University of Dubuque Celebrates the Arts
Mar 25, 2011 | University of Dubuque Theological Seminary
The University of Dubuque Arts Celebration Committee is proud to announce the seventh annual spring arts series, March 29 - April 30. Featured guests include poet Patricia Smith, jazz musician Doreen Ketchens, and author Nina Revoyr, who will deliver readings, concerts, and lectures as part of this enjoyable and educational celebration of the art we find in everyday life. Events throughout the month will also highlight our students and faculty, featuring our actors, artists, writers, singers, and musicians.
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 and many other journals, and is upcoming in Best American Poetry 2011 . 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.
In 2006, during a ceremony at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University, Smith was voted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent. She recently completed her sixth book of poems, tentatively titled Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah , and is working on editing three anthologies. Blood Dazzler has recently been resurrected as a dance/theater collaboration with Urban Bush Women choreographer Paloma McGregor.
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.
Doreen's Jazz New Orleans has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia, giving them the name "The Show Stealers." It is almost impossible to sit through a performance without moving in your seat or tapping your feet. They have recently partnered with Jazz at Lincoln Center and the U.S. Department of State to further spread the culture and traditional music of New Orleans all over the world through performance and education. A talented group of musicians, they are led by Doreen Ketchens - dubbed "The Queen of Jazz", "Queen Clarinet" and "Miss Satchmo."
Doreen has also demonstrated her musical versatility by performing with other well known musicians including Ellis Marsalis, Al Hirt, Danny Barker, Dorothy Donagan, Tuba Fats, Kermit Ruffins, and The Black Crows. Doreen's Jazz New Orleans has represented New Orleans and America on several important International occasions such as performances for World's Fairs, Presidential Conventions, and performances for foreign Ambassadors and Dignitaries.
Nina Revoyr was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a white American father, and grew up in Tokyo, Wisconsin, and Los Angeles. She is the author of four novels. Her first book, The Necessary Hunger , was described by Time magazine as "the kind of irresistible read you start on the subway at 6 p.m. on the way home from work and keep plowing through until you've turned the last page at 3 a.m. in bed."
Her second novel, Southland , was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and "Best Book of 2003," a Book Sense 76 pick, an Edgar Award finalist, and the winner of the Ferro Grumley Award and the Lambda Literary Award. Nina's third book, The Age of Dreaming , was a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Nina's fourth novel, Wingshooters , was published this month (March 2011). Publishers Weekly described it as "Remarkable...[an] accomplished story of family and the dangers of complacency in the face of questionable justice."
Nina is the executive vice president of a large child and family service agency in Los Angeles. She has also been an Associate Faculty member at Antioch University, and a Visiting Professor at Cornell University, Occidental College, and Pitzer College.
Events throughout the month feature involvement by both the College and Seminary faculty, staff, and students including a spring choir concert at St. Luke's Methodist Church; a joint choir concert with the Clarke University Choir at St. Raphael Cathedral; an American Roots Concert featuring the UD Concert Band, Jazz Ensemble, Bluegrass Group, and Gospel Choir; two student/faculty art exhibits - The Edge and And The Word Became Flesh , Articulate , a student art and literary magazine; gallery talks by UD students on their original artwork and literary creations; and the Spring musical Working .
"The University of Dubuque Arts Committee is very excited that faculty, staff, and students have come together for the seventh annual celebration of our many artistic talents," stated Mike Willis, director of media services and chair of University Arts Committee. "We're pleased to host three visiting artists, Patricia Smith, Nina Revoyr, and Doreen Ketchens. It's an honor to bring them to campus - which would not be possible without the support of the William P. Woodward Visiting Artist-In-Residence Endowment, the Wendt Center for Character Education, and the dedication of faculty and staff. We are equally blessed with a supremely talented collection of faculty, staff, and students whose talents will also be on display.
All events are free and open to the public.
**Please see the following event listing for details.**
University of Dubuque Spring 2011 Arts Celebration Events
Tuesday, March 29, 7:30 p.m.
Down from the Mountaintop: American Roots Concert
McCormick Gymnasium
Thursday, March 31, 7:30 p.m.
Patricia Smith - Reading/Book Signing
Couchman Reading Room, Charles C. Myers Library
Saturday, April 2, 7:30 p.m.
Doreen's Jazz Concert
Blades Hall
Tuesday, April 5, 4:30 p.m.
Nina Revoyr, Book Reading
Couchman Reading Room, Charles C. Myers Library
April 8 - 30
And the Word Became Flesh - Seminary Art Show
Charles C. Myers Library
Friday, April 8, 5:30 p.m.
The Edge (CGIM Student Exhibit) and Articulate (Student Literary Publication) Launch
Alumni Hall
Friday, April 8, 7:30 p.m.
Working , Spring Musical
McCormick Gymnasium
Saturday, April 9, 7:30 p.m.
Working , Spring Musical
McCormick Gymnasium
Wednesday, April 13, 2:30 p.m.
Gallery Talk
Sylvia's Common Ground, Charles C. Myers Library
Friday, April 15, 7:00 p.m.
UD Concert Choir/Chamber Singers Spring Concert
Blades Hall
Sunday, April 17, 3:00 p.m.
UD Concert Choir/Chamber Singers Spring Concert
St. Luke's Methodist Church
Thursday, April 21, 7:30 p.m.
Music of Zane Merritt (UD Band)
Blades Hall
Thursday, April 28, 7:30 p.m.
UD Gospel Choir
Blades Hall
Saturday, April 30, 4:00 p.m.
Requiem Aeternam (UD/Clarke Choirs)
St. Raphael Cathedral
