CONTACT: PETER ALEXANDER
100 Old Public Library
Iowa City IA 52242
(319) 384-0072; fax (319) 384-0024
e-mail: peter-alexander@uiowa.edu

Release: April 30, 1999

UI CAMPUS NOTES -- IOWA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

MUSIC IN THE MUSEUM MAY 9 -- The La Fosse Baroque Ensemble, a small string orchestra of current and former University of Iowa students and music faculty, will present the UI Museum of Art's annual Mother's Day Concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 9.

The performance, which is part of the Music at Museum series, will be open to the public free of charge. It will be preceded by a free, 1 p.m. tour of current museum exhibitions led by museum docents.

The La Fosse Baroque Ensemble specializes in the performance of music from the Baroque period in music, roughly 1600 to 1750, and the early Classic period. They perform using copies of authentic Baroque instruments and bows. This enables them to play their instruments in the same manner as performers of the Baroque period, which in turn makes possible a historically appropriate style of performance.

The ensemble was founded in 1985 to provide violin students at the UI the opportunity to play solo works from the Baroque and early Classic periods. Since its formation the group has been invited to perform at a number of state and national conventions of the Music Teachers National Association, the Music Educators National Conference, and colleges and public schools in Iowa.

The group is directed by Leopold La Fosse, a professor in the UI School of Music. His extensive performing career has included solo appearances as well as concertmaster positions with five orchestras. He has twice been to Brazil as a Fulbright lecturer and returns annually to perform, teach and give master classes.

In 1997 he celebrated his 25th anniversary on the UI faculty with a series of four recitals displaying his versatility, appearing as a virtuoso soloist, a chamber musician, a Baroque performance specialist and a jazz violinist.

The UI Museum of Art, located on North Riverside Drive in Iowa City, is open noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is free. Public metered parking is available in UI parking lots across from the museum on Riverside Drive and just north of the museum.

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MOTHER'S DAY IS 'LAST CHANCE' FOR PERCUSSION -- The University of Iowa Percussion Ensemble will present its "Last Chance" concert of the spring semester at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 9 in Voxman Hall of the Voxman Music Building.

The concert, under the direction of faculty member Dan Moore, will be free and open to the public. And because the concert falls on Mother's Day, student members of the UI Percussion Society will have gifts for the first 20 moms to arrive at the concert.

Percussion Society president Teri Pomrehn explained, "We wanted to do something to recognize those special mothers who will spend part of their special day with us."

A collaborative effort among UI percussion students, the Percussion Ensemble does not have a set instrumentation. Since pieces for percussion characteristically call for a wide variety of possible groupings and numbers of players, different combinations are created for each piece on the program. With an extensive array of instruments -- from traditional drums, xylophones and cymbals to just about anything that can be struck, scraped, shaken or smashed together -- Percussion Ensemble performances run the gamut from gentle melodies to explosive outbursts of rhythm.

The students in the Percussion Ensemble present a "Last Chance" concert at the end of each semester. The concert represents a last chance for students to present pieces they have been learning, and for audiences to hear a percussion concert before the semester ends.

As is typical for "Last Chance" concerts, the program for the May 9 concert will not be decided until the last minute, depending upon which pieces the students actually get ready in time for their last chance -- until next semester. Two pieces that have been decided are "Fuzzy Dice" and "Bach Swings Back," two new percussion duos by Thomas L. Davis, UI professor emeritus and the founding director of the Percussion Ensemble.

An internationally known percussionist, composer and teacher, Moore has experience from concert to marching percussion, and from jazz to classical styles. In 1998 he received a grant from the UI Central Investment Fund for Research Excellence to produce a CD of his arrangements of the Percussion Pops music of legendary percussionist Dick Schory, a pioneer of the contemporary percussion ensemble. "Percussion Pops 2000 presents Jungle Fever: The Music of Dick Schory" was recorded by the UI Recording Studios and released in 1999.

Moore joined the UI music faculty in 1995. Only the second full-time professor of percussion at the UI, he succeeded Davis, who taught percussion at the UI for more than 35 years. He is a performing artist for the Yamaha Corporation of America, Sabian Ltd., and Innovative Percussion.

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'SPANISH TREASURES' MAY 9 -- The University Choir from the University of Iowa School of Music will present "Spanish Treasures," its spring concert, at 8 p.m. Sunday, May 9 in Clapp Recital Hall. The 65-voice choir will be directed by doctoral music student David Shaler. The performance will be free and open to the public.

The program will feature a variety of works by Spanish composers from the Old and New Worlds, including sacred and secular works, a cappella and accompanied works, and works with Spanish and Latin texts.

Highlighting the first half of the concert will be an extended work in Spanish for soloists, chorus, strings and continuo written in 1749 by Peruvian composer Esteban Ponce de Leon. Little known today, de Leon's music has a resemblance to the music of Italian Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi. Guest soloists will be tenor Dirk Garner and sopranos Emily Truckenbrod and Jennifer White, all former students in the School of Music.

Featured in the second half of the concert will be the "Missa Criolla" (Creole Mass) by Argentinean composer Ariel Ramirez. This folk mass, written in 1963, draws upon various South American dance rhythms to accompany Spanish texts. Members of the University Choir will serve as soloists and play the accompanying percussion parts.

Other works on the program will include 14th-century pilgrim songs, motets by Spanish Renaissance composers Cristobal de Morales and Tomas Luis de Victoria, a group of art songs and a group of folk songs. Accompanying the choir on piano and harpsichord will be graduate student Hannah Lee.

Shaler is completing his third year of study at the UI School of Music. Prior to enrolling at the UI, he sang with the professional ensemble Chanticleer for five years. At the UI he has also conducted the Madrigal Singers, Kantorei and the University Choir. He is also music director at
St. Mark's Methodist Church in Iowa City.

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BLACK READS MAY 11 --Donald Black, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, will read from his new book, "Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder," at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 11 at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St. in downtown Iowa City. The reading is free and open to the public.

The reading will be broadcast live on WSUI AM 910 and WOI AM 640 as part of the "Live from Prairie Lights" series.

"For a fascinating and insightful journey inside the criminal mind one could not find a better guide than Dr. Black, one of the world's leading authorities on the classification of aberrant behaviors," said Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., a professor at UCLA School of Medicine and author of the book, "Brain Lock."

Black is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Utah School of Medicine. He has received numerous awards for teaching, research and patient care, and is listed in "Best Doctors in America." His work had been featured on "20/20," "Dateline," and "48 Hours."

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EDELMAN READS MAY 12 -- University of Iowa alumna Hope Edelman will read from her new memoir, "Mother of my Mother," at 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 12, at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St. in downtown Iowa City. The reading is free and open to the public.

The reading will be broadcast live on WSUI AM 910 and WOI AM 640 as part of the "Live from Prairie Lights" series.

The New York Times called Edelman's work "Absorbing . . . insightful . . . a moving and valuable treatment of a neglected subject."

Edelman, a graduate of the UI program in literary non-fiction, has been acclaimed both for her fresh insights into female family relationships and for her gifts as a writer.