Calendar of Events - Fall 2015

Check out the dynamic arts performances and events that Holy Cross has lined up.

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Directions 

For directions to Holy Cross and arts venues on campus, please visit our Maps, Directions and Transporation site. 

Fall 2015 Arts Events

Sept. 2–Oct. 10, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Cantor Art Gallery, O’Kane Hall
“Katrina Then and Now: Artists as Witness” 
“Part I: Documenting, Describing, and Dealing with Disaster”
Featuring work by artists, current and past, from New Orleans: Willie Birch, Sandy Chism, Dawn DeDeaux, Sklar Fein, Generic Art Solutions, Jeffrey Marshall, Bonnie Maygarden, Malcolm McClay, Michael Pajon, Gina Phillips, Maxx Sizeler, and Robert Tannen. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, an event of tragic proportions for the city of New Orleans, when levees failed and the resulting floodwaters took lives and brought destruction that left behind irrevocable change. Drawing, film, installations, painting and sculpture will highlight art as a way of making sense of social disruption, art as a tool to document disaster, and the importance of art and culture for rebuilding communities in the aftermath of disasters. The exhibition, presented in two parts, will offer a series of artists’ talks, films and special events throughout the semester.
Cantor Art Gallery

Sept. 8, 12:30 p.m. 
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
First-Tuesday Lunchtime Concert Series
"Musical Outcries!" 
Artist-in-Residence, Adam Golka, piano
Department of Music

Sept. 10, 7:30 p.m.
Rehm Library
Reading by Creative Writing Faculty 
Hear new work by Holy Cross professors Morris Collins, author of the novel “Horse Latitudes,” and Leila Philip, author of “A Family Place,” “The Road Through Miyama,” “Water Rising,” and other books. Afterward, join other students and faculty at an opening reception for the Working Writers Series. 
Creative Writing Program

Sept. 16, 4:30 P.M.
Rehm Library, Smith Hall
“The Family We Love”
Lecture on folk-art practice providing personal keepsakes in the mid-19th century: Dr. Paul S. D’Ambrosio, president and CEO of Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. and guest curator of the exhibition “American Folk Art, Lovingly Collected” at the Worcester Art Museum, through Nov. 29.
Department of Visual Arts

Sept. 20, 3 p.m. 
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Holy Cross Chapel Artist Series
Philippe Lefebvre, organist-in-residence
Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France
Department of Music

Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m.
Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Reading by Sonya Huber
Meet Sonya Huber, the essayist, memoirist, and author of “Opa Nobody,” “Two Eyes Are
Never Enough: A Minimum-Wage Memoir,” “The Backwards Research Guide for Writers,” and “Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir.” 
Creative Writing Program

Sept. 29, 8 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Sports et Divertissements
Holy Cross Chamber Players, Linda Bento-Rei, flute; Vytas Baksys, piano; Carol Lieberman, violin/viola. A French program, including Erik Satie, “Sports et Divertissements” for piano, violin and viola with slide projections of Charles Martin drawings and narration; Ibert, “Deux Interludes” for flute, violin and piano; Poulenc, “Sonata for flute and piano;” Faure, Fantasie for flute and piano and Debussy, sonata for violin and piano. This is a unique concert with an interesting foray that showcases video and narration.
Department of Music

Oct. 6, 12:30 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
First Tuesday Lunchtime Concert Series
Artist-in-Residence, Jan Müller-Szeraws, cello
Department of Music

Oct. 7, 7:30 P.M.
Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Reading by Eimear McBride
Discover the Irish writer whose first novel, “A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing,” won the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Callahan Fund for Irish Studies
Creative Writing Program

Oct. 8, 4:30 p.m. 
Cantor Art Gallery
Lecture by Jeffrey Marshall
Cantor Art Gallery

Oct. 8, 8 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Mike Monaghan & Friends
Faculty Jazz Combo
Department of Music

Oct. 20, 8 P.M.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Artists-in-Residence Concert
"Sounds of Identity" 
Saul Bitran, violin; Jan Müller-Szeraws, cello; Adam Golka, piano; and guests. Student recipients of the prestigious Holy Cross Brooks and Organ scholarships join Artists-in-Residence Saul Bitran, Jan Müller-Szeraws and Adam Golka for an evening of art song, piano duets, and chamber music spanning three centuries.
Department of Music

Oct. 21, 3 and 7 P.M.
Seelos Theatre, Kimball Hall
“The Grief of Others”
View the new feature film which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last spring. Then hear stories from behind the scenes in a discussion with Professor Leah Hager Cohen — on whose novel the film is based — and also with Patrick Wang, the screenwriter and director.
Creative Writing Program, Barrett Chair in Creative Writing, Arts Transcending Borders, Seelos Film Series

 

 

 

Oct. 22-Dec. 18, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. 
Cantor Art Gallery, O’Kane Hall
“Katrina Then and Now: Artists as Witness”
“Part II: The Rebirth of Art” 
Part II opens. See Sept. 2 listing for exhibition details. Talk by Dawn DeDeaux, artist and founding member of the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, 4:30–5:30 p.m.
Cantor Art Gallery

Oct. 23, 8 p.m. 
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
“PA$$ION”
Holy Cross College Choir and Chamber Singers
Our Family Weekend concert exploring humanity’s complicated relationship with money. Composers throughout time have wrestled with moral questions surrounding capital, and the societal management of financial systems. Music featuring several contemporary compositions is woven around the chant portions from Heinrich Schütz’ “Lukas Passion.”
Department of Music 

Oct. 23, 9:30 p.m. 
Crossroads, Hogan Campus Center
Family Weekend Concert
Holy Cross Jazz Ensemble
Join the Holy Cross Jazz Ensemble for a fun evening of jazz both old and new.
Department of Music

Oct. 24
The Pit, O’Kane Hall
“For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf”
Ntozake Shange
Shange’s award-winning poetic drama is an unflinching yet uplifting recounting of the struggles and aspirations of African-American women.
Department of Theatre

Oct. 24, 2 P.M.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Family Weekend Concert
Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra
The program for the Chamber Orchestra Family Weekend concert will include Beethoven’s First Symphony, in preparation for the orchestra’s February Mechanics Hall performance with the Worcester Symphonic Project.
Department of Music

Nov. 1, 3 P.M.
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Holy Cross Chapel Artist Series
Silvius von Kessel, Organist-in-Residence
Cathedral of Erfurt, Germany
Department of Music

Nov. 3, 12:30 p.m. 
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
First-Tuesday Lunchtime Concert Series
Artist-in-Residence, Saul Bitran, violin
Department of Music

Nov. 5, 7:30 P.M.
Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Reading by Rafael Campo
Hear poems about healing, the body, and the complications of identity by a writer and physician who has authored four books of poetry, most recently “Alternative Medicine,” and two volumes of essays.
Creative Writing Program, Health Professions Program

Nov. 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. 
Fenwick Theatre, O’Kane Hall
“SWARM” 
Troika Ranch
“SWARM” is an immersive, multimedia installation/ performance that uses simple visual and aural stimuli to call the audience and performers into collective action. The unpredictable nature of audience behavior creates a group complexity of movement that cannot be intentionally configured.
$7 HC community, $10 general public
Box office: 508-793-2496
Arts Transcending Borders, Department of Theatre

 

 

 

 

Nov. 7, 6 p.m.
Cantor Art Gallery
"In Conversation With Jazz Master Terence Blanchard"
As part of a weekend (Nov. 7-8) that also features his Grammy-winning "A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)" in concert at the College of the Holy Cross, multiple Grammy-winning trumpeter, bandleader and composer Terence Blanchard joins Daina Cheyenne Harvey, assistant professor of sociology and curator of the "Katrina Then and Now: Artists as Witness" exhibition, in a conversation about his hometown New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina and the artistic response in the aftermath of the disaster. Free and open to the public. Reservations are required, space is limited. Reserve your seats online.  
Arts Transcending Borders

 

Terence BlanchardNov. 8, 3 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall
Terence Blanchard Quintet
“A Tale of God’s Will: A Requiem for Katrina” 
Celebrated jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard brings his Grammy-winning project "A Tale of God’s Will: A Requiem for Katrina" to Holy Cross to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Originally conceived as the score to Spike Lee’s HBO documentary "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” the expanded suite offers a poignant meditation on the devastation in the aftermath of the hurricane. The Blanchard Quintet is joined on this occasion by the Berklee Jazz in Film Orchestra, conducted by Stefan Asbury. The event is presented in conjunction with the Cantor Art Gallery’s “Katrina Then and Now: Artists as Witness” exhibition. The event is free, but reservations are required (open seating). Reserve your seats online. Please note that capacity is limited, and reservations unclaimed by 2:45 p.m. will be released.
Arts Transcending Borders  

 

Nov. 10, 8 P.M.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Suzanna E. Waldbauer Memorial Concert
Music of the French Baroque
Holy Cross Chamber Players
Carol Lieberman, baroque violin; Mark Kroll, harpsichord. These are descriptive pieces that delighted audiences from the court of Louis XIV. The first half will feature pieces for solo harpsichord from the Ordres of François Couperin “Le Grand.” On the second half of the concert, Carol Lieberman and Mark Kroll will perform Simon LeDuc, Sonata in D Major and J.S. Bach, Sonata in c minor. The LeDuc is relatively unknown, while the Bach is famous. Both these works have been recorded by the Lieberman-Kroll duo.
Department of Music

Nov. 19, 8 P.M.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Winter Concert
Holy Cross Jazz Ensemble
Join the Holy Cross Jazz Ensemble for an evening of fun jazz standards and premieres performed by students and special guests under the direction of professor Mike Monaghan.
Department of Music

Nov. 20, 8 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
"Love and The Fyer" 
Holy Cross Chamber Singers
The Chamber Singers present staged opera scenes by Mozart, Bizet, Purcell and Strauss complemented by lust-filled choral works by Monteverdi, Brahms, Morley and others for a night of music/theatrical bliss.
Department of Music

Dec. 3, 8 p.m.
Artists-in-Residence Concert
Adam Golka, piano
Jan Müller-Szeraws, cello
with guest Itamar Zorman, violin
Brooks Concert Hall
Department of Music

Dec. 3, 7:30 P.M.
Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Is Football Dead? Writings for and Against
Choose sides in a panel featuring essayist, journalist, and novelist Steve Almond, author of “Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto,” and former NFL linebacker and coach Bill Curry, author of “Ten Men You Meet in the Huddle.” 
Creative Writing Program, Barrett Chair in Creative Writing, Department of English

Dec. 3, 4, 5, 8 p.m.
Dec. 5, 6, 2 p.m. 
Fenwick Theatre, O’Kane Hall
“The Underpants”
Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin 
A modern take on the classic farce about a young wife who loses her bloomers at an inopportune moment and the ensuing chaos that occurs.
$7 HC community, $10 general public.
Alternate College Theatre, Department of Theatre

Dec. 8, 8 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Student/Faculty Recital
Department of Music

Dec. 10, 8 p.m. 
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel 
Advent Festival of Lessons & Carols
Holy Cross College Choir & Chamber Orchestra
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Department of Music, Office of the College Chaplains

Dec. 12, 8 p.m. 
Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall
Gamelan Gita Sari
I Nyoman Windha and I Gusti Agung Ayu Warsiki
A delightful evening of Balinese music and dance, conducted and choreographed by our two new masters, featuring student performers and special guest artists. A treat for audiences of all ages.
Department of Theatre, Department of Music 

 

Event Spotlights

Arts Transcending Borders 

Arts Transcending Borders (ATB), in association with the Department of Theatre, welcomes Troika Ranch as artists-in-residence in fall 2015. Comprised of collaborators Mark Coniglio (composer/media artist) and Dawn Stoppiello (choreographer/media artist), Troika Ranch is recognized worldwide as pioneers of interactive performance. Over their 20-year career, they have produced 13 major works that integrate live performance with cutting-edge interactive technology, much of which they invented themselves. Their work has been acknowledged with a New York Downtown Dance “Bessie” award and a prize at Ars Electronica and numerous other honors.

Troika Ranch’s hybrid performances unite dance, theater and new media, and aim to question the deepening entanglement between human beings and new technology. In 2009, at the end of a two-year development process, Troika Ranch premiered “loopdiver,” a live, avant-garde multimedia dance work that interweaves looped choreography, music, interactive visuals and lighting in an effort to explore the challenges of breaking free of the loops and patterns people encounter in everyday life. Their next major work-in-development, “SWARM,” will come to life in collaboration with Holy Cross students and faculty at the culmination of their residency. See the Theatre section for more information about “SWARM.” 

Troika Ranch will take full residency at the College from September through mid-November.

Theatre

In the fall of 2015, the Department of Theatre, in association with Arts Transcending Borders, hosts the guest residency of Troika Ranch, an arts organization that creates contemporary, hybrid artworks, exploring the interface between dance and technology. Troika Ranch, working with faculty members and students, will present “SWARM,” the world premiere of a new piece about the seemingly random behavior of creatures in the natural world. SWARM promises controlled chaos as viewers become participants and the line between audience and performers is blurred and reordered. 

Other highlights of the fall semester include a capstone production of Ntozake Shange’s “For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf,” directed by Rebekah Dowdell ‘16, and the Alternate College Theatre’s production of Steve Martin’s adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s “The Underpants,” directed by Savannah Plante ‘16. In addition, Holy Cross welcomes a pair of new masters of the Balinese performing arts, I Nyoman Windha and I Gusti Agung Ayu Warsiki. Under their direction, students of Balinese dance and the gamelan, joined by special guests, will offer the traditional fall concert, one of the most anticipated events of the semester. 

Cantor Art Gallery

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, an event of tragic proportions for the city of New Orleans, when levees failed and the resulting floodwaters took lives and brought destruction that left behind irrevocable change.

Daina Harvey, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Holy Cross, grew up in and around the city until the age of 14, then in 2010 he moved back to help rebuild homes and work on community projects in the Lower Ninth Ward with a consortium of nonprofits, community groups, and academics. He lived and worked there for 14 months while writing his dissertation for Rutgers University about the rebuilding efforts.

“One of the things that interested me, though I didn’t have time to do anything with it while I was there, was how much ‘new’ art and artists I kept running into. When I arrived at Holy Cross to teach in 2012, I met Professor Susan Rodgers, a member of my department, who inspired me to curate an exhibition as a way of exploring how artists responded to Katrina,” explains Harvey. 

In 2014 he spent seven weeks in New Orleans developing contacts with artists, gallery directors, and curators and found the community very supportive. “Katrina Then and Now: Artists as Witness,” will focus on the relationship between Hurricane Katrina and visual art in New
Orleans from 2005 to the present.

Drawing, film, installations, painting and sculpture will highlight art as a way of making sense of social disruption, art as a tool to document disaster, and the importance of art and culture for rebuilding communities in the aftermath of disasters. The exhibition, presented in two parts in the Cantor Art Gallery, will feature the work of artists, current and past, from New Orleans: Willie Birch, Sandy Chism, Dawn DeDeaux, Sklar Fein, Generic Art Solutions, Jeffrey Marshall, Bonnie Maygarden, Malcolm McClay, Michael Pajon, Gina Phillips, Maxx Sizeler, and Robert Tannen. 

A series of artists’ talks, films, and special events will be offered throughout the semester.

Creative Writing

The Creative Writing Program, housed within the Department of English, fosters a vibrant community of writers on campus. Each year, it hosts the Working Writers Series, offering readings, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and book signings with authors like Junot Diaz, Mary Jo Salter, and John D’Agata. The series opens each September with a reading by faculty — this year, novelist Morris Collins and writer Leila Philip — and ends by celebrating the work of graduating students. In between, it sponsors visits throughout the year by acclaimed poets, essayists, memoirists, and fiction writers. There are special events, too. This fall’s schedule includes screenings of “The Grief of Others” (based on Professor Leah Hager Cohen’s novel), followed by discussion with the film’s director (Oct. 21), and a lively panel featuring authors of books either for or against football (Dec. 3).

Any student may take courses in Creative Writing, though you must major in English to earn certification. Classes emphasize particular genres — poetry, fiction, nonfiction — as well as special topics like screenwriting or science writing and opportunities to work individually with faculty. Students also edit “The Purple,” an annual literary magazine, and participate in readings, contests, trips, and events organized by the Creative Writing Club.

Balinese Gamelan

Gamelan Gita Sari is a Balinese Gong Kebyar ensemble of tuned paired interlocking metallaphones, built in Bali especially for Holy Cross. Hand played drums (kendhang), gongs, bamboo flutes (suling), and stringed instruments (rebab) complete the orchestra and add to the rich, shimmering overtones. Led by master artists-in-residence, I Nyoman Windha and I Gusti Agung Ayu Warsiki, Gamelan Gita Sari is joined by student musicians and dancers as well as special guest artists including the Saptanyana family, courtesy of the Indonesian Consulate in N.Y.C.

Gamelan Gita Sari presents two performances a year at Holy Cross of distinctive Balinese music and colorful dance to capacity audiences. Balinese Gong Kebyar music and dance is known for its dynamic and lightning speed and I Nyoman Windha, one of Bali’s most venerated composers, will be sure to delight audiences with his new compositions as well as material from the standard repertoire.

Music

On Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. in Brooks Concert Hall, Fenwick Hall, student recipients of the prestigious Holy Cross Brooks and Organ scholarships join Artists-in-Residence Saul Bitran (violin), Jan Müller-Szeraws (cello), and Adam Golka (piano) for an evening of art song, piano duets, and chamber music spanning three centuries. Featured on the program, sponsored by the Department of Music, is the Holy Cross premiere of “Grave, metamorphoses for cello and piano,” by international acclaimed Polish composer Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994). In true chamber music fashion, cello and piano are equal partners, each contributing to the perceptibly logical development of several prominent melodic fragments cast in a quasi-tonal language of shimmering harmonies. Sharp outbursts of rumbling chords and penetrating repeated notes pierce the musical texture as the composer leads us to an inevitable climax built on rising pitch and rhythmic saturation. Reaching its climax, the music transcends the registral gravity of its beginning and the intellectual gravitas of its compositional techniques to become more than the sum of its musical parts, reaching what philosopher E.T.A. Hoffman describes as the unknown realm of absolute music — a world unique onto itself “with nothing in common with the surrounding outer world of the senses.”