A very warm welcome to all of you to the 37th Annual Showcase of the Arts. We are so privileged, we
feel so privileged to welcome you. My name is Ingelore Welch, and I'm co-president with Peggy Bachman,
and I hope you very much enjoy this show. It's been our privilege to present. I want to add my
Blessings on all of you who came out of your gardens and came here today. We're so pleased to have you
see our award winners. And also, you'll have an opportunity to meet the chairs of these competitions,
people who do all the hard work. Thank you. Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome
to the 37th annual showcase of the Arts of the Bloomington Chapter
of the National Society of Arts and Letters. I am Murray McGibbon, and I'll be your Master of Ceremonies
for the program this afternoon, which will feature the top award winners of our 2003 competitions in
the arts. After the performances, we will present the awards in these competitions. The program today
will deviate a bit from the printed program. Daishan Chang's accompanist has to leave to play at a recital
later this afternoon, so Daishan will appear in the early portion of the program.
and Elisa Torres will close out the first half of the program. We begin with Sarah Smith. Sarah, from
Boca Raton in Florida, is at present a freshman in the ballet department of the School of Music at Indiana
University, and she plans to major in ballet performance with an outside field of nutrition science.
She began studying ballet at the Boca Ballet Theater when she was 11. By the time that she was a freshman
in high school,
She was attending the Harrod Conservatory, and after graduating, she spent a year training at the Joffrey
Ballet School in New York City. She has had starring roles in productions of La Bayadaire, The Nutcracker,
and Swan Lake. This next summer, she will spend six weeks training intensively at the American Ballet
Theater in New York City. For us, she will perform a variation from La Bayadaire. Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Sarah Smith,
Yeah.
Sam Wotton comes from Marietta, Georgia, and is completing his first year in the Master of Fine Arts
program in acting at Indiana University. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of
Georgia, where he appeared in productions of The Rivals, Buried Child, All Men Are Whores, and The Tempest.
Since arriving at Indiana University, he has performed in Art and Lysistrata, and this summer he will
be seen in Picasso at the La Panagile,
at the Brown County Playhouse. Today, he will present portions of William Shakespeare's Taming of the
Shrew and Neil LeBout's The Shape of Things. Thus have I politically begun my reign. It is my hope to
end successfully. My falcon now is sharp and passing empty. And till she's stew, she must not be forgorged.
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard to make her come, know her keeper's call, that is to watch her
as we watch these kites that bait and beat and will not be
There the bolster, this way the coverlet, another way the sheets. Aye, and amid this hurley, I intend
that all is done in reverent care of her. And in conclusion, she shall watch all night. And if she chants
to nod, I'll rail and brawl, and with the clamor keep her still awake. This is the way to go.
mad and had strong humor. He that knows better how to tame a shrew, and now let him speak to his charity
to show. When Picasso took his shit, he didn't call it a sculpture. He knew the difference. That's what
made him Picasso. And if I'm wrong about that, I mean, if I totally missed the point
and somehow puking up your own little shitty neuroses all over people's laps is actually art, then you
ought to realize that there's a price to it all. And somebody pays for people like you. Someone pays
for your two minutes on CNN. They always pay for people like you. And if you can't get that, if you
can't see that much, then you're about two inches away from using babies to make lampshades and calling
it furniture. I know they call it the art scene, but that's not all it should make.
There should be more than that. Anybody can be shocking or provocative, or stand up in class or the
mall, take a piss, paint themselves blue, run screaming through the church on the means of people that
they've slept with. But is it art? Or did somebody just forget to take their Ritalin? For art to exist,
there has to be a line. There has to be a line out there somewhere. A line between really saying something
Cheng is from a family of bassists in the city of Harbin in northeast China. He began playing the double
bass at the age of nine and is admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing when he was
10. In 2000, he graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy and he now studies with Lawrence Hurst in
the Artist Diploma Program at Indiana University. Cheng has won a number of prestigious awards.
These include first prize in the 2001 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition, grand prize
in the two-year long American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition, first prize in
the 2002 Young Artists Competition of the Women's Auxiliary of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, and
first prize in the 2003 Young Concert Artists Auditions. At the auditions, he also received five special prizes.
the Clare Toe Prize, which sponsors his New York debut on May the 18th, 2004, the Washington Performing
Arts Society Prize, a Washington, D.C. debut at the Kennedy Center, the La Jolla Chamber Music Society
Prize, the Orchestra New England Prize, and the Fergus Prize. Quite exhausted after reading all those.
For us this afternoon, he will play a number by Pablo de Sarasate. Please put your hands together for
Daishan Chang.
Kim McGlynn was born in South Korea, adopted by her parents, and grew up in Lower Marion, Pennsylvania,
just outside Philadelphia. She attended a Quaker high school, and then Oberlin College, from which she
graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing, English, and Religion. Currently, she
is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction, as well as a Master of Arts in Literature at
Indiana University. Previously, she has received honorable mentions
in competitions for the Diane Vruels Fiction Award at Oberlin College and the Lois Davis Ellison Award
at Indiana University. This afternoon, she will read selections from her short story, Grace. Hi. I'm
going to read two passages from my short story, Grace. But before I do that, I'm going to give a brief
plot synopsis. The title character and narrator is a woman in her late 30s named Grace who is living
just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She's a working artist and she teaches a Wednesday evening class on basic sculpture for some extra income.
Two characters you need to know for this section are Josh, her ex-husband, who she still talks to on
the phone and may in fact still be a little bit in love with, and Dean, a man in her sculpture class
who only has one arm and who she's starting to build a relationship with. Also, Ernest is a character
who appears very briefly, another man who's taking the sculpture class.
I'm going to read a selection from the beginning of the piece, which relates back story concerning Grace's
relationship with Josh. And then I'm going to skip to a scene from the middle of the story where Grace
is getting to know Dean. So if you're following along, the first selection begins on page two and the
second begins on page 13. After Josh decided he was leaving Arizona, there was no reason for me to stay.
Back east to the land of snow and ice, Josh said when I told him I was leaving too. He was blowing dust
off his camera lens before wrapping it in a soft cloth and packing it up. And he pretended to blow it
in my direction the way a fairy blows magic off her palm. We weren't really speaking so much at the
time, just asking questions like what went wrong and was this yours or mine? Questions we mostly knew
the answers to.
or at least it seemed that way. So I answered him honestly. Away from the land of sun and heat, I said,
back home, or what feels like it. I grew up just outside of Philadelphia in Lower Marion, right down
the street from my apartment now. My parents moved to Wisconsin after I graduated from college some
17 years ago. But even they still refer to Lower Marion as home. They swear they will never move again.
They like to be rooted somewhere, and I don't blame them. It's why I moved back here after I got divorced,
back to the place I grew up. Shortridge Park with the same stream I caught minnows in when I was six.
The same shopping center, although the food fair changed to a shop right when I was living in Arizona,
and has changed to an Old Navy in the few years that I've been here. The same loud man who yells at
his daughters, sweet women with round faces, and who works at the pizza place in Narberth.
Unlike my parents and me, Josh likes locational change. He's a wildlife photographer and he's moved
all around the country from Louisiana to North Dakota to Maine taking pictures of animals that interest
him. He's gone to other countries too. He's got pictures of everything from manatees in South Florida
to meerkats in the Kalahari Desert. Currently, he's in Minnesota studying a pack of timber wolves who
he's named the Daniel Seven.
Why Daniels? I asked him. For David Daniels, he told me, the countertenor from that Scarlatti CD I gave
you last Christmas. He paused, and I could picture him smiling, his eyes dark and polished like dried
beans, his beard a content shade of black. When we were together, I begged him to shave his beard because
it made him look too mysterious. As if he was always scowling or smirking, I couldn't tell which, but
he hadn't.
I always told him that was the beginning of the end, though of course I knew better. In the end, he
was gone for weeks at a time, away on various projects, camping out like a middle-aged boy scout.
In the end, we drifted apart or maybe just realized that we hadn't been so similar in the first place.
In the end, he said he had his career and I told him I'd had an affair. In the end, he moved to Minnesota
and I moved back home.
Because wolves have beautiful voices, I told him after a minute, because they sing cantatas to the moon.
I always knew exactly what he meant, even when things were bad between us. Like I knew he was leaving
when he came in from the desert that night and told me that he'd found a lizard tail lying by the side
of the road, dropped from the claws of a hawk. Knew it by the way he held it in his hands, a cool and
scaly piece of broken flesh,
but precious, the discarding of something necessary in order for a creature to live. This is the second
selection. Tonight, Dean asked me again if I'd like to go smoke with him. He asks as if he knows I'll
say no, as if he's asking because it's a ritual now, and he seems to be looking forward to it, his eyes
sardonic, his shoulders already turning to the door.
So tonight I say yes, because I hate it when people assume, because I can see him leaving already.
All right, I tell him, I wouldn't mind. I can feel Ernest gaze upon me, speculative, his eyes inquiring,
but I don't turn to face him. I think Ernest likes me and I know that he likes Dean. I can see it in
his eyes when he talks to him, a certain light in his eyes when he jokes with him, the kind of respect
that men show each other, rough and affectionate,
The way they jostle shoulders or clap each other on the back to say they love each other. Perhaps Ernest
approves. I walk in silence behind Dean and we stand in silence together outside. It's starting to get
dark early and I can see the moon off behind the trees in the parking lot. It's slight and curved like
a fingernail sliver. I shiver a little bit and Dean starts as if he's just now aware of me. You're cold, he says.
I shake my head. Someone walked over my grave, I tell him, and he smiles. He doesn't offer me his jacket
the way most men would do, just nods and smiles, accepting what I've said. Instead, he offers me a smoke,
flicking his wrist, the cigarette rising perfectly out of the pack toward me, and when I take it from
him, he lights it for me without asking.
He's so quick that I hardly notice how he's done it, maneuvering the lighter from the palm of his hand
and up to his thumb, holding the cigarette pack between his pinky and ring finger as if he's just trying
to be cool. He takes a cigarette for himself. In the dark, he looks calm and something else too, the
way boys looked when I was younger, the cigarette glowing red with promise with each inhalation, a breath
of certainty.
In the dark, it looks like his left arm is whole, as if he's just resting his hand in his left pants
pocket. How did it happen? I don't mean to ask him, but I do. I'm immediately sorry, and I take a drag
of my cigarette, embarrassed that I had to start this way, but he doesn't seem surprised. He doesn't
seem angry either. Accident when I was 17, he shrugs casually, car that is.
I nod and then realize he might not have seen me. He is looking to the west across the parking lot which
glitters with broken glass at the moon behind the trees. I clear my throat, but he doesn't turn toward
me. I almost died, he continues. He shrugs again. I was lucky to just lose an arm. Lucky, I repeat after
him, wondering how he can say this. And he smiles as if he knows what I'm thinking. I can see the gleam
of his teeth in the light.
Now he turns to me and I can see his eyes in the dark, sparkling like bits of mica. He steps closer
to me and I let him brush a strand of hair from my eyes. Funny, I think, the way men always know to
do that. The way they know how it gets you every time, that putting back into place, that small gesture
done in care of you. Lucky, he says again, and it sounds like a song.
Jenna Wolf hails from Atlanta, Georgia and is a freshman honors college student at Indiana University
planning to double major in ballet and business. She commenced her classical ballet studies at the age
of four and she joined the Ruth Mitchell Dance Theater when she was eight and continued dancing for
the next 10 years in the company's productions of The Nutcracker and other ballets. She spent her summers
training at the North Carolina School of the Arts and Pacific Northwest Ballet summer dance programs
on full scholarship.
Before arriving at IU, she performed soloist roles at the Southeast Regional Ballet's Gala performances
and at the Spiletto Arts Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Since coming to IU, she has appeared
with the Indiana University Ballet Theater in several works, including The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.
She will dance a variation from Peter Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. Please welcome Jenna Wolf.
Amix will receive his Master of Fine Arts in Acting from Indiana University in May. On the IU stage,
he has been seen in Moon for the Misbegotten, Skopino, Waiting for Godot, Translations, and Life During
Wartime. He has also acted with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival Company at Boise State University and
the Bloomington Playwrights Project. He is producing a play in New York this summer. Today, we will
hear him in roles from Steven Dietz's 10 November,
and William Shakespeare's King Lear, Ira Amickx. Hello, everyone. I will be doing Edmund from King Lear
and John Salem from 10 November. This is the excellent phabery of the world, that when we are sick and
fortunate, often the surface of our own behavior
We made guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were felons on necessity,
fools on heavenly compulsion, naves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance, drunkards,
liars, and adulterers by some enforced obedience of planetary infamy.
to lay his goatish dispositions for the charge of a star. My father compounded with my mother under
the dragon's tail. My nativity is under Ursa Major, so thus it follows I am born.
Tomorrow I'm a little better.
Lisa Torres is a native of Puerto Rico and began her harp studies in 1987 at the Conservatory of Puerto
Rico. After completing her studies at the Conservatory, she went on to earn a bachelor's degree in harp
at Indiana University under distinguished professor Suzanne MacDonald. And she is at present completing
her master's degree in harp performance at IU. She has been an active performer in Puerto Rico playing
with the San Juan Pops and in 1998
with the Puerto Rican Symphony Orchestra in the renowned Castles Festival. Elisa has also collaborated
in popular music recordings with various artists. She will play for us pieces by Maria Auguste Durand
and Bernard Andres. Ladies and gentlemen, Elisa Torres.
Welcome back. Our second half of the program opens with Chris Nelson, who is completing his third year
in the MFA program in acting at Indiana University. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, he has performed
in A Streetcar Named Desire, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Much Ado About Nothing, Parade, God's Country,
Translations, and Equus for IU. He has also appeared in Murder Among Friends, One for the Pot, and the
Miss Firecracker Contest
at the Brown County Playhouse and in the Three Little Kittens and the Queen of Hearts at the Birmingham
Children's Theatre in Alabama. Chris's hobbies include baseball and other team sports, reading and civil
war history. His selections for us will be from Italian American Reconciliation by John Patrick Shanley
and Othello by William Shakespeare.
You get the Hong Kong flu. You get rid of it. And now you want it back. She killed your dog. The woman
shot your dog with a zip gun, and now you want it back? Ah, Huey, Huey, why? What are you telling me
here? Oh, your life doesn't mean anything without a why. I'm not going to argue with you there. I don't
know whether your life means anything or not. Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Who cares? Why should
your life mean anything? My life doesn't mean anything. Maybe that's the good news.
meant something when you were with Janice. Yeah, and then heartache, screaming, bad food, and finally
a dead dog. Is this something to miss? Listen, Huey, a lot of people have an expression of this problem.
They had something really horrible for a really long time, then they get away from it, and then they
miss it. They want the horrible thing back, but only in the very, very blandest, stupidest way. This
is where friends come in. Friends are those people appointed in your life to blow the whistle when you're insane.
I didn't hear from you for a while. I call you, no answer. So immediately when I thought about it, I
figured you were having some kind of mental episode. So I'm your friend. I'm here to do my job.
Wake up! The Casio loves sir, I do well to believe it. And she loves him.
albeit that I adore him not, is of a constant, noble, loving nature. And I dare think he'll prove to
Desimona our most dear husband. Now, I do love her, too. Not out of absolute lust, though, per adventure,
I stand accountant for his great assent. But partly that die at my revenge, but that I do suspect the
lusty more have lept into my seat, a thought whereof doth, like a poisonous mingle, gnaw my n-words
and nothing
nor shall content my soul till I am even with him, wife for wife, or fail myself, yet that I put the
moor at least into a jealousy so strong that judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do with this poor
trash of Venice, my thrash? Stand the poor
and reward me for making him egregiously an ass and practicing upon his peace and quiet, even to madness.
It is here, and yet confused, never his plain face is never seen to amuse. Thank you. Robert Bonerski
is a student in the School of Music.
at IU majoring in ballet with an outside field in chemistry and biology. And he's currently the Chancellor's
Scholar for the School of Music. Before coming to IU, he trained at the Chicago Academy for the Arts
and the San Francisco Ballet School. And he also attended the summer program at the Pacific Northwest
Ballet School. He has performed in many of these ballets presented by IU's Ballet Department. Most recently,
Four Temperaments by George Balanchine and Homage to Hamo,
by NSAL member Violet Verdi. Today he will dance Gopak, a Russian character dance. Please welcome Robert Bonerski.
Misty Hopper comes from Georgia and is a first year student in the MFA creative writing program at IU.
She began reading and writing poetry in 1997 through a governor honors program. But when she finished
high school, she went to Georgia Tech to major in industrial design. After two quarters, however, she
switched her major to science, technology, and culture, Georgia Tech's equivalent of an English major.
Then during the spring semester of her junior year, she took a workshop with visiting poet Thomas Lux,
who encouraged her to apply to Master of Fine Arts programs, an option she had never considered before.
While at Georgia Tech, she published poetry in Erato, the school's literary magazine. Misty will be
representing the Bloomington chapter of the NSAL at the National Competition in Poetry in Lexington,
Kentucky in May, where the top prize is $10,000.
She's going to read for us three poems from her entry in that competition. The first poem I'd like to
read is titled Slips of the Eye. Say it's late afternoon and the sky's got a bloody nose. Say a woman
on a green bicycle sees a blue warped canvas cresting a trash pile, a crude painting, half sea and shore,
half sky, three sailboats bubbling the horizon,
The canvas is cracked and weathered, its signature a year numbed off an old coin. Say she bikes off
with this sea painting, and as she turns a street corner, the sea breaks on a telephone pole and folds
inward like a child called stupid. Say it. Or an injured bird wings buckling, and they begin to careen.
Say all of this, the wobbling,
The color of the bike, the ruined canvas, brings you two things at once. One, how in some novelist's
diary, Virginia Woolf, you mistook mother's having the seats painted green as mother's having the seas
painted green. Say you saw tan sailors floating on yellow inner tubes, paint brushes greening shingled waves.
A man who used to pedal by your porch, a trash bag of aluminum cans on his shoulders, boom box in a
basket. How one day he rode by with a handwritten biblical sign, something about evil de-storying us.
And the second poem is Frank Leaves Missouri for the first time.
Frank spent the summer on sabbatical from the family abattoir. He went to Italy to sit in gondolas and
walk through cathedrals and pigeon flocks. He came back with souvenirs and recipes, back to his wife,
religious and plump, back to his brick butchery, squat as a stump with its cement floors and the bowels
and beef flanks, the hog teeth and tongues, surplus lungs. He flew back to gravy, the lawnmower,
TV back to shaped like a boot ain't it Frank say something in Italian and was it pretty Frank Frank
came back like a boomerang saying yeah it was real pretty real pretty he came back like a tumor purple
and fisted nobody thought to ask why he returned if they had he might have said because the things here
they inherit you
Often as his knife swims silver through the meat and then stumbles through the joints, he sees again
the statues left incomplete, the stone heads frilled at their neck bottoms, the men's arms cut off at
the wrist as if sculpting the hand would have been too difficult. What to do with it? Have it waving
or holding something? Bracing the hip or drooping beside?
Scientists say homing pigeons have magnetite inside their brains. Like a net, it drags them home. And
the last poem is Wednesday morning ballet lessons at the nursing home. Three lanky men and seven ladies
twirl across the parlor floor, heirlooms, china teapots looping near a table's edge.
A nurse who hoped to be a ballerina gives instruction. Ralph wears a yellow tutu and slacks. Anne's
bunion-toed. One's frail hipbones, seashells. Lizzie holds a baby doll. Three wear silver slippers.
Rose drools. Albert's a creaking top that cannot spin for long. And Johnny's humming.
Mary skipped today because a girl has come from beauty school to style hair free of charge. She's not
so good yet. Mary needs her hair a sturdy black again. The girl is standing, moving hands through white
hair thin as Bible pages. She sees hair lately even where there's none. The wisteria against the window,
for instance, hangs like purple beards.
she saw the same thing almost yesterday, while Ralph ate holding a bunch of grapes to his mouth.
Thank you. Michael Namorovsky began his piano studies at the age of seven in his native city of Moscow
and gave his first recital at the age of nine at the Nesson School of Music. After emigrating to Israel,
where he studied at the Rubin Conservatory,
He moved to New York to study at the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently a student of Edward
Ayer at Indiana University and working towards a master's degree. Michael was twice the recipient of
the Karen Sharrett Award in Israel, first prize winner in the Cozzi Yusko Foundation Chopin Competition
in New York, the Misha Slav Muntz Competition, and the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati.
and second prize winner at the Andorra International Competition. He has been a soloist with the Usdan
Symphony in New York, the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra in North Carolina, the Bronx Arts Ensemble,
and the New Britain Symphony. Today, he will play a set of two Mazurkas by Frederick Chopin and a set
of three Preludes by Sergey Rachmaninoff. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Namorovsky.
You.
Sarah Roth has been dancing for 14 years. She began her study at the Frederick School of Classical Ballet
in Maryland, where she first danced the variation she will be doing today. In the fall of 2000, she
enrolled in the Indiana University Ballet Department and will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Science
in Ballet and an outside field in education. Next fall, Sarah will join the Boston Ballet Company for
its 2003-2004 season. She will perform for us a variation from Peter Tchaikovsky's
Sleeping Beauty, Sarah Roth.
Jose Antonio Garcia from Hamden, Connecticut is a third-year student in the Master of Fine Arts acting
program at IU. Before coming here, he was at the University of Connecticut, where he received a Bachelor
of Fine Arts. Since arriving at IU, he has had roles in Lysistrata, Art, American Buffalo, Much Ado
About Nothing, God's Country, True West, and Oedipus. This summer, he'll be playing the name role in
Picasso at the La Panagio,
He has also appeared in One for the Pot at the Brown County Playhouse. In 2002, he was named the best
male performer at the National Stage Combat Workshop in Las Vegas, and he is a recognized actor competent
by the Society of American Fight Directors. He will present selections from William Shakespeare's The
Tempest and Miguel Pinero's Short Eyes. Today, my first piece will be Trecula
and the second one will be met from Shorthat. Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any well at
all. In another storm brewing, yon same black cloud, yon huge one, looks like a foul bummer that could
shake his liquor.
If it's a thunder now as it did before, I don't have where to hide my head. John St. Cloud cannot choose
but fall by pale falls. What have we here? A man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish. Smells like a fish.
A very ancient and fish-like smell, a kind of fat of the newest poor John.
Now, as I once was, it happened this fish painted. Not a holiday fool there would give a piece of silver.
There with this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a do
it to relieve a lame beggar, they'll lay out ten to see a dead Indian.
Under his guarantee. There is no other shelter here about. Misery acquints a man with strange bedfellows.
I will hear shrouds of the dreads of the storm be passed.
Davis, Claude Davis. On the gate. Come here.
I'm only going to say this one time and one time only. This is a nice floor, a quiet floor. There has
never been too much trouble on this floor. Now, with you, I smell trouble. Now, I'm not one to question
the captain's or the warden's motives, but just this once, I'm going to ask why they put a sick-fucking
degenerate like you on life.
You mispronounce my name once. If you take more food than you can eat, if you call me for something
I feel is unnecessary, if you oversleep, undersleep, you just give me one good reason, and I will tear
your face apart so bad your own mother will not know who you are. Shut up! I am talking to this bitch.
I have an eight-year-old daughter who was molested by one of these sick bastards, and I just as well
pretend he was you, Davis.
who you understand. Sit down, Murphy!
and I will ram it so far off your ass. So help me God. I hope they take you off this floor. Send you
up to sing-sing. The men up there know what to do with degenerates like you. That's it, I'm done.
My game. My game for the count. Hey Davis.
Christopher Burchette has sung not only with the Indiana University Opera Theatre and the University
of Louisville Opera Theatre, but also with a number of opera companies. Among them, the Santa Fe Opera,
the Palm Beach Opera, the Kentucky Opera, the Utah Festival Opera, and the Opera Theater of St. Louis.
His extensive concert experience includes work with the Indiana University Orchestra and Chorus, the
University of Louisville Orchestra, the Boulder Bach Festival, and the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, the
Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, and the Louisville Orchestra.
Among his numerous awards are first place in the American Bach Society Bach Choir of Bethlehem Competition,
the Virginia Adams Vocal Fellowship, the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition Priscilla and Dennis Rocco
Award, and third place in the Orpheus Vocal Competition. He has also been a Metropolitan Opera Regional
Finalist and a winner of an Encouragement Award. A former student of Giorgio Totti, Christopher is currently
studying with the Metropolitan Opera Baritone Timothy Noble.
Today he will sing for us arias by Eric Korngold and Jacques Offenbach.
brings us to the end of this afternoon's performances, and it gives me pleasure now to introduce Peggy
Bachmann and Ingallor Welsh, co-presidents of the Bloomington chapter of the NSAL, who will preside
over the remainder of today's activities. I've enjoyed being with you this afternoon and wish you all
a very good afternoon. It's definitely a wonderful privilege to be part of this organization and it's
all done by volunteers and friends of the art. And what we're doing now is we're going to introduce
the chairs that are responsible for each and every one of those disciplines. It's impossible or it would
be impossible to do this show and this showcase without
the chairs. And the first one is Helga Keller. She represents visual arts and I want you to know it's
a lot of work that goes into these programs before they come for you to see and also for the competition
to come along. So Helga Keller is visual arts. Are you going to come up Helga? I can't see.
This blinds me something fierce. And doesn't she hand hers out now? Yeah. 100 artworks were submitted
to our competition by young people from southern Indiana who have sometimes their roots in other areas
of our country.
And what I find so special about the visual arts competition is that the artists give us a little glimpse
into their private lives. Sometimes their inspiration comes from their birthplaces, maybe in Utah, or
they have lived in Philadelphia, the cradle of fine arts, or they just have spent a leisure afternoon
doodling away on their coffee table.
Many of them have also been inspired by the sometimes interesting moods over Bloomington and over Southern
Indiana. And I want to thank everyone who entered the competition and who shared their creativity with
us. And it's not possible to give awards to everyone, but
we enjoyed looking at all the artworks. And I wanted to share with you a quote from Michael Kimmelman,
the chief art critic for the New York Times, who said, one can only speak properly about painting in
front of paintings. And I would like to see
One can only speak properly about the creativity and fine craftsmanship of young artists in southern
Indiana in front of the works exhibited today at the John Baldwin Art Center. I hope all of you had
a chance to peruse the artwork and to think a little bit about the time and effort and inspiration presented
to us. Sugar?
Okay, I would like to present awards to 12 artists who are exhibited with their artwork in the Baldwin
Art Center. And I would like Carrie Lynn Smith,
to come here, who shares with us her heritage in Utah with a beautiful, small sculpture of clay and
wood-fired laterite. She won the Prygmalion's Merit Award, and thank you very much, Cari. Congratulations.
William Hunter Stamps won the Prygmalion gift certificate
for his ceramic sculpture, Dunking Booth, and there's also his second sculpture on exhibition, very
inspirational during land times. Please make sure you see it. Ryan Coburn was inspired by
the surroundings of Bloomington, which can be, at many seasons, beautiful. He had entered a painting
about a winter scene of Lake Monroe, which I found beautiful. It was very moody. The judge awarded the
Encore Married Award
to Ryan Coburn for his oil painting Winter Field, a beautiful, smaller study, and yet also very moody.
Is Ryan here? Oh. Grayson Cox, who is not quite unknown to the NSAL, once again submitted beautiful
prints, and this year he won the Klein Merit Award
for his sandblasted Mesotint Dungeon. Grayson, congratulations. And it's nice to see you back there
in Germany. Good luck. David Staninonas won the Maxi Schnicker Award for his oil on pine painting Swipe.
And I was very intrigued by the colors he employed
And I thought it's wonderful to be able to honor you here, David. Congratulations and good luck for
your home. Is Lauren Janee Allen here? Wonderful. Lauren comes to us from Vincennes University. There
were various competitors from Vincennes University and also from Green Castle.
and of course, Bloomington, and it's nice that an award went to Vincennes. But not only one award, please
do keep in mind that the judge actually only sees the artwork and the title. And Lorenz and Ney won
two awards for the two entries,
in black and white photography and in color photography. Her color photography is called Complementary
Light, and her black and white photography, Comfortable Memories. Welcome to Bloomington, and thank
you for participating in our exhibition. Congratulations.
These are the Eleanor Kahn Memorial Award and the Ledford Carter Married Award for Photography. The
Grace Dyer Memorial Award, which has been given to the NSAL by Viva Scheiner, went to Gabriel Meldahl
for his diptych paper, Assemblage, Kirkwood Events, posting one and two. Unfortunate, Gabriel had to
leave because he has to work and his
boss did not give him off from work to accept his award. This is a beautiful, inspiring work of art
because it connects us to the now in Bloomington and to the now in Kirkwood and I thought it was just
a tremendous
idea to collect paper announcements from posts along Kirkwood and put them together into an assemblage.
Please do enjoy it and mention it to Gabriel when you see him. The Christ Merit Award donated by Nelda
Christ Khan
goes to Micah Benjamin Bornstein for his monoprint Venice Number Four. Thank you very much
and congratulations. We are also honoring one of our great professors at Indiana University in metalsmithing
and today's students in the School of Fine Arts
who work under the guidance of Professor Long, might often hear Alma Eickermann's name. Rita Grunwald,
a long time art supporter in this town, keeps awake the memory of Alma Eickermann by every year underwriting
an award. And on Dean Vivian 11, won this year's award, no blame.
Congratulations. And it's a wonderful tribute to a very famous professor. Noah Primo at one point was
an NSAL winner. And ever since he forged out into the real world, the working world, has not failed
to underwrite the Noah Primo Merit Award.
very happy that this year's award goes to Jonathan Dana Sperry for his light installations, the shifting
typography of my coffee table. Now, I know that Dana has a very responsible job and a beautiful job,
and I'm surprised you had time to create these, darlings. Congratulations, and good luck with your continued work.
Wayne Craig, who was here earlier but needed to leave for another event in town, underwrites the Rosemary
Frazier Married Award. We are very thankful to Wayne Craig. And this award went this year to Laura Bregmanes
for her oil painting, Baby in Window. Congratulations and good luck.
The NSEL Bloomington Chapter Career Award goes to a young artist who came to Philadelphia, from Philadelphia
to Bloomington. Bloomington attracts not only outstanding students to Indiana University, but also young
musicians and young artists who give a lot to the community who participate in the art world of Bloomington.
Christine Kunz is very much part of this art scene here in Bloomington, and we are very happy to welcome
her to Bloomington with a wonderful award for her All Pain Still Life with Teapot. Christine, we congratulate
you for this award, and we hope that Christine Kunz will be able to join us for many years here in Bloomington.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Helga. I would say perhaps that the art discipline is the most time
consuming to be chair of the art because you have to get the word out, you have to be there to receive
the paintings, you have to be there to give out the paintings. It's really a job. But I think we can
all tell that Helga enjoys it.
I would like to introduce you to another hard-working chair, Joanne Athanas, who's chair of the dance
discipline. You may think that Joanne looks like one of the little ballet dancers. I always think she
does, but you know what she really is in real life? She's a CPA.
And this is, what, April 13th? So she really took time away from her work. Thanks, Joanne. I'll be brief.
I'd like to thank all 17 of the dancers who participated in the competition for making it so challenging.
meaningful and enjoyable for those of us who are there to see it. I'd also like to thank our three judges
and especially our member, Violet Verde, who generously gave her time to coach and encourage all the
competitors. I'll start with the first award is the Welch Merit Award, contributed by Engelor Welch,
and it goes to Robert Bernischke.
The next award is the Shiner Merit Award and the Jingles Merit Award, contributed by Reva Shiner, Marianne
and Bruce Jingles, and it goes to Sarah Smith. Our second place award is the Violet Verde Tribute Award
and the Marina Svetlova Tribute Awards, and they are contributed by Peggy Bachman, Lili Hughes,
myself, Lou and Leonard Newman, and David and Ruth Albright. And this goes to Jenna Wolf. Finally, our
first place award, contributed by all the members, goes to Sarah Roth.
Thank you very much, Joanne Athanas. I know it's a lot of work that you put in, and we thank you all
very much. Next comes up, Drama Awards. And we are calling on Marilyn Norris, our very, very good and
helpful drama teacher. Thank you.
an actor is an act of courage. Not only is one joining a profession in which 96% of its professional
membership of Actless Equity is unemployed at any time, but if one does get the role and the job, it
lasts only as long as the run of the show. And then you have to start job hunting, role hunting again.
And to get that role in the first place,
to get that job. There is no one hour interview or 30 minute interview or even 15 minutes to sell yourself
to the director or the casting director or both. You have one to two minutes to convince that director
and or that casting director that you are the actor for the role. So it is because of the excellence
of the auditions by these people that we are honoring them as drama winners today.
because a panel of very distinguished three judges determined that theirs were the best of the best
auditions. So congratulations to, beginning with the Penny Merritt Award donated by our own member,
George Penny, Alia Maria Tawil.
Collins, in honor of her husband, who was a great supporter of all of the arts and especially theater,
Lindsay Morgan Anderson. The Laserwitz Merit Award is donated by NSAL members Catherine and James Laserwitz,
and it goes to Eliza Fland Hart.
is donated by Marion, long-time NSAO member Marion Battenhouse and her daughter Anna. It is the Roy
Battenhouse Award in honor of her husband, who was a great drama scholar, and particularly in writing
about Shakespeare and the Bible. Unfortunately, our award winner is the spot operator for Sweeney Todd,
and she is head over heels in her tech rehearsal this afternoon, for which, of course, she could not
be excused.
So Christina Parmoviziega, we would like to applaud in. You'll see her spot work beginning Friday. Our
next award is donated by NSAO members, Becky and Frank Somalis. Her Somalis Merit Award goes to Joshua
Goboe. Congratulations.
donated by NSAL members and former national president Helen Caldwell and Linton Caldwell. And this year's
Caldwell-Veras Award goes to Sam Woodton. The next award is presented by Marion Bankhart-Michael and
R. Keith-Michael. This award honors three
of our deceased members, all of whom loved theater and were active in theater, and who've now gone on
to play on other, better stages. The Leonard Brockett, Carol Booty, and Fran Sneak Memorial Award goes
this year to Ira Ames. Another former national president, Reba Shiner,
is the donor of the Laura Scheiner Memorial Award, which honors her daughter, who though she achieved
fame in computer and technical fields, was a theater major here at IU and loved theater all of her life.
The Laura Scheiner Memorial Award this year goes to Chris Nelson. And our top award this year from all of you
after career award goes to Jose Antonio Garcia. Thank you Marilyn for the way you do this. You always
do it with a dramatic flair. It's wonderful.
Chair I would like to introduce is Ruth Albright. Ruth Albright is our last year's president of NSAO.
A lot of our chairs have full-time jobs, and Ruth does too, doing volunteer work mostly for the arts.
And she is also the wife of David Albright, who is the chair of the showcase.
It was a fun year to be literature chair this year because the national focus is on poetry. So we decided
that we would have two competitions, one in poetry, and that winner will go to the national convention
to compete against 19 other poets from other chapters of NSAL. And we also had a general
literature competition, which we always have, and we thought that there was no reason to do away with
that and have just poetry, so we had to. I know two of my judges are in the audience today. With these
lights in your eyes, you can't see anything, but Alice Freiman from Indianapolis was a long-time professor
at the University of Indianapolis is here. She was one of our national, one of the judges for the National
Poetry Competition.
And also I know that Roger Finxton, one of our members and a judge of the general literature competition
is here. So you young winners may want to talk to them. Are there any more judges here? Okay. Our first winner
is Craig Neal Owens, who's a playwright and has actually had a play produced here in Bloomington at
the Bloomington Playwright Project. He is not able to be with us today because he had an out of town
engagement. He is the winner of the Marjorie K. Borkenstein Memorial Award, which was donated by the
Borkenstein Endowment. Most of the, I think all of these winners in the general category are
No, that's not true, because Craig Neal Owens is a PhD student in playwriting. But the rest of these
are all in the creative writing department at Indiana University. We did have several applicants from
other universities, but these all are IU winners. Michelle Ross. Is she here?
Okay, I didn't know she wouldn't be here. Michelle wins the Hannah Bennis Wilson Merit Award, which
was donated by Hannah Bennis Wilson, one of our long-time members. Laura Ann Otto. Sorry, gotta get
the right one out.
Laura wins, for her novel, Laura wins the Josephine K. Piercy Writing Award and the John McCluskey Merit
Award, donated by the Piercy Endowment and John McCluskey, one of our members and also a writer himself.
Thank you and congratulations, Laura. Our next winner, whose short story
wins the Patrick O'Mara Merit Award and the Will H. Hayes Jr. Memorial Award. I knew could not be here
from the very beginning. She had a family wedding this weekend and could not get out of those plans.
These awards were donated by our member, Patrick O'Mara, who's the Dean of International Programs at IU.
and Bill Hayes, who donated his award, and he's also a member of our chapter, and donated the award
in memory of his father. Our chapter career award winner is Kim McGlynn, who you heard read from her
story, Grace. Kim, are you here? These chapter career awards are our top awards and are donated by members
of our chapter. Thank you very much, Kim.
Now to the poetry competition. We had three winners in the poetry competition. The first is Micah Ling,
who unfortunately was not able to be here today. She is a senior at DePauw, and she had a four o'clock
class this afternoon, if you can imagine that, which seems totally unfair to me. She wins the Georgia
P. Albright Memorial Award, which was given by David and Ruth Albright in honor of David's mother.
who died a couple of years ago. Our second place winner in poetry is Chris Millian. Chris has won also
a Roy Battenhouse Memorial Award given by Marion and Anna Battenhouse, his wife and daughter. And this
is a very special award because Roy was a long time professor in the English department
Chris is in the creative writing department, so I know this means a lot to him. Thank you and
congratulations. And our top winner in poetry who will represent us in Lexington in just a month's time
is Misty Harper, whom you met when she read from her poetry. She wins a very special award, the Mrs.
Granville Wells Memorial Award.
which is donated by the Herman B. Wells Endowment. Mrs. Granville Wells, who was Herman's mother, was
an early member of our chapter, and Chancellor Wells was a big supporter of our chapter, and left this
endowment in order to let us give an award in his mother's name each year, and that is our top award.
And we congratulate Misty for doing that.
She will be competing for a $10,000 top award, and there probably will be at least five or six sizable
awards. Last year, our piano competitor won that top $10,000 award, so we all have our fingers crossed
and hope that this will happen for Misty, too. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ruth, for all your
work that you did and I'm just so pleased that we have again a big winner here to go to Lexington, Kentucky
and I want to invite all of you in the membership to go to Lexington, Kentucky if you can. We would
love to have several people there. The next chair is Ginny and Doug Jewell and Keith and Doris Johnson
and they chaired the music
competition. The Johnsons can't be here. They're on a trip to Europe, and I think they're going along
the Rhine River on a lovely boat. I hope they're going to have a good time. But Ginny and Doug, Jewel,
please. So it's very difficult for someone, for instance, in high school to compete against people of
your talent and training and maturity. But that happens from time to time, and we wanted to recognize
a student this year that we felt was outstanding yet
a young person. He is 17 years old. He's a Bloomington High School South saxophonist who studies under
Professor Otis Murphy, and his name is Thomas Glassy, and he's 17 years old. That will be a sometimes
award in our
competition in the future as is indicated or is merited. The Jacobi Merit Award is probably a name that's
familiar to most of you if you read the paper. Peter Jacobi is an NSAL member. He is an IU professor
emeritus in journalism, and he's a well-known reviewer of classical music for the Herald Times. The
winner of the Jacobi Award is an IU student of Constanza Cucaroe pursuing a master's in voice, and her
name is Allison Bates.
The Suzanne McDonald merit award donated by Susan McDonald who is a harpist and a professor of harp
at IU and an NSAL member herself goes to Megan Stout who is a professor's choice because she is also
a harpist and she's pursuing a bachelor's degree in music in harp. Congratulations Megan.
Virginia Ziani is a name that may be familiar to those of you in music, or in vocal music especially.
She's an NSAL member and a professor of voice at IU. Her former husband, she's a widow now, was an opera
star in Europe. His name is Nicola Rossi Lamini, and so we have a Rossi Lamini Memorial Award given
to Kelly Holtz, please, who is pursuing a master's degree in voice. Congratulations.
The reason we're spending so much time sharing the donors' names with you is because if it weren't for
the donors every year, we would have nothing to give you. So you'll bear with us while we honor these
generous people, I hope. Sometimes there's a memorial award, a very special one, and this one is one.
Kenda Webb was the wife of the Dean Emeritus, Charles Webb, of the School of Music. And in her honor,
this award has been dedicated by NSAL members Helga
Keller, who you just saw a little bit ago, and her husband Howard, Roberta Somak, as well as Wayne Craig,
in memory of Kenda, who was a longtime member of NSAL, a musician in her own right, and the beloved
wife of Dean Charles Webb. Goes to Michelle Auslander, an IU student of Constanza Cucarro, getting a
performance degree in music. I can't seem to get that out.
We heard mentioned a bit ago a little bit about the staging that's going on today for Sweeney Todd and
unfortunately we have a vocal person.
Fortunately for her, she has a major role in Sweeney Todd coming up. That's Catherine Lindsay. And Catherine
was to have received today the Donald Felton Memorial Award, which was donated by NSAL member Mary Ann
Felton in memory of her husband, Colonel Donald Felton, who was a much loved music lover and longtime
supporter of the arts. That was to go to Catherine Lindsay, who is a voice student of Patricia Wise, who is
pursuing a bachelor's degree of music in voice, so let's give her our hand. The next four awards are
equal in amount. I won't be so crass as to go into the amount of all these, but they are second only
to our chapter career award, and I wanted you to be aware of that. We had a lot of talent this year.
We had 35 competitors, about 20 of them were in
voice, and about 15 in instrumental. And if you all remember, we were putting you through there at a
pretty good clip all day long. We had a lot of people to choose from. And they were excellent. They
really were. This was an exceptional year. And I'd like to thank, while we're at it, the six judges
that judged for us, three for instrumental and three for vocal music. Anyway, the first of this second
prize award goes to Daxun Zhang, who you heard earlier. He's a double bassist, and he's an IU student
of Larry Hearst.
pursuing an artist diploma. He has received the Elizabeth Burnham Merit Award given for instrumentalists
and I think you can agree he's absolutely outstanding. The next award goes to Eliza Torres who is an
IU harpist who's studying with Suzanne McDonald and pursuing a master's in music.
Eliza has just received the Margaret Bueller White Memorial Award for Instrumental Music. Ms. White
was a member of the NSAL and she was also a harpist. The Rolston Merit Award was donated by Ilkner P.
Rolston, who was a longtime member of NSAL and a supporter of the arts, including music. This award
goes to Jimmy Briere, who is an IU student working towards his performance diploma under the guidance
of Menachem Pressler.
The Caldwell Merit Award was donated by Helen and Keith Caldwell, the longtime members of the NSAL and
generous supporters of the arts. It goes to Christopher Breschette, I'm sorry Chris, I'm glad you're
not messing up like that, a Barrett home who studies with Timothy Noble.
And finally, the highest award given at the local level, the Chapter Career Award, which is,
as they said, is donated by all the Bloomington Chapter NSAL members, goes to an IU student of Edward
Auer, pursuing a Masters of Music degree in piano, Michael Namorowski. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Doug and Jenny. You did an outstanding job. I had the privilege to be
at this competition and it was really wonderful to be part of that and see how it works. It's a lot
of work. It's a lot of preparatory work and it's just pretty involved. So we really, really thank all
our chairs.
from the bottom of our hearts because they put in many hours and it's all volunteer work and it's done
with a lot of love. Also, we would like to thank David Albright and Mary Carol Rillerton, his assistant
for the showcase program, which I thought was wonderful. He did a wonderful job.
I would also like to invite all the contestants for a picture here afterwards and then we would very
much like for you to come downstairs where we are having a reception for all of you and we'd like to
chat with you and thank you again and I am certainly privileged and thankful that you all came and we
hope we do this again next year.