor and author of several of the essays in "Passages of Time: Narratives in the History of Amherst College" (Amherst College Press, 2008)) recounts the story of one fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, that made news for very different reasons 60 years ago. It was in 1948, when the Amherst chapter of the fraternity became the first at Amherst - and one of the first in the nation - to pledge a black student.

Wilson's account of the story of Thomas Gibbs - one of only two African-American students in the Class of '51 - sheds light on the issues of race and class as they played out during that era. His interviews with some of the participants, in which they reflect on what happened, add texture to the narrative.

The Amherst chapter's decision to admit Gibbs was opposed by the fraternity's national leadership, the aptly named Grand Arch Council. After some high-level negotiations that summer, Wilson writes that "an unpleasant compromise" was reached in which the local chapter agreed to withdraw its commitment to Gibbs, at least temporarily. In exchange, the national leaders would withdraw their threats of reprisal against the local chapter and would, says Wilson, "erase the record of the steps they had taken."

Later, back on campus, the local members decided to re-pledge Gibbs - for which their chapter was quickly expelled from the national organization for what it deemed "unfraternal conduct."

Though many parties involved back then hoped fervently that it would be kept quiet, the incident was eventually reported in The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications. Its inclusion here will no doubt bring it to a new generation of readers.

The book also includes essays on such topics as early antislavery attitudes at Amherst; the rustic campus as it was in 1849; and an account of an evening with Robert Frost and other distinguished faculty in 1959.

Wilson worked for 27 years in the publications office at Amherst, retiring in 2002.

In honor of "Passages of Time" and his many contributions to the preservation and interpretation of the town's history, Wilson will receive the Conch Shell Award from the Amherst Historical Society and Museum, on Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m., at the Jones Library in Amherst. The event is open to the public and will be followed by a reception at The Amherst History Museum at the Strong House.

- SUZANNE WILSON