Fall Arts Celebration 2008

ALLENDALE, Mich. -- As global influences grow in West Michigan, Grand Valley continues to expand the quality and stature of performances during the Fall Arts Celebration. Since its start in 2003, the FAC has featured the champions of arts and humanities for the benefit and enjoyment of the entire community.
   
“The Fall Arts Celebration is a marvelous opportunity to lend voices and visuals to our expanding sphere of knowledge and experience,” said Antczak. “It is an ambitious undertaking to raise the bar of excellence year after year.”   
  
The celebration begins September 8 with performances by four new faculty members whose reputations promise to change the face of the Department of Music. Music at Grand Valley “Debut” will feature works from Saint-Saens, David, Prokofiev and Beethoven.    
  
“We are delighted to bring these distinguished faculty members to Grand Valley to benefit not only our students, but also the community,” said Danny Phipps, chair of the department.     
 
 Internationally acclaimed piano soloist and chamber musician Mark Markham comes to Grand Valley following 10 years as a member of the keyboard faculty at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory of Music, and the last 12 years as pianist and collaborator with famed American soprano Jessye Norman.     
  
Mark Williams has performed for every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan. As principal trombonist with the USAF Concert Band in Washington, D.C., for 14 years, he performed in all 50 states and throughout Europe and Asia. In 2004 Williams was selected as Band Career Field Manager at the Pentagon where he served with distinction for four years. In addition to his performance career, Williams was trombone instructor at Shenandoah University in Virginia, and has presented clinics and master classes throughout the U.S.     
  
MingHuan Xu, new assistant professor of violin, will enchant the audience with her solo performance of Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in A minor, op 28, by Camille Saint-Saens (1863). Xu made her recital debut in Beijing at age 6, won first prize at age 11 at the Beijing Young Artists Competition, and made her New York debut as a soloist with the New York Youth Symphony when she was 18. Her latest recital and chamber music performances have brought her to Carnegie-Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, and the Smithsonian Institute. Xu has studied at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, at Northwestern University, and is completing her doctoral work at Stony Brook University.   
  
The concert will end with a performance of music from the finale of Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio,” which addresses rescue and freedom from tyranny and oppression and is just as relevant a theme today as when it was written. The performance will feature the University Arts Chorale and members of the Grand Valley’s vocal faculty as soloists.   
 
 On the podium for “Fidelio” will be nationally known pedagogue and conductor Henry Duitman, who will be making his debut as the new director of Grand Valley’s Symphony Orchestra. Duitman spent 22 years as the director of the Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra, and 23 years on the faculty at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa, and has conducted festival and honors bands and orchestras in Florida, Iowa and Minnesota.
  
Also performing at the “Debut” concert is Grand Valley’s New Music Ensemble, under the direction of Assistant Professor Bill Ryan. The ensemble has received international recognition over the past year for their performances and recording of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians.” They have been invited to play Carnegie Hall in April.   
  
Other Fall Arts Celebration events include: 
• Distinguished Academic Lecturer - Stephen Greenblatt, Ph.D. “Cultural Mobility: The Strange Case of Shakespeare’s ‘Cardenio’” on September 24, at 7 p.m., in the L.V. Eberhard Center, second floor, Robert C. Pew Grand Rapids Campus.

• Art Gallery Exhibit - “Separation as Together: Soonjung Hong and Eunmee Lee, Korean Ceramists at GVSU.” Opening reception on October 7, from 5-7 p.m. Exhibit open through October 31, in the GVSU Art Gallery, Performing Arts Center, Allendale Campus.
 
• Dance Stars Across America - “Coast-to-Coast” October 24, 8 p.m., and October 25, 2 p.m., Louis Armstrong Theatre, Performing Arts Center, Allendale Campus.

• Poetry Night - “An Evening of Poetry and Conversation with Natasha Trethewey and Paul Muldoon,” October 29, 7 p.m., L.V. Eberhard Center, second floor, Robert C. Pew Grand Rapids Campus
  
Tickets are required for Dance Stars Across America, “Coast-to-Coast.” All other events are complimentary. For more information call (616) 331-2180 or visit www.gvsu.edu/fallarts.