When Ken Fitzsimmons remembers Davis’s bass-playing, he can see how “he would just sing under his, you know, under his hands.” Davis played music soft as his heart, but his former students like Fitzsimmons say he was as tough as the blisters on his hands. “Warm and tough.”
Richard Davis, the legendary jazz bassist and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus who lived here since 1977, died Wednesday at 93, according to media reports.
As a bassist, Richard Davis enriched the sound not only of jazz recordings by Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones and Sarah Vaughan, but also of rock and pop albums by Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, to name a few.
As a professor for nearly four decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he shaped many young musicians, sharing Black history and cultural experience while teaching the finer points of improvising music.
During the first week of classes for UW Students, the Chazen Museum of Art opened a new exhibit using pieces from its established collection. This exhibit, entitled “Insistence and Persistence,” collects contemporary African Art from the Chazen permanent collection that focuses on experience throughout the African Diaspora.
The large skull sculpture that had been in front of the Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus for nine years was moved inside the museum Thursday because of concerns for its preservation.
The large skull sculpture that had been in front of The Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus for nine years was moved inside the museum Thursday because of concerns for its preservation. Kirstin Pires, the museum’s spokesperson, said there were many reasons behind the move, including the wishes of the artist, 88-year-old Jim Dine.
Indian Dalit theater practitioner Sri Vamsi Matta will be the inaugural academic year-long Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence for 2023-24 in exciting news announced by the University of Wisconsin Madison. UW-Madison Division of the Arts along with the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures will also welcome Vamsi as an educator and visual artist coming from Bengaluru, India.
Victor Jew, a University of Wisconsin–Madison senior lecturer in the Asian American Studies department, said bubble tea is a “pan-ethnic phenomenon.”
It “speaks to a key idea in Asian American studies that you have all these different communities and histories and groups — they can find common ground, which is that pan ethnicity, that decision to identify an umbrella away as Asian American.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor and researcher Nan Li is helping to bridge the gap between scientific research and the creative arts by sparking conversations about the importance of visual representation in understanding scientific concepts.
Ever wanted to learn the Irish language? A program at UW-Madison offers Irish classes to the campus community. And a similar program, along with a weekly conversation circle, is being offered to people outside of campus through the Isthmus Conversation Circle. WORT Reporter Heewone Lim is here today with Dr. Becky Shields, who is an instructor and an academic advisor in the Language Sciences program here at UW-Madison and leading efforts to bring Irish to Madison.
We talk to an expert on early childhood media consumption about the potential harms of unregulated kids’ content on YouTube, and what parents need to be aware of. We also talk to a PBS Wisconsin education engagement specialist about what outreach is being done to help kids and parents make healthy media choices.
And yet 35% of the audience were men. What gives? “The current level of uncertainty and turbulence and anxiety accounts for part of that crossover among genders,” said Nancy Wong, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “People associate ‘Barbie’ with a more comfortable, simple and stable time in their lives.”
The Barbie movie has seen great success at the box office. We talk with Christine Whelan, a UW-Madison consumer science professor, about the doll’s cultural legacy and latest form.
Chris Walker, director for the Division of the Arts at UW-Madison, spoke to the liveliness of the artistic work being done in the city, as well as the importance of stewardship in how we treat the earth. “Thank you for such a beautiful contribution to our city,” said Walker. “Earlier, someone said that the collaboration between our campus and our city can be challenging. Some of the work that the Division of the Arts is trying to do is to alleviate some of those barriers. Making this type of outcome the norm and more common, because of the brilliant work that is happening on our campus.”
Q: I know you also work full time at UW-Madison. Did you take time off to finish “I Know What You Did?”
A: When I get excited about an idea, I take any possible time I can find to write. I do lunch hours, evenings and weekends. I do occasionally take myself on mini writing retreats.
Speaking of food, a pair of University of Wisconsin food science graduate students won “The Amazing Race 25,” winning the globetrotting contest that featured 11 teams.
Recent developments at UW-Madison’s Division of the Arts will see Kayla McGhee as the new arts outreach and engagement coordinator to build connections between the Division and campus partners, along with the local creative industry and community.
The Milwaukee music festival said early Sunday that Yung Gravy, the rapper and University of Wisconsin-Madison alum who headlined Summerfest’s Generac Power Stage Friday night, will perform at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater at 7:30 p.m. July 6. Admission to the concert will be free with general admission to Summerfest.
The Madison premiere of “Falcon Lake” kicks off the UW Cinematheque summer series at 7 p.m. Wednesday at 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave. The screening is free, and seating is first-come, first-serve.
Anne Boyer is a poet and an essayist. Her memoir about cancer and care, “The Undying,” won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. Jennifer Nelson is the author of three books of poems: “Aim at the Centaur Stealing Your Wife” (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015), “Civilization Makes Me Lonely” (Ahsahta Press, 2017) and most recently “Harm Eden” (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021). They are also an assistant professor of early modern art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of two art history books,
AUW-Madison choir group founded in the late 19th century that brought together students, alumni and community members has been disbanded as the university seeks to shift resources to more student-centric offerings.
According to new numbers from UW-Madison, diversity is growing in the books read by kids, not only in the characters they read about but also in the people who make them.
Actor Hans Obma wrote and starred in an original film that was an official selection of one of the biggest film festivals in the world. The Wisconsinite and 4th generation University of Wisconsin-Madison alum wrote and starred in his original film “A Question of Service.”
If you’re looking to flex those creative and artistic muscles this summer, Wheelhouse Studios located on the lower level of Memorial Union invites you to indulge.
The American author talks about growing up queer in a family of ‘wolves’, poverty and class in the US, and the 19th-century writers who inspired his latest novel.
Poem by Paul Tran, a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Their début poetry collection, “All the Flowers Kneeling,” was published in 2022. They teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Excerpt from “Cave of Bones” by Lee Berger and John Hawks, paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A collaborative project to reinterpret and reimagine problematic works of art has culminated into a months-long exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art. We speak to Sanford Biggers, the lead of “re:mancipation.”
The novel follows the lives and loves of a group of graduate students and townies in Iowa City, home of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where Taylor earned an MFA after getting a master’s degree in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ensemble will perform Slavic and East-European music Saturday night at first live performance in four years.
“Lifting the Veil” empowers through symbolism while starting important conversations about American history.
We talk with Michael Childers, a professor in the UW-Madison School for Workers and Department of Labor Education, and an entertainment reporter about the latest in the second week of a massive Hollywood writers strike.
Hans Obma credits his time at UW-Madison where he took theater classes and studied Spanish, French and German which, he says, is why he usually plays foreign characters in films. That includes the one he created that will be played in Cannes.
The language sciences department will offer a semester-long introductory ASL course starting this summer and fall. Next spring, the department will also add a second level ASL course.
The opera is about a real person, Omar ibn Said, and is based on his autobiography A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar ibn Said, written in 1831, mostly in Arabic. The work was translated into English by Ala Alryyes and published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2011.
’What makes this group special is that everyone cares,’ BFG president says.
Technological changes and attacks on media have eroded public trust in journalism and the news media. Sue Robinson, a UW-Madison journalism professor, joins us to share her new book on how journalists can better engage their communities and build trust with their audiences.
Noted: Directed and developed by Rachel Chavkin, the musical “Hadestown” has two important Wisconsin connections. University of Wisconsin alum André De Shields won a Tony for originating the show-stopping role of Hermes on Broadway. And in Mitchell’s 2010 concept album version of “Hadestown,” Orpheus was sung by Justin Vernon, aka Mr. Bon Iver.
In 2020, as statues of Confederate generals and other contentious historical images were being taken down in many cities, Sanford Biggers, the acclaimed New York-based contemporary artist, and Amy Gilman, the director of the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, were watching with keen interest.
The coalition is made up of more than 100 organizations from across Wisconsin, including the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Kids from Wisconsin, the UW-Madison Division of the Arts, and Dane Arts.
One of the biggest “Jeopardy!” winners of all time, Amodio, a native of Medina, Ohio, earned a master’s degree in artificial intelligence from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2017. He won 38 contests on the show in July through October of 2021, and returned in 2022 to play an exhibition match against fellow mega-winners Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach before bowing out in the semifinals in the 2022 Tournament of Champions.
Carla Vigue is the director of tribal relations for the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her work at the school includes building relationships with tribal nations, communities, and organizations. She was recently named an influential leader in the state.
The ceremony took place in the Great Hall at Memorial Union with a collection of University of Wisconsin-Madison staff members, filmmakers, undergraduate students and community members celebrating the art of cinema and demonstrating continued support for Wisconsin filmmakers.
If the Wisconsin Film Festival seems a little daunting to you, with 160 films crammed into eight days, director of operations Ben Reiser knows just how you feel.
Dance Elite is allowed to practice at the Nicholas Recreation Center regularly for no cost because of their relationship with RecWell, according to member Erin Anderson. They also receive university funding for their organization.
There are many different ways to view footwear, a fact not lost on “Hand Made in America,” a popular exhibit at the Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery at UW-Madison’s Center for Design and Material Culture through May 14.
Other showings of the 160 films scheduled for this year’s fest, which runs through April 20, will be on the UW-Madison campus. Venues are Shannon Hall in Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.; the Chazen Museum of Art, 750 University Ave.; UW Cinematheque, 821 University Ave.; and The Marquee, on the second floor of Union South, 1308 Dayton St. UW-Madison students can receive a free ticket to any film with available seating by using their Wiscard at a box office location or at the door.
UW-Madison is set to launch a Chicana/o and Latina/o bachelor’s degree this fall as the department has seen exploding enrollment in the department’s certificate program over the past decade, director Rubén Medina said. The major was approved by the UW Board of Regents at its March meeting.
When the pandemic closed the Chazen Museum of Art in 2020, director Amy Gilman began to repeat a message to her team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Field Day Lab in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research is creating online video games to be used as learning tools for students. We talk to Sarah Gagnon, creative director for the Field Day Lab in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the UW–Madison School of Education, about their latest games and how they work.
Mead Witter School of Music puts on exciting evening for symphony fans.
’We’re the only long-standing institution that provides these services in the way that we do,’ CCBC director says.
Quoted: On the other side of the debate is Mark Seidenberg, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the leading scientists cited by advocates for the science of reading. Seidenberg said there is a large volume of research that sheds light on how children learn to read and that supports the science of reading approach.
Can using such approaches raise the overall success of kids in becoming readers? “I think it’s huge,” Seidenberg said in an interview.
Noted: Daunted by the serialist compositional style that held sway in academia, Mr. Johnson turned to visual art. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a bachelor’s degree in art in 1974 and then drove a cab in Madison for a year to finance his move to New York City in 1975.
On the heels of the exhibition “Sifting and Reckoning: UW-Madison’s History of Exclusion and Resistance,” which dealt with the university’s past prejudicial activity, the Chazen Museum of Art has unveiled a new art insulation that takes aim at some of the art in its own galleries.
This year’s headliners, who will perform across at least seven stages at Maier Festival Park, range from singer-songwriter Noah Kahan (fresh off a sold-out Miller High Life Theatre show in February) to University of Wisconsin graduate and tongue-in-cheek rapper Yung Gravy to Oscar-winning hip-hop veterans Three 6 Mafia to indie rock royalty Fleet Foxes, The War on Drugs and Japanese Breakfast.
The key partnerships for the book festival are endless: the creative writing folks at UW between the Center for Humanities, between all the different cultural studies, programs, and all those specific sectors within the university, but also just in our community. Accessing all of those partnerships, and making myself available to all of those partnerships, all of that is another way to build diversity in the programming.
He had vocal training in junior high and high school, then went on to study voice at the University of Wisconsin.
For an orchestra conductor, raising the baton at the start of a concert is a tiny fraction of the job. “I’d say it’s about 5% of what we do,” says Andrew Sewell, music director for the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.
It’s that other 95% that Kelby Schnepel and Daewon Kang are learning as graduate students at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music — and now as the first recipients of a new conducting fellowship with the WCO.
