Tag: Visual and Performing Arts

New Music in the Mine Presented by Michigan Tech Music

Hard hats are required — and provided — to hear this exciting new music by contemporary composers in the Quincy Mine hoist building. This annual sell-out show will contain some of the best music you haven’t heard yet! View Digital Program in advance.

Here is this year’s lineup:

THURSDAY
Pat Booth, saxophone
conScience: Michigan Tech Chamber Singers
Adam Hall, cello
Adam Meckler, trumpet
Stephen Rush, piano

FRIDAY
conScience: Michigan Tech Chamber Singers
Susie Byykkonen, flute
Michael Christianson, tuba
Adam Hall, cello
Stephen Rush, piano

CONTENT GUIDANCE | instrumental and vocal new music; hard hats required
PRESENTER | Michigan Tech Music
VENUE | Quincy Mine No. 2 Shaft Hoist House
DURATION | Approx. 45 min
TICKETS | Pay As You’re Able ($20 Full Ticket Fee) What is this?
SEATING | General Admission

About

Michigan Tech Music has a long history of high-quality music ensembles open to students from all majors on campus. Its composition program, bands, orchestra, jazz, and choral ensembles expose students, faculty, and the community to the artistic and communicative values of music and the power it has to change lives. Each group performs regularly in the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts and in venues in the community.

Living composers, unusual instruments, and unique spaces are all at the forefront of the bold, delightful, and innovative experiences the Keweenaw has come to expect from New Music at Michigan Tech. Led by Dr. Libby Meyer, New Music invites you to experience concerts, workshops, speaking events, and masterclasses by some of the greatest living composers and classical musicians.

Libby Meyer is a composer whose work reflects the natural rhythms and patterns of the world around her. Her music, including chamber, orchestral, choral, wind symphony, film, dance and theater, has been commissioned and performed throughout the United States. An avid equestrian, kayaker and distance runner, Libby currently resides in Michigan’s beautiful Keweenaw Peninsula with her husband Evan, a Pyrenees Mountain dog, a secretive cat, and thousands of honeybees. She holds a DMA in Composition from Northwestern University and is a Teaching Professor in Music Theory/Composition at Michigan Tech University. Listen to recordings of Libby’s work.

Sponsors

Support for this event provided by the Janet Locatelli Fund, the Visual and Performing Arts Department, and its supporters. View current donors to the Visual and Performing Arts Department.

Pay As You’re Able Ticketing

The Visual and Performing Arts Department believes that the foundation of an equitable and inclusive arts culture requires making events financially accessible to all. So, we are offering Pay as You’re Able ticketing for all of our Michigan Tech Music and Michigan Tech Theatre events. Learn more.

Accessibility

Accessible Parking
There are accessible parking spaces in the Quincy Mine parking lot.

Accessible Entry
The 1984 Hoist House is accessible by an ADA-compliant ramp, and a lift is available to access the 1918 Hoist House, where the performances will take place.

Print and Digital Programs

Digital Program
The full program will be available online at least one day in advance for all devices and is compatible with most screen readers.

Limited Print Program
Print programs containing limited show information will be available at the door.

Large-Print Program
A large-print version of the limited print program is available in advance online. A limited quantity is printed and available at the door.

Additional Information

Box Office Information
Accessibility Services
Parking Information​
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Volunteer at the Rozsa
Donate to support events like this

Color and Context collaboration with Professor of Art Anne Beffel

The Seashore Psychology Training Clinic at the University of Iowa is pleased to announce that they will be continuing collaboration with Professor of Art Anne Beffel on an art installation entitled Color and Context. This extension of Beffel’s Color of Kindness project, currently exhibited in the Seashore Clinic, will engage graduate students as well as clinical faculty and staff.

Participants will be invited to recall a moment in which kindness, or its absence, was important to them and to describe colors present within their memory. In the updated project, Beffel will collect only the name of the color and its brief description through online survey. As Beffel creates a painting for each person’s named color, she will integrate its complement, located 180 degrees opposite on the Newtonian color wheel. The introduction of the complementary color is intended to embody both contrast and connection. Beffel notes, “Gullickson, and former training director Michael O’Hara, have been excellent collaborators and art stewards, extending themselves in countless ways. I’m particularly grateful for the opportunity to directly engage the clinic faculty, staff and students in articulating the colors that matter to them as we reflect upon the dynamic and evolving culture surrounding color in America.”

“We are thrilled at our continuing collaboration with Anne Beffel,” writes Seashore Clinic director Gregory Gullickson. “Anne has really brought such color and life to our clinic, and having students and staff inspire more of her work will add immeasurably to the beauty and healing spirit of our clinic space.”

Installation of Color and Context is planned for summer 2023 with support from Beffel’s academic department of Visual and Performing Arts at Michigan Technological University.

Joel Neves Nominated for Michigan Tech Distinguished Teaching Award

Professor Joel Neves

We are so pleased to announce Joel Neves, Professor, Visual and Performing Arts is among the Associate Professor/Professor finalists for the 2023 Michigan Tech Distinguished Teaching Award. The Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes outstanding contributions to Michigan Tech’s instructional mission.

To whittle the finalists to a single winner, The William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is seeking input on the finalists for its annual Distinguished Teaching Awards. Based on more than 40,000 student ratings of instruction responses, 10 finalists have been identified for the 2023 awards. The selection committee is soliciting comments from students, staff, faculty and alumni to be referenced during their deliberations.

Comments for the finalists are due by March 31 and can be submitted online.

The process for determining the Distinguished Teaching Award recipients from this list of finalists also involves the additional surveying of their spring 2023 classes. The selection committee makes the final determination of the award recipients. The 2023 Distinguished Teaching Awards will be formally announced in May.

For more information, contact the CTL at ctl@mtu.edu or 906-487-3000.

Michigan Tech Theatre: Haunted Mine This Weekend

Join us this Halloween season at the Quincy Mine for a haunted experience that you won’t forget! Tram will run about every 20 minutes from 6-10 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance online at www.quincymine.com, and it is HIGHLY recommended to do so, as the tours sell out quickly! Youth under 12 years must be accompanied by an adult.

Content Considerations //  jumpscares, flickering and strobing lights, loud sounds, and fog, appropriate clothing and comfortable footwear that can handle some dirt is strongly suggested.

ABOUT

Michigan Tech Theatre creates entertainment events for the Keweenaw, sharing the creative and scholarly work of students and faculty from the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.

Kent A. Cyr, Associate Professor, is the Technical Director at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI. He teaches courses in Technical Construction, Stagecraft, Rigging, Stage Mechanics, and Properties Artisanship.  He is the director of the B.S. in Theatre and Entertainment Technology program.  He is a member of the USITT Tech Expo committee and active in the Technical Production commission, Education commission, and the Emerging Creatives Showcase. In KCACTF region III, he is the Festival Technical Director, and a respondent to the technical load-in process. He has worked at Spoleto Festival USA, Bard Summerscape, The La Jolla Playhouse, Cyco Scenic, and continues to work professionally with Technical Theatre Solutions.

Fundraiser Celebrates 25th Anniversary of VPA

Circle with Gala surrounded by colored splashesThis academic year, we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Michigan Tech. We will hold a celebratory 25th Anniversary Gala beginning at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, in the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts.

Celebrate with an evening of cocktails, dinner and live arts entertainment. The VPA 25th Anniversary Gala will feature intimate performances in the lobby and on stage, and live auction supporting the Marian and John Irish Award for Environmental Art, the Visual and Performing Arts Department Theatre Scholarship Fund and the Rozsa Center’s Class Acts Program.

Come dressed for celebration. There will be a cocktail hour (cash bar), full dinner, live music throughout the evening both in the lobby and on stage, an auction of unique arts experiences, artists working during the gala and more.

Tickets for the evening are $75 per person. We will also be selling corporate tables (seating eight) for $1,000. Tickets can be purchased by calling the SDC Ticket Office at 7-2073 or following this link. More information can be found here.

Scary Ideas Sought for Haunted Mine Tour

Quincy Mine with Northern LightsThe Quincy Mine Hoist Association and the Michigan Tech Visual and Performing Arts Department are teaming up to offer the best Haunted Mine event ever. In preparation, the production team is looking for creative ideas for awesome and scary scenes. All are invited to toss ideas to the production team via an “idea pitch.”

Ideas will be selected based on feasibility and potential for the ultimate scare. Scenes will be under the direction of a professional theatre director and actors will be auditioned to fill the necessary roles.

This year’s theme is “Secret Portal to the 90th Level.” Tourists have been disappearing, only to reappear having passed through the eerie depths of the mine unseen for years. Tours will be Oct. 25-27. There will be some rehearsing this year that will require a few hours of commitment before the actual mine experience. Technical load-in will be Oct. 21-24.

There will be a mandatory meeting for all volunteers from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 20) in McArdle Theatre, Walker 207.

For more information, contact Patricia Helsel, 7-3283.

Fill out an information form prior to attending the meeting.

The team is looking for a very brief description of a mini-plot or scenario that might take between one and five minutes. These scenarios are partly improvised situations where one or more individuals interact with each other and/or the customers who enter the mine during the tour. Envision costumes, lights, props, sounds, special effects, etc. Individuals, partners and groups are all invited to submit ideas. There is no limit to the number of ideas.

If your idea is chosen, you and two friends will be invited to a special sneak preview of the whole mine tour before the event opens to the public.

If you are interested only in being a part of the Haunted Mine experience, just answer the survey questions in the form.

Meditation Circuit Combines Mindfulness, Public Art

Two men and a woman stand beneath a cloth banner in a pine tree grove.Imagine the sunlight slanting toward the forest floor, filtered through viridescent leaves and pine needles. Imagine walking slowly, meditatively, through the wedges of light, fully focused on the moment, completely present. Dust motes swirl in the light. Birds call to each other above. A fly buzzes by. Twigs and decaying leaves crunch under foot. From branches above, delicate hemp banners painted in many shades of green to mimic the landscape waft gently on the breeze.

Meditation, the practice of focusing solely on the present moment and letting go of the clutter of the mind, appears to have an increasing number of health benefitsAnne Beffel, professor of visual and performing arts at Michigan Technological University and director of Studio Here Now, intentionally looks for ways to create space for mindfulness within public art. Studio Here Now is a creative public art design studio and gallery located on campus in Wadsworth Residence Hall.

Read the full story on mtu.edu/news

Yearning to Breathe Free: Free Outdoor Band Concert on the Rozsa Lawn

36a3759f5b9f1ed8feb3d9d1573255db7f254918Bring your lawn chairs, bring your blankets: The Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts is proud to present “Yearning to Breathe Free,” a free outdoor concert put on by Michael Christianson, Michigan Tech’s Director of Bands, with performances by the Superior Wind Symphony, in which they will celebrate the music of great composers who emigrated to the United States. Come spend a beautiful fall evening full of band music on Sunday, September 24th, 7:00 PM, on the Rozsa/Walker lawn. If it rains, the show will be inside, in the Rozsa Center.

According to Christainson, “Many of the great composers of iconic American band music came to the United States from overseas. They were drawn by the words of Emma Lazarus, inscribed in 1883 on the base of the Statue of Liberty:

 “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 

We will perform mostly original works for winds by great composers who were immigrants to the US: Irving Berlin, Antonin Dvorak, Sergei Prokofiev, Darius Milhaud, Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, Percy Grainger, Chen Yi, Tania Leon , plus a Sousa march dedicated to his overseas friends! Bring your blanket, your dinner, and spread out on the lawn as you enjoy a classic Band moment with Michigan Tech’s Superior Wind Symphony! Concert starts at 7:00PM, sunset starts at 8:01.”

For more information please visit us online at mtu.edu/rozsa

“Orchid Ensemble” Performs Saturday

maxresdefaultJoin us for a concert featuring the renowned Canadian group “Orchid Ensemble,” who will join conScience: Michigan Tech Chamber singers, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (April 1) in the McArdle Theatre, on the second floor of the Walker Arts and Humanities Center.

Established in 1997, the JUNO-nominated Orchid Ensemble is comprised of Lan Tung on the erhu/Chinese violin, Yu-Chen Wang on the zheng/Chinese zither and Jonathan Bernard on percussion.

The ensemble blends ancient musical instruments and traditions from China and beyond, creating a beautiful new sound. They have embraced a variety of musical styles to thier repertoire, ranging from the traditional and contemporary music of China, world music, new music to jazz and creative improvisation.

The energetic yet endearing performance style of the ensemble consistently intrigues and delights its audiences. Acclaimed as “One of the brightest blossoms on the world music scene” (Georgia Straight), the Orchid Ensemble has been tirelessly developing an innovative musical genre based on the cultural exchange between Western and Asian musicians.

Students from conScience: Michigan Tech Chamber Singers will join the ensemble for three selections in the concert.

Tickets are on sale now, $22 for adults, $6 for youth and no charge for Michigan Tech students with the Experience Tech fee. Tickets are available by phone at 7-2073, online, in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the Student Development Complex or at the Calumet Theatre Box Office.