Painted Music: The Art of Sound, The Sound of Art
Friday, January 25, at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, January 26, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

Award-winning composer/pianist Jerzy Sapieyevski blends expressive piano virtuosity with the harmony of color and rhythm. Painted Music is a dynamic multimedia event in which painters – in live performance – interact and respond directly to the sounds, notes, and rhythm of a piano while the canvas becomes a musical instrument. The result is a groundbreaking and visionary artistic inquiry of modern expression.

Created and directed by Jerzy Sapieyevski

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center , Abramson Family Recital Hall

Alan Mandel, piano
Monday, January 28, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

Continuing our celebration of composers, American University Professor Emeritus Alan Mandel performs works by composers of the romantic era, including Beethoven, Chopin, and Schumann.

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center , Abramson Family Recital Hall

Arts in the Rotunda
Wednesday, January 30, 2008, at 12:00 p.m.

Informal performances and events feature Department of Art and Department of Performing Arts students.

Admission is free.

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center , Rotunda

Music Faculty Recital: The Other Side of Barbara
Friday, February 1, 2008, at 8:00 p.m

Renowned singer Barbara Hollinshead, well known to area audiences as an early music specialist, is also a profound interpreter of later music. Please join us for a collaborative recital featuring voice and piano in a program of music from the nineteenth century forward, featuring works by Wolf, Brahms, and de Falla.

Barbara Hollinshead, mezzo-soprano
Mary Gottlieb, piano

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

Sound Investments: How Music Shapes Our Lives
Monday, February 4, 2008, at 7:00 p.m

Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, continues the exploration of the role music has in our lives. The discussion will focus on why we need to address the whole person in order to have a healthy and productive society, and why the arts, and music in particular, are so critical in that process.

Admission is free.

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

A Theatrical Celebration of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson
Thursday, February 7, 2008, at 10:30 a.m. - High School Matinee.
Thursday, February 7, at 8:00 p.m.
Friday, February 8, at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 9, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

Hansberry and Wilson permanently changed the landscape of American theatre with their poignant and brilliantly crafted portrayals of African American life. Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun took Broadway by storm in 1959. Plays in Wilson’s 10-play cycle have won numerous Pulitzer Prizes and Drama Desk Awards. This staged reading will examine the life and art of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson through performances of scenes and monologues. Post-performance discussions will feature guests familiar with Hansberry’s and Wilson’s work.

Caleen Sinnette Jennings, director

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Studio Theatre

Machinal
Thursday, February 14, at 8:00 p.m.
Friday, February 15, at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 16, 2008, at 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 16, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

Journalist-playwright Sophie Treadwell wrote her nightmarish tale at the height of the American Expressionist movement. Based on the sensationalized 1927 trial of Ruth Snyder, an adulteress accused of murdering her husband, Machinal explores the oppressive nature of the male-dominated society in the 1920s. It paints a portrait of an ordinary but gentle young woman trapped and alienated by a mechanized, industrial world without love or means of escape. Her hopelessness leads to an egregious crime, ultimately demonstrating the tragic consequences of isolation in a contemporary world.

Written by Sophie Treadwell
Cara Gabriel, director

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Harold and Sylvia Greenberg Theatre

American University Chamber Singers: Musica Nordica: Choral Works from the Three Kingdoms
Saturday, February 23, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 24, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

This music program features diverse music from the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Known for their rich folk music traditions, the three countries of the north also uphold a very beautiful, profound, and challenging tradition of choral art music. Please join us on this magical and diverse journey exploring music of the Nordic choral tradition.

Daniel Abraham, conductor and director of choral activities

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

Arts in the Rotunda
Wednesday, February 27, 2008, at 12:00 p.m.

Informal performances and events feature Department of Art and Department of Performing Arts students.

Admission is free.

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center , Rotunda

Russian Spring
American University Symphony Orchestra
Friday, February 29, 2008, at 8:00 p.m. - Open Dress Rehearsal
Saturday, March 1, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 2, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

The American University Symphony Orchestra continues a season dedicated to celebrating the anniversaries of major composers. Selections include Igor Stravinsky’s Suite No. 1, Suite No. 2, and Suite from the Firebird, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture. Winners of the 2007-2008 Concerto and Aria Competition are featured.

Jesus Manuel Berard, conductor and director of orchestral activities
Featuring winners of the 2007-2008 AU Concerto and Aria Competition

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students; open dress rehearsal is free.

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

The Atrium Series: Bringing Music to the People
Thursday, March 20, 2008, at 12:00 p.m.

The Department of Performing Arts presents informal recitals for the community to enjoy. Please come support our students and guest performers as they demonstrate their talents.

Admission is free.

@ Battelle-Tompkins Atrrium

Arts in the Rotunda
Wednesday, March 26, 2008, at 12:00 p.m.

Informal performances and events feature Department of Art and Department of Performing Arts students.

Admission is free.

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center , Rotunda

Yom Hashoah: Let Us Remember
American University Chorus
Saturday, March 29, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 30, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

As a prelude to Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah, the AU Chorus presents a program of psalm settings from the early seventeenth century by Salamone Rossi and Washington, DC, composer Donald McCullough’s stirring Holocaust Cantata –Songs of the Camps and We Remember.

Daniel Abraham, conductor and director of choral activities

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

The Atrium Series: Bringing Music to the People
Thursday, April 3, 2008, at 12:00 p.m.

The Department of Performing Arts presents informal recitals for the community to enjoy. Please come support our students and guest performers as they demonstrate their talents.

Admission is free.

@ Battelle-Tompkins Atrrium

Annual Early Music Program
American University Chamber Singers
Saturday, April 5, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 6, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

Join the AU Chamber Singers for their annual early music program for voices and period instruments. This collection of works by Baroque composers includes Dietrich Buxtehude’s Ad pedes: Ecce super montes, William Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Motet Jesu, meine Freude.

Daniel Abraham, conductor and director of choral activities

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

Do I Hear A Waltz?
Thursday, April 10, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Friday, April 11, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 12, 2008, at 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 12, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

This musical play tells the story of a single thirty-something American woman who, while on vacation in Venice, falls in love for the first time. Her hopes of a lasting relationship with a handsome Italian are dashed when he reveals that he is married. This musical beautifully explores the reality of falling in love in spite of the fear of a broken heart.

Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Arthur Laurents
Based on the play “The Time of the Cuckoo” by Arthur Laurents
Carl Menninger, director
Keith Tittermary, music director

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Harold and Sylvia Greenberg Theatre

The Gorenman Beethoven Project
Friday, April 11, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

In the second of eight recitals, American University Musician-in-Residence Yuliya Gorenman presents four sonatas for piano by Ludwig van Beethoven including Sonata No. 5 in C Minor, Op. No. 1 (1795-97); Sonata No. 6 in F Major, Op. 10, No. 2 (1796-97); Sonata No. 7 in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3 (1797-98); and Sonata 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 “Pathétique” (1797-98).

Yuliya Gorenman, piano

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

American University Gospel Choir
Saturday, April 12, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

The American University Gospel Choir renders a concert of spirituals, traditional gospel, and contemporary gospel music. Come and enjoy the hand-clapping, toe-tapping, swaying songs to uplift the soul.

Sylstea C. Sledge, director

Admission is free.

@ Kay Spritual Life Center

A Tribute to American Music
American University Wind Ensemble
Saturday, April 12, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

The American University Wind Ensemble presents A Tribute to American Music, featuring some of our nation’s greatest compositions and our 2008 Concerto Competition winner. The concert will include Sousa’s timeless The Washington Post March and the navy hymn by Claude Smith, Eternal Father, Strong to Save. The concert will conclude with A Copland Portrait, featuring Aaron Copland’s most famous works, Fanfare for the Common Man, Appalachian Spring, and Hoe Down.

Michael Rossi, director

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

The Atrium Series: Bringing Music to the People
Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 12:00 p.m.

The Department of Performing Arts presents informal recitals for the community to enjoy. Please come support our students and guest performers as they demonstrate their talents.

Admission is free.

@ Battelle-Tompkins Atrrium

Still (in) Motion: American University Dance Program
Friday, April 18, at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 19, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

Our spring dance concert presents selections of new work in a variety of genres and styles, representing the new face of the dance program and the diversity of dance within American University’s dance community. Choreographers include Vladimir Angelov, faculty members Robert Esposito and Lora Ruttan, and selected students and guest choreographers.

Vladimir Angelov, director

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Harold and Sylvia Greenberg Theatre

The Majesty of the Blues
American University Jazz Ensemble Concert
Friday, April 18, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.

One of the most important ingredients in jazz is the blues. Its hallowed sound rings throughout the many eras of jazz music and echoes in the melodies of countless jazz standards. Tonight we pay tribute to the origins of jazz: the dignified and harmonious blues.

William Smith, director

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall

Senior Capstone
Thursday, April 24, at 8:00 p.m.
Friday, April 25, at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 26, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.

Join us in celebration as our senior theatre and music majors present the culmination of their work in the capstone performances.

Karl Kippola, director

Tickets: $5

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Studio Theatre

American University Chorus and Symphony Orchestra
Friday, April 25, 2008, at 8:00 p.m. - Open Dress Rehearsal
Saturday, April 26, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 27, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

The American University Chorus and the American University Symphony Orchestra conclude their 2007-2008 season by joining forces in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

Jesus Manuel Berard, conductor and director of orchestral activities
Daniel Abraham, director of choral activities

Tickets: $15 general; $10 AU community members; $5 students; open dress rehearsal is free.

 

@ Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall