Arts week to debut in March

By Shannon Curley
Collegian Staff
February 21, 2007

The Department of Fine Arts will be hosting an Arts Awareness Week from March 26- 31 to showcase the Arts Department. The week-long event will feature a series of programs geared toward students who do not take fine arts classes and would like to see what the department has to offer.

According to the Chair of the Fine Arts Department, Dr. Patricia Haberstoh, while the art history major is growing, more students take it as a minor, or take classes as part of their core curriculum. Since students of all majors are likely to take an art class or two, Haberstoh thinks Arts Awareness Week will “reach an audience beyond the majors and minors.”

Throughout the week, La Salle will also host the Portland String Quartet. The New York Times has described the Quartet as “a model of experienced ensemble playing.”

The group will be in residence for the week and will be giving performances and demonstrations around campus for the entire week.

The Quartet is being brought to La Salle through the collaborative efforts of Haberstroh and Dr. Gregory Bruce. Bruce’s involvement, “provided a good deal of the funding to bring the Quartet to campus,” Haberstroh said.

The Quartet was featured in a Harvard Business School study on teamwork. The members of the group will give a presentation on teamwork to management classes based on the Harvard Business Review case study from 12:30-1:30 p.m. March 29 in the Dan Rodden Theatre.

In addition to the Quartet’s week-long programs, there will also be a student art exhibit in the new student exhibition space outside of the La Salle Art Museum. Students who wish to exhibit their work can submit it to the Art Museum any time from March 12-19 . Applications for submission are available at the Art Museum, in Olney 241 and in the Mary and Frances Wister Art Studio. Winners will be announced by the end of Arts Awareness Week.

Other events will only run once, such as the mural art painting demonstration that Professor Dave McShane’s Mural Painting class will be running in conjunction with the Leadership and Global Understanding students March 26. From 5:30-7 p.m., anyone walking through the Olney lobby will be able to paint a piece of the mural design that will be there.

The Mural Painting class is going to be working on a project about two blocks from campus toward the end of the semester. It is part of the Philly Arts Project, which is responsible for more than 3,000 murals around the city.

“We’re very lucky that they took us on,” said Haberstroh, explaining that the Philly Arts Project is funding part of the mural.

A Women in Art and Music event will take place in the Art Museum from 6:30-8:30 p.m Tuesday. Erika de Vries, a New York based photographer and performance artist, will give a presentation. The Portland String Quartet’s sole female member, violinist Julia Adams, might also play selections from a few female composers.

The Portland String Quartet recorded an electro-acoustic piece and sent it to La Salle. Professor Susan McDonald’s Electro Acoustic class will “compose their own pieces, kind of in response to the String Quartet’s piece,” said Haberstroh.

The class will play the pieces they composed in Olney 102 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Professor Jim Williams will teach his oil painting class in the lobby of Olney so that passersby can see what a normal class entails from 12:30-2 p.m. Thursday. There will also be student and faculty musicians playing in Olney 102. Then, from 7:30-8:30 p.m., there will be an American Music and Art event in Olney 100 in which the Portland String Quartet will play pieces from American composers. A presentation on two American painters will also be given.

There will be an open “jam” session in the Dan Rodden Theatre on Friday. Several faculty members with musical groups have already signed up. Any type of music is welcome and students with musical groups are encouraged to attend.

The week will culminate with a Portland String Quartet evening concert at 7:30 p.m.Saturday March 31 in the Dan Rodden Theatre . This will be their final concert and is open to everyone. Haberstroh hopes to see alumni, students, faculty and staff in attendance that night.

If the week goes as planned, “we hope to have it every year,” Haberstroh said.

curleys1@lasalle.edu