News and Events
The Department of Music will present a lecture by musicologist Jessica Waldoff and a recital and lecture with baritone Thomas Meglioranza during the Music Colloquium series April 14 and 23, 2009.
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY--The Vassar College Department of Music's April Music Colloquium series will present a lecture by musicologist Jessica Waldoff on Thursday, April 16, and a recital and lecture by baritone Thomas Meglioranza, accompanied by pianist Thomas Sauer, on Thursday, April 23. Both these presentations, which are free and open to the public, will begin at 5pm in Thekla Hall (room 400) of the Skinner Hall of Music.
Musicologist Jessica Waldoff will examine the two of Mozart's operas in the lecture, "When is Love Not a Duet: The Art of Seduction in the Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni" (4/16, 5pm).
Waldoff, an internationally recognized scholar of the 18th-century and opera studies, specializes in the intersection of literature and music and in literary approaches to music. Her publication, Recognition in Mozart's Operas, was published by Oxford University Press (OUP). Current projects include an essay for OUP's new Mozart Compendium, a paper on the topic of the sentimental in late 18th-century Italian opera, and a larger study on recognition and enlightenment in Mozart's operas. She is an associate professor of music at the College of the Holy Cross.
Baritone Thomas Meglioranza, who has been hailed for his "vocal distinction and expressive warmth" (The Boston Globe), will be joined by pianist Thomas Sauer, a member of the Vassar music faculty, for the program, "Beethoven in 1816: The Distant Beloved and Late Style" (4/23, 5pm).
Meglioranza, one of the country's most sought-after and unique young singers, was a winner of the 2005 Walter W. Naumburg International Competition, 2002 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the 2002 Joy in Singing Award, among others. His recent projects included a number of concerts and recitals in New York City, London, Houston, Panama City, Sarasota, Saratoga Springs, the Lanaudičre Festival and at his alma mater, Grinnell College. This year also saw the release of his first solo CD devoted entirely to Franz Schubert's songs.
Pianist Sauer is highly sought after as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. A member of the Mannes Trio, ensemble-in-residence at the Mannes College of Music in New York City, he also collaborates frequently with the renowned instrumentalists Midori and Colin Carr.
ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC
Music has occupied a place of prominence at Vassar College since its founding, in its curriculum, faculty, student activities, and facilities. Formed in 1865, the Department of Music offers an extensive program encompassing opportunities for majors and non-majors to explore performance, composition, history, and theory in depth. Students are encouraged to gain a broad perspective in several or all of these areas. With a student-to-faculty ratio of approximately eleven to one, and an average class size of fifteen, the department is able to support individual students as they work to realize their full musical potential.
For additional information and details on all Vassar College Department of Music concerts, please call (845) 437-7294 or visit the website http://music.vassar.edu.
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations at Vassar should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.
Free parking is available at Skinner Hall, and the campus's adjoining south parking lot. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.
Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.
Posted by College Relations Wednesday, April 8, 2009
About the Arts
Powerhouse Theater
The Powerhouse Theater is a collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College. It is dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works for theater and film. During an intense eight-week summer residency on the Vassar campus, up to twenty different projects are publicly presented, typically engaging more than 200 professional artists and theater students. Plays, musicals, and screenplays are presented in a variety of forms: readings, workshops, and fully staged productions. Since the first Powerhouse Theater season in 1985, New York Stage and Film and Vassar have served more than 2,000 artists and over 175,000 audience members through the development and production of artistically exceptional and affordably priced performances.
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Located just inside Vassar's Main Gate, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center houses the college's permanent collection, over 18,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares, charting the history of art from antiquity to the present. The Permanent Collection Galleries feature 350 works, ranging from the sculpted Head of Viceroy Merymose from His Outer Sarcophagus (Egyptian, c 1375 BCE) in the Antiquities Gallery to Marsden Hartley's oil on canvas Indian Composition (1914-15) in the Twentieth Century Gallery. For information on current and upcoming special exhibitions, self-guided and curriculum-based tours, and group visits, please visit the website. The art center is open to the public, and admission is free.
James W. Palmer Gallery
Located in the College Center in Main Building, the James W. Palmer III '90 Gallery presents eight shows annually, including exhibitions by renowned artists and photographers, studio art faculty and students, and local arts organizations. Recent highlights included Andrea Baldeck’s black-and-white photo exhibit, Touching the Mekong: A Southeast Asian Sojourn, organized by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; the Vassar Haiti Project’s annual exhibition and auction of imported arts and handcrafts; and Design Inside, showcasing the work of Vassar’s College Relations design team. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. For information on upcoming exhibitions, visit the website or call (845) 437-5370.
Music Department
Located in the Belle Skinner Hall of Music, the Martel Recital Hall is wonderfully suited, both acoustically and aesthetically, to music performance. With seating for 500, the Martel is home to the Vassar College Orchestra, Choir, Women's Chorus, Madrigal Singers, and numerous chamber groups and ensembles. The Martel concert schedule routinely includes distinguished guest artists, faculty recitals, senior recitals, and special musical events, such as last year's series of organ recitals celebrating the installation and dedication of the college's superb pipe organ, designed by masterbuilder Paul Fritts. For information on upcoming concerts and events (which are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted), please visit the website.
Dance Department
The Department of Dance sponsors several public performances each year. Among those, the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT) has a series of Works in Progress showings in the fall, a winter Modfest performance in conjunction with the The Department of Music, winter galas at the 1869 Bardavon Opera House, and two All Parents Weekend performances in the spring. The department's Master Class program annually invites at least one ballet and one modern expert to campus in addition to two people in other areas of dance. Public performances and lectures are often associated with these renowned visitors. Guest artists in the past have included: Irina Kolpokova, Arthur Mitchell, Helene Alexopoulos, Gregory Hines, Anna Kisselgoff, Donald Byrd, Edward Villella, Ronald K. Brown, Irene Dowd, Allegra Kent, Gelsey Kirkland, Pilobolus w/Adam Battlestein, Suzanne Farrell, Mummenschantz, Eldar Aliev, Deborah Jowitt, Bill T. Jones, Pascal Rioult, Clinton Luckett of ABT, Bill Irwin, and Donald McKayle. Many of the department's dance performances are in the Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater, located in Kenyon Hall.