The Winston-Salem Symphony, under music director Robert Moody, will premiere Dan Locklair’s “Hail the Coming Day” on Sunday, May 12, at 3 p.m. with a repeat performance on Tuesday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m. at the Stevens Center.

For tickets or more information, call 336.464.0145 or visit the symphony website. More information about Winston-Salem’s Centennial Celebration is available here.

Locklair, a professor of music and the composer-in-residence at Wake Forest, was commissioned by the City of Winston-Salem to compose the piece in honor of the 2013 Centennial Celebration of the consolidation of the towns Winston and Salem.

The composition, “Hail the Coming Day,” takes its title from an 1876 speech given by an early Winston leader. The piece, scored for a large orchestra, is about five minutes long and is written in one movement, which consists of five short sections.

The composition is meant to recognize the individual attributes of the towns of Winston and Salem as well as their unification. Continue reading »

Two movements from Dan Locklair’s changing perceptions & Epitaph, for SATB Chorus and piano, will be performed by the Bel Canto Company, with Welborn Young, artistic director & conductor, on Saturday, April 27, at 8 p.m., and Monday, April 29, at 7:30 p.m., at Christ United Methodist Church, 419 North Holden Road in Greensboro, N.C.

Locklair is a professor of music and the composer-in-residence at Wake Forest.

The movements are What Do We Know About Life (words by Carol Adler) and High Flight (text by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.). More about the piece at http://www.locklair.com/wp/compositions/choral/changing-perceptions-epitaph.

For tickets and more information about these performances, call 336.333.2220 or visit http://www.etix.com/ticket/online/venueSearch.jsp?venue_id=4387&cobrand=belcantocompany.

From left: Sarah Mason, Grace Wetzel, Christa Colyer, Cynthia Gendrich, Jack Dostal

Every year the Teaching and Learning Center honors up to five faculty for innovations in their teaching. This year’s winners span the sciences, the arts, literature and mathematics, but all share the dedication to teaching and the willingness to take risks that result in better student learning.

Find out more about the innovative work of Christa Colyer (chemistry), Cynthia Gendrich (theater), Grace Wetzel (English), Jack Dostal (physics), Stewart Carter (music) and Sarah Mason (mathematics).  Continue reading »

Dan Locklair’s Dream Steps, a dance suite for flute, viola and harp, will be performed by The Fire Pink Trio on Tuesday, April 9, at noon and 5:30 p.m. at Bechtler Museum of Modern Art at Levine Center for the Arts at 420 South Tryon Street in Charlotte, N.C. Both performances of Modernism and Sensuality are part of the Music and Museum First Tuesdays concert series, and the 5:30 concert is presented as part of the 2013 Ulysses Festival: Charlotte’s Spring Festival of the Arts.

“Dream Steps was conceived as both a free-standing dance suite in five movements for flute, viola and harp as well as a chamber work to be danced (especially in small spaces, such as art galleries),” writes Locklair, the composer-in-residence and a professor of music at Wake Forest. “Commissioned by the Mallarmé Chamber Players of Durham, N.C., in 1993 (with partial funding from the North Carolina Arts Council, a state agency) and written in the same year, Langston Hughes’ five-part poem, ‘Lenox Avenue Mural,’ was the extra-musical stimulus for the piece, suggesting elements of both symbolism and form. The world premiere occurred in October 1993.”

For tickets and more information about these performances, call 704.353.9200, or visit http://www.bechtler.org/. See a list of 2013 Ulysses Festival events here [PDF].

Wake Forest senior Sean Cusano (’13) and first-year Wake medical student Matthew Martin (BS ’12) examine a team’s bottle rocket.

On Saturday, 179 local middle and high school students competed in a regional Science Olympiad tournament, a track meet-like event that featured 46 different events in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Nine high school and eight middle school teams from Alleghany, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Stokes, Surry, Wilkes and Yadkin counties participated.

Wake Forest biology professor Carole Browne served as the Science Olympiad regional director and coordinated more than 40 volunteers from Wake Forest and the Winston-Salem community.

In addition to students from the Reynolda and Bowman Gray campuses, the following faculty and staff also gave of their time to oversee events such as Bottle Rocket, Forensics, Shock Value, Designer Genes and Elastic Launched Glider: Continue reading »

Patricia Dos Santos waits to receive her award.

The Wake Forest community gathered together for Founders’ Day Convocation on Feb. 21 to celebrate the University’s founding in 1834 and the accomplishments of faculty and alumni in teaching, research and service.

Faculty awards are listed below:

• Rhoda B. Billings (JD ’66), who was a professor at the School of Law from 1973 to 2003, won the Medallion of Merit, the University’s highest honor.
• Music professor Louis R. Goldstein won the John Reinhardt Award for Distinguished Teaching.
• Assistant professor of physics Oana Jurchescu won the Reid-Doyle Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
• Assistant professor of chemistry Patricia Dos Santos received the Award for Excellence in Research.
• Anne Boyle, professor of English and associate dean for student-faculty academic initiatives, received the Donald O. Schoonmaker Faculty Award for Community Service.
• Ken Zick, vice president and dean of student affairs and professor of law, was awarded the Kulynych Family Omicron Delta Kappa Award.
• Associate professor of legal writing Tracey Banks Coan was presented the Joseph Branch Excellence in Teaching Award.

To find out more about Convocation, the awards and those who won then, see the Wake Forest News Center »

The Provost and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions invite faculty and staff to Thursdays at the Porter B. Byrum Welcome and Admissions Center on Feb. 14. This month’s event is titled “Fall in Love with the Arts” and will serve as the kickoff for the annual Campaign for the Arts.

A wine and cheese reception will run from 4-4:30 p.m., followed by a program from 4:30-5:15 p.m. that will feature J.K. Curry, Jacqueline Carrasco and a performance by Authoring Action.

Curry, associate professor and chair of theatre and dance, will discuss the collaboration between Wake Forest and Festival Stage on the production of 33 Variations playing at the HanesBrands Theatre.

Carrasco, associate professor of music, will discuss how the Triad is coming alive with the sounds of “new music” and perform excerpts from a solo violin piece highlighting new trends in contemporary musical styles.

Authoring Action, the Arts Council’s newest funded partner, works to transform the lives of youth through the power of creative writing, spoken word arts and leadership education. Members will perform a piece entitled “Reach for the Stars.”

Louis Goldstein

Wake Forest theatre and Festival Stage of Winston Salem are partnering on a production of Moisés Kaufman’s new drama “33 Variations,” presented at Hanesbrands Theatre from Feb. 1 to Feb. 24.

The production is the result of a first-time partnership between Festival Stage and Wake Forest’s Department of Theatre and Dance. The cast includes Louis Goldstein, professor of music, Amy Shackleford, a junior theatre major, and Jim French, a recent Wake graduate, as well as five professional actors. The artistic and production staff also includes several faculty members and Wake Forest freshman Andrew Hayes, who serves as a production assistant backstage.

“The opportunity for our students to participate in an extended project with working professionals and the chance to experience the demands of a professional career while still in school is immensely valuable to any young emerging artist, says John Friedenberg, director of University theatre. “Similarly, the ability for our faculty in both theatre and music to collaborate professionally with the artists and staff of Festival Stage in circumstances that allow our students to see us working as artists outside of an academic context adds to our teaching, and their education, in a unique and elegant way.”

The play follows the life of Dr. Katherine Brandt, a musicologist obsessed with uncovering a mystery behind Ludwig van Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. As Beethoven copes with the progressive loss of his hearing, Katherine fights a diagnosis of ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease). Paralleling Beethoven’s own journey, Katherine struggles to complete her life’s work and reconcile with her estranged daughter before her illness overtakes her.

“33 Variations” combines the resources of the undergraduate school, the medical school and the community to explore the issues in the play. By bringing the stage into the classroom, theatre students learn to apply their education and training.

“We hope that this joint endeavor will enrich all of our work and can establish a foundation and pattern for future collaborations,” says Friedenberg.

Tickets may be purchased online at www.hanesbrandstheatre.org, by calling 336-747-1414 or visiting the Hanesbrands Theatre Box Office Monday-Friday, noon to 6 p.m., and one hour before each performance.

The Venice Baroque Orchestra, a world-renowned chamber orchestra, will perform on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 7:30 p.m. in Brendle Recital Hall. The program will be all Italian: Vivaldi, Albinoni, Geminiani and Veracini. Andrea Marcon is the conductor. Learn more about the orchestra on the Secrest website »

The Secrest Signature Speaker for this event will be Peter Kairoff, pianist, director of Casa Artom in Venice, and professor of music. His talk will begin at 6:40 p.m. in Room 208, adjacent to Brendle in Scales Fine Art Center.

Faculty, staff and students receive free tickets to all Secrest events. Click here for details »

Read more about the orchestra and the performance in the Winston-Salem Journal »

Professor Peter Kairoff was recently featured in the Winston-Salem Journal.

Kairoff, a pianist who has performed around the world, has just released a CD with tenor Glenn Siebert, who is a faculty member at UNC School of the Arts.

The CD hopes to revive interest in George Whitefield Chadwick, who died in 1931. “The New York Times called him a leading composer of the Romantic generation,” said Kairoff.

The CD, “George Whitefield Chadwick: Songs,” was released by Albany Records and is available on Amazon.com, iTunes or elsewhere online.

Read the full story in the Winston-Salem Journal »