Noted: Manhattan-based Crown Publishers, which also is publishing a mass-market edition for British readers, chose Milwaukee for the national book launch, which takes place Tuesday. Desmond will speak at Marquette University Law School and Boswell Book Co., followed Wednesday by an appearance at his grad-school alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Lamar, his sons and some other adolescent boys from their Milwaukee neighborhood are sitting around, playing cards and smoking blunts, when there is a loud and confident knock on the door, which could be “a landlord’s knock, or a sheriff’s.” Mercifully it is only Colin, a young white man from their church, who has come to read them passages from the Bible, most of which Lamar knows by heart. The subject wanders off to God and the Devil, with Lamar adding, “And Earth is hell.” “Well,” Colin corrects him, “not quite hell.” An awkward silence falls.
A new theater production opened Thursday at University of Wisconsin, aiming to inspire conversations about race and diversity on campus.
“Smart People,” the latest work by Lydia Diamond, a Chicago-native playwright, centers around the life of four intellectuals in Harvard University and the racial issues they deal with on a daily basis, Grace Schneck, production stage manager, said.
All University of Wisconsin students know the familiar chimes of the Carillon Tower.
The tower is open to visitors from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. every Sunday, where carillonneur Lyle Anderson has been on duty for 30 years.
Noted: Bradley teaches a course on the war at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Werner, a professor and chairman of the university’s Afro-American Studies Department. A decade ago, they began talking about music at a Christmas party at the Vet Center in Madison and were quickly surrounded by a group of guys sharing stories of the music they listened to in Vietnam.
Noted: Fewer than 10 percent of children’s books released in 2015 had a black person as the main character, according to a yearly analysis by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And while the number of children’s books about minorities has increased in the last 20 years, many classroom libraries have older books.
“Why do kids like making marks that make shapes that make stories? Adults are scared to do this. Why?”This is the central thesis of “Drawing Fast and Slow: The Compbook Art of Lynda Barry,” on display at the Madison Children’s Museum through the end of March.
Noted, several UW-Madison grads, including: Walter Mirisch: A UW-Madison grad, Mirisch, one of Hollywood’s most progressive and prolific producers in the 1960s, took home the Oscar for best picture for “In the Heat of the Night” (1967). He also was the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1983 and the Irving Thalberg Award in 1978.
Faisal Abdu’Allah has not shied away from controversial topics since joining the UW-Madison faculty.
Column by Teri Dobbs, associate professor of music, on how making music during times of incredible oppression and stress provides individuals — especially children — a place of normalcy, safety and community, if only for a short time.
Noted: Currently in law school at UW-Madison, Hefti is clearly not the kind of person to let spare time go to waste. He has always liked to write and while serving overseas he completed an online bachelor’s degree in English and a master of fine arts degree in fiction.
A professor from the University of Wisconsin was among the nominees for the 58th Grammy Awards. Jim Leary is a professor of folklore and Scandinavian studies at UW-Madison and a Mount Horeb resident.
It was 10 years ago this past November that the artist Donald Lipski perpetrated the sculpture known as Nails’ Tales on an unsuspecting Madison public.
UW Madison professor and researcher Kenneth Cameron made a monumental discovery this week.
Fungi samples found by George Washington Carver, the famous African American scientist, were discovered after sitting untouched for over fifty years.
When pianist and UW-Madison professor Jessica Johnson sat down for the first time at a 7/8th-size keyboard, the experience was bittersweet.
When folklorist Jim Leary was growing up in Rice Lake, Wis., in the 1950s and ’60s, old-time ethnic music was everywhere. You could dial up the local radio station, WJMC, and hear live broadcasts of Scandinavian music by the Eric Berg Band. The nearby ski lodge was a venue for Slovenian accordion music. Polka star Whoopee John was a frequent visitor from his home base a few hours away in New Ulm, Minn.
There will be an inescapable irony in the unlikely event Bryan Cranston wins a best actor Oscar later this month for his portrayal of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
Noted: All of the artwork was accounted for except a piece by Bohrod, a former UW-Madison artist-in-residence who died in 1992. The painting in its gold and velvet frame was missing from the security room of the residence, the complaint said.
The UW-Madison Band is coming back to Sheboygan. The performance on April 4 at Urban Middle School will be a fundraiser for the city’s Mayor’s International Committee.
Noted: The University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Music presents its “Symphony Showcase” Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall.
The month closes with two essential annual events, the first a recital by an artist whom Madison is incredibly blessed to have based here. In case you haven’t heard, pianist Christopher Taylor’s critical reputation in places far and wide makes it clear he could have a full-time international career if he chose to. Go hear for yourself on Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall; you’re guaranteed to learn a few secrets from the works of Bach, Scriabin and Brahms.
Noted: Huntsman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate who got his master’s degree from Louisiana State University, explains that there are just two hard-and-fast rules about gumbo.
In a recent Skype call with a Dutch friend, we discussed her kids and their college experience. Apparently, there had been protests on campus about costs and payments.
Countering prejudice might be as easy as kicking back with the right sitcom. That’s according to new research that suggests media that depict Muslim characters in a positive, relatable way, can counter prejudiced attitudes toward Muslims. “Entertainment media…are likely to be one of the most effective ways to improve intergroup relations and promote diversity,” says Sohad Murrar, a doctoral candidate in Social Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This year’s winner of the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science is Sean B. Carroll, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of several books including, “Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2009.
What’s going on in local art? A gloriously diverse answer to that question can be found in the Art Department Faculty Quadrennial Exhibition, a new show at the Chazen Museum of Art that highlights recent work by nearly thirty current and former members of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Art Department.
Vergara was working with a unique demographic — his students ranged from 18 to more than 80-years-old. Instead of a UW classroom, they gathered in an all-male minimum security corrections facility. His students were inmates at the Oakhill Correctional Institute, about 30 minutes south of Madison.
At the time, Vergara was the program coordinator for the Oakhill Prison Humanities Project. It received its first major grant in 2013, giving numerous inmates at the Oakhill facility the chance to take classes in the humanities. About 20 UW graduate students and faculty teach courses in history, literature, art, drama, creative writing and philosophy.
It’s been almost 41 years since the fall of Saigon and, for many, one of the most powerful associations with Vietnam is the music of the period.
Feature story on a exhibition at the Ruth Davis Design Gallery at the UW School of Human Ecology. Exhibitions titled “Marianne Fairbanks: Impractical Weaving Suggestions” and “Kevin Ponto: Protean Guise” are on display through Feb. 21.
A six-hour movie. An Ingmar Bergman retrospective. And an Italian film that UW-Cinematheque director Jim Healy calls “the king of the difficult films.” In other words, the spring 2016 UW-Cinematheque series is not for moviegoers who want to go back to see “Ride Along 2” a second time to catch all the plot points they didn’t understand the first time. The free on-campus film series shows independent, foreign and classic films that otherwise would not likely make it onto the big screen in Madison … The series kicks off at 7 p.m. Friday at 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave., with the Madison premiere of the documentary “Hitchcock/Truffaut.”
Interviewed: Jennifer Angus, a Wisconsin professor and artist whose work using exotic insects from around the world is being featured in the newly opened Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Art Museum.
Celebrity is new to Madison, Wisc. attorney Dean Strang, who’s suddenly found himself in the limelight after appearing in the Netflix documentary series, Making a Murderer. While Strang may now be best known for defending Steven Avery, he has passions outside of the law. His first book, Worse Than the Devil, about a 1917 trial in Milwaukee, came out in 2013, and he’s currently working on a second book, tentatively titled IWW Trial 1918: A Legal History of America’s First and Largest Mass Trial, which University of Wisconsin Press plans to publish in 2017. Strang talked to us about how human frailty is what makes the law interesting…and infuriating.
Artist Stephanie Hunder’s exhibit, “Realm of the Forget-me-nots,” reflects her own scrutiny of the natural world and was inspired by a Pablo Neruda poem, “Entrance to Wood.” The exhibit of monoprint collagraphic prints is currently on display in Gallery 1308 at UW-Madison’s Union South.
Noted: She moved to Madison in 2004 to go to UW-Madison and for six years afterward worked at Epic Systems. She has focused entirely on music for the past year and a half, but recently started a consulting job.
Noted: Henkes, who grew up in Racine, first moved to Madison to attend UW-Madison. At age 19, he headed to New York and was signed by Greenwillow Books.
Her first book, ‘On the Run’ — about thelives of young black men in WestPhiladelphia — has fueled a fight withinsociology over who gets to speak for whom.
A meeting last week in Rhinelander has put energy into a movement to revive the cancelled School of the Arts at Rhinelander.
Late in “A Hard and Heavy Thing,” University of Wisconsin-Madison law student Matthew J. Hefti’s debut novel, Levi Hartwig is drinking with his dad in a bar, more than a year after returning from stints as a soldier in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Katherine Vosters has an up-close, rare view of University of Wisconsin men’s basketball history.
Noted: “A Hard and Heavy Thing” (Tyrus Books), by Matthew J. Hefti. Hefti, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law student, spent 12 years as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. His debut novel takes the form of a desperate letter from a guilt-stricken former sergeant to the friend whose life he saved. Jan. 1.
One of the world’s most precious volumes starts a tour on Monday, in Norman, Okla. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is sending out William Shakespeare’s First Folio to all 50 states, to mark the 400th anniversary of the bard’s death. Published seven years after he died, the First Folio is the first printed collection of all of Shakespeare’s plays.
Noted: A UW-Madison graduate, Shirek also teaches watercolor painting at UW-Madison Wheelhouse Studios and is a commissioned artist. With watercolor as her core medium; she also works with oil, acrylic, gouache, serigraphy (silk-screen), and ceramics. Her art reflects her life experiences that she expresses in pieces as realistic as a photo to pieces as abstract as shapes. Shirek does not limit herself to painting on paper or canvas, but paints on furniture and walls as well.
The buttons and baubles neatly arranged on Jennifer Angus’ work table don’t seem unusual for an artist who specializes in textile design.
Just when we think we’ve seen every concept for custom wallpaper, University of Wisconsin professor Jennifer Angus puts a creative twist on an ancient medium. With an extensive background in textiles, a love for insects and a universal message of ecological insight she has lovingly pieced together these brilliant wallpaper patterns. The designs are so precise that newcomers to the WONDER exhibit at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum could be forgiven for mistaking the walls for a printed pattern, and not some masterpiece of taxidermy.
A book by two UW-Madison instructors on the importance of pop music to U.S. military personnel in Vietnam has been named 2015’s best volume on music by Rolling Stone magazine.
Marianne Fairbanks is an artist and a self-described “textiles nerd.” She’s also a professor of design studies at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Human Ecology, who’s spent much of her career trying to figure out how to make energy sources portable — that is, wearable — by integrating solar power systems into fabric.
Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson speaks with University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor Gay Ivey about the importance of teaching fiction to kids, and what they learn from it that they can’t get elsewhere.
Featured: Prof. Craig Werner, lecturer Doug Bradley and alumnus Charles L. Hughes
The year’s best music reads included open books on a roots-rocker, a dance icon, a punk poet and a rap pioneer; not to mention deep looks at everything from the Vietnam war to the current EDM explosion.
Noted: WPR interviews two guests about UW-Madison’s pioneering First Wave Program that promotes muticultural studies in hip hop and urban arts.
After a decade of producing her own spin on Tchaikovsky’s wildly popular holiday ballet, JoJean Retrum has dropped the “Fantasy” and gone back to her beloved traditional “Nutcracker.”
Noted: The group this year included members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison marching band, two busloads of musicians from local schools and a cadre of individuals who drove in from out of town — or out of state.
The tradition of UW-Madison’s Tudor Holiday Dinner Concerts goes back more than eight decades. But this year there’s something new.
Quoted: Sabine Gross, a professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spoke recently about Hoffmann’s story and the era.Calling Hoffmann one of the “dark Romantics,” she explained that he and many of his literary colleagues had a fascination with folk and fairy tales, as well as stories of the supernatural. The Grimm brothers, who collected and published their versions of such classic folktales as “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty,” also fall under that heading.
The UW-Madison professor of folklore and Scandinavian Studies and Mount Horeb resident was nominated Monday morning in the category of Best Album Notes for one of the annual music awards presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Leary’s project, “Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946” was released by the University of Wisconsin Press and Dust-to-Digital in July. It includes five CDs of folk recordings made decades ago, and his book includes lyrics for all the songs and translations in more than 25 languages.
A sign has been sitting at the corner of Lake and University Streets in downtown Madison for years, announcing the site of a new UW-Madison School of Music building.
Now, a large gift from the Wisconsin Rapids-based Mead Witter Foundation will allow the sign to finally come down next fall and construction to begin on a new building that will house both music classrooms and a large concert hall.
“This was proposed before the 2008 financial crisis and we had some wonderful, generous donors, but the fundraising effort stalled out for some time,” Director of Jazz Studies at UW-Madison Johannes Wallmann said. “Even the most optimistic among us thought it might be decades away.”
Feature on UW-Madison dance professor Li Chiao-Ping, who in April was named a Vilas Research Professor, one of the top honors bestowed by the university.
Q&A with Werner, professor and now the head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Afro-American Studies department. He and co-author Doug Bradley, a UW professor who served in Vietnam, have published a book. “We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War” looks at the songs that soldiers listened to while serving in Vietnam, and what they meant to them.
The foundation of two families that have a long history with the University of Wisconsin has donated $25 million to the UW-Madison School of Music, according to a release.
The 64-year-old Mead Witter Foundation’s gift will provide major funding for the school of music’s new performance building, which is slated to be built at the corner of University Avenue and Lake Street, officials said.
Construction on an expanded music performance building at University Avenue and Lake Street is expected to start next fall thanks to a $25 million gift from the Mead Witter Foundation announced Thursday by UW-Madison. The UW School of Music will be renamed the Mead Witter School of Music in acknowledgment of the gift from the Wisconsin Rapids-based foundation.
WISCONSIN RAPIDS – The Mead Witter Foundation announced Thursday it is giving $25 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music has received a $25 million gift to help construct a new building featuring performance spaces and a large concert hall.
