WFIU: Arts Moments

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WFIU's “Arts Moments” are a series of short features highlighting various events and people that have affected the arts in our society. These features are in honor of Arts Weeks 2004, running from February sixth through March second.

Arts Weeks is Indiana University’s showcase for the best and most exciting work in the creative and performing arts. From the intimate theater of local actors and playwrights to the stirring artistry of IU’s Grammy® Award-winning faculty, Bloomington continues to offer world-class, memorable experiences in virtually every style and genre of creative expression. Artists that intrigue, challenge, and inspire-these are the essence of Bloomington.

Support for Arts Weeks comes from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach.

Stravinsky - L'Histoire du Soldat	Gertrude Stein	François-Joseph Gossec	Georgia O'Keefe	Hildegard von Bingen
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Stravinsky - L'Histoire du Soldat (IU SOM Performance, Feb.20) 2/16/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse at Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale.
In 1917, Igor Stravinsky found himself stranded in Switzerland by the war raging in Europe and the revolution in Russia. Cut off from his family estates and his publishing royalties, he was in rather desperate financial straits. Fortunately, he met Swiss novelist C.F. Ramuz, and along with Ramuz and conductor Ernest Ansermet, he decided to improve his financial health by creating a pocket theatre company. They planned to produce pieces that would require few players and be easily portable, allowing them to play a circuit of Swiss villages.
So it was that L'Histoire du Soldat, The Soldier's Tale, came into being. Scored for modest forces, the troupe is made up of 3 actors, a female dancer, and 7 instruments. The story is a retelling of the Faustian legend, featuring a poor soldier who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for youth, wealth, and power. In Goethe's telling of the tale Faust is redeemed in the end, but true to the French tradition, Stravinsky and Ramuz send him to hell.
The first performance was a rousing success, but seemingly doomed from the beginning. L'Histoire's opening night was also its closing. The outbreak of the Spanish influenza epidemic closed all public theatres, and the work would not have a second performance for another 7 years.
Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat will be performed Friday, February 20th at 8 PM in Auer Concert Hall on the campus of Indiana University. This free performance features IU School of Music Faculty Performers and will also include David Baker's "Homage à l'Histoire". (258)
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

Gertrude Stein 2/17/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse into the life of Gertrude Stein.
"A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"
Twentieth century luminary writer and literary genius Getrude Stein was born February 3, 1874 just outside of Pittsburgh, but spent most of her youth in Oakland, California. She was educated at Radcliffe, where she studied philosophy with William James. On a beautiful spring day she sat down to take the examination for James' class and wrote: 'Dear Professor James, I am sorry but really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy today.' She received a postcard the next day saying 'I understand perfectly how you feel, I often feel like that myself', and she received the highest grade in the course.
In 1904 Stein moved to Paris and took up residence at 27 Rue de Fleurs, an address that would become her longtime home, and a famous gathering place for the greatest artistic minds of the early 20th century.
Miss Alice B. Toklas met Getrude Stein at a party in 1906 and had soon become her close friend and partner in a storied relationship that would last the next 39 years. Alice also lent her name to Stein's confusingly titled autobiography, "The Life of Alice B. Toklas". Published in 1933, it became a best seller in America and was her first popular success.
Getrude Stein died of colon cancer in 1946, speaking her last words to Alice:
"What is the answer?" and then without waiting for a reply "In that case…what is the question?" (250 )
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

François-Joseph Gossec (Feb.16) 2/5/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse into the life of François-Joseph Gossec.
Born in 1734 into a Belgian peasant family, the influential but little remembered French composer, François -Joseph Gossec's clarity of musical form and innovations in orchestral color had a profound influence on the development of French instrumental music.
Gossec began his musical studies as a violinist at the age of 6 and by the age of 17 he had traveled to Paris where he became a member of a private orchestra under the direction of Rameau. As a violinist with this orchestra he met Johann Stamitz, who directed the orchestra from 1754 to 1755. Through Stamitz he became acquainted with the latest structural and stylistic innovations of the time, vowing to revive the study of instrumental music in France. During this period Gossec published 24 symphonies and several other instrumental works, including the first orchestral works in France to use clarinets.
In 1769 Gossec founded the Concert des Amateurs, a group that soon gained a reputation as one of the finest orchestras in Europe. In his time as director Gossec commissioned many new works, featured famous guest artists, and became the first to conduct a Haydn symphony in France.
Despite his many years of aristocratic patronage, the revolution immediately aroused Gossec's republican sympathies and he resigned his position at the Opéra in 1789 to lead the Music Corps of the Revolutionary Army.
Gossec's compositional career effectively ended with the ascension of Napoleon in 1799, and he died in the Paris suburb of Passy on February 16, 1828. Although his compositional output has been overshadowed, and indeed all but forgotten, Gossec had a profound impact on the history and development of the French instrumental tradition.
(272)
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

Georgia O'Keefe 2/19/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse into the life of Georgia O'Keefe.
"Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time - and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time."
Georgia O'Keefe was born on a dairy farm outside of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on November 15, 1887. By the eighth grade, she already knew what she wanted to do with her life, declaring to a schoolmate: "…I am going to be an artist!"
By the age of 16, O'Keefe had already received 5 years of private art lessons, and in 1905 she began studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, later also studying in New York at the Art Students League.
After receiving her diploma, she occupied herself with various teaching positions until 1916, when she came to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz, a New York gallery owner, critic, and photographer, who would later become her husband. Her first solo show opened at Stieglitz's Gallery 291 in April 1917, consisting mostly of watercolors she had done while teaching in Texas. Her preoccupation with the wide-open spaces of the American West would be a central theme throughout her long career.
She moved to New York, and during the winter of 1924 she began to paint her giant flower paintings, some of her most popular work today.
Her stay in New York lasted only a few years, and in May of 1929 she set off for the deserts of New Mexico where she would live and work until her death in 1986 at the age of 98. (250 )
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

Hildegard von Bingen 2/20/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse into the life of Hildegard von Bingen.
One of the most notable migraine sufferers of history--poet, theologian, and composer Hildegard von Bingen was born in 1098. The tenth and last child of noble parentage, she showed early signs of an exceptional spiritual gift. She began seeing visions and would record them, even though at the time she didn't fully understand the significance of what she saw. These visions, which modern science now attributes to acute migraines, continued throughout her life, and her writings have provided some of the period's most profound insights into Christian Theology.
In a remarkable feat for a woman of her time, Hildegard produced a mammoth body of literature on topics ranging from natural history to medicine, music to theology, and poetry to cosmology--an output that rivaled the greatest male minds of the day.
Hildegard is best known to musicians for her morality play Ordo Virtutum. Written in the early 1150's, the play deals with an errant soul that wavers between the temptations of the devil and a choir of virtues. Believed to be the earliest musical drama, this work laid early groundwork for the use of music to accompany dramatic action, a development that would prove influential to the creators of early opera over four centuries later.
Hildegard died in 1179, and although not officially canonized by the Catholic Church, she is considered a saint by many. Comprising a large body of the sacred and secular literature of the day, her visionary and scientific writings continue to receive widespread recognition and scholarly attention. (252 )
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.