The Arts Paper November 2015

artists next door 4

placing literature 6

tim parrish 8

the rudiments of giving 18

The Arts Paper a free publication of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven • newhavenarts.org

CAB 48

page 10

November 2015

The Arts Paper november 2015

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Artists Next Door Donald Margulies Writes for the Big Screen

staff Cynthia Clair executive director Debbie Hesse director of artistic services & programs Nichole René communications manager Lisa Russo advertising & events coordinator Winter Marshall executive administrative assistant David Brensilver editor, the arts paper Amanda May Aruani design consultant

board of directors Eileen O’Donnell president Rick Wies vice president Daisy Abreu second vice president Ken Spitzbard treasurer Wojtek Borowski secretary directors Laura Barr Susan Cahan Robert B. Dannies Jr. Todd Jokl Mark Kaduboski Jocelyn Maminta Josh Mamis Rachel Mele Elizabeth Meyer-Gadon Frank Mitchell Mark Potocsny David Silverstone Dexter Singleton Richard S. Stahl, MD

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Placing Literature Website Maps Scenes from Literary Works

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The Roundtable Tim Parrish on Shouting into the Noise

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven promotes, advocates, and fosters opportunities for artists, arts organizations, and audiences. Because the arts matter.

The Arts Paper is published by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, and is available by direct mail through membership with the Arts Council.

For membership information call 203.772.2788.

To advertise in The Arts Paper, call the Arts Council at 203.772.2788.

Arts Council of Greater New Haven 70 Audubon Street, 2nd Floor New Haven, CT 06510 Phone: 203.772.2788 Fax: 203.772.2262 info@newhavenarts.org www.newhavenarts.org

The Rudiments of Giving Celebrating Generosity and Common Interest

The Arts Council is pleased to recognize the generous contributions of our business, corporate and institutional members. executive champions The United Illuminating Company/Southern Connecticut Gas Total Wine & More Yale University senior patrons Knights of Columbus L. Suzio York Hill Companies Odonnell Company Webster Bank Wiggin and Dana corporate partners AT&T Coordinated Financial Resources/Chamber Insurance Trust Firehouse 12 Fusco Management Company Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven Yale-New Haven Hospital

honorary members Frances T. “Bitsie” Clark Cheever Tyler

In an effort to reduce its carbon footprint, the Arts Council now prints The Arts Paper on more environmentally friendly paper and using soy inks. Please read and recycle.

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business patrons Albertus Magnus College Gateway Community College Lenny & Joe’s Fish Tale Newman Architects Quinnipiac University

business members Brenner, Saltzman & Wallman, LLP Duble & O’Hearn, Inc. Griswold Home Care The Lighting Quotient foundations and government agencies Carolyn Foundation The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven Connecticut Arts Endowment Fund DECD/CT Office of the Arts Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation The Ethel & Abe Lapides Foundation First Niagara Foundation The George A. and Grace L. Long Foundation, Bank of America, N.A. and Alan S. Parker, Esq. Trustees The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation NewAlliance Foundation Pfizer The Wells Fargo Foundation The Werth Family Foundation media partners New Haven Independent New Haven Living WPKN

november 2015 •

The Arts Paper november 2015

Letter from the Editor As promised last month, this issue of The Arts Paper includes the continuation of a column by Southern Connecticut State University professor Tim Parrish about writing and talking about racial indoctrination.

For the October issue, Tim wrote about his experiences summarizing his memoir, Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist, for an op-ed piece a New York Daily News editor had solicited days after Dylann Roof murdered nine African America churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. This month, Tim tells us about the television and radio appearances he did after the Daily News piece was published, and about the emotions he experienced in the process and afterward.

I’m proud that we’re publishing Tim’s columns in The Arts Paper and value the time he and I have spent talking, on the phone,

about unloading the sometimes ugly truth on the world and being on the receiving end of reactions to that. I’ve also enjoyed talking with him about the hugely influential role music has played in each of our lives, something that, like working with the written word, connects us. I hope you appreciate Tim’s contributions to these past two issues of The Arts Paper. I certainly have.

This issue of The Arts Paper also includes an article by Hank Hoffman about Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies, who recently wrote the screenplay for The End of the Tour, a film adapted from David Lipsky’s book Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, which, in turn, is based on the author’s interviews with novelist David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide in 2008. Infinite Jest, the novel Wallace was promoting while Lipsky tagged along

and interviewed him, sits unread on my bookshelf. Hank’s Artists Next Door piece has inspired me to read it before seeing The End of the Tour. I’m grateful for the nudge.

Speaking of books, I’ve contributed to these pages a few thoughts about Michael Blanding’s The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps. It’s another book I’d been meaning to read and am glad I finally have. And Steve Scarpa wrote about Placing Literature, a website dedicated to mapping real locations that appear in works of fiction.

In September, I stumbled across information about 60 pairs of drumsticks that were donated in 2012 to the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments. Naturally, as a classically trained percussionist, I was intrigued and paid a visit to the collection.

More interesting than the sticks themselves were my conversations with 87-year-old Paul Munier, who donated them. I hope the conversations we had were as enjoyable for

In the Next Issue …

Sincerely,

David Brensilver, editor The Arts Paper

On the Cover The December issue of The Arts Paper will include biographical sketches of this year’s Arts Awards winners (see page 7). Pictured here is Arts Council Executive Director Cindy Clair speaking at the 2014 Arts Awards.

Photo by Judy Sirota Rosenthal.

ng peni

Paul as they were for me.

Around the time that I came across information about the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments acquisition, I received an email about the Yale Cabaret’s 48th season, which was just getting underway. I’ve included in these pages a piece about that organization and the visionary students who run it. It brings me great joy to spend time with such inspired and inspiring people, and I’m looking forward to all their future creative successes.

I hope you enjoy the stories presented herein and that you’ll remember to recycle this print publication once you’ve finished reading it.

Left to right: Sean Patrick Higgins, Jenelle Chu, Jonathan Higginbotham, Chris Ghaffari, and Edmund Donovan in We Are All Here, an adaptation by David Bruin, who directed the show, and Jiréh Breon Holder of Charles L. Mee’s Wintertime. See story on page 10. Photo by Christopher Thompson.

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The Arts Paper november 2015

artists next door

The Next Stage in His Career? playwright donald margulies writes for the big screen hank hoffman Donald Margulies is a renowned playwright, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Dinner With Friends. But in 2011, when he read David Lipsky’s book transcribing his interviews from 1996 with the late novelist David Foster Wallace, Margulies immediately thought the material lent itself to the screen rather than the stage.

Why a film? “Because the central figure is David Foster Wallace, who is one of the great chroniclers of American culture,” Margulies told me in an interview. “The fact that they are on the great Midwestern American landscape presented me with a very exciting visceral feeling about what this could be.”

Margulies has written many screenplays, a number of which have been produced for television. But the resultant film, The End of the Tour, is the first project Margulies initiated that has made it to the big screen. One of the executive producers, Margulies also recruited director James Ponsoldt, a former student of his at Yale University where Margulies is a professor of English and theater studies.

New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott wrote: “There will always be films about writers and writing, and this one is just about as good as it gets.” The movie was named a New York Times Critic’s Pick.

Based on Lipsky’s Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself—transcriptions of interviews Lipsky conducted with Wallace over five days for a Rolling Stone article that was never published—The End of the Tour plays out as a road movie.

Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) tags along with Wallace (Jason Segel) on the final leg of the novelist’s promotional tour for his magnum opus Infinite Jest. Then age 30, Lipsky was four years younger than Wallace and also a published novelist (The Art Fair), although with nowhere near Wallace’s reputation.

“It felt very much like a film, that the confines of the stage wouldn’t do the story justice,” Margulies noted, “even though, yes, it is language-driven, which is almost unheard-of in contemporary movies.” Along with bookstore readings and a public-radio interview, Wallace and Lipsky visit the Mall of America, hoover up snacks from a 7-Eleven, grab breakfast at a McDonald’s, and take in a multiplex screening of the John Travolta action flick Broken Arrow.

Margulies’ screenplay was fleshed out with background information culled from extensive interviews with Lipsky, emotion-

4 • newhavenarts.org

ally charged material that was not part of the book. Margulies likened the adaptation to creating a collage—he studied visual art in college before switching to writing—deconstructing the source material and juxtaposing the fragments such as to create a new, yet faithful, composition.

“It was quite a thrilling exercise to find the dramatic core of something that was intrinsically not dramatic,” Margulies recalled. Lipsky’s book comprises some 300-plus pages of conversations. Interesting but not dramatic. Margulies had to “mine the subtext that was lurking there.”

The fact that the conversations took place at the end of Wallace’s book tour for his masterpiece became the dramatic context. Had the interviews taken place in the middle of the tour, it is possible the story would not have resonated with Margulies.

Being the last days of the tour “infused all the content with an elegiac subtext.”

At the tour’s conclusion, Margulies noted, Wallace faces the rest of his life—a mere 12 years. He committed suicide in 2008. The movie opens with Eisenberg, as Lipsky, receiving a phone call informing him of Wallace’s death, the impetus for digging the 12-year-old cassettes out of storage.

Margulies had been forwarded the book by his long-time manager, David Kanter, who correctly discerned that it dealt with themes and ideas dear to the playwright.

Many of Margulies’ protagonists are artists or creative people—the painter Jonathan Waxman in Sight Unseen (1991), photojournalist Sarah Goodman in Time Stands Still (2010), novelist Eric Weiss in Brooklyn Boy (2004). “I seem to create these protagonists who are dealing with the problem of being an artist and how to reconcile artistic integrity with success,” said Margulies.

Is the writing of artists as characters a way of dealing in a concentrated form with the question of people creating their own lives? “I’ve always believed that in the specific lies the universal,” Margulies responded. “Although these people are in the business of creating art, they may as well be in the financial sector. People bring their own set of associations to any solid story.

“You don’t need to have been alone in a room with a blank piece of paper to identify with the themes being discussed and dramatized in The End of the Tour,” Margulies noted. “They’re universal. It’s about humanity, about loneliness, and fear and the wish to be an authentic person.”

Margulies was also attracted to the project because it plumbs the nature of the relationship between journalists and their subjects, a topic he previously explored in Time Stands Still. There is a “faux intimacy” between Lipsky and Wallace and a raft of mixed agendas at work. Lipsky wants to score a good story to impress his editor, hopefully with some revealing personal details. (His editor, for

Donald Margulies. Photo by Ethan Hill.

example, prods him to query Wallace as to the veracity of rumors that he had been a heroin addict.) But the striving novelist in Lipsky also “wants [Wallace’s] approval, wants to prove his mettle, wants to hold his own, make him laugh, challenge him,” Margulies explained.

For his part, Wallace participated in the interviews with great ambivalence, “wanting to be profiled in Rolling Stone but not wanting to appear to want to be profiled in Rolling Stone,” Margulies said. Wallace is portrayed as wanting to like and trust Lipsky but also aware that their friendship “is really an artificial one.”

Margulies didn’t intend for The End of the Tour to be a definitive portrait of David Foster Wallace. In fact, Lipsky is the protagonist. It is through his point of view that we see Wallace. Margulies added that another theme of the film is the impossibility of truly knowing another person. Lipsky, the reporter, can interview Wallace or pry into his medicine cabinet

but “all these things are pieces of a puzzle that can’t quite be solved.”

Margulies confessed that he tried to read Infinite Jest in the 1990s but set it aside without finishing. But the “gift” of Lipsky’s book was that “it reintroduced me to Wallace as a man, as an intellect, as an artist.” Approaching the book again as part of the process of writing the screenplay, Margulies found it to be “a very accessible book, very funny, full of surprises.

It’s dazzling.”

In Lipsky’s book, Wallace is a “very corporeal fleshy presence that went beyond the image.” If The End of the Tour can accomplish something similar and engage people learning about Wallace for the first time, Margulies feels that is all to the good. “To keep Wallace in the cultural conversation is a valuable pursuit,” Margulies said. n The End of the Tour will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 3.

november 2015 •

The Arts Paper november 2015

the ac sounds off on...

The Map Thief david brensilver

I

paid a visit on a sundrenched Saturday in September to R.J. Julia Booksellers, in Madison, looking for something new to read. I’d been on a nonfiction kick, most recently reading Erik Larson’s latest masterpiece, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, and Lawrence Wright’s damning exposé of L. Ron Hubbard’s church-business, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.

I hadn’t had a particular title in mind that day at R.J. Julia, content enough to browse with a cup of black coffee and to see what piqued my interest. When I saw a few copies of Michael Blanding’s The Map Thief near the bottom of a bookshelf, I became more interested in immediately digging into it than in continuing my stroll through the crowded store. (That the place was crowded was a good thing, an employee and I agreed, making small talk about that and about Blanding’s book, which he said was also on his list of books to read.)

I’d been meaning to read the book, whose full title is The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps, for about a year. Having now done so, I’ll forever look at places like the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the Sterling Memorial Library in a new way.

It was at the Beinecke in June 2005 that E. Forbes Smiley III was arrested and charged with stealing maps, most notably a world map from Gerard de Jode’s 1578 atlas Speculum Orbis Terrarum. Smiley faced federal and state charges and, after cooperating with the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies and admitting to stealing 97 maps from six institutions (including the British Library, in London), was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution.

While Blanding’s book tells the story of those crimes, it also explains Smiley’s motivation, offers readers a thorough cartographic-history lesson, and provides a glimpse into the complex and competitive rare-map market and the dealers and collectors who fuel the trade. Through Blanding’s storytelling, we learn that Smiley was something an idealist but not at all

Mugshot of E. Forbes Smiley III. Photo courtesy of Connecticut State’s Attorney, New Haven Judicial District.

“He was a wheeler and dealer who overextended himself to the point of desperation...”

The Map Thief. Image courtesy of Penguin Random House.

a good businessman. He was a wheeler and dealer who overextended himself to the point of desperation, and it caught up with him, right here in New Haven.

Early in his career as a rare-map dealer, Smiley began making deals he had trouble holding up on his end, and later continued to dig himself into a financial hole by building a dream home on Martha’s Vineyard while simultaneously trying to develop in Sebec, Maine, the ideal community as he’d first envisioned it in college. And he only saw one way out of his troubles, which became much, much worse when he unknowingly dropped a razor blade on the floor of the Beinecke.

What Blanding’s book does above all is point out that there are victims of crimes like the ones Smiley carried out—the staff at the libraries whose collections Smiley pilfered, the dealers and collectors to whom he sold stolen maps, the scholars whose future research might be incomplete because important maps remain missing from various institutions, and numerous others whose trust he exploited.

It’s an engaging read, part true-crime thriller and part biography, a work that frames a relatively short crime spree in the context of centuries of history. It’s the story of ambition, really, starting with those who sought to capitalize on discovery and ending with a guy who wanted more of the world than he could afford. n Visit michaelblanding.com for information about the author and his books.

Michael Blanding. Photo by Kevin Day Photography.

• november 2015

David Brensilver is the editor of The Arts Paper. This is his opinion.

newhavenarts.org • 5

The Arts Paper november 2015

From Place to Page and Back website maps scenes from literary works steve scarpa

I

recently moved out of my tiny apartment on Linden Street in East Rock, my home for 13 years. I now live in Wallingford, but New Haven will always be my hometown. I was born there, and except for a bit of time during college and afterward, I’ve lived and worked in the area ever since.

With that kind of life experience behind me, a simple drive through the city prompts all kinds of reflection. I recall meals eaten with friends I haven’t seen in a long time in restaurants that no longer exist. I drive through my childhood neighborhood and see the glare of the street light as night arrives to break up our impromptu football games. I walk across the green and for a moment I’m a freshman in high-school again, wearing my shirt and tie and hustling to catch the transfer bus to West Haven.

This is my New Haven. Everyone who’s lived in the city for a long time has his or her own New Haven. For some people, those of a literary bent, New Haven has a different set of specters lurking. Lane Coutrell will always be waiting on the train platform at Union Station for Franny Glass to arrive. There are areas of the city vacated by urban renewal but haunted by ghosts. A young working man stands outside a Yale residence college, pining for a woman—and a life—that seems to elude him. Dozens of literary characters, not just those from J.D. Salinger and Tom Perrotta, have wandered the streets of my city, and if writer Andrew Bardin Williams has his druthers, each spot where they went and what happened in that imaginary realm will be chronicled.

Williams, a recent transplant from San Francisco, has come up with a novel idea that combines literature and place-making in one terribly addictive website. The website is called Placing Literature: Where Your Book Meets the Map, and what it does is simple: It allows those of us who love fiction to map our heroes’ jaunts through the real world.

Currently, the website features 79 such places marked in New Haven, and more than 3,000 mapped throughout the world. New Haven can claim scenes from J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, Tom Perrotta’s Joe College, Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon, and Alice Mattison’s The Wedding of the Two Headed-Woman, among many others.

The site was an offshoot of Williams’ day job. In 2012, he’d written a novel called Learning to Haight, which was set in his iconic San Francisco neighborhood. “I really used the city as a character unto itself for the novel,” he said. He decided to make a website that would chronicle all of the places he used in his novel. Less than 24 hours after the site went live, he’d had 1,000 views. Williams felt he was on to something more than just a marketing tool, albeit an effective one. “We wanted to explore the connection between the written word and place-based learning,” he said, referring to Kathleen Colin Williams and Steven Young, who’ve helped him with various aspects of the website. The Placing Literature project received funding through the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s “Reintegrate” program, which in turn was funded through a state grant.

Williams came to New Haven three years ago and has been watching the website flourish since then. As is the case with almost anything that happens online, Williams was surprised by what happened. More than 40 percent of the site’s traffic comes from outside the United States—Barcelona, Spain,

Author and New Haven resident Alice Mattison at the top of East Rock, a location that appears in her novel The Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman. Photo by Harold Shapiro.

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Screenshot from PlacingLiterature.com.

Andrew Bardin Williams. Photo by Jim Robbins.

tends to be the most documented single city in the world thus far. He’s found that certain genres of fiction don’t tend to work well with this format. Science fiction, for example, is not a particularly good fit. Romance tends to be really big on the site. Talking about authors and fans of that genre and their use of the website, Williams said, “They’ve made it a community.”

In the case of New Haven, the city’s very nature gives writers a fertile playground in which to indulge their imaginings. New Haven can be almost anything a writer wants. “You create for the book what the book needs.

New Haven will seem scruffier and more dangerous in one book and feel chummier and more family friendly in another. You have to create a place for people who’re going to imagine something different from what they know,” said Mattison, a longtime New Haven resident.

Her characters move through a literal landscape—in her 2004 novel The Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman, characters eat at Clark’s Dairy, get their glasses at Kennedy and Perkins, and make love in homes on East Rock Road. “I love it here and I’ve lived here a long time,” said Mattison. “I think New Haven is tremendously fun to write about.” New Haven has a few things going for it that make it a great setting for fiction. “It has geographic specificity. One direction is the water. The other directions are either East (or) West Rock. You know when you are in New Haven.

It’s bounded,” Mattison said.

The very things that makes the city both vibrant and confounding—a wide range of socioeconomic factors and a rich layer of diversity—provide Mattison with ample fodder for her work. “You are constantly coming up against people you don’t know very well,” she said. “It’s small and large at the same time. It’s small enough that you might see someone in more than one way.”

It is hard to define the quintessentially New Haven writer. Mattison certainly can make a claim, but there are others who could be mentioned, as well. Perrotta explores the town/ gown divide that shapes much of New Haven’s identity. F. Scott Fitzgerald, who doesn’t write about the city specifically, sees it as a bastion of Ivy League mores and a great place to mount out-of-town musicals. John Hersey used his years teaching at Yale to craft a dystopian view of a city gone wrong in his novel My Petition for More Space (which has not yet

made it onto placingliterature.com).

Christopher Arnott, a local writer, theater critic, and expert on New Haven-based literature, offers his own choice for the honor.

An inveterate reader and collector of New Haven-based books, Arnott reads it all, in all genres. He said there are certain trends that emerge in stories that unfold here. While the city is acknowledged as a mecca for arts and culture, crime often plays a huge role in New Haven’s literary image. And there is a single subject that no New Haven writer can ignore: Yale University. “Most fiction written about New Haven is written about Yale,” Arnott said. “In many ways, that seems to be the trap in writing about the city. It is easy in many ways to focus on Yale and depict the city as crime infested outside of its walls, or to not acknowledge it at all ... The better writers recognize that it isn’t just about New Haven and it isn’t just about Yale.”

Arnott trumpets the work of Joseph Payne Brennan as being one of the more unique New Haven writers (Brennan still is awaiting his first entry on Williams’ website). Brennan worked for 40 years at Yale’s Sterling Library and was a prolific and inventive writer of science fiction and horror stories. He took the issue of urban renewal, which controversially changed the face of the city in the 1950s and 1960s, and had the ghosts of the cultures swept away haunt the city. Brennan imagined the small backyards of New Haven as frightening, fraught places in his most famous story “Canavan’s Back Yard.” “He looked around the New Haven streets and saw horrors there,” Arnott said.

Writers write what they see. There are horrors on our streets—Brennan was right.

The horrors of homelessness and the violence that wracks some of our neighborhoods. But Mattison is also right—there is a vibrancy and life to New Haven, and great New Haven-focused literature reflects all of its complexities and all of its joys. Williams is trying to put together an online community for people who like to believe that the imaginary and the real can walk hand in hand and each can inform the other.

And for a guy who sees the past, present, and future everywhere I go in New Haven, being surrounded by literary phantoms, characters who’ve had experiences he can’t possibly know himself—well, that’s an awfully appealing thing. n Visit placingliterature.com.

november 2015 •

The Arts Paper november 2015

2015 Arts Award Winners We at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven are thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Arts Awards, the theme of which is Art Recharged, in recognition of the power of individuals and groups to respond to artistic and logistical challenges through reinvention.

C. Newton Schenck III Award for Lifetime Achievement in and Contribution to the Arts In addition to sharing the concert stage with some of the most iconic names in jazz, Willie Ruff has served that musical style and our community as an educator, an explorer, a writer, and an ambassador, inspiring audiences and connecting new generations of performers to history and possibility.

Over the course of two decades, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas has introduced us to extraordinary music, dance, and theater, expanding our artistic horizons and broadening our understanding of other cultures.

For 20 years as curator of the John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art, a place he literally called home, Paul Clabby opened the gallery’s doors to regional artists and arts organizations, providing them with space for imaginative exhibitions and offering us an opportunity to engage with

remarkable works of art.

Through her artist residency at the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop, sculptor Susan Clinard has transformed a historic space and engaged audiences while creating a body of work that captures and reflects the struggles of human experience.

In opening The Space more than 10 years ago, Steve Rodgers gave artists and audiences of all ages a welcoming place in which to share the live-performance experience. With the addition of the Outer Space and the Ballroom, he’s expanded the region’s dynamic original-music scene.

At her Wooster Square studio and through a partnership with the Fair Haven-based BalletHaven, virtuoso flamenco dancer Melinda Marquez celebrates, teaches, and creates access to the beloved style, embracing it as a rich cultural tradition and as a vehicle for enriching lives and fostering personal development.

The December issue of The Arts Paper will include detailed biographical information about the 2015 Arts Awards winners. The 2015 Arts Awards luncheon is scheduled for Friday, December 4, at 11:45 a.m., at the New Haven Lawn Club, 193 Whitney Ave., in New Haven.

For more information and to purchase tickets, call the Arts Council at (203) 772-2788.

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The Arts Council of Greater New Haven is dedicated to enhancing, developing, and promoting opportunities for artists, arts organizations, and audiences throughout the Greater New Haven area. Join us today! newhavenarts.org/membership The Arts Paper Read our feature articles and download the latest edition. issuu.com/artscouncil9 #ARTNHV Blog The Arts Council’s blog, which covers all things art in Greater New Haven. artNHV.com Arts Council on Facebook Get the inside scoop on what’s happening in the arts now! facebook.com/ artscouncilofgreaternewhaven Creative Directory Looking for something? Find local creative businesses and artists with our comprehensive arts-related directory.

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The Arts Paper november 2015

the roundtable

Fifteen No-Win Minutes shouting into the noise In the October issue of The Arts Paper, we included a column—the first of two parts—by Tim Parrish titled “From Memoir to Op-Ed Page: Revisiting the Process of Self-Recognition,” which detailed Parrish’s experiences summarizing his memoir, Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist, for an op-ed piece a New York Daily News editor solicited days after Dylann Roof murdered nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. What follows is the second part of Parrish’s column.

tim parrish The day the op-ed was published, it was seen by more people than my memoir had been. Support flooded my Facebook page, but anger from right-wingers also poured in. “Living in Connecticut had corrupted me,” “I hated the South,” “I just wanted black people to love me.” I bristled to tell them off, but instead I made the futile Facebook move of giving complex, nuanced

replies about institutional racism and insidious racist indoctrination. Much more disturbing, though, was that a number of black people were having problems with my notoriety due to having been a racist, problems I understood but that hurt my heart. Nonetheless, the recognition was fulfilling and exhilarating, then sickening when I went to the New York Daily News website and saw Dylann Roof’s photo next to mine and a quotation I hadn’t given: “My friend and I could have been Dylann Roof.”

Invitations came in for interviews on two national radio shows. I had used the connection between my racist past and Roof’s racism as a rhetorical move to make my point about the prevalence of racist thought and indoctrination in mainstream America, but I knew the interviews would focus on the sensationalist aspects. Sadly, the murders hadn’t shocked me, having grown up in such a racist environment, so as I sat with cheap phone in sweaty hand, giddy to reach a larger audience, I was

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planning my strategy and a persona to carry the proper gravitas.

Both men interviewed me intelligently and graciously while I paced my house alone, knowing I was telling thousands of strangers I’d been a racist, that I still struggled with indoctrination, and that I believed they did, too. The interviews followed the anticipated course with only one moment of theatrics from one of the hosts. As I explained that members of my childhood church had voted three times not to allow black people in, he said, “Let me get this straight. You’re talking about the ’60s and the ’70s, not the ’20s or ’30s?” I wanted to laugh and say, “Aren’t you from Philly?

Get real.” I stayed composed. Five minutes later I stood in a vacuum, wondering what I’d actually said and what I could have said better. Then I checked the small bump in my Amazon ratings and re-engaged in debates on Facebook, cringing more each time Roof’s picture came up on a shared post of my article.

Over the course of the week, I went on many local radio shows across the country, shows whose hosts ranged from gracious to clownish, emotional and mental fatigue setting in as the numbers of virtual and radio-caller insults increased. A website in my hometown devoted itself fully to going after me. I struggled more not to tell the attackers to go to hell or just trumpet what idiots they were. I also struggled not to point out the oddness and seeming absurdity of having so much focus on me, something I didn’t want to say because I thought it important to remain serious within the context of murder and racism, even though I truly didn’t believe saying that would detract from the actual topic.

Then came an invitation to go on CNN, which amped my excitement to a new high until a New York prison escapee was killed and I was bumped. The cancellation was a blow to my self-absorbed, bitter, infantile fantasy that maybe a TV appearance would cause a New York agent to be interested in

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november 2015 •

The Arts Paper november 2015

Screenshot of Tim Parrish, left, on CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin.

my next book, or better, show those who had rejected my memoir the mistake they’d made. Less childishly, I thought being on TV might garner more invitations to talk about racism, something I felt uniquely qualified to do because my past did not put me in a quasi-superior, liberal position of being able to judge anybody.

On the second Sunday after the op-ed ran, I sent an article to The Daily Beast. I had more to say, but I was also angling. Despite being worn down, I liked the conversation and the attention, and I thought The Daily Beast might attract MSNBC, which would help sell a few books, but also allow me to challenge an audience of white liberals and lefties to look inside themselves. Daily Beast editors told me they’d be sending revision suggestions, a complicated situation because I was heading into New York to spend two days with my girlfriend, Sarah. I worked on the piece, with her help, between walks and dining out, and sent the finished article in on Tuesday night before I was to return home on Wednesday.

When I googled the article on Wednesday morning, another picture of Roof and another fabricated quotation greeted me: “A constant hum of racist propaganda and bad advice almost led me to death and destruction because, I was told, black people were out to kill the white identity.” A small wave of nausea swept through me. The distance given me by the rush of arguing my point had begun to wear off, and I was done with having Roof’s image rub up against mine, even though I’d caused it. I’d started taking time to listen to the murder victims’ families on television and to read accounts of the murders, and those specifics had chipped away at my reaction to the killings as just another chapter in the nightmarish story of American racism.

My cell phone rang. A woman’s excited voice invited me to come on Brooke Baldwin’s CNN show that afternoon. Without thinking I said, “I don’t even have a clean shirt.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “So long as you don’t try to come on with a shirt that has breasts on it. One time a guy tried to come on with a shirt that had breasts on it.”

I spritzed one of my shirts with water and spread it on a chair in front of an air-conditioner. Sarah and I walked down the block for lunch, where I tried to balance coffee with a slight hangover and the realization that my brain was burnt from so much over the past two-plus weeks. She encouraged me that I’d be fine, and we went back to her friend’s apartment, where

• november 2015

I put on my wrinkled, slightly-less-aromatic shirt, which I’d worn coming in on Metro-North and while eating a hot summer dinner outside two nights earlier.

An hour later, a black SUV picked me up and deposited me at the studio. I was ushered through security, made up, prepped by the producer, seated behind the desk on a tiny island created by a raised platform, cameras, and a huge TV screen behind me, prepped again by the host, and instructed to look into a camera as I was introduced before I looked at Baldwin, the irony of whose name I was already aware. My nerves were humming exponentially more than they were during the radio interviews.

I had five minutes, a third of the time that was allotted for the radio interviews and an impossibly short time to discuss the most complicated and tragic subject in America.

Plus, their prep had let me know they were also definitely aiming for the sensational.

The interview began. In my peripheral vision, I could see images of Roof appearing and fading. Baldwin seemed sincerely engaged through her considerable TV makeup, with only one moment of theatrics when she covered her mouth and shook her head at my phrase “black invaders.” I wanted to scream, “What is wrong with this racist country? Why do we act shocked when a racist acts out on what is openly spoken all the time?” But I didn’t. Then I was back in the SUV and then in a cab and then on a Metro-North train without Sarah.

At home I would check my Amazon ratings, see them briefly spike into the single thousands, very high for a university press book with only one national review, before they began their quick fall into the hundred-thousands again. Later that week I would go on a Web show hosted by two African American rappers and for two hours try to connect with them as a person as they refused to talk about their personal experiences and used me as an example of a white supremacist. They argued that there was no difference between a “reformed racist” and a racist, an argument I understood even as I grew angry and ended up trying to defend myself, all the while pushing down an urge to accuse them of being separatists who were just as bad as the right-wingers who’d been coming at me for years. I wanted to say the latter even though I didn’t really believe it, even though I understood the historical nature of their anger, even though I knew that the demons in me were still prodding and would, as I’d written and said over and over, always prod. Even more painful than that interview

was the fact that, two Southern Connecticut State University alumnae were attacking me on our school’s website, calling me out for exploiting my own horrific actions, for implying that my suffering was equivalent to the suffering of African Americans, accusing me of being uninvolved with campus justice. These accusations made me feel more exposed and vulnerable than any before. These were former students.

Not mine, but former students, still. I’ve defined myself for more than 30 years primarily as a teacher, and their words were blows. I defended myself. The University of Mississippi Press and I had made 2,700 books available to SCSU; I had visited more than a dozen extra classes; I had brought in outside speakers for a panel on “Writing Race”; had made less than $1,000 and probably sold only 100-or-so books off my recent notoriety; I had done all of this while being pushed by the workload of a decidedly non-ivory-tower university. They heard none of this. But I did. I heard the same tone of self-justification that repulsed me from others. I hadn’t simply listened to them, hadn’t risen to the higher self of my persona when the moment most needed it, but rather had sunk into the self that lives close to the old worse self. The persona of reasoned, reformed racist dropped away, obviously a mask that I had strained to keep on for several weeks. I was aware that after years of working with my own shame

and guilt, of talking with hundreds of people about my memoir and my journey, both the shame and guilt were still there. That night the faces of those murdered and of the murderer, as well as the imagining of the horrible day in that church, came fully blown to me. I cried and cried, the sorrow and grief crowding in with the intellect, the narcissism, the rage, the shame, and the disappointment, crowding in with all the other things that make the multitude of a self. I knew the next day I would have to start forgiving myself again.

But that day on the train home, as once more I tried to remember exactly what had happened during an interview; as I struggled with having said “Negro” and “jigaboo” because I thought they needed to be said to accurately demonstrate my upbringing; as I hoped I’d be able to see the tape of my appearance and yet dreaded seeing it, my face itched. I scratched it. My fingers felt sticky. I looked. They were smudged from the makeup I was still wearing. n Tim Parrish teaches fiction and memoir writing at Southern Connecticut State University and is the co-coordinator of the university’s MFA program in Creative Writing. His memoir, Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist, was published in August 2013 by the University Press of Mississippi. His novel The Jumper was published in October 2013 by Texas Review Press.

Families ~ Events ~ Community

Photography Judy Sirota Rosenthal info@sirotarosenthal.com www.sirotarosenthal.com 203-281-5854

newhavenarts.org • 9

The Arts Paper november 2015

A Stage as Laborator y at yale cabaret, students exercise creative visions

Edmund Donovan, left, and Sean Patrick Higgins in We Are All Here, an adaptation by David Bruin, who directed the show, and Jiréh Breon Holder of Charles L. Mee’s Wintertime. Photo by Christopher Thompson.

david brensilver

T

his month, the Yale Cabaret will stage the sixth, seventh, and eighth plays of its 18-show season, beginning with The Commencement of William Tan, a world-premiere production by Don X. Nguyen that explores issues of race and identity and was inspired in part by the playwright’s Midwestern upbringing. It was proposed for inclusion in the Cab’s current season by second-year Yale School of Drama actor Eston Fung, who stars in the leading role.

This is how the Yale Cabaret works. It’s a place where theater is made by students for their peers and the wider community.

From submitted proposals, the organization’s board each season chooses a leadership team, and that group—this year, it’s co-artistic directors David Bruin, Julian Elijah Martinez, and Leora Morris, and managing director Annie Middleton—in turn, puts together a season based on pitches from their peers.

For the YSD students who’re involved, the Cab is a laboratory that offers a very real a sense of possibility.

“It’s an opportunity for YSD students to share their most creative selves” with the drama-school community, Middle-

10 • newhavenarts.org

ton, a third-year student in the school’s theater-management program, said. For some students, the Cab represents an opportunity to work outside a chosen theater discipline. “That’s special, too,” Middleton said, “to get to share that.”

For others, still, it offers an opportunity to collaborate with students from other Yale schools.

Bernard-Marie Koltès’ Roberto Zucco is being directed this month by third-year acting student Christopher Ghaffari and will feature a set designed by a student at the Yale School of Architecture and original music composed by a student at the Yale School of Music. In October, the Cab staged a piece titled I’m with You in Rockland, which is based on Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl “and our reaction to it as young artists,” Martinez, a third-year actor, said. The production involved students from Yale’s art, drama, and music schools. That kind of cross-institutional collaboration “is getting more common,” said Bruin, who’s in his third year in the YSD’s dramaturgy and dramatic-criticism program.

The Cab’s 48th season began in mid-September with We Are All Here, an adaptation, by Bruin and Jiréh Breon Holder, of Charles Mee’s Wintertime

The Yale Cabaret leadership, clockwise from top: Julian Elijah Martinez, Annie Middleton, David Bruin, and Leora Morris.

Photo by Galen Kane.

that Bruin, who directed the production, described as “a really imaginative riff on The Winter’s Tale and The Cherry Orchard.” Beyond being a “remix” of Mee’s piece that offers a nod to Shakespeare and Chekhov, We Are All Here, Bruin said

was a sort of “love letter to the Cab,” in that it tells the stories of individuals who come to the same place to bring their dreams to fruition, see those dreams crushed, and try to rediscover their common bond.

november 2015 •

The Arts Paper november 2015

After Roberto Zucco, the Cab will stage Leonard Bernstein’s opera in seven scenes, Trouble in Tahiti, which is being directed by Lynda Paul, who, last spring, played Monica in the Cab’s production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s short opera The Medium. Presenting opera again at the Cab, for Bruin, is an exciting prospect.

The Cab’s production of Trouble in Tahiti was proposed by Paul and set designer Rae Powell, who played Mrs. Nolan in the aforementioned production of The Medium.

As much that goes into planning and producing a production, each is only staged for a weekend. The shows come and go quickly, and that’s part of the Cab’s intensity.

“Because it’s so fleeting,” Martinez said, it’s “very, very exciting.”

For audiences, “there’s a sense of adventure,” Bruin said. “When you walk in the Cab, you don’t really know what you’re going to get.” He paraphrased the late Living Theater cofounder Judith Malina as saying theater is a meeting of the prepared and the unprepared.

In addition to being staged five times for the public, each show is performed once for the YSD student community.

“It’s a really wonderful occasion,” Middleton said. “It’s very communal.”

For YSD students, it’s an adventure of

their own design, a place to practice, Bruin said, to exercise one’s artistry and vision and to experiment in areas that might previously have seemed inauthentic or out of bounds.

“You get to practice being free, as an artist,” and to define what success looks like, he said. n

In November, the Yale Cabaret will stage the world premiere production of Don X. Nguyen’s The Left to right: Elizabeth Stahlmann, Niall Powderly, and Paul Cooper in David Harrower’s Knives in Hens, which was staged in September and directed by Jesse Commencement Rasmussen. Photo by Christopher Thompson. of William Tan (November 5-7), aël de Oliveira’s Boris Yeltsin (a work to examine cultural shifts.

Bernard-Marie Koltès’ Roberto Zucco translated from Portuguese by Maria Inês Visit yalecab.org for more information (November 12-14), and Leonard Bernstein’s Marques that reimagines Aeschylus’ trilogy about the current season and for ticketing Trouble in Tahiti (November 19-21). The The Oresteia). In January, the Cab will information. season will continue in December with stage Josh Wilder’s comedy Salt Pepper the English-language premiere of MickKetchup, a comedy that uses food trends

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The Arts Paper november 2015

CALENDAR

The Wesleyan University Center for the Arts presents Phantom Bodies: Photographs by Tanya Marcuse, which includes two photographic series: Undergarments and Armor and Wax Bodies. For the latter series, Marcuse, a Yale University graduate, photographed 18th century anatomical models — known as “phantom bodies,” which were used for scientific purposes — at La Specola, in Florence, Italy, and at the Josephinum, in Vienna. The divergent Marcuse’s photographs capture the divergent ideals of the Enlightenment and the Baroque periods. Pictured is Marcuse’s “Wax Bodies No. 187.” Photo by Tanya Marcuse, courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery.

Classes & Workshops ACES Educational Center for the Arts 55 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-777-5451. aces.org/eca.

Acting Classes for Kids and Teens. Pantomime, improvisation, theater games, movement, and the staging of a one act play. Age groupings: 7-11 and 12-15 years. Performance at end of session.

Call Ingrid Schaeffer at 203-795-9011 or email ingrids@optonline.net for more information. Classes held on Saturdays, 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m., through May 7, 2016. Please call for specific class fees.

Branford Art Center 1229 Main St, Branford.

860-334-4642.

Photography Classes for Middle-School Children.

Learn to shoot better pictures whether on a DSLR or a smart phone. Professional photographer Cathy Wilson Ramin will teach children (recommended age 10-14 years) the fundamentals of lighting and composition to go beyond the selfie and take photographs that others will envy. Call Cathy to register at 203-554-0365 or email cathywilsonramin@gmail.com. Classes held every other Friday, September 18-November 13, 4-5:30 p.m. $150.

Fall Photography Classes. Professional photographer Cathy Wilson Ramin will teach the funda-

12 • newhavenarts.org

mentals of DSLR camera settings, lighting, and composition through hands-on classes. Participants will meet at the Branford Art Center to go through a few tips and then head outdoors for practical implementation. To register call Cathy at 203-554-0365 or email cathywilsonramin@gmail. com. Classes held every other Sunday, September 20-November 15, 4-5:30 p.m. $125.

Fall Acting Classes. Lori Lowe (SAG-AFTRA) has been a professional actor for more than 25 years. She recently completed her first full-length screenplay that will begin filming in 2016. Lori has more than 200 commercial, TV, theater, and film credits. She teaches acting in New York and Connecticut. To register for this six-week series, contact Lori at themindfulactor@gmail.com or 203.804.0033. Tuesdays, September 29-November 10, 7-9:30 p.m., at the Branford Green 1229 Main St., Branford. 860-334-4642. $165 for the six-class series or $30 drop-in fee.

Institute Library 847 Chapel St., New Haven.

203-562-4045. institutelibrary.org.

Storysharing at the Institute Library. The group gives its members an opportunity to share stories in a very informal atmosphere. The stories may be of any kind—traditional folk tales, myths, stories of personal experience, etc. The group is open to

all levels of experience, so people with no formal experience of storytelling can try things out in a supportive atmosphere. The group meets the third Thursday of each month, through December 17. Free. Registration requested: eventbrite. com/e/storysharing-at-the-institute-library-tickets-16262893753. 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Long Wharf Theatre 222 Sargent Drive, New Haven. 203-787-7027. longwharf.org.

Theater Classes at Long Wharf. Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven is hosting fantastic workshops for young people this fall! Show your skills or try something new! Classes include Shakespeare Performance, Intro to Sketch Comedy Writing, and Movement. Dates and class descriptions can be found at longwharf.org/studio-school. Classes offered through December 13 . Shakespeare Performance: Saturday, October 10; Intro to Sketch Comedy Writing: Saturday, October 24; Moving Statues: Saturday, December 12. $45 per class or all three classes for $120. Discounts available! Call for details. 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

The Grove 760 Chapel St., New Haven.

203-676-7133. companyofwriters.net.

Fiction, Poetry, and Memoir-Writing Classes. We offer supportive, challenging workshops for

writers to cultivate their individual voices. Classes offered in New Haven and online. Special oneday seminars also offered featuring nationally known writers, such as Amy Bloom. Classes every Wednesday night, through November 18, at 7 p.m. $450-$475.

Penning Your Life Story: Kick-Starting Your Memoir or Personal Essay. For writers who wish to write stories from their own lives. All you need is a story or experience and a passion to tell it. We’ll help you put it on paper. We’ll explore how writers shape life experiences, and construct their younger selves on the page. Craft elements such as creating scene, creative research, and others will be discussed. November 7.

One-day seminar. $150. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Writing to Be Read with Amy Bloom. How to turn what matters to you into pages that matters to other people. How character leads to story and sometimes vice-versa. Exercises, some reading as writers, some talk, some help. No scolding, no BS. Limited to 20.

Seminar led by novelist Amy Bloom. November 21.

One-Day Seminar. $200. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Connecticut Natural Science Illustrators Yale Peabody Museum Community Education Center, 117 Frontage Road, Orange. 203-934-0878. ctnsi.com.

Classes and Workshops. Drawing and Painting Birds: Wednesdays, 1-4 p.m., November 2-December 14;

november 2015 •

The Arts Paper november 2015

Butterflies in Colored Pencil; Saturdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., November 12- December 10; Drawing Mammals: Saturdays 1-4 p.m., November 5- December 17. Instructors are Dorie Petrochko and Jan Prentice.

For more information visit website. Drawing and Painting Trees and Butterflies in Colored Pencil: $175. Drawing and Painting Birds and Drawing Mammals: $275.

Fall Art Classes. We offer a wide range of art courses from Beginning Drawing to Mixed-Media Painting. For more information, visit website, email ctnsi.info@gmail.com, or call 203-695-1215 Classes offered Monday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., through November 22.

Art Classes Inspired by Nature. We offer a wide range of courses from Drawing Flowers through the Microscope to Oil Painting for beginners through advanced artists. We welcome students of all levels and abilities. For information, visit website, email ctnsi.info@gmail.com, or call 203-695-1215.

Classes offered daily, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., through December 22.

Neighborhood Music School 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

Audubon Voices. Come explore the joy of group singing in our new, free group classes! Children’s Chorus, Ages 7 - 12, Tuesday, 3:30 p.m.; Youth Chorus, Ages 13-18, Tuesday, 4:50 p.m. Classes offered through November 24.

Wesleyan University Center for the Arts Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave., Middletown. 860685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

West African Drumming and Dance Workshop.

Adjunct professor of music Abraham Adzenyah and

artist-in-residence Iddi Saaka teach a joyful and engaging workshop in Ghanaian drumming and dance.

No experience necessary. Students are encouraged to bring their families and friends. November 7. 7:30 p.m. Free!

Dance 13-14 Friday-Saturday Faye Driscoll “Thank You for Coming” and Attendance “Thank You For Coming” is a series of works by choreographer/director Faye Driscoll that focus on how you experience yourself in relation to other bodies and the spaces you inhabit. In the Connecticut premiere of Attendance, dancers pass through ever-morphing states of physical entanglement. Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Exhibitions City Gallery 994 State St., New Haven.

203-782-2489. city-gallery.org.

Roberta Friedman—Break: In/Through/Out. This exhibit celebrates a period of change and transition reflected in new works on paper and canvas. On view November 5-29. Artist reception: Sunday, November. 8, 2-5 p.m. Gallery hours: Thursday-Sunday, 12-4 p.m., and by appointment Closing reception and talk: November 29, 2-4 p.m. Free.

City Gallery presents Break: in/through/out, a collection of new paintings by Roberta Friedman, November 5-29. Image courtesy of the artist.

yale institute of sacred music presents

Krista Tippett

new haven symphony orchestra

Brothers in Arts william boughton, music director

The Mystery and Art of Living tuesday, november 3 · 5:30 pm battell chapel The Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, New York Times bestselling author, and recipient of the 2014 National Humanities Medal says, “Virtues – so closely bound to our flaws and failings – lie at the heart of the mystery of the human capacity to be

Thursday, November 12, 2015 7:30pm Shubert Theater

present to the flawed and failing world.”

Free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu

NHSO 2015 Artist-in-Residence BRUBECK/ SAINT-JAMES Brothers in Arts Chris Brubeck returns for Brothers in Arts, a WWIICOPLAND Quiet City inspired musical journey featuring jazz, classical, cabaret WILLIAM BOUGHTON vocals, and more. This special conductor event will celebrate Veterans CHRIS BRUBECK trombone Elliott Forrest, visuals Day with music honoring the Olav van Hezewijk English horn accomplishments and bravery of Rich Clymer trumpet the uniformed services.

Guillaume Saint-James saxophone Didier Ithursarry accordion Jerome Seguin bass Thierry Arpino drums

This concert will offer a pre-concert reception for gala benefactors (Tickets:$250) and a post-concert dessert & dancing party (Tickets:$135, $75 for Veterans) celebrating the NHSO and Gala Honoree William Curran. (Concert-Only Tickets:$15 - 74)

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The Arts Paper november 2015

College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown.

860-685-2330. wesleyan.edu/ceas/exhibitions.

Tripod Complex. This exhibition features monumental scrolls by Ian Boyden ’95 that are his meditation on the remains of ancient trees after a forest fire in Washington state. On view through December 11.

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 12-4 p.m. Closed: October 24-28 and November 24-December 1. Free.

Creative Arts Workshop 80 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-562-4927. newhavenpaintandclayclub.org.

Selected Members Exhibit. Five active members of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club will show their work in the gallery of Creative Arts Workshop.

Exhibitors include Barbara Groff, William Meddick, Ralph Schwartz, Peter Seltzer, and Cheryl Weymann. Every third year since 2003, the NHPC Club has sponsored this exhibit. Note change of venue this year. On view November 20-December 23. Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Opening reception: Sunday, November 22, 2-5 p.m. Many pieces available for purchase. No charge for admission.

DaSilva Gallery 2496 Boston Post Road, Guilford.

203-533-5812. dasilvagalleryguilford.com.

Small Works: Connecticut Shoreline Artists Showcase. An exhibition of small works in paint, pastel, ceramic, fiber, and mixed media. Anchored by 16 artists from the Shoreline Arts Trail. With other guest “small work” makers. Meet the Artists Party: November 6, 4-7 p.m. Open House Arts Trail Weekend: November 20-21. A great way to see the

lovely work of local artists, and collect or gift art for the holidays! On view November 6-29. Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 12-5 p.m. Free.

Davison Art Center Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 301 High St., Middletown.

860-685-2500. wesleyan.edu/dac.

Phantom Bodies—Photographs by Tanya Marcuse.

This exhibition brings together Undergarments and Armor (2002-2004) and Wax Bodies (20062008), two projects in which Tanya Marcuse creates haunting photographs evoking absent bodies. On view through December 13. Hours: Tuesday-Sunday; Saturday, October 24-Tuesday, October 27; and Tuesday, November 24-Monday, November 30. 12-4 p.m. Free.

Dehn Gallery 903 Main St., Manchester.

860-647-6030. manchestercc.edu/mcc-on-main/dehn-gallery.

Violent Nature. A group exhibition featuring artists Corina S. Alvarezdelugo (painting), Dave Barowski (installation), Jim and Ruth Bremer (sculpture), Richard Harden (painting), Linda Lighton (sculpture), Olu Oguibe (sculpture, photography), Jane Rainwater (drawings), Margaret Roleke (sculpture), Rita Valley (books), and Mark Williams (painting).

On view through November 14. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Free.

Environmental Science Center, Yale University 21 Sachem St., New Haven. 203-689-5342.

Many Voices, One Song The creative process for Ava is an act of contemplation inspired and guided by her love for nature and her deep concern for the

Orchestra New England Music Director James Sinclair, dressed for the ensemble’s annual Colonial Concert at United Church on the Green, which features 18th century music. Photo by Melanie Barocas Mayer.

environment. Painting is one way that she honors and give thanks to the earth. In this latest series of mixed-media works, Ava focuses on the earth’s elements. Her aim is to express the interconnectedness within nature. On view through December 18. Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free.

Donald Blumberg Photographs Selections from the Master Sets Through November 22, 2015 YA L E U N I V E R S I T Y A R T GA L L E RY Free and open to the public 1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut | 203.432.0600 | artgallery.yale.edu Free membership! Join today at artgallery.yale.edu/membership.

Image: Donald Blumberg, Untitled, from the series In Front of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, 1965–67.

Gelatin silver print. Yale University Art Gallery, Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund. © Donald Blumberg

14 • newhavenarts.org

Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa/zilkha.

R. Luke Dubois—In Real Time. Genre-defying composer, artist, and performer R. Luke DuBois creates maps, scores, and videos that use real-time data flows and media footage to raise questions of artistic agency, privacy, and fair use. On view through December 13. Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 12-5 p.m. Closed November 25-30. Free.

Mystic Arts Center 9 Water Street, Mystic.

860-536-7601. galleryoneCT.com.

The Artists of Gallery One. The work is by a diverse group of mid-career artists who utilize current modes of expression in a variety of contemporary media. The hanging intentionally emphasizes connections between representational and abstract work. On view through November 7. Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m., daily. Artists: David Brown, Ashby Carlisle, Catherine Christiano, Bette Ellsworth, Mary Fussell, Gray Jacobik, Rick Lacey, Judith Barbour Osborne, Constance Patterson, T. Willie Raney, Diana Rogers, Rick Silberberg, Victoria Sivigny, and Jill Vaughn. Free.

New Haven Museum 114 Whitney Ave., New Haven.

203-562-4183. newhavenmuseum.org.

From Clocks to Lollipops: Made in New Haven. This exhibition highlights an astonishing variety of goods that were, and some that still are, produced in the Elm City. Featuring more than 100 objects, advertisements, trade cards, and photographs, with a wide-ranging and sometimes humorous look at the products made in New Haven. On view through December 31. Open Monday-Saturday and the first Sunday of the month. Adults $4, seniors $3, students $2, those younger than 12 admitted free.

Whitney Humanities Center 53 Wall St., New Haven.

203-432-0670. whc.yale.edu/gallery-whitney.

Painting in Time: Discovery, Analysis, and Interpretation of a Roman Shield. The current exhibit presents a multi-disciplinary study of one of the site’s most unique artifacts and one of archaeology’s rarest finds—a wooden Roman shield painted with scenes from the Trojan War. On view through December 18. During fall and spring term the gallery is open to the public Monday and Wednesday, 3-5 p.m., or by appointment. Call (203) 432-0670. Free.

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. 203-432-5050. peabody.yale.edu.

Samurai and the Culture of Japan’s Great Peace. Through more than 150 objects, many of which have never been on display, this exhibition explores the fascinating history of the samurai from their violent beginnings to the 250-year Great Peace that marked the final period of their reign. On view through January 3, 2016. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 12-5 p.m.

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Clarinetist Anat Cohen performs with her quartet at Southern Connecticut State University’s John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts on November 8. Proceeds from the concert will help provide food for families in need during the Thanksgiving season. Photo by Augusta Sagnelli.

Film 5 Thursday Religion and Social Change on Film: A Time for Burning (1967, directed by Bill Jersey). Film screening followed by discussion. 7 p.m. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St., New Haven. 203-432-5062. ism.yale. edu/calendar.

his Fourth Piano Sonata; the world premiere of Memories of Phoolan; and Piano Rock Album, the composer’s tribute to popular piano styles (rock, pop, cocktail piano, and ragtime) and more! 3 p.m.

Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave., Middletown.

860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

3 Tuesday Cleek Schrey—Variations Experience graduate music student Cleek Schrey’s realization of John Cage’s graphic score Variations II for violin and six loudspeakers, alongside original compositions, and

improvisations. 9 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, World Music Hall, 40 Wyllys Ave., Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

4 Wednesday Music Haven Recital at Stetson Library The young violin, viola, and bass students of Mr. Benn, Mr. Gregory, and Ms. Annalisa share their talents with the community in an intimate studio recital.

6:30 p.m. Free. New Haven Public Library, Stetson Branch, 200 Dixwell Ave., New Haven. 203-7459030. musichavenct.org.

5 Thursday Music Haven Recital at Wilson Library The young violin, cello, and piano students of Ms. Yaira, Mr. Philip, and Mr. Jonty share their talents with the community in an intimate studio recital. 6:30 p.m.

Free. New Haven Public Library, Wilson Branch, 303 Washington Ave., New Haven. 203-745-9030. musichavenct.org.

6 Friday A Flight of Fancy Haley Hewitt, harp; Margaret Ann Martin; piano. Flute and Harp Concerto in C major and Highland Dances by Chris Norman. 7 p.m. Free.

Kids & Families Musical Folk First Presbyterian Church, 704 Whitney Ave., New Haven. 203-691-9759. MusicalFolk.com.

Musical Folk — Offering Music Together Classes for Babies and Toddlers. A fun creative music and movement program for babies through 5 year olds and the ones who love them! Come sing, dance, and play instruments in an informal setting. Classes held daily in New Haven, Hamden, Cheshire, Woodbridge, and East Haven through November 24. Demonstration classes are free. Open 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Ten-week semester is $216 and includes a CD and book. Each semester features a new collection of music. Four semesters per year.

Music 1 Sunday “This Is It!” The Complete Piano Works of Neely Bruce—Part VII John Spencer Camp Professor of Music Neely Bruce presents the seventh in a series of CD-length recitals of his piano music, featuring

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digressions in the manner of a TED talk. The text recited and subjected to TEDxegesis is “In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women,” a prose poem self-published by John Barton Wolgamot in 1944. 9 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, CFA Hall, 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

19 Thursday Guest Artist: Dialogos “Swithun! One Saint, Three Furies, and a Thousand Miracles from Winchester Around 1000.” 7:30 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St., New Haven. 203-432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar.

20 Friday Hard Data Redux In collaboration with Wesleyan University’s Music Department, R. Luke DuBois presents a generative composition for musicians that uses data sets and real-time information as the basis for its score, based on the same principles as his 2009 work Hard Data, which used data from American military actions in Iraq as the source material. 8 p.m. Free! Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

21 Saturday

Emily Young, left, and Andy Grotelueschen in Fiasco Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, which Long Wharf Theatre stages November 25-December 20.

Photo by Joan Marcus.

Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

Faculty Concert Series Join us for an evening of heartwarming music with Naomi Senzer, flute; Haley Hewitt, harp; and Margaret Ann Martin, piano. Works include Flute and Harp Concerto in C Major and Highland Dances by Chris Norman. 7 p.m. Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

7 Saturday Discovering British Choral Music Public reading of the latest choral music from Novello and Chester Music (United Kingdom). Works by Bennett, Mealor, O’Reagan, Tavener, and Whitbourn. 2 p.m.

Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St., New Haven. 203-4325062. ism.yale.edu/calendar.

West African Drumming and Dance Share Students from the 7:30 p.m. workshop (see Classes & Workshops) give an informal performance of what they have learned, joined by adjunct professor of music Abraham Adzenyah and alumni on drums.

Followed by a performance by current Wesleyan University students. 9 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave., Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

46 Years of Azdenyah at Wesleyan—West African Drumming Ghanaian master drummer and adjunct professor of music Abraham Adzenyah is retiring after 46 years at Wesleyan University. Join alumni and Mr. Adzenyah’s students, including David Locke ’72, Ph.D. ’79, and Robert Levin ’81, as they reflect on Mr. Adzenyah’s influence on them and the trajectory of their lives. 3 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, CFA Hall, 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

8 Sunday Anat Cohen Quartet Don’t miss this truly exceptional event when Anat Cohen, voted Clarinetist of the Year eight years in a row, performs with her

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quartet at Lyman Center. Anat has toured the world with her quartet. 4 p.m. General Admission: $30.

Lyman Center for the Performing Arts, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. 203-392-6154.

Neighborhood Music School Faculty Concert Call for details. 12 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St. , New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

Faculty Concert Series: A Flight of Fancy Join us for a lighthearted afternoon of music with Julie Asuma Levene, clarinet; Bethany Wilder, viola; and Sara Kohane, piano. Enjoy works by Mozart and Bruch along with Black Birds, Red Hills by Libby Larsen. 12 p.m. Free and open to the public. Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

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11 Wednesday Music Haven Veterans Day Concert Music Haven students and their teachers, the Haven String Quartet, perform a free lunchtime concert in the V.A. Hospital’s Community Living Center. 12:30 p.m. Free. V.A. Healthcare, 950 Campbell Ave., West Haven. 203745-9030. musichavenct.org.

12 Thursday Yale Schola Cantorum Handel: Dixit Dominus and Roderick Williams’ O Brother Man and more. 7:30 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Christ Church Episcopal, 84 Broadway St., New Haven. 203432-5062. ism.yale.edu/event/ yale-schola-cantorum-handel-dixit-dominus.

“Brothers in Arms” Chris Brubeck returns to the New Haven Symphony Orchestra to celebrate Veterans Day with “Brothers in Arts,” a World War II-inspired musical journey featuring jazz, classical, cabaret vocals, and more. Symphony at the Shubert Series sponsored by Marcum, LLC. KidTix and Blue Star Tickets (both are available) sponsored by Frontier. 7:30 p.m. $15-$74. $10 student tickets with ID. Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. 203-865-0831.

NewHavenSymphony.org.

13 Friday Café Romanza Solomiya Ivakhiv (guest), violin; Rebecca Patterson, cello; Erika Schroth, piano. Café Music by Paul Schoenfield. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano. 7 p.m. Free.

Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

Simple Gifts in Concert Two women plus 12 instruments equals one good time featuring an impressive variety of ethnic folk music: Klezmer, Gypsy, Balkan, Scandinavian, and more. Combining tradition with innovation. Folk dancing encouraged!

8-10:30 p.m. $12 members; $15 nonmembers; $5 for kids 12 years and younger. Branford Folk Music Society, First Congregational Church of Branford, 1009 Main St., Branford. 203-488-7715. folknotes.org/branfordfolk.

15 Sunday Guest Artist: Heinavanker Estonian folk hymns and liturgical melodies. 7:30 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St., New Haven. 203-432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar.

“Brothers in Arts” Chris Brubeck returns to the New Haven Symphony Orchestra to celebrate Veterans Day with “Brothers in Arts,” a World War II-inspired musical journey featuring jazz, classical, cabaret vocals, and more. KidTix and Blue Star Tickets (both are available) sponsored by Frontier.

3 p.m. $15-$74. $10 student tickets with ID. Wilton High School, 395 Danbury Road, Wilton. 203-8650831. NewHavenSymphony.org.

Mad Rush—Pianist Lisa Moore Plays Philip Glass Wesleyan University private lessons teacher Lisa Moore has been described in The New Yorker as “New York’s queen of avant-garde piano.” At The Russell House, she will present highlights from Philip Glass’ solo piano collection featured on her new album Mad Rush (Orange Mountain Music). 3 p.m. Free! Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, The Russell House, 350 High St., Middletown 860685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

17 Tuesday

A Balm in Gilead CD-Release Concert Celebrating the released of a new recording by Tiffany Jackson, soprano; Rex Cadwallader, piano; Arti Dixon, drums; and Mike Asetta, bass. Ms. Jackson sings traditional African American spirituals including “Deep River,” “A Balm in Gilead,” “Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child,” and others. Timeless songs married with great modern jazz. 7 p.m. Free. Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-6245189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

The Arts Paper advertising and calendar deadlines The deadline for advertisements and calendar listings for the December 2015 edition of The Arts Paper is: Monday, October 26, at 5 p.m.

Future deadlines are as follows: January/February 2016: Monday, November 23, 5 p.m.

March 2016: Monday, January 25, 5 p.m.

April 2016: Monday, February 29, 5 p.m.

May 2016: Monday, March 28, 5 p.m.

June 2016: Monday, April 25, 5 p.m.

July/August 2016: Tuesday, May 31, 5 p.m.

Calendar listings are for Arts Council members only and should be submitted online at newhavenarts.org.

Arts Council members can request a username and password by sending an e-mail to communications@ newhavenarts.org. The Arts Council’s online calendar includes listings for programs and events taking place within 12 months of the current date. Listings submitted by the calendar deadline are included on a monthly basis in The Arts Paper.

TED/Mencken A live recitation rendered breathless through circuitry and interleaved with explanatory

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The Arts Paper november 2015

Brooklyn Rider Hailed as “the future of chamber music” (Strings), the string quartet Brooklyn Rider features Nicholas Cords on viola, Johnny Gandelsman on violin, and brothers Colin Jacobsen and Eric Jacobsen on violin and cello, respectively. 8 p.m. $22 general admission, $20 senior citizens, Wesleyan University faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave., Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

22 Sunday Great Organ Music at Yale: Michel Bouvard Program TBA. 7:30 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven.

203-432-5062. ism.yale.edu/event/ great-organ-music-yale-michel-bouvard.

Russian Voices: St. Petersburg Men’s Ensemble This group from Russia returns to perform Russian sacred and folk music. Our audience loved their sonorous voices and charming presence last year.

Meet the artists after the concert at our reception.

Free parking. 4 p.m. Freewill offering. Bethesda Music Series, Bethesda Lutheran Church, 450 Whitney Ave., New Haven. 203-787-2346. bethesdanewhaven.org.

Silk’n Sounds: “Happy Holiday Memories” The award-winning Silk’n Sounds chorus will be performing at 3 p.m. at the Cheshire Library. Start off the holiday season by joining us for this enjoyable performance which will include some “happy holiday harmonies,” music that the whole family will enjoy. The event is free and open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there. Free and open to the public. Cheshire Library, 104 Main St., Cheshire.

203-272-2245. silknsounds.org.

Special Events Artistry: American Craft Shopping for the Holidays One-of-a-kind, handmade crafts by more than 250 artists from across America. Items include

ceramics, glass, jewelry, fiber, ornaments, accessories, toys, specialty foods, and more. Open seven days a week through January 3. Opening reception: Thursday, November 5, 5-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Sunday, 12-5 p.m. Free. Guilford Art Center, 411 Church St., Guilford. 203-453-5947. guilfordartcenter.org.

3 Tuesday Literature and Spirituality—Krista Tippett: The Mystery and Art of Living The Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, New York Times bestselling author, and recipient of the 2014 National Humanities Medal returns to Yale University. 5:30 p.m. Free. 300 College St., New Haven. 203-4325062. ism.yale.edu/calendar.

5 Thursday Tellabration! A free storytelling celebration at the Institute Library. 6:30 p.m. The Institute Library, 847 Chapel St., New Haven. 203-562-4045. institutelibrary.org.

6 Friday Contra Dance and Fundraiser New Haven Farms is holding its second annual contra dance and auction. The infamous Billy Fischer will be calling the dance, there will be local beer and wine on tap, hors d’oeuvres from your favorite New Haven restaurants, and exciting auction items. Bring your pals and your dancing pants! 7-10 p.m. 1253 Whitney Ave., Hamden. 203-780-8890. newhavenfarms.org.

12 Thursday Celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas with Martha Link Walsh Martha Link Walsh launches her new book, A Paper-Cut Christmas: The Twelve Days of Christmas. Join her for this special evening to celebrate the release of her second book! Free and open to the public. Refreshments served. At the Martha Link Walsh Gallery, 188 North Main St., Branford.

203-481-3505. marthalinkwalsh.com. 5:30-7 p.m.

Free.

Hamden Art League November Meeting and Art Demonstration Portrait artist Alain Picard will demonstrate “The Painterly Portrait” in pastels,

including an explanation of techniques for creating an accurate likeness, establishing clear values, evaluating color relationships, and selecting skin tones.

Picard is a signature member of the Pastel Society of America and winner of numerous top awards for his work. Meeting to be held on Thursday for this month only. Coffee and conversation at 7 p.m., brief business meeting at 7:15 p.m., artist’s demonstration at 7:30 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Hamden Art League, 2901 Dixwell Ave., Hamden.

203-494-2316. hamdenartleague.com.

14-15 Saturday Sunday Hand-Crafted Holiday Gifts for Sale Liz Pagano: mixed-metal jewelry; Deborah Radoff: functional and decorative pottery; Ruth Sack: unique vintage jewelry creations. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 315 Old Lane Road, Cheshire (on the border of Hamden and Cheshire).

203-464-4385.

Talks & Tours 12 Thursday Literature and Spirituality—Jacqueline Osherow: “Lifting the Gemstones: Writing Contemporary Poems in the Biblical Tradition.” The Lana Schwebel Memorial Lecture in Religion and Literature. 5:30 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St., New Haven.

203-432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar.

18 Wednesday Artful Lunch Series: Clark Maines One piece of artwork, one speaker, 15 minutes. Join the Friends of the Davison Art Center for a presentation by Clark Maines, Kenan Professor of the Humanities (and professor of art history, archaeology, environmental studies, and medieval studies), about his favorite work in the Davison Art Center collection.

Bring your bag lunch! 12:10 p.m. Free! Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Davison Art Center, Alsop House Dining Room, 301 High St., Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Neighborhood Music School will host a CD-release party for Soprano Tiffany Jackson’s latest recording of traditional African American spirituals, A Balm in Gilead, on Saturday, November 21. Photo courtesy of Neighborhood Music School.

Theater Ron Shalom: Overture to Death Row Dick Dick wants just one thing for his last meal. A semistaged abstraction of a nihilo-pornography-in-progress set in dialogue with Carolee Schneemann’s 1965 film Fuses. Presented by graduate music student Ron Shalom. November 10. 9 p.m. Free!

Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 40 Wyllys Ave., Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Marisol Directed by visiting assistant professor of theater Edward Torres, José Rivera’s Marisol takes place in a post-apocalyptic world filled with intrigue and dark humor as Marisol winds her way through the darkened and abandon streets of New York.

November 19-21. 8 p.m. $8 general public, $5 senior citizens, Wesleyan University faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $4 Wesleyan students. 271 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

BULLETIN BOARD

The Arts Council provides the job and bulletin board listings as a service to our membership and is not responsible for the content or deadlines.

Please contact the Arts Council for details about new policies that will take effect with the December issue of The Arts Paper.

Call For Artists Guilford Art Center is seeking contemporary craft artists to participate in Craft Expo 2016.

The juried show, to be held on July 15-17, 2016, is open to crafts made by hand or with the use of appropriate tools, by an individual and/or with help from a limited number of assistants/apprentices.

Deadline: January 10, 2016. $40 entry fee, $60 late fee. guilfordartcenter.org. zapplication.org/eventinfo.php?ID=4356.

Artists The Tiny Gallery: a very big opportunity for very small art. The Tiny Gallery is a premiere space for “micro” exhibitions in the historic Audubon Arts District, located within the lighted display “totem” outside Creative Arts Workshop, at 80 Audubon St., in New Haven. Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis and should include a written proposal, artist statement, and images of artwork.

Call 203-562-4927 x. 14, send email to gallery@ creativeartsworkshop.org, or visit creativeartsworkshop.org/tiny.

Singers The award winning Silk’n Sounds Chorus is looking for new members from the area. We invite women to join us at any of our rehearsals to learn more. We enjoy four part a cappella harmony in the barbershop style, lively performances, and wonderful friendships. Rehearsals are every Tues-

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day, 6:30-9 p.m., at Spring Glen United Church of Christ, 1825 Whitney Ave., Hamden. Contact Lynn at 203 623-1276 for more information or visit silknsounds.org.

Services Art consulting services Support your creativity!

Low-cost Service offers in-depth artwork analysis, writing and editing services by former arts newspaper editor, present art director of the New Haven Free Public Library and independent curator of many venues, Johnes Ruta. 203.387.4933, azothgallery.com, azothgallery@comcast.net.

Historic home restoration contractor Period appropriate additions, baths, kitchens, and remodeling. Sagging porches, straightened/leveled, wood windows restored, plaster restored, historic, molding and hardware, Vinyl/aluminum siding removed, wood siding repaired/replaced. Connecticut and New Haven Preservation Trusts. RJ Aley Building Contractor (203) 226-9933. jaley@rjaley.com.

Private Art Instruction For adults and children.

Learn in a working artist’s studio. Ideal for artists, home-schooled youngsters, and those with special needs. Portfolio preparation offered. Draw, paint, print, and make collage in a spacious light-filled studio at Erector Square in New Haven. Relaxed and professional. I can also come to you. Lessons

created to suit individual. References available.

Send email to lizpagano@snet.net.

ment agent, at 203-772-3200 x. 20 for a rental application.

Web design services Startup business solutions.

Creative, sleek Web design by art curator for art, design, architectural, and small-business sites.

Twenty-five years’ experience in database, logistics, and engineering applications. Will create and maintain any kind of website. Hosting provided.

Call 203-387-4933, visit azothgallery.com, or send email to azothgallery@comcast.net.

Studio Space Thirteen-thousand square feet of undeveloped studio space available in old mill brick building on New Haven harbor. Conveniently located one minute off I-95, Exit 44 in West Haven.

Owners willing to subdivide. Call (609) 638-8501. ment agent, at 203-772-3200 x. 20 for a rental application.

Space Artist Studio West Cove Studio and Gallery offers work space with two large Charles Brand intaglio etching presses, lithography press, and stainless-steel work station. Workshops and technical support available. Ample display area for shows.

Membership: $75 per month. 30 Elm St., West Haven. Call 609-638-8501 or visit westcovestudio. org.

Live/Work Space ArLoW (Arts Lofts West). Fabulous lofts in New Haven’s first artist-housing development. The units contain high ceilings with flexible options for living and working spaces. Great natural light and interior spaces. Please contact Lynn Calabrese c/o Wm. M. Hotchkiss, manage-

Jobs Please visit newhavenarts.org for up-to-date local employment opportunities in the arts.

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The Arts Paper november 2015

The Rudiments of Giving

celebrating generosity and common interest

A selection of military drumsticks from the Paul A. Munier Collection. Photo (detail) by Christopher Gardiner.

david brensilver

N

o sooner had I logged on to the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments website than a photograph caught my eye—a circular arrangement of drumsticks against a gray background. I clicked on a news link announcing the acquisition of the Paul A. Munier Collection of Military Snare Drumsticks.

It didn’t take me long to visit the collection, whose program coordinator, Kelly Hill—an opera singer who graduated from the Yale School of Music in 2013—lifted three plastic containers onto a table in the main office.

Two pairs, each made of solid steel (one is nickel-plated) and weighing more than drumsticks should, immediately caught my eye.

These were intended for use with a practice pad, according to a list of stick descriptions Munier had hand-written and provided with the sticks. As I dug through pairs of sticks bound with rubber bands, and referred to the descriptions, I noted familiar names—George B. Stone & Son and the Cooperman Fife & Drum Company, to name a few.

George Lawrence Stone, son of drum builder George B. Stone, wrote a technique book called Stick Control for the Snare Drummer in 1935 that has long been considered a bible of sorts, along with his 1961 follow-up, Accents and Rebounds for the Snare Drummer.

The Cooperman company used to have an operation in Centerbrook, Connecticut, where many moons ago I bought several pairs of sticks. Certainly, a great deal of military drumming history is tied to southern New England, for obvious reasons. The Connecticut Historical Society, in Hartford, is home to a snare drum that’s believed to be the oldest in

18 • newhavenarts.org

the country, dating to 1650.

Munier’s collection numbers 60 pairs of various sizes and wood types. He’d donated the sticks in 2012, along with funds to have them photographed, which happened last November.

Susan Thompson, the YCMI’s curator, explained that Munier had offered his collection to other museums, but none wanted all 60 pairs.

“He wanted to place the collection in an institution in its entirety,” she said, explaining, “We accept donations of all kinds of instruments. And sadly, we don’t have that many percussion instruments.”

Thompson and her colleagues at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments are thinking of different ways to show the sticks.

Select pairs might be interspersed in the Robyna Neilson Ketchum Collection of bells, showcased as the “Featured Instrument of the Month,” or placed in a small display case that’s being put together in Leigh Hall at the Yale School of Music.

With those details still being worked out, Hill, Thompson, and I started talking about Munier himself, the 87-year-old Haverhill, Massachusetts, resident who’d spent a lifetime collecting the sticks in the first place.

It was “the jewel in his crown,” Hill said, for Munier to see his sticks photographed for the book the collection produced.

A few days after examining the sticks, I got Munier on the phone, and we talked, and talked, and talked, his thick Massachusetts accent reminding me of something comforting I couldn’t place. Or maybe it was the interest we share.

He’d played baritone horn growing up

in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and became interested in military style (rudimental) drumming in 1948, at age 20. He studied for a time with Edward Leonard Bayrd, a member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe who served as a drum major for the Wakefield, Massachusetts-based Red Man’s Band. Eager to learn a bit more than the basic snare-drum rudiments, Munier bought a copy of Stick Control and soon thereafter started taking lessons with Stone in a makeshift studio in the back of his drum shop in Boston’s Scollay Square neighborhood. And while he studied all manner of drumming with Stone, Munier’s goal wasn’t to become a professional or even an advanced drummer, though he did self-publish snare- and bass-drum duets, the last collection of which he produced in 2011.

Munier himself was forging a path as a classroom language teacher and school counselor. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Boston University and enjoyed a 52-year career in education, working at various public and private schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut, including Cheshire Academy, here in New Haven County, where he served two stints. It was at Cheshire Academy in 1952 that he started a drum corps.

Munier’s interest was—and is—in introducing others to military-style drumming.

“I was interested in promoting military drumming,” he said. As a hobby, he organized demonstrations with advanced players. “I lost money on it,” he told me, his sense of humor coming loud and clear through the receiver.

And while, aside from doing some work with dance bands, he didn’t play too much— focusing instead on serving as a drum major and military-style-drumming ambassador—

Munier said he still spends a few minutes each day playing rudiments and other exercises, including Three Camps, a Revolutionary War-era snare-drum solo that soldiers in different locations used to communicate with Paul A. Munier one another.

“I still try that one,” Munier said, enthusiastically.

I realized, talking with Munier, that this isn’t a story about drumsticks, it’s a story about his enthusiasm for the art of military-style drumming. Sure, the sticks are cool, particularly those made by Stone, Cooperman, and Michael Healy—a Connecticut-based stickmaker who took up the trade in retirement, because, Munier, said, one of his sons was into drum corps.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who made a better stick than him,” Munier said of Healy, pointing out that the vast majority of sticks made today are mass produced, and not hand-turned, like the ones he collected.

And Munier hopes younger generations develop the same enthusiasm for military drumming as he’s had for so many years.

Hopefully, his collection of drumsticks will help inspire that interest.

After all, he said, it’s a “good collection, if I do say so myself.” n Visit the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments online at collection.yale.edu.

november 2015 •

The Arts Paper member organizations & partners

Arts & Cultural Organizations 1253 Whitney 1253whitney.com A Broken Umbrella Theatre abrokenumbrella.org, 203-868-0428 ACES Educational Center for the Arts aces.k12.ct.us 203-777-5451 Alyla Suzuki Early Childhood Music Education alylasuzuki.com 203-239-6026

Branford Folk Music Society folknotes.org/branfordfolk Center for Independent Study cistudy.homestead.com Chestnut Hill Concerts chestnuthillconcerts.org 203-245-5736 The Choirs of Trinity Church on the Green trinitynewhaven.org City Gallery city-gallery.org 203-782-2489 Classical Contemporary Ballet Theatre ccbtballettheatre.org

American Guild of Organists sacredmusicct.org

Connecticut Dance Alliance ctdanceall.com

Another Octave CT Women’s Chorus anotheroctave.org

Connecticut Natural Science Illustrators ctnsi.com 203-934-0878

ARTFARM art-farm.org Arts Center Killingworth artscenterkillingworth.org 860-663-5593 Arts for Learning Connecticut www.aflct.org Artspace artspacenh.org 203-772-2709 Artsplace: Cheshire Performing & Fine Art cpfa-artsplace.org 203-272-2787 Ball & Socket Arts ballandsocket.org Bethesda Music Series bethesdanewhaven.org 203-787-2346 Blackfriars Repertory Theatre blackfriarsrep.com

Creative Arts Workshop creativeartsworkshop.org 203-562-4927 Creative Concerts 203-795-3365 CT Folk ctfolk.com Elm City Dance Collective elmcitydance.org Elm Shakespeare Company elmshakespeare.org 203-874-0801 Encore Music Creations encoremusiccreations.com Firehouse 12 firehouse12.com 203-785-0468 Gallery One CT galleryonect.com

• november 2015

Greater New Haven Community Chorus gnhcc.org 203-624-1979 Guilford Art Center guilfordartcenter.org 203-453-5947 Guitartown CT Productions guitartownct.com 203-430-6020 Hamden Art League hamdenartleague.com 203-494-2316 Hillhouse Opera Company hillhouseoperacompany.org 203-464-2683 Hopkins School hopkins.edu Hugo Kauder Society hugokauder.org The Institute Library institutelibrary.org International Festival of Arts & Ideas artidea.org International Silat Federation of America & Indonesia isfnewhaven.org

Creative Businesses

Long Wharf Theatre longwharf.org 203-787-4282

New Haven Paint and Clay Club newhavenpaintandclayclub.org 203-288-6590

Theater Department at SCSU/ Crescent Players southernct.edu/theater

Lyman Center at SCSU www.lyman.southernct.edu

New Haven Symphony Orchestra newhavensymphony.org 203-865-0831

Vintanthromodern vintanthromodernvintage.com

Access Audio-Visual Systems 203-287-1907 accessaudiovisual.com

Madison Art Society madisonartsociety.blogspot.com 860-399-6116

One True Palette onetruepalette.com

Wesleyan University Center for the Arts wesleyan.edu/cfa

Blue Plate Radio 203-500-0700 blueplateradio.com

Marrakech, Inc./Association of Artisans to Cane marrakechinc.org

Orchestra New England orchestranewengland.org 203-777-4690

West Cove Studio & Gallery westcovestudio.com 609-638-8501

Foundry Music Company www.foundrymusicco.com

Mattatuck Museum mattatuckmuseum.org

Pantochino Productions pantochino.com

Whitney Arts Center 203-773-3033

Meet the Artists and Artisans meettheartistsandartisans.com 203-874-5672

Paul Mellon Arts Center choate.edu/artscenter

Whitney Humanities Center yale.edu/whc

Play with Grace playwithgrace.com

Yale Cabaret yalecabaret.org 203-432-1566

Milford Fine Arts Council milfordarts.org 203-878-6647 Music Haven musichavenct.org 203-215-4574 Musical Folk musicalfolk.com Neighborhood Music School neighborhoodmusicschool.org 203-624-5189

Jazz Haven jazzhaven.org

New England Festival of Ibero American Cinema nefiac.com

John Slade Ely House elyhouse.org 203-624-8055

New Haven Ballet newhavenballet.org 203-782-9038

Reynolds Fine Art reynoldsfineart.com Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, New Haven Branch nhrscds.org Shoreline Arts Alliance shorelinearts.org 203-453-3890 Shubert Theater shubert.com 203-562-5666 Silk n’ Sounds silknsounds.org Silk Road Art Gallery silkroadartnewhaven.com

Kehler Liddell Gallery 203-389-9555 kehlerliddell.com

New Haven Chorale newhavenchorale.org 203-776-7664

Susan Powell Fine Art 203-318-0616 susanpowellfineart.com

Knights of Columbus Museum kofcmuseum.org

New Haven Free Public Library nhfpl.org

Site Projects siteprojects.org

Legacy Theatre legacytheatrect.org

New Haven Oratorio Choir nhoratoriochoir.org

The Company of Writers 203-676-7133 companyofwriters.net

Linda S. Marino Art lindasmarinoart.com

New Haven Museum newhavenmuseum.org 203-562-4183

Hull’s Art Supply and Framing hullsnewhaven.com 203-865-4855 Toad’s Place toadsplace.com

Yale Center for British Art yale.edu/ycba Yale Institute of Sacred Music yale.edu.ism 203-432-5180 Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History peabody.yale.edu Yale Repertory Theatre yalerep.org 203-432-1234

Community Partners Department of Arts Culture & Tourism, City of New Haven cityofnewhaven.com 203-946-8378 DECD/CT Office of the Arts cultureandtourism.org 860-256-2800 Fractured Atlas fracturedatlas.org JCC of Greater New Haven jccnh.org

Yale School of Music 203-432-1965 music.yale.edu Yale University Art Gallery www.artgallery.yale.edu Yale University Bands yale.edu/yaleband 203-432-4111

The Funky Monkey Café & Gallery thefunkymonkeycafe.com

Overseas Ministries Study Center omsc.org The Amistad Committee ctfreedomtrail.org Town Green Special Services District infonewhaven.com Visit New Haven visitnewhaven.com

The Second Movement secondmovementseries.org

newhavenarts.org • 19

The Arts Paper arts council programs

Perspectives ‌ Gallery at Whitney Center Location: 200 Leeder Hill Drive, South Entrance, Hamden Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4-7 p.m., and Saturdays, 1-4 p.m.

Shared Resources Group exhibition curated by Debbie Hesse and Melanie Carr that examines collaborative, relational, and interactive art.

Dates: On view through January 2, 2016

Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery Location: The Arts Council of Greater New Haven, 70 Audubon St., 2nd Floor, New Haven Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Reenvision 2015 Arts Council Members Show Dates: November 10-December 23 Artist reception & holiday celebration: Friday, November 13, 5-7 p.m.

Arts Awards Arts Awards. Photo by Judy Sirota Rosenthal.

Save the date!

Luncheon ceremony: December 4 at the New Haven Lawn Club For tickets, visit newhavenarts.org or call (203) 772-2788.

Advice from the AC Need help finding exhibition space/opportunities, performance/rehearsal space or developing new ways to promote your work or creative event? Schedule a free one-on-one consultation by calling (203) 772-2788.

Dates: November 6, 1-4 p.m., Joan Fitzsimmons, photographer and professor at Norwalk Community College November 12, 1-4 p.m. Susan Shutan, installation artist and artist consultant

Photo Arts Collective Perspectives ... Gallery at Whitney Center. Gordon Holden.

The Photo Arts Collective is an Arts Council program that aims to cultivate and support a community of individuals who share an interest in photography, through workshops, lectures, exhibitions, portfolio reviews, group critiques, and events. The Photo Arts Collective meets the first Thursday of the month at the Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whitney Ave., New Haven, at 7 p.m.

To learn more, send email to photoartscollective@ gmail.com.

Health Insurance Options On November 2, 1 to 6 p.m., Sally Glick of Chamber Insurance Trust will help artists and arts workers explore health insurance options for the new open-enrollment period. To schedule a free 30-minute consultation, call the Arts Council at 203-772-2788.

Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery. Ellen Hovencamp.

Perspectives ... Gallery at Whitney Center. Gallery view with Cynthia Rubin artwork.

For more information on these events and more visit newhavenarts.org or check out our mobile events calendar using the Arts, Nightlife, Dining & Information (ANDI) app for smartphones.