University of Dubuque Arts & Music Events - Spring 2012
Apr 11, 2012 | University of Dubuque Theological Seminary
The University of Dubuque will host a series of arts and music events throughout the month of April 2012. Featured guests include poet Patricia Smith and the Watoto Children's Choir. Events throughout the month will also highlight our students and faculty, featuring performances by the University Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, Wind Ensemble, and a UD children's theatre production of Go, Dog. Go!.
Chicago native Patricia Smith is the author of five books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a book of poems chronicling the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, which was a 2008 National Book Award finalist, winner of the 2009 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement, and one of NPR's and the Library Journal's Top Books of 2008; and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection, winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize. Teahouse was also voted the Best Poetry Book of 2006 on About.com.
Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, Tin House, Best American Poetry 2011, and many other journals. Smith has performed around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Poet's Stage in Stockholm, Rotterdam's Poetry International, the Aran Islands International Poetry and Prose Festival, the Bahia Festival, the Schomburg Center, the Sorbonne in Paris and Germany, Austria and Holland. In addition to her poetry, Smith is also the author of the groundbreaking history Africans in America and the children's book Janna and the Kings, winner of a Lee & Low Books New Voices Award. She is a Pushcart Prize winner, a Cave Canem faculty member and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition's history.
Smith is a professor at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island, and also teaches for Cave Canem and in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.
The Watoto Children's Choirs have travelled internationally since 1994 as advocates for the estimated 50 million children in Africa, orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS, war, poverty and disease.
Accompanied by a team of adults, the choir presents Watoto's vision and mission through their stories, music and dance. Watoto choirs act as ambassadors to raise awareness about the plight of the orphaned and vulnerable children of Africa.
Issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, the effects of war and the child soldier crisis in Northern Ugandan are highlighted.
Each of the children in the choir has suffered the loss of their parents either through war or disease. They live in Watoto children's villages. The experience gives the children exposure to other cultures broadening their worldview. It also gives them confidence and boldness and helps them rise up out of their own situations of sadness and despair.
The choirs have toured Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Australasia, Canada, UK, Germany, France, USA, South America, Hong Kong, China and Japan.
Their audiences have included princes and paupers, warming many hearts wherever they go.
Events throughout the month feature involvement by faculty, staff, and students including a annual spring Concert Choir Concert - in the University's Blades Chapel and at Queen of the Rosary Chapel in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin; a spring concert by the University Chamber Singers - featuring a variety of a cappella choral works; a performance by the University Wind Ensemble - "Musical Journey Around the World", and the Spring children's play Go, Dog. Go! Based on P.D. Eastman's classic children's book.
All events are free and open to the public.
**Please see the following event listing for details.**
University of Dubuque Spring 2012 Arts & Music Events
Friday, April 13, 7:00 p.m.
Concert Choir Concert
Blades Chapel
Saturday, April 14, 7:00 p.m.
Chamber Singers Concert
Blades Chapel
Sunday, April 15, 7:00 p.m.
Concert Choir Concert
Queen of the Rosary Chapel, Sinsinawa, WI
Thursday, April 19, 7:30 p.m.
UD Wind Ensemble
Blades Chapel
Monday, April 23, 6:00 p.m.
Patricia Smith - Poetry Reading
Zuker Reading Room, University Science Center
Thursday, April 26, 7:00 p.m.
Watoto Children's Choir
Blades Hall
Friday, April 27, 1:30 p.m.
Go, Dog. Go! - Children's Theatre
McCormick Gymnasium
Saturday, April 28, 10:00 a.m.
Go, Dog. Go! - Children's Theatre
McCormick Gymnasium
