CHICAGO, IL (July 29, 2008) – The PianoForte Foundation is moving its noteworthy Salon Series to the Sherwood Conservatory at Columbia College Chicago. The new season, beginning September 5 and running through to late June, will be broadcast every Friday on WFMT 98.7 FM, from 12:15 to 1:00 p.m. The PianoForte Salon Series is a free event and is open to the public.
The move to the Sherwood Conservatory’s recital hall (located at 1312 S. Michigan Avenue), will allow for more attendance and a more comfortable, “concert-like” atmosphere to further compliment the Salon Series. The first broadcast/performance on September 5 will feature pianist/composer Sebastian Huydts, director of keyboard studies at Columbia.
The remainder of the series promises top solo piano and chamber music performers, many of whom are native to Chicago. Some highlights to anticipate are local composer/pianist Miguel Kertsman, rising star Naomi Kudo and Sherwood piano faculty member Laura Fenster.
The PianoForte Foundation is dedicated to strengthening the connection between piano music and its listeners through intimate performances and salons. The Foundation produces four concert series per season, including its regular Jazz Salon and the PianoForte Salon Series. For more information and a complete list of scheduled performers, please visit www.pianofortefoundation.org.
The Sherwood Conservatory of Music of Columbia College Chicago, is an urban center for comprehensive community music education. For more information, please visit www.colum.edu/Sherwood_Conservatory.
-end-
CHICAGO, IL (July 24, 2008) – The fifth year of Columbia College Chicago’s signature public event, Conversations in the Arts, will celebrate the foundational philosophy of the college by welcoming public intellectuals who have made significant contributions to new outlooks and advocacies in the areas of educational equity, learning theory, creative activism, diversity in the arts and economic development. Speakers for the Founders Lectures are: Jonathan Kozol, Sir Ken Robinson, Anna Deavere Smith, and Richard Florida. Each program will include a lecture, followed by audience Q & A moderated by a member of the Columbia faculty. History and details regarding the Conversations in the Arts: Up Close With… series, the Founders’ Lectures and full biographies of the speakers can be found at www.colum.edu/conversations
All events take place at Columbia’s Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor, and begin at 7:30 p.m. Founders Lectures are free and open to the public, however space is limited and tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved through the Columbia Ticket Center on a first-come, first-served basis, two months before each event. Call 312-369-6600.
Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities, Death at an Early Age, and numerous other works arguing for the rights of children and a more democratic system of public education, speaks on Monday, October 20 as part of Columbia’s Creative Nonfiction Week http://www.colum.edu/specialevents/cnfw/. Kozol will discuss “A New War on Poverty: Equality and Opportunity in America.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and the Robinson Report All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He brings his engaging speaking style to Columbia on Tuesday, December 2, as he challenges educators to teach youth to be creative thinkers rather than merely good workers.
Anna Deavere Smith, author of the plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 and professor of theater at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, uses her singular brand of theater to explore issues of community, character and diversity in America. Her artistic contributions and social advocacy have been recognized with a MacArthur Foundation “genius” Fellowship. On Tuesday, January 27, 2009, Smith shares her ideas on “Engaging the World: The Role of the Artist in Society.”
Richard Florida, Ph.D., author of the bestselling book The Rise of the Creative Class, is an urban studies theorist whose work has effected change in the way regions, nations and companies compete. The founder of the Creative Class Group and one of Esquire Magazine’s “Best and Brightest in America,” Florida will discuss economic development and creativity on Thursday, April 30, 2009.
“The timing of the Founders Lectures is especially significant because 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the formulation of the college’s mission statement,” says Mark Kelly, vice president of student affairs. “As we move into the future, we want to reconnect Columbia to the vision and mission that helped to create the modern college and that will also help to chart a path for the next 40 years.”
Over the past four years, Conversations in the Arts has welcomed famous individuals whose contributions to arts, culture and education exemplify the humanistic qualities and values that are part of the Columbia College Chicago educational experience. Since the series’ founding in 2004, the public has enjoyed the personal and inspiring stories of legendary figures including Laren Bacall, Ben Vereen, Mary Tyler Moore, Julie Andres, James Earl Jones, Debbin Reynolds, Joan Lunden, Richard Roundtree, Salman Rushdie, Jane Alexander, Edward James Olmos, Diahann Carroll and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
-end-
CHICAGO, IL (July 18, 2008) - With the reemergence of discussions over U.S. relations with Cuba - notably Barack Obama’s statement at the primary debate on February 21 that he would support “the eventual normalization” of relations with Cuba – it is an excellent time to know more about the remarkable strides the Cuban scientific community has been accomplishing in the area of chemical and pharmaceutical research.
On Tuesday, July 22, the Institute of Science Education and Science Communication at Columbia College Chicago will host Dr. Alberto Julio Nunez Selles for a free public presentation on Science in Cuba: Past, Present and Future. The program begins at 11 a.m. in Columbia’s Hokin Lecture Hall, 623 S. Wabash, 1st floor.
Dr. Nunez, the General Director of the Centre of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, has been heavily involved in the development of a new line of natural health products derived from mango. These, and other medicinal products developed in Cuban research institutes, have been used world wide to treat cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes. They are unavailable to the U.S. public due to the long-term trade embargo against Cuba.
“I have been in Cuba several times (with licenses to travel from the U.S. Department of the Treasury) heading delegations for chemists,” says Dr. Zafra Lerman, head of Columbia’s ISESC. “We were very impressed with the advancement in medications developed by Cuban research institutions for high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, etc., These medications are apparently being used all over the world but, because of the embargo, U.S. citizens are unable to benefit from them. I personally encountered several Americans in Cuba who traveled to the country without licenses from the Treasury, and faced the legal risk to receive treatment for their various ailments. One lady told me: ‘I was paralyzed, I could not move, and now I am walking. So I do not care if I broke the law of the embargo.’ We were also extremely impressed by the high level of K-12 education in Cuba, particularly in science and math.”
Dr. Nunez was born in Havana, Cuba and holds a B.Sc. and Doctor in Sciences from the University of Havana and a Ph.D. from the Academy of Sciences of Czechoslovakia. Professor Nunez is widely published - having authored three textbooks on organic chemistry and many journal articles - and has received many honors for his scientific and educational efforts.
-end-
CHICAGO, IL (July 2, 2008) – Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing students along with students from the Bath Spa University Writing Program in England have published a collection of diverse student writing.
Open to Interpretation is the result of a yearlong project that involved four students from each school who traveled to each other’s programs for two weeks under the supervision and teaching of Bath Spa Chair Steve May and Fiction Writing Department Chair Randall Albers. Each school chose four students to participate in an array of classes from each program, as well as engaging in a research project and collaborative editorial meetings in which they conceptualized the guidelines for the journal, a campaign for submissions, read manuscripts, made editorial decisions and managed all phases of copyediting, proofing, and publishing. The copyediting style reflected English usage for works submitted by English students, and American standards for Columbia students. The design and printing were done in England.
The result is a 183-page anthology that ranges over novel excerpts, poetry, screenplays, and short stories, each of which express the author’s unique voice and point of view.
The work that has been accomplished through this exchange has produced a new partnership for the coming school year, when Fiction Writing Department faculty and Columbia Teaching Excellence Award winner Patricia McNair will spend the Fall 2008 Semester teaching at Bath Spa University. Both Steve May and other Bath Spa creative writing faculty will, in turn, be participating in short-term residencies in the Columbia Fiction Writing Department in the Spring 2009 semester. It is anticipated that once again, this partnership will bring forth a cross-Atlantic course of study and a creative collaborative project.
Open to Interpretation is available for $10 through the Columbia College Chicago Bookstore and the Fiction Writing Department. To find out more about the Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Program, visit: http://www.colum.edu/Academics/Fiction_Writing/index.php.
-end-