Benedictus on Youtube

See Benedictus discussed on Youtube! Just click the blue text.

A note from Mahmood from LA:

Well dear ones,
We are working hard getting the show ready for the opening on Nov. 29th.
Meanwhile I have been busy promoting the play as well as speaking of/ about its development process at Siena at few TV program each 45 minutes to 1:5 hours and two hour long radio talk shows. Tomorrow I am the keynote speaker at a gathering of Iranian/American businessmen to speak about arts/theatre education and importance of liberal arts ed. in the growth of the younger generation. I will speak about Siena. I have (I think) already convinced two young women who promised to at least "look at" our school next year when they are ready to choose a college.
Will let you know how it went once I return on Friday right after the opening.
Love to you all,

mkh

Thursday's Concert features Max Lifchitz

Thursday evening's 7 p.m. concert in the Beaudoin Theatre in Foy Hall features Max Lifchitz, graduate of the Juilliard School and Harvard University, winner of the International Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of Twentieth Century Music (Holland, 1976) after which he was called a "composer of brilliant imagination and a stunning, ultra-sensitive pianist." Lifchitz taught a UAlbany, Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music. For his recordings (for which he received Grammy nominations) open this Amazon.com link.

Maestro Lifchitz will play Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. I accompanied by the Siena Chamber Orchestra conducted by Siena 's own Paul Konye.

Thanks for those photos. I'm looking forward to having some color tones on the walls to set things off better if we can too instead of that insistent ghetto high-school WHITE.

I was just in the Dia: Beacon museum and it's very different but also inspiring. The height of Industrial Hip with the original messed up Nabisco factory floors which are so beautiful now they looked as good as most of the art work and better than some of it (sorry Blinky).

Benedictus goes Hollywood!

Following its successful professional premier, Benedictus is now traveling to Los Angeles to join eleven other theatre productions from around the world at LATC's World Theatre Festival. Please look at the following links for more info, and wish us a "break a leg!"

http://www.goldenthread.org/

Thoughts on our space

I took some photos of the Denver Museum remodeling because it might be inspirational for us. I hope I can get the photos to stick this time. Pix are out of focus, shaky hands and low light.

Anyway, notice how the galleries are user friendly and that one of them is even a living room/library. Warm and engaging. The colors are great.

ptc

p.s. the compose section is not WYSIWYG so don't besurprised when all your designing goes to naught. This is my last try for good design.

Thanks to Munir Beken

Thanks to Munir Beken -- or rather to the UCLA Music who runs a blog -- for inspiring us to start this blog for Creative Arts at Siena.

For the article that got us moving, see http://www.music.ucla.edu/blog/. You'll have to scroll down past their many entries (their faculty post things, hint, hint) to get to Munir's story of how one of his latest works was inspired by his pranks as a child.

I loved the fact that they included the score in the post!

ptc

Beethoven Piano Concerto #1

On Thursday Nov. 29th Paul Konye will lead the Siena Chamber Orchestra in Beethoven's Piano Concerto #1 with Grammy-nominated Max Lifchitz as soloist. The concert will take place at 7:00 pm in Foy Theatre at Siena College.

So calm around here

It's Friday afternoon, the last weekend of the II Shepherds, and it is so calm around here. Except for Paul Konye in the office next door fretting over his upcoming concert.

You CREA people, sign up for the CREA@SIENA BLOG.

pat

Steve Tyson curates exhibition at NY State Museum

Expression in Blue: A Feeling, A Place, A Color, A Sound opens at at the New York State Museum on Saturday, Nov. 17, featuring the work of 22 artists of the African Diaspora. Works in various media are included: photography, sculpture, textile collage, and painting. The show will close on March 16, 2008. We hope that Steve, an adjunct with CREA, will fill us in with some personal remarks!

CREA's Steve Fletcher directs SYLVIA in Latham

Latham's Curtain Call Theater is producing A. R. Gurney's SYLVIA directed by Steve Fletcher, adjunct professor in CREA. The Daily Gazette's Carol King tells us tht he "keeps the comedy flowing but never overlooks Gurney's genius for tender moments."

Plays through November 17 at Curtain Call Theatre, 210 Old Loudon Road, Lathan, 877-7529. Tickets: $20.

Review, Ralph Blasting's Second Shepherd's Play

ART IS BRIEF. YOU JUST HAVE TO BE THERE.

Ralph Blasting’s production of the Second Shepherd’s Play opened Friday in Siena’s Beaudoin Theatre. Considered “the finest single achievement of the English cycle drama” this mystery play for the Wakefield cycle is the “high water mark of medieval drama“ (Winthrop.edu). A combination of poetry, song, and fine student acting, this performance demonstrates within one piece the interdisciplinary goals of Siena’s Creative Arts Department.

Blasting’s direction brings our students’ talents to light. They move through and use the space between one another with confidence, addressing the audience on either side of the stage with grace and charm. Their approach to the difficult Medieval English text is assured and compelling. Even when dealing with the poor acoustics of our theatre (formerly a gym), we follow them and become a part of the action. The cast acts as an ensemble, reinforcing one another and playing us for a laugh.

Denise Massman’s set is an amplification of a medieval pageant wagon with “houses” at the end of an axis, the central space in which most of the action takes place. One end of the axis holds a shed-house that serves a double duty in the play [won’t let the cat out of the bag]. On the proscenium stage end is a three-dimensional reconstruction of a miniature by the finest of fifteenth-century illuminators, Simone Marmion—also used for the Brian Massman poster and playbill. At the other end of the axis Denise Massman’s costumes transform the singers into wondrous angels and our young actresses into grubby shepherds. Even the shepherd’s shoes, drafted and built by Karin Mason, evoke the period.

Echoes of medieval modal music inform the songs that spring from the actors naturally at intervals that enervate the dialogue rather than interrupt it. Muriel Maharidge wrote the music and Dennis Coker the lyrics specifically for the Siena performance.

In another incarnation I would have preferred to see the shepherds inhabit the Marmion illumination so that it could be brought to life. As it is now the potency of that space is only captured in the “epiphany” in the last section of the play. By having it first be an earthly domain of the shepherds, its later metamorphosis would be wondrously dramatic—and in keeping with the myth (sacred story) and mystery of Christ’s incarnation.

P. Trutty-Coohill
Art Historian
Creative Arts Department