Spotlight UB's Spring Performances Announced
February 2, 2016
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore's Spotlight UB performing arts series for spring 2016 brings a menagerie of musical and literary events that are as socially aware as they are entertaining. This season showcases local and international artists as well as University of Baltimore voices, beginning with the African-American Arts Festival's literary focus and ending with the Emerging Voices Project, a platform for new UB work. All Spotlight UB events, from a concert by musicians from the Balkans to dramatic poetry and prose readings by members of the UB community, will take place in the Wright Theater, located in the UB Student Center 21 W. Mt. Royal Ave.
Spotlight UB continues its partnerships with the University's Diversity and Cultural Office and the MFA in Creative Writing in the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, as well as with the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Spotlight UB’s spring schedule is as follows:
Eighth Annual African-American Arts Festival
Monday, Feb. 15
5:30 p.m.
Free
Spotlight UB partners with the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the UB Diversity and Culture Office, and, in a continued effort to tie programming to curriculum, with the MFA in Creative Writing to present the African-American Arts Festival. Jonathan Demme's film of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel, Beloved, will be screened as part of a screenwriting workshop and a literature-to-film class.
Panel Discussion: "Writing Toward Race," with the Black Ladies Brunch Crew of D.C.
Tuesday, Feb. 16
2 p.m.
Free
The Black Ladies Brunch Crew of D.C. discuss a vital topic for writers and readers of all kinds. Steven Leyva, lecturer in the Klein Family School of Communications and a graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Design, moderates. Founded in 2014, the Black Ladies Brunch Crew is a group of dynamic women poets living in metropolitan D.C., whose mission is to provide a supportive space for black women writers to discuss ambitions and craft as well as inspire creativity and growth.
Poets Lady Brion and Tafisha A. Edwards
Tuesday, Feb. 16
7 p.m.
Free
Continuing the African-American Arts Festival, MFA Creative Writing and Publishing Design candidate and local poet Lady Brion opens for poet Tafisha A. Edwards, whose work has appeared in The Offing, Bodega Magazine, Fjords Review, The Little Patuxent Review, and other publications. She is a Cave Canem fellow, a graduate of the University of Maryland's Jiminéz-Porter Writers' House and a former educator with the American Poetry Museum. Edwards has received scholarships to The Juniper Summer Writing Institute, and The Minnesota Northwoods Writers' Conference. She is currently writing her first collection of poetry, Confusing the Wind.
Rhythmic Healing Circle: African Drumming
Wednesday, Feb. 17
2 p.m.
Free
Jazz Pianist Lafayette Gilchrist Improvises Between Readings from the Langston Hughes Masterpiece, Ask Your Mama
Thursday, Feb. 18
7 p.m.
Free
Closing the African-American Arts Festival, jazz pianist Lafayette Gilchrist will perform improvised moments between readings from Langston Hughes' masterpiece, Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz. Hughes wrote the poem during the Newport Jazz Festival and is considered the father of the poetry-to-jazz movement. Readers will include faculty member and poet performer Diedre Badejo, MFA candidates Sharea Harris and Ron Kipling Williams, and UB student and Baltimore Youth Poet Laureate Derick Ebert. Gilchrist's style is deeply influenced by funk, go-go, and hip-hop and profoundly tied to Baltimore.
Open Rehearsal: BSO Musicians Perform Two Rhapsodies
Monday, Feb. 29
12:30 p.m.
Free
Three Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians, including an oboist and violist, along with pianist Jane Marvine, perform an open rehearsal of Charles Martin Loeffler's Two Rhapsodies, based on Maurice Rollinat's poems. The performance is part of Prof. Jeffrey Hoover's world music class.
Musician Shelby Blondell
Thursday, March 3
Doors at 7 p.m., Concert at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets $15 general, $10 seniors/staff and $5 students
UB alum and musician/songwriter/recording artist Shelby Blondell performs an intimate concert in the Wright Theater. Blondell has opened for national acts such as Pentatonix and Howie Day, and her music has been featured on both national and college radio stations, including WPOC, Fresh FM 94.7 and 98 Rock.
Balkans Cellist Nickolai Kolarov with Baltimore Improvisational Pianist Robert Hitz
Tuesday, March 22
7 p.m
Tickets $10 general and $5 students
Partially funded by the Gordon Trust Grant, Spotlight UB and the Klein Family School of Communications present a pairing of Balkans cellist Nickolai Kolarov with local Baltimore improvisational pianist Robert Hitz. Kolarov and Hitz will conduct workshops in world music classes the Monday before the concert. Concert cellist, lecturer/ethnomusicologist and artistic director of Balkanicus, a Balkan contemporary chamber music series and ensemble, Kolarov graduated from Bulgarian State Academy of Music and received his masters degree from the University of Missouri and his doctorate from the University of Minnesota. Hitz is a master piano teacher and a composer/performing artist. He has recorded his romantic compositions over several albums, including Appasionata, Afternoon Nocturnes, and River of Life.
Novelist and Short Fiction Writer Liz McManus
Thursday, March 24
7 p.m.
Free
Novelist and short fiction writer Liz McManus will conduct workshops and then open up the Wright Theater to the public for a reading from her second novel, A Shadow in the Yard. Her awards include Listowel, Irish Pen and the Hennessy Award for New Irish Writing. McManus has also been a newspaper columnist. She holds an Master of Philosophy with Distinction degree in creative writing from Trinity College in Dublin.
Title IX Awareness Event: Staged Reading of But I Said No
Thursday, March 31
6:30 p.m.
Free
Spotlight UB partners with the Office of Government and Community Relations to present a staged reading of But I Said No, by Margaret Baldwin Pendergrass and Doug Grissom, as part of an evening of Title IX awareness. UB student actors will perform under the direction of Arts & Theater Manager Kimberley Lynne.
UB Improv Group Presents Improv Invitational
Tuesday, April 19
7 p.m.
Students $5
The UB Improv Group presents their Improv Invitational event, ending the spring season with comedy.
Emerging Voices Project
May-June
Free
(more details forthcoming)
Spotlight UB's summer season begins with free readings of new UB work with Prof. Marion Winik's class on storytelling and their final performance (May 5), Prof. Jane Delury's Skelter class book release party (May 12), Prof. Jonathan Shorr's new radio play (May 19), alumnus Latonia Valencia Moss’s new play Impossible Love (May 26), and MFA candidate Sharea Harris’s new play Black Maggies (June 2).
For tickets and additional information about these performances, go here, or call 410-837-4053. Online ticketing is available at www.etix.com.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.