Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

Westphal College News & Events

Fifth Annual Great Court Concert

Drexel’s Great Court in the Main Building allows sound to resonate throughout creating a nearly perfect concert venue. The University Chorus and Chamber Singers will perform polychoral works from the balconies of the Court and Machaut’s ‘Kyrie’ from his Messe de Notre Dame. The ensembles will also perform selections from Los Angeles-based composer Morten Lauridsen’s ‘Chansons des Roses’ and parts of Joseph’s Haydn’s pieces. The concert will conclude with a full performance of Gabriel Fauré’s famous ‘Requiem’ with guest harpist Maryanne Meyer.  The Great Court Concert is on June 7th at 3 PM.  

DETAILS:

• Great Court Concert
• Sunday, June 7, 3 PM
• Main Building, 3141 Chestnut St.
• FREE and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-ARTS

Three Centuries of Music

Music from the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries will be the theme of the Concert Band’s performance on May 31st at 7 PM. Eric Whitacre’s gentle, warm October and John Mackey’s contrasting Undertow will represent the 21st Century and Music Professor Luke Abruzzo’s arrangement of Astor Piazolla’s Libertango and Oliver Nelson’s Fugue and Bossa will symbolize the 20th Century.  The performance of Cecile Chaminade’s Concertino for Flute and Band, a 19th Century virtuoso showcase, will feature freshman Kristen Tripolitis, winner of this year’s annual Concerto Contest. Also from the 19th Century will be the final movement from Vasily Kalinnikov's First Symphony. This 1895 epic work features intricate, interweaving lines, lyric melodies and a heroic, nationalistic conclusion in the Romantic Russian manner.

DETAILS:

• Concert Band’s Spring Concert, “19-20-21”
• Sunday, May 31st at 7:00 PM
• Mandell Theater, (33rd and Chestnut Sts.)
• FREE Admission
• Information: 215-895-ARTS

Peace, Harmony and Music

Middle East Peace…Philly Style! is a concert featuring Drexel’s Mediterranean Music Ensemble in collaboration with members from internationally-acclaimed music group Atzilut.  A Middle Eastern ensemble of Arab and Jewish musicians, Atzilut performs concerts for peace in the United States and throughout Europe. Specifically, they have performed at the United Nations, the Royal Opera Theatre of Copenhagen and for Munich Gasteig, among others. The group demonstrates the ability of differing cultures to unify and create beautiful music. Bruce Kaminsky will conduct the June 3rd performance in the Mandell Theater at 8 PM.

DETAILS:

• Mediterranean Music Ensemble: Middle East Peace…Philly Style!
• Wednesday, June 3,  8 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd and Chestnut Sts.
• FREE and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-ARTS

Hoots and Hellmouth: New CD & iPhone App 

Mad Dragon Recording artist Hoots and Hellmouth second MDR release, The Holy Open Secret, arrives June 2nd and CD release parties are set for May 28th and 29th at Johnny Brenda’s. The new album continues to blaze a trail forward in the name of progressive revival and the trio of Rob Berliner, Andrew Gray and Sean Hoots harmonize along with acoustic guitars, a mandolin, an upright base and foot stomps that burst from both the stage and speakers. Tickets for the release party can be purchased in advance for $12 here, or for $15 at the door.

For those with an iPhone, Drexel Engineering Professor Youngmoo Kim, along with the Music & Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) and Mad Dragon Records, has developed a new app specifically for Hoots and Hellmouth. The app provides songs from Hoots’ new album, videos of the band performing and info on the band members.  This free application is scheduled for launch in early June. It was developed as a Senior Design project by College of Engineering students in Electrical & Computer Engineering who have been working on advanced music applications for the iPhone.

Hoots’ unique style allows them to perform in venues from rock clubs to folk festivals. In 2008 alone, Hoots and Hellmouth played over 150 shows including performances at Langerado, Wakarusa and the 47th Annual Philadelphia Folk Fest. The band will soon be headlining the XPN-Fest. For more information on Hoots and Hellmouth, visit their Myspace page here.  

DETAILS:

• Hoots & Hellmouth ‘The Holy Open Secret’ CD Release Parties
• May 28 and 29, 9 PM
• Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave.
• Tickets are $12 in advance by clicking here, or $15 at the door

Student Designed Furniture

Students enrolled in the course Furniture Investigations used their favorite books as inspiration for designing a unique piece of furniture. Product Design Professor Mike Glaser’s class worked with Ponoko, an online shop for individualized goods that provides on-demand building, incorporating laser-cutting into design and product concepts. The students worked over two terms conducting research, creating prototypes, building full-scale versions, and working with Ponoko to make the pieces before assembling them at our studio on campus. The finished furniture will be on display in a show on June 2nd from 6PM–9 PM in the Bossone 3rd floor Atrium.

Participating students are: An-Tin Chu, Sandra Cruz, Carniesha Fenwick, Kara Lindstrom, Tara McGeehan, David Neill, Abhishek Patel, Julia Quigley, Rubab Waheed, Amanda Pincin, Erica Anderson, Suzanne Farrell, Sabryna Gancarz, Dana Mengel, Samantha Moore, Krista Moschitta, Melissa Schill, Rose Schnall, Kaitlyn Strang, Brenna Carter, Justine Ivani.

DETAILS:

• Furniture Show
• Tuesday, June 2, 6–9 PM
• Bossone 3rd floor Atrium, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-2390

Dance Photography

The Dancer Within, a Smithsonian travelling exhibition featuring 48 color and black and white photographs by dancer-turned photojournalist Rose Eichenbaum, explores dancers’ need to move, create and dance. An award-winning photographer, Ms. Eichenbaum captures the character and vitality of choreographers and dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jacques d’Amboise, José Greco, Bill T. Jones, Ann Reinking, Chita Rivera, Tommy Tune and others, in an exhibit that includes excerpts of interviews documenting the dancers’ candid reflections on the inner workings of a dancer. The Dancer Within is now on display in the Rincliffe Gallery in the Main Building through June 21st. 

Photography students will exhibit their own dance photography in the Mandell Theater Lobby, through May 29th, produced after they took a workshop with Ms. Eichenbaum.

The Dancer Within is made possible in part by a professional development grant from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through Dance Advance. Dr. Miriam Giguere, Dance Program Director, was instrumental in bringing the exhibition to Drexel.

Ms. Eichenbaum’s photos and articles have appeared in publications including Dance Magazine, Pointe, Dance Teacher and Dance Spirit. Her books include The Number on My Grandfather’s Arm (UAHC Press) and Masters of Movement—Portraits of America’s Great Choreographers (Smithsonian Books).

DETAILS: 

• The Dancer Within
• Through June 21
• Rincliffe Gallery, 3rd Floor Main Building (3141 Chestnut St.)
• Gallery Hours: 8 AM-8:30 PM
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-4914 or visit www.drexel.edu/thedancerwithin

Andrea Modica Exhibit

Photography Professor Andrea Modica’s exhibit of 11”X14” platinum/palladium studies of nudes and selections from her Fountain, Colorado series are now on display in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery through June 5th. Andrea moved to Colorado in the late 1990’s following her interest in the professional and personal lives of a family who worked in the unusual business. For nine years she documented the children of the Baker family and her work produced a sensitive collection of photographs that depict the intimacy of their lives. To create and develop her nude photographs, Andrea used an enormous 11”X14” camera, which produces large negatives which are printed using a traditional hand-coated 19th century photography process.

Andrea’s photographs have been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe and are in permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, among others.  Her work is shown regularly at the Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York, which has generously loaned the Pearlstein Gallery photographs from her Fountain, Colorado series for this show.

DETAILS:

• Andrea Modica Photography Exhibit
• May 4 through June 5
• Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall (33rd & Market Sts.)
• Gallery Hours: Monday through Friday, 11 AM – 5 PM
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-2548 or email gallery@drexel.edu

Henderson Challenge 

Through the generosity of alumna and Drexel Trustee Nina Henderson, Westphal students have a special opportunity to develop their creative business ideas in The Henderson Entrepreneurship Challenge each year. The challenge is designed to encourage students to gain a better understanding of the business world and an understanding of business and product creation. This year, the three winning teams were all comprised of Design & Merchandising students.

First Place went to Whitney Enck, Courtney Landis, Wendy Staloff and Danielle Loder for PURE, a premium direct seller of women-specific, all-natural vitamins, supplements and products. PURE representatives would assist in hosting in-home parties for women seeking products that are not easily accessible in parts of Pennsylvania. Stephanie Fortunato, Samantha Edwards, Antonella Durantine and Elise Shim received Second Place for Novel Notions, a retail store that provides the mature and elderly market with products to aid in daily tasks that may have become difficult as a result of advancing age. Third Place went to Julia Friedland, Amanda McPartland, Arianna Riccioni, Lesli Fonte and Dana Dougherty for Fresh Paint Skate Shop, a skateboarding retail store and school specifically catered to 6-12 year-olds in Southern New Jersey.

Congratulations to our students and to Design & Merchandising Professor, Beth Phillips, who was the faculty mentor for all three winning teams.

Late Night Series CD Release

The Late Night Series (LNS) has been providing a coffee-house style venue for emerging performing artists for nearly four years.  In that time music, poetry and comedy have taken center stage in this laid-back and fun environment.  Now Late Night Series Philly: Vol. 1, a compilation CD including many of the best acts that have come across the Late Night stage: Dejesus, Thom McCarthy, Sonni Shine, Jonah Delso, Combustible Radio Theater, On Display, Kelly Carvin and Post Midnight is being released to celebrate all that LNS has done. A CD release party and show with Late Night Series acts will be on May 28th from 8:30—11 PM in the Creese Student Center. A free copy of the compilation will be given to all who attend along with free food and beverages. For more information on the CD or the weekly Late Night Series shows, please contact Nick Anselmo at 215-895-1920 or Nick@latenightseries.com. 

Late Night Series Philly is held Thursday nights during the academic year in Drexel’s Creese Student Center and run entirely by students and staff, and hosted by New York poet Post Midnight. The stage is open to all types of performing artists including comedians, poets, musicians, singer/songwriters, magicians, and more.

DETAILS:

• Late Night Series Philly: Vol 1 CD Release Party
• May 28, 8:30-11 PM
• Creese Student Center
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1920 or email Nick@latenightseries.com

First Person Arts—Call For Entries!

Julia Sickler is a sophomore Entertainment & Arts Management student currently interning at First Person Arts, a Philadelphia-based organization whose goal is to support the development of new memoir and documentary work and create opportunities for the work to be seen across the nation. As part of her internship (her ninth and she is only 19), Julia works on promotion, audience development and occasionally media design. She brought to our attention that the organization is holding a national documentary competition, First Person in America: In These Hard Times.  They’reseeking the best videos, photographs and stories describing how individuals and communities are managing during today’s economic times. Due by June 30th, submissions should capture idiosyncratic things that are happening where you live - the slices of life that, taken together, will give us a First Person picture of America in 2009 – the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. Finalists will be featured on the First Person Arts website and at the First Person Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art in November. First place winners will be invited to the festival and a cash prize will be awarded to the best story. Click here for guidelines and details.

DETAILS:

• First Person in America: In These Hard Times—Call For Entries!
• Submissions are due by June 30th
• Click here for more information and guidelines

Best For Last

We’ve presented an impressive lineup of creative people over the past months with theater director Robert Wilson… filmmakers Mike Figgis, Lance Hammer, Malcolm Lee and Gary Hustwitt…master calligrapher Chulkin Takagi… an exhibition of 40 incredible Chinese artists in Ink Not Ink… NFL Film’s President Steve Sabol… Nicole Miller CEO Bud Konheim… violinist extraordinaire Daniel Roumain… four concerts with musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra… and another from Intercultural Journeys…theater company Ego Po and contemporary music group Orchestra 2001… and costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis. I could go on, but my point is we’ve saved the best for last. In the coming weeks, Westphal College students will be showcasing their own creative work in eight shows and seven concerts. This college’s students produce incredible work and we’re enormously proud of their accomplishments. Please don’t take my word for it—rather, come and see for yourself.

Fashion Show

The Urban Outfitters Corporate Headquarters Campus is the new location for this year’s Drexel Annual Fashion Show. We’re bringing the lights, the music, the catwalk, the models and, most importantly, our Fashion Design students’ incredible collections to Urban Outfitters’ fabulous warehouse-like setting in the old copper and pipe bending shop in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Our Fashion Show will feature the collections of 20 graduating seniors and eight graduate students, whose designs include evening wear, men’s and women’s wear, sportswear, swimwear, children’s wear, lingerie and more. Top industry professionals will judge the collections and awards will be given for the best work. The Fashion Show is on Saturday, June 6th at 4 PM and 8 PM. Tickets are $25 for the 4 PM show and $50 for the 8 PM show.

The Fashion Show is produced from start to finish by Design & Merchandising students who create an impressive professional production. The D&M students also produce a full-color, glossy lifestyle and trend magazine, d&m, to accompany the show. This year’s magazine focuses on sustainability and going green in a fashion-forward world. Cinema and Television students will record the Fashion Show for broadcast at a later date on DUTV, Drexel University’s television station.

Our program will also include a VIP reception honoring Drexel alumna Carole Hochman, President of Carole Hochman Design Group, which manufactures sleepwear, loungewear and daywear, and owns licenses for lingerie and sleepwear collections by Oscar de la Renta and Ralph Lauren. Guests are invited to this private champagne cocktail reception with Carole Hochman at 6:30 PM. Tickets are $150 which includes a ticket to the 8 PM show.

The undergraduate students showing their collections are: Amanda Barkhorn, Anna Burns, Chia Chi Ting, Christina Palisano, Dana Mearig, Dara Brown-Lieberson, Drew Ginsburg, Elizabeth Ko, Emily Micklitsch, Jessica Saphire, Kara Kelly, Karolyne Lockhart, Kathleen Reiter, Kristina Lauro, Kyla Hayden, Lisa Salen, Rachael Fisher, Samantha Bulter, Tabitha Siviy and Gabrielle Justiniano. The Graduate students are: Anna Kaufman, Brittany Halter, Keturah Drake, Leslie Keffer-King, Margaret DeLap, Megan Noll, Sarah Congdon-Martin and Stephanie Akagha.

Philadelphia Trolley Works will be transporting guests from Drexel to the Navy Yard and back for both shows. The trolleys are free and will leave from campus at 33rd and Market Streets at 2:45 PM and 3:15 PM for the 4 PM show, and 6:45 PM and 7:15 PM for the 8 PM show. The Navy Yard also offers free parking. For more information or to purchase tickets, please call 215-895-2390 or visit www.drexel.edu/westphal.

DETAILS:

• Drexel’s Annual Fashion Show
• Saturday, June 6, 4 PM & 8 PM, Carole Hochman VIP Reception, 6:30 PM
• Urban Outfitters Corporate Headquarters Campus, 5000 South Broad St.
• $25 for 4 PM show, $50 for 8 PM show, $150 for 6:30 PM VIP Reception and 8 PM show
• Click here for the Fashion Show invitation, ticket information and directions.

Architecture Senior Show

The Architecture Senior Show will showcase a wide range of senior thesis projects created over a year-long design process in which students propose and explore independent architectural challenges. Included in the exhibit are the three Michael Pearson Thesis Prize winners: Rose Randa, Gold Medal for Bucks County Arts Center, New Hope, PA; Soha Shah, Silver Medal for Giving Light: Remembrance Complex,Washington, DC; and John Sakoian, Bronze Medal for An Art Box: A Modular Cultural Center for Art Education. The show will be on display in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery from June 5th-9th with a reception on June 8th from 5 PM-7 PM in Chapman Court.

DETAILS:

• Architecture Senior Show
• June 5-9
• Reception, June 8, 5-7 PM
• The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery
• Free and open to the public

Senior Photography Exhibition

Our Photography seniors’ thesis projects utilize various techniques that range  from 19th century hand-coated platinum-palladium prints to state of the art digital prints to create color, black and white, scenic, portrait, and large scale photographs. Their work will be on display from June 12th through June 18th in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.  The Photography Show kicks off with a reception and a chance to meet the artists on June 12th from 6 PM–8 PM in the gallery.
Students exhibiting their photographs are: Craig Hooper, Stuart Janssen, Meredith Zanotta, Sean Stewart, Samantha Sheehan, Gina Crivelli, Rachael Spiegel, Michael Bucher, Janelle Munro, Rachel D. Kanney, John Ciamillo, Jade Myers, Megan Dolan, Jessica L. Prostack and Antonio Panuto.

DETAILS:

• Senior Photography Exhibition
• June 12-18
• Opening Reception, June 12, 6-8 PM
• Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, visit www.drexel.edu/westphal

Film & Video Senior Show

After writing the scripts, scouting locations, creating budgets, hiring actors, and hours of shooting and editing, our 25 Film & Video seniors are ready to present their work. The Film & Video Senior Show will feature a film for virtually every taste with dramas, comedy, documentary, action and even a musical. Whether you’re a movie buff, alumni, relative or friend, please come to the Film & Video senior show on Saturday, May 30th at 5 PM in Bossone Auditorium, with a reception for the filmmakers at 4PM.

The following seniors directed their own projects: Suman Allakki, Max Cooke, Heather Craig, Brian Crawford, Matthew Cuomo, Dave Eves, Ryan Flamini, Colin George, Dan Green, Maxwell Haddad, Caleb Hellegas, Julia Hoff, Charmaine Holt, Brian Johanson, Andy Kabel, Dominic Marino, Kathleen Monahan, Bruce Pinchbeck, Griffin Post, Laura Rachfalski, Bunker Seyfert, Dylan Steinberg, Chris Stewart and Liz Yanak.

DETAILS:

• Film & Video Senior Show
• Saturday, May 30 5 PM
• Reception 4 PM
• Bossone Auditorium, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public

Digital Media Senior Show

The Digital Media Program is leading the way in new media design and production. The Program’s senior show on June 6th will feature the students’ innovations in digital installations, web design and development, computer games and 3D animation. Visitors will be able to demo interactive exhibits and speak with the seniors who produced the works from 1:30—3:00 PM in Nesbitt Hall. Senior Teams will then make formal presentations and discuss their work from 3–5 PM.

DETAILS:

• Digital Media Senior Show
• June 6, 1:30-3 PM: view works, 3-5 PM formal presentations
• Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-2554.

Interior Design Senior Show

Interior design work for residential, commercial and hospitality, as well as lighting and furniture designs, will be on display in the Interior Design Senior Show at the grand Comcast Center Lobby on Saturday, May 30th from 5 PM-8 PM.
Additional Interior Design student work on display will include painting, sculpture and photography. The 26 graduating seniors exhibiting work are: Erica Anderson, Carly Bassett, Brenna Carter, Suzanne Farrell, Sabryna Gancarz, Marianna Giuffre, Mary Kate Haas, Amanda Hirsh, Jennifer Hirsh, Lauren Hrusovsky, Justine Ivani, Lindsey Laban, Jessica F. Larson, Erica G. Louth, Dana Mengel, Samantha Moore, Krista Moschitta, Antonia Onufrak, Jenine Portra, Melissa Schill, Rose Schnall, Samantha Slockett, Kaitlin Slowey, Caitlin Turnowchyk, Alexandra Varvoglis and Heather Wilmot.

DETAILS:

• Interior Design Senior Show
• Saturday, May 30, 5-8 PM
• Comcast Center Lobby, 1701 John F. Kennedy Blvd.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-2071

Senior Graphic Design

Our Graphic Design seniors create designs for corporate identities, books and publications, packaging, paper sculptures, motion graphics and environmental signage.  These visual communications will be showcased at their Senior Show on Wednesday, June 10th from 6 PM -9 PM in the Bossone 3rd floor Atrium. Among the work will be Yesenia Perez-Cruz, Nicole Doenges and Allison Fegan’s ‘Mapping Modernism’ exhibition designs which won first place, third place and an honorable mention respectively in the COLLAB student competition, and Kevin Dietrich’s ‘Berry & Homer Digital Printing’ logo, a winner in the Trademarks + Logos category in the American Corporate Identity 24 Annual. Tristine Harding will display her identity for ‘Split Pea Restaurant,’ which was included in the Creativity 38 hard cover book.

This show is an opportunity to see the stunning work of our students and to meet the designers: Chelsea Meyer, Maggie Ruder, Amanda Friend, Katie Rice, Adrian Jimenez, Akira Latanzio, Allison Bacall, Anne Trencher, Becky Dinorscia, Brandon Good, Bryan Howell, Cariese Bartholomew, Chris McCann, Courtney Remm, Dante Molino, Deb Bobich, Dheyvi Velagapudi, Emily Ballas, Felicia Cornish, Gary Brooks, Hilary Getz, Jason Lafleur, Joe Biaselli, Joey Krietemeyer, John Dunn, Kat Findley, Kate Bodnar, Lauren Laszlo, Lauren Park, Matthew Johnson, Mike Valentine, Nick Chirchirillo, Nicole Doenges, Robert Zwahlen, Sara Sidransky, Sarah Cliff, Sasha McCune, Stephanie Lipartito and Veronica Lopez.

DETAILS:

• Graphic Design Senior Show
• Wednesday, June 10, 6-9 PM
• Bossone Center 3rd floor Atrium, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public (includes reception)
• For more information call 215-895-1649

Interior Architecture & Design Graduate Show

The Philadelphia city government’s Office of Arts and Culture’s Art in City Hall provides exhibition space to Philadelphia’s artists, and our Interior Architecture & Design Graduate Program students are availing themselves of this historic City Hall space for their Graduate Show from June 18th through July 17th. An opening reception will be on June 18th from 5-8 PM on the 5th floor of City Hall (Northeast entrance).

Lauren Pinot designed The Eco-Retreat Center, an educational facility that promotes sustainable design and introduces ecological design practices; Kara Lindstrom will display her plans for ‘Philadelphia Underground: Revitalizing the Broad Street Pedestrian Concourse’; Tara McGeehan submitted ‘The Silver Lining,’ a multi-functional modern passenger train designed to provide a unique travel experience focused on the concept of ‘journey’; and Debra Lee’s design was for a Modular Office Pod (MOP), a free-standing contained space designed to address the changing lifestyle of the 21st century shaped by technology and its impact on the mobile workplace. 

The other participating students are: Jeeti Bhayani, Christine Celmer, Sarah Costanza, Susan Forscht, Jennifer Ladutko, Jenny Martin, Lisa Menendez, Moyun Niu, Catherine Russo, Sandy Ryan, Noelle Via and Michelle Ward. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 8 AM – 6 PM. For more information on Art in City Call, click here.

DETAILS:

• Interior Architecture & Design Graduate Show
• June 18-July 17
• City Hall, 5th Floor, Northeast entrance
• Opening Reception, June 18, 5 PM-8 PM
• Gallery Hours, Monday-Friday 8 AM-6 PM
• For more information, call 215-895-1376

Spring Dance Concert

Student dancers and choreographers will draw on the themes of complexity and multidimensionality to express the many connections between dance and music in the Drexel Dance Ensemble’s spring concert, Intricacies. Special guest Meredith Rainey, a former soloist for the Pennsylvania Ballet, will perform his original work Seeds. Dr. Miriam Giguere, Dance Program Director, choreographed Fugue for Three Gestures,based on a Bach fugue, and Dance faculty member Olive Prince will present a work to sampled music by Bach. Student choreographers Jessica Raspa and Kim Perno commissioned Joel Collier of the Music Industry Program’s Composers Club to arrange music specifically for their original dance Rhythmic Explorations. The spring concert runs May 28th—30th at 8 PM in the Mandell Theater. Tickets are $5 with a Drexel ID and $8 for general admission. For more information, call 215-895-ARTS.

DETAILS:

• Spring Dance Concert: Intricacies
• Thursday, May 28 through Saturday, May 30, 8 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• $5 with valid Drexel ID, $8 for general admission
• For more information, call 215-895-ARTS

SPRING MUSIC FESTIVAL

An exciting year of musical events draws to a close in a big way with the Spring Music Festival from May 31st-June 6th. Music of the past three centuries will be the theme for the Concert Band’s performance on May 31st at 7 PM in the Mandell Theater. Eric Whitacre’s October will be one of the 21st century pieces and Oliver Nelson's Fugue and Bossa, which combines a Bach fugue theme and an original Bossa by Nelson, will represent the 20th century. The concert’s finale will be the final movement from Vasily Kalinnikov's First Symphony, composed in 1895.

The Fusion Band, led by Lynn Riley, will perform Stevie Wonder’s Don’t you Worry ‘bout a Thing, Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine, and Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon, among others on June 2nd at 6 PM in The Quad. The Guitar Ensemble, led by Joe Napoli, will perform The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Charles Mingus’ Nostalgia in Times Square. The Rock Ensemble also joins the bunch with Bob Dylan’s The Man in Me and Guns N’ Roses’ well-known rock ballad Sweet Child O’ Mine.

The Mediterranean Ensemble, directed by Bruce Kaminsky, will perform alongside members of the Middle Eastern Ensemble, Atzilut, playing the groups’ songs: Avram Avinu, Syrtos, Ma Ahlaa/Hena Mah Tov, Nassam Alayna and Massikum Kol Haneshama. With Arab and Jewish members, Atzilut demonstrates the ability of differing cultures to find peace and create beautiful music. The Percussion Ensemble will perform Sing Sing Sing, Ina Gadda Da Vida, Mission Impossible and Jupiter in the event on June 3rd at 8 PM in the Mandell Theater.

The Jazz Orchestra and Jazztet, directed by Dr. George Starks, will perform compositions by Benny Golson, Horace Silver, Curtis Fuller and Arturo Sandoval on June 4th at 8 PM in the Mandell Theater. 

The Gospel Choir, conducted by Gregory Ross, along with praise dancers and solo performers will entertain with singing, dancing and spoken word in a concert on June 6th at 7:30 PM in the Mandell Theater. 

The String Ensemble, directed by Ron Lipscomb, will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, movements 1 and 2 as well as Gershwin’s April in Paris on June 6th at 7 PM in the Main Auditorium.

Rounding out the Festival will be the University Chorus and Chamber Singers, directed by Dr. Steven Powell, performing a variety of polychoral works including Machaut’s ‘Kyrie’ from his Messe de Notre Dame. The program will also include Joseph Haydn’s part-songs and will conclude with Gabriel Fauré’s famous Requiem featuring guest harpist Maryanne Meyer. The concert is on June 7th at 3 PM in the Great Court.

All Performing Arts concerts are free and open to the public. For more information call 215-895-ARTS.

DETAILS:

• Spring Music Festival
• Concert Band: May 31, 7 PM, Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• Fusion Band & Guitar Ensemble: June 2, 6 PM, The Quad
• Mediterranean & Percussion Ensembles: June 3, 8 PM, Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• Jazz Orchestra & Jazztet: June 4, 8 PM, Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• String Ensemble: June 6, 7 PM, Main Auditorium, Main Building
• University Chorus & Chamber Singers: June 7, 3 PM, Great Court, Main Building
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-ART

Senior Send Off!

Calling all graduating seniors and graduate students! Come to World Café Live on June 11th for a night of food, friends, entertainment, prizes and the often embarrassing photo booth! The Senior Send Off is a Westphal College tradition that’s a great way to say good-bye to classmates, faculty and staff. This event, from 5-8 PM, is for all graduating seniors or graduate students who are completing their degrees. Come have dinner and (one) beer or glass of wine on us.
Throughout the evening, we’ll try to share some of your Drexel memories, but we need your help. Please send us pictures of your friends, pets, parties, events or artwork. The best photo submission will receive a $100 AMEX gift card, and we’ll raffle off a number of even cooler prizes, but you must be present to win. Please email your pictures to hmm29@drexel.edu. And, join the 2009 Senior Send Off Facebook group by clicking here.

DETAILS:

• Senior Send Off 2009
• Thursday, June 11, 5-8 PM
• World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St.
• Free and open to all graduating seniors or graduate students who are completing their degrees from a Westphal major or minor program
• For more information, call 215-895-1029 or email hmm29@drexel.edu

AnnX Exhibit

Don't miss your chance to see the artistic talents of students, faculty, staff and alumni at the 16th Annual AnnX Exhibit.  This exhibit embraces virtually all forms of artistic expression including sculptures, photographs, clothing designs, motion graphics, short films, performances, 3D installations. The exhibit runs from May 26th-29th in the Design Arts Annex (3220 Cherry St), with an opening reception on May 28th from 7 PM—10 PM.

DETAILS:

• 16th Annual AnnX Exhibition
• May 26-29
• Opening Reception, May 28, 7-10 PM
• Design Arts Annex, 3220 Cherry St.
• Annex Hours: 9 AM-5 PM

Towards Peace with Music

Intercultural Journeys is an Arab-Israeli musical group devoted to breaking barriers between cultures and peoples in conflict through music. Philadelphia Orchestra Cellist Udi Bar-David, violinist Hanna Khoury, flamenco guitarist Adam del Monte and percussionist Rolando Morales-Matos will explore and celebrate the commonalities and unique elements of Muslim and Jewish heritage in a performance on May 12th at 7 PM in the Mandell Theater, followed by a reception in the lobby. The Intercultural Journeys concert is being presented by the Richard C. Goodwin College of Professional Studies and the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design at Drexel.

Cellist and Intercultural Journeys’ Artistic Director, Udi Bar-David, is an acclaimed soloist who has performed with Israel’s leading orchestras. He has been Principal Cellist in the International Youth Orchestra at Juilliard, in the National Orchestra of New York, and with the American Ballet Theatre. Violinist Hanna Khoury recently toured with Lebanese superstar singer Fairuz, and played lead violin with Iraqi singer Kazem Al-Saher and Grammy winner Youssu NDour. He is also the music director of the Arabesque Music Ensemble. Guitarist Adam del Monte is a dynamic force in both flamenco and classical guitar and has recorded for Deutsche Gramophone and with the Atlanta Symphony. Percussionist Rolando Morales-Matos is the Assistant Conductor with Disney's production of The Lion King, Broadway, New York - recipient of six 1998 Tony Awards including Best Musical, as well as the 1999 Grammy for Best Musical Show Album. In 2006, he was the recipient of Drum Magazine's World Beat Percussionist of the Year award.

After a tour of Arab, Jewish and Buddhist villages in 1998, where they promoted their mission to bridge cultural divides through music, Udi Bar-David and local activist and philanthropist Carole Haas Gravagno organized Intercultural Journeys’ first public concert. Intercultural Journeys has had nearly 100 performances since its inception and has developed relationships with many well-known local, national and international artists including R. Carlos Nakai, Simon Shaheen, Diane Monroe and Jiebing Chen.

DETAILS:

• Intercultural Journeys performance and reception
• Tuesday, May 12, 7 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

Philadelphia Premiere

Objectified is Gary Hustwit’s new film that examines the relationship between the manufactured products we use every day and the designers who create them. Tonight, May 11th, we will host the Philadelphia premiere of Objectified with screenings at 6:30 and 9 PM, with a panel discussion following the first screening with Gary Hustwit; Dan Formosa, Founder of Smart Design Worldwide; and Westphal Product Design Professor Mike Glaser. Westphal students--don’t miss your opportunity to see this film for free! We’ve just secured an additional 80 tickets, 40 for each show. They're going very quickly, so hurry and stop by the Media Arts office on the 2nd floor of Nesbitt Hall and see Jenna Osbourne for a free ticket voucher. To purchase general admission tickets for $20, click here.

In 2007, we presented the Philadelphia premiere of Gary’s film Helvetica to a packed house. Hustwit and the film were nominated for the 2008 Independent Spirit "Truer Than Fiction" Award. Hustwit has produced seven documentary films including I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, the award-winning film about the band Wilco; Moog, a documentary about electronic music pioneer Robert Moog; and Drive Well, Sleep Carefully, a tour film about the band Death Cab for Cutie.
Admission is $20 for the general public and $15 for all Drexel faculty, students and staff as well asAIGA/IDSA members. Click here to purchase tickets for screening in Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St).

DETAILS:

• Objectified Philadelphia Premiere and Panel Discussion (following first screening)
• Monday, May 11, 6:30 & 9 PM
• Bossone Auditorium, 3128 Market St.
• 150 free tickets are available to Westphal students: first come, first served
• Drexel students, faculty, staff: $15; General public, AIGA/IDSA members, $20
• To purchase tickets, visit www.objectifiedfilm.com
• For more information call 215-895-1649

Indie Icon: Mike Figgis

Leaving Las Vegas is an Academy Award winning film about an alcoholic and prostitute who pursue an unexpected relationship built on ignoring the other’s vices. Mike Figgis, the acclaimed director and screenwriter, of the film which starred Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue, will screen the film and do a Q&A session on May 13th at 7 PM in Bossone Auditorium. While Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas and Internal Affairs, with Richard Gere, have been successful films, Figgis is seen mainly as a Hollywood outsider. Leaving Las Vegas earned Figgis two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, as well as an Academy Award for Nicolas Cage (Best Actor) and an Academy Award nomination for Elizabeth Shue (Best Actress). Figgis is also a composer and wrote nearly a dozen songs for Leaving Las Vegas.

In recent years, Figgis has been incorporating innovative digital video technologies into his filmmaking with such films as The 4 Dreams of Miss X, Co/Ma and Timecode. He also directed for HBO’s The Sopranos and an episode of the PBS documentary series The Blues, which was executive produced by Martin Scorsese. While on campus, Mike will spend three days with the Department of Cinema and Television and its Film & Video and Screenwriting & Playwriting programs conducting workshops.

DETAILS:

• Mike Figgis: Leaving Las Vegas screening and Q&A
• Wednesday, May 13, 7 PM
• Bossone Auditorium, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1649

Café au Jazz

Naturally Sharp, the talented group of 14 Drexel student singers, will swing and sing away at their 5th Annual Jazz at the Club concert. Under the direction of Dr. Steven Powell, Naturally Sharp will perform music from Duke Ellington to Cole Porter, accompanied by a three piece band. We will be serving pastries and coffee to those attending the performance on Friday, May 15th at 8:20 PM in the Faculty Club on the 6th floor of MacAlister Hall. Tickets are $6 and can be purchased at the door.

DETAILS:

• Jazz at the Club
• Friday, May 15, 8:20 PM (sundown)
• 6th Floor MacAlister, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• $6 at the door

Faculty Focus: Kathi Martin

Fashion Design Associate Professor Kathi Martin is the Director of the Graduate Fashion Program and teaches courses in swimwear, children’s wear, drawing, CAD for fashion and textile design. With help from Fashion Design students and Dr. Xia Lin and his students from Drexel’s iSchool, Kathi developed and launched the Drexel Digital Museum Project, an online archive of Drexel’s Historic Costume Collection. The site features fashion by such influential designers as Beene, Balenciaga, Blass, Cardin, Pucci, DeLa Renta, Dior, Galanos, Givenchy and Valentino, all displayed on a virtual runway where the garments can be viewed from multiple angles.

Kathi is the guest design editor of the 2009 Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology (JASIST) special edition on design entitled Perspectives. Contributors include Matilda McQuaid, textiles curator, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and Jack Lenor Larsen, renowned textile designer and scholar. Kathi recently spent a week at Seoul National University (SNU) consulting on a digital fashion project involving fashion designers, musicians, engineers, digital media specialists and computer scientists from Korea, Scotland, Israel, Poland, Japan and the United States.She continues to work with Dr. Heyong-Seok Ko at SNU on virtual humans for fashion and historic costume.

In 2007, Professor Martin initiated a student travel tour for Fashion, Design & Merchandising and Interior Design students to Italy.  The students visited the Vatican, the Palantin and the Valentino Retrospective at the Ars Pacis in Rome; the Uffizi and Ferragamo Museums and Scuola del Cuoio leather school in Florence:  the studio of Achille Castigliani, the Triennale in Milan, La Mantera Textile Factory and Concept Store; and the Como Lake district. In 2008 Kathi led a group of students on tour in Paris.

Ergo-dynamic Design and Learning

Dr. Dieter Breithecker is Europe’s foremost expert on School Ergonomics and he will talk to School Dynamics- Understanding Ergonomics in the Educational Environment on Thursday, May 14th at 2:15 PM in Interior Design Studio 322A in Nesbitt Hall. Dr. Breithecker is the Director of both the Active School Movement and the Federal Working Group Development of Posture and Exercise for the German Ministry of Health. He will share his views on the issues caused by the sedentary lives we lead, especially students who spend many hours a day in front of a computer or seated in one position doing schoolwork. Dr. Breithecker is a proponent for ergonomically designed classrooms that allow students to move while seated so as to increase their focus and engagement.  

We welcome anyone interested in furniture design or design for educational institutions to come join us on the May 14th. We thank Douglas Perry of VS Furniture (www.vs-furniture.com) , a 1994 graduate of our college, for bringing Dieter to Drexel.

DETAILS:

• Dr. Dieter Breithecker: School Dynamics-Understanding Ergonomics in the Educational Environment
• Thursday, May 14, 2:15 PM
• Interior Design Studio 322A, Nesbitt Hall
• Free and open to the public

A Dramatic Opportunity: Audition Now!

Next year’s Mandell Professionals in Residence Project (MPiRP) will feature the Azuka Theater Company’s production of Long Christmas Ride Home by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel, best known for her play How I Learned to Drive. Long Christmas Ride Home dramatizes an emotional road trip taken by parents and their three young children to visit grandparents. Auditions will be held on Thursday, May 14th from 6-10 PM in the Main Auditorium. No prior acting experience is necessary and all students are welcome to audition. Please contact Nick Anselmo at nick.anselmo@drexel.edu who will be delighted to answer your questions.

Scripts are available to be read in the Green Room or in the Performing Arts Office (2018 MacAlister Hall), and students should prepare one of the monologues for characters Stephen, Claire or Rebecca. As part of the audition, students will work with director Aaron Cromie on puppet making. Rehearsals for the show begin October 4th and performances will run from November 3rd – 15th.  Anyone cast in the show will be required to take THTR 380 Advance Puppet class in the fall on Mondays from 12:00 - 2:50 pm.

DETAILS:

• Long Christmas Ride Home Auditions/Puppet Workshop
• Thursday, May 14, 6-10 PM
• Main Auditorium, Main Building (3141 Chestnut St.)
• Open to all students, no prior experience necessary
• For more information, contact Nick Anselmo at nick.anselmo@drexel.edu

Bye bye Bluebird

This weekend is your last chance to see the cast of ten talented Drexel students playing alongside professional actors of the EgoPo Company in Bluebird. This original adaptation of Maurice Maeterlink’s classic fable follows the adventures of a little boy who must find the bluebird of happiness in order to save his ailing sister. Their journey leads them into a world of magical trees and dark caverns where they meet enchanting and powerful characters. Bluebird is performed to the accompaniment of live music performed by Orchestra 2001, composed by Pulitzer Prize winner George Crumb, andis on the main stage of the Mandell Theater through May 10th.

The Mandell Professionals in Residence Project (MPiRP), now in its 4th year, brings professional regional theater, music or dance companies to campus to work with our students in a multi-term process to create new theatrical work. Lane Savadove, founder and Artistic Director of EgoPo Productions, a repertory company committed to revitalizing theater’s classics, directed Bluebird. Orchestra 2001, a contemporary music group dedicated to premiering, performing and promoting the music of 20th and 21st-century composers frequently performs the music of Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winning composer George Crumb.
Drexel students are handling many behind-the-scene roles for Bluebird. All in all, students from six different Drexel colleges and six Westphal programs are working on the production.

Tickets for Bluebird are $5 with a valid Drexel ID or $28 for the public. Children under 16 are free with purchase of a $28 ticket. To purchase tickets, please call 1-800-595-4TIX. MPiRP is an ongoing collaboration between Drexel University and the professional arts community of the Greater Philadelphia area.

DETAILS:

• Bluebird
• Through May 10
• Friday May 8 & Saturday May 9, 8 PM; and Sunday, May 10, 2 PM.
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• Tickets: General Admission: $28; With Valid Drexel I.D.: $5
• Children 16 & under are free with the purchase of a General Admission Ticket

Andrea Modica Photographer Par Excellence

Photography professor and Guggenheim Fellow Andrea Modica will premiere her 11”X14” platinum/palladium studies of nudes along with selections from her Fountain, Colorado series in a solo exhibition at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery. Andrea will discuss her work in a gallery forum on Thursday, May 14th at 5 PM followed by a reception from 6 PM-8 PM.  The exhibition runs May 4th – June 5th.

Andrea moved to Colorado in the late 1990’s following her interest in the unique professional and personal lives of family who worked in an unusual business, a slaughterhouse. For nine years, she documented the children of the Baker family and her work produced a sensitive collection of photographs that depict the intimacy of their lives. To create and develop her nude photographs, Andrea used an enormous 11”X14” camera, which produces large negatives which are printed using a traditional hand-coated 19th century photography process.

Andrea’s photographs have been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe and are in permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, among others.  Her work is shown regularly at the Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York, which has generously loaned the Pearlstein Gallery photographs from her Fountain, Colorado series for this show.

DETAILS:

• Andrea Modica Photography Exhibit
• May 4 through June 5
• Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall (33rd & Market Sts.)
• Artist talk and reception, May 14, 5 – 8 PM
• Gallery Hours: Monday through Friday, 11 AM – 5 PM
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-2548 or email gallery@drexel.edu

Westphal Wins Big at Research Day

Research Day is always a proud day for our College and this year was no different. Dozens of our students displayed their work in the form of posters, videos, performances and digital media in the DAK and their hard work and creativity did not go unnoticed.  Three students won University-wide awards. Design & Merchandising student Katherine Skylar presented City Gnome LLC, a company that works to promote a sustainable lifestyle through a personalized gardening service. City Gnome was developed by D&M students Louise Gallen and Allison Lippincott. David Diperstein, Television Management Graduate Program, screened his mini-documentary on Tony Bracali, an architect and primary mover behind the development of Paines Park, the projected home of the first publicly funded skateboard park in a major American city. Students Geraimos Melissaratos, Ashley Morgan, Kingsley Onwuemenyi, Micah Haun, Adam Suckecki, Chris Kissel, Lenny Skolnick and Melissa Menago also worked on the documentary. Stephanie Fortunado, Design & Merchandising student presented her idea for a retail store Novel Notions, which would provide products and technology to aid day-to-day tasks that become difficult for the elderly. Stephanie also worked with students Samantha Edwards, Elise Shim and Antonelle Durantine.

We would like to thank and congratulate Graphic Design Program Director Jody Graff, Architecture and Interiors Associate Department Head Rena Cumby, and Interior Design Associate Program Director Ada Tremonte, as Graphic Design students Maggie Ruder, Amanda Friend and Chelsea Meyer for redesigning this year’s Research Day environmental and graphic designs and the grealy improved floor plan for the DAK. 

The College also presented awards. Kristy Jost, Fashion Design student won both 1st and 2nd prizes and $1,500 for Be the Technology: Audio and Be the Technology: Video and Textile Development. Prisca Milliance, Fashion Design student, won 3rd prize and $250 for her Ski Suit 2020. Dean’s Awards, along with a $50 prize, went to students David Lally, Meghan Lynch, Elizabeth Ko, Katie Rice, Dana Mearig, Jim Malazita, (Maria) Anhthi Nguyen and Samantha Sheehan. Honorable Mention went to Richard Hamilton, Lee Dash and Kingsley Onwuemenyi.

The Dancer Within

Award-winning photographer Rose Eichenbaum captures the character and vitality of choreographers and dancers with The Dancer Within. The Smithsonian travelling exhibition features 48 color and black and white photographs and excerpts of interviews documenting the dancers’ candid reflections on the inner workings of a dancer. Photographs of choreographers and dancers including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jacques d’Amboise, José Greco, Bill T. Jones, Ann Reinking, Chita Rivera and Tommy Tune will be on display in the Rincliffe Gallery in the Main Building from April 25th through June 21st. Join us for a gallery talk with Ms. Eichenbaum on Thursday, April 30th at 5:30 PM in the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery on the third floor of the Main Building.

Photography students from the College will exhibit their own dance photography in the Mandell Theater Lobby, May 25th-29th, after participating in a workshop with Ms. Eichenbaum on May 1st. The Dancer Within is made possible in part by a professional development grant from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through Dance Advance. Dr. Miriam Giguere, Dance Program Director, was instrumental in bringing the exhibition to Drexel.
Ms. Eichenbaum’s photos and articles have appeared in publications including Dance Magazine, Pointe, Dance Teacher and Dance Spirit. Her books include The Number on My Grandfather’s Arm (UAHC Press) and Masters of Movement—Portraits of America’s Great Choreographers (Smithsonian Books).

DETAILS: 

• The Dancer Within
• April 30 through June 21
• Rincliffe Gallery, 3rd Floor Main Building (3141 Chestnut St.)
• Gallery Hours: 8 AM-8:30 PM
• Gallery Talk: Thursday, April 30, 5:30 PM, AJ Drexel Picture Gallery, 3rd Floor Main Building
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-4914 or visit www.drexel.edu/thedancerwithin

Ink not Ink—Through May 9th

You have until May 9th to see Ink not Ink, the largest exhibition of Chinese art ever presented at Drexel University, in its only stop in the United States. Watch this video to learn more about the exhibition that features nearly 100 paintings, prints, sculptures and videos, the work of 40 contemporary Chinese artists including the acclaimed Wenda Gu, Wei Quingji and Lin Tianmiao. The exhibit is up at The Bossone Research Center and the Paul Peck Alumni Center. The centerpiece of the exhibit is Wenda Gu’s UN Man & Space 2000, a replica of the flags of the world, made entirely of human hair collected over nine years by thousands of volunteers from each country whose flag is represented. Ink Not Ink is free and open to the public seven days a week from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Drexel University’s presentation of the exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the Marketing Division of the Ministry of Culture of the P. R. of China, the Shenzhen Foundation of Cultural Promotion and Development, Beijing Zhongwenfa International Cultural Exchange Co. Ltd, Continental Airlines and HSBC. Ink Not Ink was co-curated by Dr. Joseph Gregory, Department Head of Art & Art History, and Drexel Trustee Abbie Dean.

DETAILS:

• Ink not Ink
• Through May 9th
• Bossone Research Center, Paul Peck Alumni Center
• 10 AM – 5 PM Daily
• Free and open to the public

Bluebird

A cast of ten Drexel students work along side the professional actors of the brilliant EgoPo Company, bringing a magical fantasy to life in a world premiere production adapted from Maurice Maeterlink’s classic Bluebird, currently playing at the Mandell Theater. Bluebird follows the adventures of a little boy, Tytyl, who must find the bluebird of happiness in order to save his ailing sister, Mytyl. They journey into a world of magical trees and dark caverns and meet enchanting and powerful characters along the way. Bluebird is performed to the accompaniment of live music performed by Orchestra 2001, composed by Pulitzer Prize winner George Crumb. Bluebird is on the main stage of the Mandell Theaterthrough May 10th.

The Mandell Professionals in Residence Project (MPiRP), now in its 4th year, brings professional regional theater, music or dance companies to campus to work with our students in a multi-term long process to create new theatrical work. Lane Savadove, founder and Artistic Director of EgoPo Productions, a repertory company committed to revitalizing theater’s classics, is the director for Bluebird. Orchestra 2001, a contemporary music group dedicated to premiering, performing, and promoting the music of 20th and 21st-century composers and providing a voice for contemporary music in the classical continuum, frequently performs the music of Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winning composer George Crumb, known for compositions that often juxtapose contrasting musical styles.

Since 1991, EgoPo has presented over two dozen productions in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and overseas. They have received numerous honors including an Ambie Award, Backstage’s ‘Best Production of 2000,’ two Big Easy nominations, five Storer Boone nominations and nine Marquee nominations. Orchestra 2001 has had over 80 world premieres and 105 greater Philadelphia premieres and has received, along with Artistic Director James Freeman, ‘Awards for Adventurous Programming’ by the American Symphony Orchestra League and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Drexel students also are handling many behind-the-scene roles for Bluebird. All in all, students from six different Drexel colleges and six Westphal programs are working on the production.

Tickets for Bluebird are $5 with a valid Drexel ID or $28 for the public. Children under 16 are free with purchase of a $28 ticket. To purchase tickets, please call 1-800-595-4TIX. MPiRP is an ongoing collaboration between Drexel University and the professional arts community of the Greater Philadelphia area. For more information about Bluebird, call 215-895-1275.

DETAILS:

• Bluebird
• Now through May 10
• Thursday, April 30, 8 PM; Friday, May 1, 10 AM & 8 PM; Saturday May 2, 4 PM; Sunday May 3, 2 PM; Thursday, May 7, 10 AM & 8 PM; Friday May 8 & Saturday May 9, 8 PM; and Sunday, May 10, 2 PM.
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• Tickets: General Admission: $28; With Valid Drexel I.D.: $5
• Children 16 & under are free with the purchase of a General Admission Ticket

The Art of Lee Miller

Antony Penrose is the son of fascinating artists, photographer Lee Miller and painter Roland Penrose. Currently, Antony is Director of the Lee Miller Archive and Roland Penrose Estate and oversees the Farley Farmhouse, their art filled farm where he grew up with his unconventional parents. Penrose will lecture on ‘Lee Miller in Egypt,’ which covers Miller in the 1930’s when she photographed extensively in Northern Africa, on April 28th at 6 PM in the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery.

Last year, Antony spoke at Drexel when he was in town for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition ‘The Art of Lee Miller.’ We were so taken with his talk about his parents’ art and their many friends and contemporaries -- Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Miro and Max Ernst -- that we’ve invited him back, this time for a several day residency as a Rankin Scholar in Residence. Due to the success of his ‘Art of Lee Miller’ lecture Antony will present it again for students and the University community on Wednesday April 29th at 5:30 PM in Ruth Auditorium.  Finally, he will conduct a dramatic reading of The Angel and the Fiend, a play he wrote about his mother, on Thursday, April 30th at 6 PM in Ruth Auditorium.

Penrose’s parents were a complicated and gifted couple. Miller was a lover to some of her famous artist friends and a muse for far more. Roland Penrose was the ambassador of surrealism, an intellectual agitator, a rebellious artist and world famous biographer. Lee Miller, after a successful modeling career for Vogue, became a noted war correspondent for the US Army in 1944, and witnessed the Liberation of Paris, the fighting in Luxembourg and Alsace, and the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau.

DETAILS:

• Antony Penrose, Rankin Scholar
• ‘Lee Miller in Egypt’ Tuesday, April 28, 6 PM, AJ Drexel Picture Gallery, Main Building (3141 Chestnut St.)
• The Angel and the Fiend play reading, Wednesday, April 29, 6 PM, Ruth Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029
• For tickets, call 1-800-595-4TIX

MILK

Milk, Gus Van Sant’s movie about California’s first openly gay elected official will be screened by The Foundation of Undergraduates for Sexual Equality (FUSE) on Tuesday, May 6th at 8 PM in Stein Auditorium. The Westphal College is sponsoring this screening as part of Diversity Days in order to support FUSE’s mission to work on behalf of Drexel’s LGBTQA community.

DETAILS:

• Milk screening
• Tuesday, May 5, 8 PM
• Stein Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call

Nicole Miller CEO

Bud Konheim, Founder and CEO of retailer Nicole Miller, will speak to Fashion’s Past, Present & Future on April 21st at 6 PM in Ruth Auditorium as this year’s Design & Merchandising Program’s 2009 Distinguished Speaker. Konheim and Nicole Miller began producing their own line in 1982 and in 1986 they opened their first boutique. The Nicole Miller label now includes women’s and men’s wear, eye wear, sun wear, shoes, accessories, lingerie, outerwear, ties, bridal wear, golf wear and a home line. Early on, Nicole Miller gained popularity with Hollywood celebrities and Miller pioneered the use of celebrities such as Minnie Driver, Gretchen Mol and Jill Hennessey as runway models. Konheim’s visit will coincide with the Design & Merchandising senior business plan presentations and reception in Chapman Court.

Bud Konheim, while working in his parents’ apparel business, dreamed of launching his own line of original fashion designs that were different from what was on the runways of Paris and New York.  Bloomingdale’s placed the first major order from Nicole Miller and today there are 30 freestanding Nicole Miller stores and more than 1,000 specialty retailers nationwide that carry Nicole Miller products. The Nicole Miller lines are also sold in upscale retailers Nordstrom’s, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. The company continues to employ a twenty person group of patternmakers, cutters and sewing operators, who work with Nicole to create spring, fall and resort collections.  They also design bridal gowns and exclusive designs for VIP clientele.

DETAILS:

• Bud Konheim: Fashion’s Past, Present & Future and D&M senior business plan presentations/reception
• Tuesday, April 21, 6 PM
• Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-2390

Get Inside NFL Films

NFL Films has immortalized the great moments of the National Football League’s history for over 40 years with a revolutionary approach to picture and sound that you’d never experience watching a game from the stands or during a normal telecast. The man who made NFL Films what it is today is their President Steve Sabol who will join us for a talk and video presentation of the 2008 NFL season highlights. NFL Films has won 95 Emmys, and Steve Sabol has received 32 of those for his writing, cinematography, editing, directing and producing.  Football fans and filmmakers alike should join us on Thursday, April 16th at 7 PM in the Bossone Auditorium.

NFL Films caught its big break when it won the bidding rights to the 1962 NFL Championship Game. Over the years, NFL films has defined a distinct style, incorporating stirring orchestral music and eavesdropping sideline sound,  slow motion and multiple cameras that capture the balletic work of quarterbacks throwing to receivers and the enormous linemen laboring in the trenches, all showing football as it was never seen before. The late Harry Kalas, iconic Phillies broadcaster, added urgency and impact to NFL Film’s memorable imagery.
Today, NFL Films creates highlights for NBC’s Game of the Week and Showtime’s Inside the NFL.  Many early NFL Films productions can be seen on the NFL Network during the off season, most hosted by Steve Sabol. 

DETAILS:

• Steve Sabol lecture and video presentation
• Thursday, April 16, 7 PM
• Bossone Auditorium, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

Charrette Exhibit

Work from the 2nd Annual Design Charrette is being exhibited at the Center for Architecture. Over 70 students from the College of Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering, the College of Information, Science and Technology, LeBow College of Business, the School of Public Health, and the Westphal College’s Architecture, Interior Design, Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Digital Media and Entertainment & Arts Management programs participated in this year’s Charrette, Urban Oasis.  The teams created design solutions for existing Philadelphia public spaces to create affordable and innovative solutions for communities in today’s economic times when services at schools, parks and libraries are being reduced. The models and drawings of the ten projects are on view Monday- Saturday (10-6 PM) and Sunday (12-5 PM) until April 23rd.   The Center for Architecture is located at 1218 Arch St.  For more information visit, click here.

DETAILS:

• Design Charrette Exhibition
• Through April 23: Monday through Saturday, 10 AM-6PM; Sunday
• The Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch St.
• For more information, click here.

Unique Research

The College of Media Arts & Design is a major participant in Drexel’s annual Research Day, where hundreds of students from all Drexel colleges and schools showcase their research in poster presentations in the humanities, sciences and engineering. However, our students’ research often looks different. Westphal students present digital media, film and video, dance performances, and different forms of design. Thursday, April 23rd is Research Day and we encourage you to come out to see the entire floor of the Daskalakis Athletic Center overflowing with impressive work from our students and from those of other Drexel schools from 11 AM-3 PM. After review by faculty judges, winners will be announced at a reception at 4:30 PM on the 23rd in the Great Court (Main Building). For more information on Research Day, click here.

While the DAK’s floor is great for basketball, it presents many practical and design challenges in order to showcase the research presentations of over 500 Drexel students. This year, Graphic Design Professor Jody Graff and the Graphic Design Senior Design Group have worked with the Research Office to create a Research Day logo and improved environmental signage. Interior Design Professors Rena Cumby and Ada Tremonte worked with the Research Office on an improved layout for the exhibitions spaces on the DAK floor.

DETAILS:

• Research Day
• Thursday, April 23, 11 AM – 3 PM
• Presentations: Daskalakis Athletic Center
• Awards Ceremony & Reception 4:30 PM: Great Court, Main Building
• Free and open to entire Drexel Community
• For more information, click here

Celebrity Photographs

Photography Professor Andrea Modica’s recent photograph of movie star Anne Hathaway, featured in Newsweek Magazine, has won an award from the Society of Publication Designers (SPD).  Her photo will be showcased in the SPD’s 44th Publication Design Annual and at their Awards Gala on May 8th in New York. For more information on SPD, click here. 

MadKo Concerts Bring The Fire

Garage/indie rock band The Goodnight Lights are having their CD release party on April 24th at 7 PM at The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave. The Goodnight Lights includes bassist Jonah Delso, a Music Industry student, who opened for Coldplay at the Wachovia Center last year. MadKo Concerts and Breakfast and Dessert Records, a new West Philadelphia label who is releasing the album, are co-producing this promotion featuring special guest Easy Corner. MadKo Concerts will be handling all aspects of the event including production, publicity, marketing and on-site logistics. The show is $7 at the door or visit www.ticketweb.com.  For more information, contact madkoconcerts@gmail.com.

DETAILS:

• MadKo Concerts hosts The Goodnight Lights CD Release Party
• Friday, April 24, 7 PM
• The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave.
• $7 at the door or visit www.ticketweb.com
• For more information, email madkoconcerts@gmail.com

Interior Design Sustainability Award

Recent Interior Design alumna Oriel Poole won first place in the annual Sustainable Hospitality Scholarship Competition hosted by the Hospitality Industry Network (NEWH). Oriel will receive a $5,000 scholarship and a trip to Las Vegas to accept her award at this Hospitality Design Expo in Las Vegas. Coverage of her expanded and redesigned hospitality studio project will be featured in the NEWH Magazine. The competition required sustainable products/materials and cutting edge construction practices.  Faculty advisor Professor Debra Ruben will also go to Vegas to accept a $5,000 award on behalf of the Interior Design program. Click here for more information on the NEWH competition.

Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival

Film & Video students dominated the awards at this year’s Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival. In the Comedy category, Chandler Simms received 1st Place for Paging Dr. Smith, Colin George received 2nd Place for The Boy’s Guide to Becoming a Man, and Dylan Steinberg received Honorable Mention for Odd Jobs. In the Drama category Dylan Steinberg received 2nd Place for Birthday Girl and Kevin Martin received 3rd Place for Night Shift. 

Improv Workshop

All students are invited to a ‘Workshop in Creating Character through Physical and Vocal Improvisation’ led by Adrienne Mackey, who created the hilarious and successful show, The Giant Squid, for last year’s Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The workshop, sponsored by the Mandell Professionals in Residence Project (MPiRP), will be on Saturday and Sunday, April 18th and 19th from 6-9 PM in MacAlister Hall, and will conclude with a performance by students who participate. Adrienne Mackey has worked with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Curtis Opera Institute and Leah Stein Dance Company. Students are asked to dress comfortably and are expected to attend both days. If you’re interested, please email nick.anselmo@drexel.edu.

DETAILS:

• Workshop in Creating Character through Physical and Vocal Improvisation by Adrienne Mackey
• Saturday April 18th & 19th from 6-9 PM; April 18th, room 2020 MacAlister Hall and April 19th room 2032 MacAlister Hall
• Free and open to all students
• For more information, email nick.anselmo@drexel.edu

Divided We Fall

The nation’s first post 9-11 hate crime was committed on September 15, 2001 when Balbir Singh Sodhi, a turbaned Sikh man in Phoenix, Arizona, was shot and killed in front of his gas station. With a research grant, video camera, and accompanied by her 18 year-old cousin, Valerie Kaur set out across the country with questions for Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews and countless other Americans in her four month search for the heart of America. The Westphal College, the Office of Multicultural Education and Outreach, and the Asbury Ministry are sponsoring a screening of Kaur’s award winning Divided We Fall: America in the Aftermath on Friday, April 17th at 4:30 PM in Stein Auditorium, 125 Nesbitt Hall, followed by a Q&A session with Kaur. The screening is being presented as part of the weeklong Drexel World Fusion Fest. For more information on World Fusion Fest, click here. 

DETAILS:

• Divided We Fall Screening
• Friday, April 17, 4:30 PM
• Stein Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, click here.

Ink not Ink—Now Open!

When on Market Street, you may have seen the 100 ft. installation of Wenda Gu’s UN: Man & Space 2000, a replica of the flags of the world, made entirely of human hair that is featured in the lobby of the Bossone Research Center. But that’s just one work included in Ink not Ink, the largest exhibition of Chinese art to ever be presented at Drexel University. Now is your chance to see the rest as Ink not Ink now officially open to the public. Ink not Ink contains nearly 100 paintings, prints, sculptures and videos featuring the work of 40 contemporary Chinese artists including the acclaimed Wenda Gu, Wei Quingji and Lin Tianmiao.  The exhibit is installed in three different locations on the Drexel campus: Bossone Research Center, the Paul Peck Alumni Center, and the Pearlstein Gallery. Ink Not Ink will be up until May 9th and is free for all to see seven days a week from 10 AM to 5 PM.

On April 1st, the Bossone Research Center was packed with members of the Drexel community, Chinese and local dignitaries, scholars, and the public for a symposium on contemporary ink painting. Panelists included Lu Hong, curator at the Shenzhen Art Museum; Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale School of Art; Richard Vine, Senior Editor, Art In America; Melissa Chiu, Director of the Asia Society Museum; Jia Fangzhou, critic; and Dr. Pan Qing, curator at the National Art Museum of China. Click here to view the symposium webcast. Later that evening, the Gala Preview and Reception was attended by members of the Consulate General’s Office in New York, the Chinese Embassy in Washington and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. 

You’ve probably seen the wonderful graphic design work featured in the Ink Not Ink printed materials and marketing, not to mention all of the environmental graphics for the exhibition design itself. For these, we thank Sandy Stewart, Media Arts Department Head, for her art direction and marketing materials’ design, and Jody Graff, Graphic Design Program Director, for her exhibition design. Also, our congratulations to the exhibition’s organizers: Dr. Joseph Gregory, Art & Art History Department Head, and Drexel Trustee Abbie Dean.

Drexel University’s presentation of the exhibition and symposium was made possible through the generous support of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the Marketing Division of the Ministry of Culture of the P. R. of China, the Shenzhen Foundation of Cultural Promotion and Development, Beijing Zhongwenfa International Cultural Exchange Co. Ltd, Continental Airlines and HSBC.

iPod, Snacks & Music

Our final free program of the year with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra welcomes a young and dynamic string quartet of violinists Daniel Han and Hyunju Lee, violist Che-Hung Chen, and cellist Yumi Kendall. Beyond the music, we’ll raffle off a sharp 8 GB iPod Nano and serve you dinner. This relaxed evening of classical music, on Thursday April 9th in Van Rensselaer Ballroom (3320 Powelton Ave.), will put you closer to world class musicians than you’ve ever been. So students, be sure to come out to hear wonderful music, grab dinner and test your luck in the iPod raffle—all on our tab. Food will be served at 6:00 PM and the concert begins at 7:00 PM. Following the hour-long concert, students will have the opportunity to meet the musicians.

The Westphal College and Pennoni Honors College have sponsored the Campus Concert Series for the past two years, a program that brings classical music to Drexel freed of the formality of a concert hall setting. Campus Concerts are open to the public at no charge and qualify as an Honors College event.  Students wishing to receive Honors College credit must sign up at the PHC front desk.

DETAILS:

• Philadelphia Orchestra Campus Concert
• Thursday, April 9, 7 PM
• Van Rensselaer Ballroom, 3320 Powelton Ave.
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

One Water

One Water, an award-winning documentary filmed in 15 countries, celebrates the earth’s relationship to water and uses video, local music and commentary to show the fragility of this precious resource. One Water will be screened on Thursday, April 9th at 7 PM in the Bossone Auditorium, followed by a panel discussion on water conservation in large cities with experts including the films’ writer, director and producer, Sanjeev Chatterjee; Brady Russell, Eastern Pennsylvania Director at Clean Water Action; and Kristen Cevoli, environmental attorney and an associate at PEW Environmental Group.

One Water has won Best Cinematography Award and Honorable Mention, Documentary Feature, Fargo Film Festival, North Dakota; Best Documentary, Foyle Film Festival, Ireland; and Best Film on Sustainable Development, Cinemambiente 2008, Turin, Italy. One Water is being presented in partnership with the LeBow College of Business, the College of Engineering, Drexel Green, and the Drexel Sierra Club. For more information on One Water, please click here.

The filming of One Water was a six-year collaborative project involving the University of Miami’s School of Communication, College of Engineering and Frost School of Music. ‘The intention of making One Water was not to provide audiences with easy answers or solutions to the world’s water crisis,’ says Sanjeev Chatterjee, who is also the Vice Dean of the School of Communication and Executive Director of the Knight Center for International Media. ‘Rather, we wanted to show the world’s profound connection to water. We wanted to tell visually evocative stories that would immerse everyone in human experiences relating to water. As filmmakers we see ourselves as facilitators of dialogue and catalysts for positive change.’

DETAILS:

• One Water Film Screening and panel discussion
• Thursday, April 9, 7 PM
• Bossone Auditorium, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, please call 215-895-1029

Nat Geo Student Film Competition

Vote for The Way We Choose, a 30 second public service announcement, a finalist in the National Geographic Preserve Our Planet video competition, created by students Bunker Seyfert, Margaret Ruder, Bruce Pinchbeck, Evan Nie and Matt Sullivan. Click here to watch The Way We Choose and vote before April 15th.

Also, join us in congratulating Film & Video students Bruce Pinchbeck, Director; Bunker Seyfert, Producer; Dylan Steinberg and Brian Honsinger, Cameras; and Matt Sullivan, composer, for winning First Prize and $5,000 in the National Geographic 2009 Preserve Our Planet video competition in the short film category for Pedal Co-Op, about a unique recycling program. Click here to watch their film.

The winners of these competitions will travel to Washington, D.C. to attend National Geographic’s Explorer’s Symposium. The creative team that worked on both of the films is Heather Craig, Brett Haymaker, Kathleen Monahan, Natalie Cake, Julia Hoff and Jacques Sapriel.

Arts Administration Educators at Drexel

This past week, the Westphal College’s graduate Arts Administration (AADM) and undergraduate Entertainment & Arts Management (EAM) programs welcomed dozens of arts administration educators from across the country and the world as Drexel hosted the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE) annual conference.  The AAAE’s conference serves as a forum for university programs to share information and best practices as they train the future leaders and managers of arts and cultural organizations. Founded in 1975, the AAAE promotes the publication and dissemination of research on the many issues facing arts and cultural organizations including policy, funding, marketing, trends and audience development.  More than ten Arts Administration and EAM students assisted faculty in running the conference and, in return, were allowed to attend conference sessions for free.

We welcomed Gary Steuer, Chief Cultural Officer for the City of Philadelphia, Office of Arts, Cultural and the Creative Economy, and Peggy Amsterdam, President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, who led a plenary discussion moderated by Arts Administration Program Director and Performing Arts Department Head Cecelia Fitzgibbon. Dr. Ann Stone from the Wallace Foundation and Barbara Lippman and Neville Vakharia from the Pew Charitable Trusts were on a panel at the AAAE conference sharing their perspectives on field needs and applications related to research. For more information on the Association of Arts Administration Educators, click here.

Faculty Focus: Dr. George L. Starks, Jr.

Music Professor George L. Starks, Jr., Director of Drexel’s Jazz Orchestra, is an ethnomusicologist, a scholar who studies the “social and cultural aspects of music in local and global environments.”  Dr. Starks specializes in New World musics of African origin and his field research has led him to Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and South Carolina’s Sea Islands. George is also a noted saxophone player well-recognized in Philadelphia’s jazz scene.

Dr. Starks’s scholarship has created publications on sacred and secular musics, urban and rural musics, and traditional and contemporary musics.  George has served as a contributing editor to The Black Perspective in Music, the first scholarly journal on African derived musics.  Currently, Dr. Starks serves as associate editor of the International Jazz Archives Journal.

A scholar and a musician, Dr. Starks has an extensive history of critically acclaimed performances. He has performed with trumpeter Clifford Thornton, vocalist Roy Hamilton, Ghanaian master drummer Kobena Adzenyah, and as a special guest soloist with the Charlottesville Symphony Orchestra. “The George Starks Quartet,” brings together some of Philadelphia’s finest musicians in the African American and jazz traditions.  His quartet recently presented “Jazz: African American Composers and the Great American Songbook” on the Drexel campus, and the Drexel Jazz Orchestra’s many concerts draw full houses and appreciative audiences.

As a part of his continuing efforts to increase public understanding of African derived cultures, Dr. Starks draws upon his extensive collection of African art. His home is a veritable museum featuring an astounding array of masks, statues, musical instruments and utilitarian objects.   Dr. Starks’s personal collections have been the basis of exhibitions at Drexel’s Pearlstein and Rincliffe Galleries and he has loaned works from his collection to exhibitions in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Orlando, Tallahassee and Atlanta.  A recent exhibition at the Hartsfield/Jackson International Airport in Atlanta included pieces from George’s collection and is said to have been one of the most widely viewed exhibitions of African art ever.   And, Dr. Starks remains a passionate teacher whose classes in the Music program include World Musics, African American Music, Jazz History, Jazz Improvisation, and leading the University’s Jazz Orchestra, Jazztet, and Saxtet.

For many years, Dr. Starks was a member of “Call and Response,” a think-tank on African American music.  He served as a faculty member for the Gullah Studies Institute at historic Penn Center on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, and chaired the Music Department at Spelman College, the highly regarded women’s college in Atlanta, Georgia.  Most recently, Dr. Starks was commissioned to compose and perform the music for the soundtrack of Trading Church Street: Pride, Prejudice, and a Parking Lot, a documentary on what was once a thriving African American business district in his hometown of Anderson, South Carolina. The Westphal College is proud that Professor Starks is one of our own and we congratulate Dr. Starks for touching the lives of so many students and for his contributions to African American music and culture.

Accreditation Visit

Our College's programs in Fashion Design, Film & Video, Graphic Design, Digital Media, Interior Design, Photography, Design & Merchandising, Art History and Fine Art are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). We've been working for nearly two years now towards re-accreditation as our last five year accreditation draws to an end. Two hundred and eighty seven art and design schools are accredited by NASAD, including many of our peer institutions in the Philadelphia area along with many of the highest-ranked and best known art schools in the country. NASAD is an accrediting organization whose mission includes: establishing reasonable standards centered on the knowledge and skills necessary to develop academic and professional competence at both the undergraduate and graduate level; fostering the development of instruction of the highest quality while simultaneously encouraging varied and experimental approaches to the teaching of art and design; evaluating, through the process of accreditation, schools of art and design, and programs of studio art and design in terms of their quality and the results they achieve; assuring students and parents that accredited art and design programs provide competent teachers, adequate plant and equipment, sound curricula, and the capability of attaining their stated objectives; and counseling and assisting schools in developing their programs through self-evaluation and continuing efforts toward improvement.  A crucial stage in the accreditation process will occur from April 20 to April 22, when a team of three evaluators, seasoned faculty members from peer institutions especially trained to conduct site visits, will come to Westphal.

At the heart of the accreditation is a process of self-study. Several weeks ago, we sent to NASAD a nearly three hundred page report on our strategic plans as well as extensive specifics on our curriculum and faculty. And as a self study, we included our own assessments of the progress and improvements we've made and those we intend to make in the coming years. During the evaluators' three day stay, they will visit classrooms, look at student work, and meet with faculty, students and administrators. College faculty and staff are invited to a reception to welcome our NASAD visitors at 6pm on Monday, April 20th in Nesbitt Hall’s Chapman Court. David Raizman has led the college's self study, but overall it is the result of dozens of members of the college who have contributed much to the process. We look forward to the visit as we are very proud of our faculty, students and programs, and the accreditation process, at its heart, affords us an opportunity to examine what we do well and what we can do better, a process that must always be ongoing if we are to best serve our students. In the months following the site visit, we will receive preliminary reports from NASAD, with a final determination to be delivered at NASAD's annual meeting in October.

During the next two weeks, Sarah Steinwachs and Blaise Tobia will be coordinating the display of student work throughout our facilities in Nesbitt Hall, the University Crossings, and the Academic Building. Program Directors, our College's NASAD committee, and other faculty will be assisting to make the presentation of work an effective exhibit of our studio efforts. We can all look forward to this shared endeavor to present ourselves with pride to the NASAD Visiting Team. Thanks to all for their continuing support and hard work. For more information on NASAD, click here.

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!  

Message from the Dean

At Drexel, our system of quarters and year-round classes means new terms come fast and furious. Ten week terms create a dizzying and productive array of classes, assignments, exams and creative projects, with a performance or event almost every night, followed by a pressure-filled week of finals and critiques, a week off to rest and recuperate, and then time to start again. It’s hard not to be impressed by our students’ hard work and dedication and the faculty and staff who are committed to supporting them. Together, we accomplish amazing things.

The spring term is always our busiest and we’ve assembled an impressive lineup. This week, we open Ink not Ink, the largest art exhibition ever presented at Drexel featuring over eighty works of contemporary Chinese art from 40 different artists. Steve Sabol, President of NFL Films, will come and speak to students interested in sports and the media. This year’s Mandell Professionals in Residence Project will feature the world premiere of Ego Po’s theatrical production of The Bluebird with a cast including many of our students and the music of Orchestra 2001, arranged by composer George Crumb. Bud Konheim, founder and CEO of Nicole Miller, is this year’s Design & Merchandising Program’s Distinguished Speaker.  Brilliant independent film maker Mike Figgis will be spending a several day residency on campus. We’ll host the Philadelphia premiere of Objectified, Gary Hustwit’s film about manufactured objects and the people who design them. The Dance Program will host the Smithsonian traveling exhibition The Dancer Within, a who’s who of premier dance photographs by Rose Eichenbaum. And let’s not forget this year’s Fashion shows at the Philadelphia Navy Yards’ Urban Outfitters Headquarters, or the dazzling student work in the Photography, Graphic Design, Digital Media, Interior Design and Film & Video Senior Shows.

We’re all grateful that winter’s at an end and for the longer and warmer days that accompany the spring. Now, we hope you come out to see some of our students’ incredible work and some of the varied events we’re bringing to Drexel.

Get Bach

Drexel student musicians and dancers will combine forces for a performance devoted to the works of the incomparable Johann Sebastian Bach. The University Chorus, directed by Dr. Steven Powell, will sing choruses from Bach's Magnificat. Dancers and choreographers Wendi Kornberg and Lauren Ciccarelli will present an original dance choreographed to keyboardist Brian Dilts' rendition of Bach's English Suite Number Two. Dr. Miriam Giguere, Dance Program Director, will present her work Borrowed Domains to the music of Bach and Dance faculty member Olive Prince will present a new work to Bach’s music. Justine Pamiloza will perform an original solo dance, and Oliver Nelson's work, Fugue and Bossa, will be danced by five students of the Drexel Dance Ensemble to the accompaniment of the Drexel Concert Band conducted by Dr. Myron Moss and the Drexel Student/Faculty Brass Quintet. A Celebration of Bach will be on Sunday, April 5th at 3 PM in the Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.).

DETAILS:

• A Celebration of Bach
• Sunday, April 5, 3 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.  
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-ARTS

Design For All

Maurice Cox, Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts, is this year’s final Farajollah & Maryam Badie ARFAA guest lecturer in Architecture. At the NEA, Cox supervises the grant process in design, oversees the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, while providing professional leadership in architecture and design. Mr. Cox is on the faculty of the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture and he served as the Mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia from 2002-2004. Cox’s lecture, Design For All, is on April 2nd at 6:30 PM in the Mandell Theater and is the first event in the 2009 Design Charrette: Urban Oasis.

DETAILS:

• Maurice Cox: Design For All, ARFAA Lecture
• Thursday, April 2, 6:30 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• Free and open to the public

Ink not Ink Symposium, Opening and Gala

The largest exhibition of contemporary Chinese Art ever presented in Philadelphia, Ink not Ink, featuring the work of 40 acclaimed artists including Wenda Gu, Wei Quingji and Lin Tianmiao, opens Thursday, April 2nd. Drexel University is Ink not Ink’s only U.S. stop, after museum exhibitions in Beijng and Shenzen and before travelling on to Europe. Ink not Ink includes nearly 100 paintings, prints, sculptures and videos with Wenda Gu’s United Nations: Man & Space Year 2000, a colossal 100-ft. tall installation representing the flags of every nation as the center-piece.

On April 1st the Drexel, public  and art communities are invited to a symposium of leading scholars from the United States and China including Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale School of Art; Richard Vine, Senior Editor; Art In America; Melissa Chiu, Director of the Asia Society; and Lu Hong, curator of China’s Shenzhen Art Museum. The symposium will create a dialogue between Chinese and American scholars on the topic of contemporary Chinese ink painting, which is evolving from a centuries-long central role in the cultural memory and imagination of China. Dr. Pan Qing, curator at the National Art Museum of China, will serve as moderator. For much more information, please click here.

Also, on April 1st, there will be a Gala Preview and Reception (with paid admission) for our visiting Chinese artists and scholars along with dignitaries from the Ministry of Culture, members of the Consulate General’s Office in NY, the Chinese Embassy in Washington and American dignitaries. Jenny Chen, a pianist from the Curtis Institute of Music, will perform.  For those attending the Gala, every ticket will be entered into a drawing for two free BusinessFirst round-trip tickets to China, compliments of Continental Airlines. For information on purchasing tickets to the Gala Preview and Reception, please click here.

Organized by Dr. Joseph Gregory, Art & Art History Department Head, and Drexel Trustee Abbie Dean, Ink not Ink will be installed in three different locations on the Drexel campus including the I.M. Pei designed Bossone Research Center, the Frank Furness designed Paul Peck Alumni Center and the Pearlstein Gallery.  Drexel University’s presentation of the exhibition and symposium was made possible through the generous support of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the Marketing Division of the Ministry of Culture of the P. R. of China, the Shenzhen Foundation of Cultural Promotion and Development, Beijing Zhongwenfa International Cultural Exchange Co. Ltd, Continental Airlines and HSBC.

DETAILS:

• Ink not Ink Exhibition, Symposium & Reception
• April 2 –May 9
• Bossone Research Center (3128 Market St.), Paul Peck Alumni Center (3142 Market St.), The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St.)
• Exhibit Hours: 10 AM-5 PM Daily
• Symposium: April 1, 3:30-5 PM, Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St.)
• Exhibit and Symposium are free and open to the public
• For more information, please visit www.drexel.edu/inknotink or call 215-895-2548

Urban Oasis

Urban Oasis, the 2009 Design Charrette, takes place this upcoming weekend after teams and projects are announced at the ARFAA lecture presented by Maurice Cox, Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts, on April 2nd. During this year’s Charrette, over 70 students from the College of Engineering, the School of Biomedical Engineering, the College of Information, Science and Technology, the LeBow College of Business, the School of Public Health, and the Westphal College’s Architecture, Interior Design, Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Digital Media and Entertainment & Arts Management programs will work together. Their task is to design solutions for existing Philadelphia public spaces to create affordable and innovative solutions for communities in today’s economic times when services at schools, parks and libraries are being reduced.

Students will research and evolve their design proposals with the benefit of input from noted design and government experts. On April 3rd, a panel including Alan Greenberger, Executive Director of Philadelphia City Planning Commission and Co-Founder of Design Advocacy Group of Philadelphia; Jane Golden, Executive Director of the Mural Arts Program; Beth Miller, Executive Director of the Community Design Collaborative; Howard B. Steinberg, AIA, Principal of Onion Flats, LLC; and Max Zahniser, CEO of Praxis Building Solutions, LLC and Board member of Green Village Philadelphia and Green Wizard will speak to the students participating in the Charrette. For a full schedule of Urban Oasis events, click here.

Last year the Department of Architecture and Interiors organized a Charrette around the visit of Cameron Sinclair, the head of Architecture for Humanity. It was a tremendous success bringing together close to 100 students from Architecture, Interior Design, Construction Management, Digital Media, Engineering, Fashion, Graphic Design, Information Science, Anthropology and Law to work together on an interdisciplinary and pro-social collaboration. Students grappled with design solutions for a sports complex in an impoverished area of Sao Paolo and portable classrooms for hurricane devastated Louisiana.

For further information, please contact Committee Co-chairs Lauren Karwoski-Magee or Debra Ruben.

DETAILS:

• 2009 Design Charrette: Urban Oasis
• April 2 through April 6
• For more information, click here.

Film Fest Trailer

For the third year in a row, Film & Video students have created the official festival trailer which will be shown before over 100 films to audiences approaching one hundred thousand movie lovers who attend the 2009 Philly Cinefest which runs through April 6th. To see the trailer, click here. To learn more about the film fest, click here.  

The students and faculty who produced this trailer are: Samantha Wischnia, Vic Rogers, Joe Mathews, Diane Bakos, Nikiya Palombi, Phil Gushue, Adam Sucheki, Paul Dickover, Tariq Rasheed, Kyle Green, Alex Kieffer, Robert Kieffer, Kevin Resnick, Mary McCool, Colin George, Brian Johanson, Dylan Steinberg, Karin Kelly (Film & Video Program Director), Zac Rubino, Maggie Ruder, Micah Haun, John Avarese (Film & Video Professor), Brian Crawford, Laura Rachfalski, Mike Stone, Bunker Seyfert, John Christon, Karl Guenther, Tammy Hardgrave, Kelly DeVose, Jesse Caron, Aleida Silva-Garcia, Stephanie Ross, John Wooton, Alex Weber, Alyssa Brocato and Sonia Vitullo.

TV Major Gets the Green Light

The Department of Cinema & Television is launching a new undergraduate major in Television built around experiential learning in the University’s television station DUTV, the College’s two television studios, and under the tutelage of our deep faculty of TV industry professionals. Starting in September 2009, students will be able to pursue one of three tracks: TV News & Nonfiction Production, TV Comedy & Drama Production and TV Industry & Enterprise. Minors in TV Production and TV Industry & Enterprise will also be offered.

Andrew Susskind, the former President of Imagine Entertainment Television and a director of television series for CBS, ABC, UPN and WB, will serve as the major’s Program Director. Dave Culver, the general manager of DUTV with production experience at virtually every station in the Philadelphia market, will be a mainstay of the program. The TV major was designed to build production experience into the curriculum. The Television major will continue with the production of  the student produced drama series Off Campus, and The Daily Digest and The Bruiser Flint Show, all broadcast on DUTV. 

This innovative new major was designed by a committee of faculty members with extensive experience in the television industry. The committee was headed by Cinema & Television Department Head Yvonne Leach and included Film & Video Program Director Karin Kelly, Television Management Graduate Program Director Al Tedesco, Entertainment & Arts Management Program Director Larry Epstein, Dave Culver and Andrew Susskind, all of whom will contribute to the new major along with our faculty in Screenwriting & Playwriting.  For further information on the Television major, click here. For information on applying to the Television major, please contact the David Miller at 215-895-1675 or at ddm22@drexel.edu.

Downtown 81

Jean-Michael Basquiat was a legendary neo-renaissance painter of the 1980’s. He ran with the likes of Andy Warhol, Madonna and Julian Schnabel.  Before he burst on the art scene, he starred in the film Downtown 81, Edo Bertoglio’s recently recovered film about a starving artist whose eviction from his apartment leads him to meander through downtown New York.  Downtown ’81 featured rising artists and musicians including graffiti artists “Lee” Quinones and Fab Five Freddy, the bands Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, DNA, Tuxedo Moon, the Plastics, and rap legend Melle Mel. As Drexel University’s contribution to the Philadelphia Free Library One Film Philadelphia program, we will screen Downtown 81 on March 9th at 6 PM in the University Crossings Large Screening Room (028 University Crossings), with a discussion to follow with Matt Palczynski, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s staff lecturer on Western Art, and Gregory Wolmart of our Film & Video program.

One Film Philadelphia is a citywide initiative of Philadelphia’s Free Library which promotes film literacy and community building by choosing one film to be shown in dozen of screenings throughout the city over several weeks in February and March. This year’s selection, BASQUIAT, is artist Julian Schnabel’s brilliant portrait of graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s rise and fall in the 1980’s New York art scene. If you’re interested in the contemporary art scene, great film making, the downtown music and fashion scene of the 1980’s, then click here to learn where to see BASQUIAT with its great cast of Jeffrey Wright, David Bowie, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Benicio Del Toro, Courtney Love and Parker Posey.

Downtown 81 is considered by many to be as much a documentary as a drama, as it features Basquiat and many of his contemporaries in their own environment. Only 19-years old when Downtown 81 was filmed, Basquiat rocketed upon New York’s art scene after emerging as a graffiti artist. The film was finished in 1981, but for legal reasons, it was not released until 2000 when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Dean Allen Sabinson was on the Steering and Selection committees of One Film Philadelphia.

DETAILS:

• Downtown 81 Screening & Discussion
• Monday, March 9, 6 PM
• Large Screening Room, 028, University Crossings, 3175 JFK Blvd.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, please call 215-895-1029

Winter Music Festival

We’re continually surprised to learn how many in the Drexel community have never attended a single concert by one of our many talented student music ensembles. Now is the time to change this; you won’t regret it. Between now and March 15, there will be eight concerts and you’ll be most impressed by the incredible level of musicianship of Drexel students who are drawn from all of the University's schools and colleges. The Winter Music Festival kicks off with the String Ensemble on Friday, March 6th at 7:30 PM as Director Ron Lipscomb leads a program of Strings at the Movies.

Reverend Gregory Ross will lead the Gospel Choir, along with various Philadelphia area choirs, in a program of spirituals on Saturday, March 7th at 7:30 PM. On the morning of March 7th, the choir will hold music workshops in MacAllister Hall from 9 AM- 1 PM. This workshop will feature the expertise of special guest Philadelphia native and Grammy Award-winning record producer Steven Ford.

European Unions is the theme of the Concert Band’s performance on Sunday, March 8th at 7:30 PM. Dr. Mike Moss, Music Program Director,  conducts a concert themed to the European/American connection found in the works of George Kirck (Renaissance Triptych), Jan Van der Roost (Flashing Winds), and Gabriel Fauré (arranged by Dr. Moss (Chant Funeraire). Student Concerto Contest winner Mark Donovan will be featured in Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D.

The Fusion Band and Guitar Ensemble will take the stage on Tuesday, March 10th at 7:30 PM. Led by Lynn Riley, the program will include works by Stevie Wonder, Maurio Bauza and The Beatles. The Guitar Ensemble will perform Cream’s White Room, Mississippi Rag and O’er Wintry Hills, a Croatian Folk Song.

The Percussion, Mediterranean and Rock Ensembles will perform on Wednesday, March 11th at 8:00 PM. The Percussion Ensemble’s motto is We hit things; We do it together and you’ll see what they mean when theyplay Baile Baile, Valley of Napal, and Bonham.  The Mediterranean Ensemble will follow with the theme Sharing the Music and Sounds of Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Israel.

The Keyboard Ensemble, led by Wanda Canfield, will perform J.S. Bach’s Musette and Minuet in A minor, and Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel. Their performance will be on Friday, March 13th at 7:30 PM.

The University Chorus will wrap up the festival with performances of The Bach and Vivaldi Magnificats, on Sunday, March 15th at 3 PM. Performers include the Fairmount Chamber Orchestra and soloists Penelope Schumate, soprano, K. Rebecca Oehlers, mezzo-soprano, Perry Brisbon, tenor, and James Kirk, bass.

All Performing Arts concerts, except the University Chorus concert, are free and open to the public. For more information call 215-895-ARTS.

DETAILS:

• The Winter Music Festival
• String Ensemble, Friday, March 6, 7:30 PM, Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• Gospel Choir, Saturday, March 7, 7:30 PM, Main Auditorium, (3141 Chestnut St.)
• Concert Band, Sunday, March 8, 7:30 PM, Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• Fusion Band and Guitar Ensemble, Tuesday, March 10, 7:30 PM, Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• Percussion, Mediterranean & Rock Ensembles, Wednesday, March 11, 8 PM, Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.).
• Keyboard Ensemble, Friday, March 13, 7:30 PM, Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• University Chorus, Sunday, March 15, 3 PM, Main Auditorium (3141 Chestnut St.)
• All concerts are free and open to the public, except the University Chorus Concert: $3 for students with ID and $6 for the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

Jazz Extravaganza

For the tenth straight year we’ll welcome the nationally-renowned all-female Spelman College Jazz Ensemble to perform alongside the Drexel Jazz Orchestra and Jazztet. The Spelman Ensemble, under the direction of Professor Joseph Jennings, has extensively toured the United States sharing the stage with jazz greats Wynton Marsalis, Nancy Wilson and Dee Dee Bridgewater. Spelman’s performance theme is “Love, Hope, and Glory,” and will feature the music of John Coltrane, Horace Silver, Johnny Mercer, Charlie Parker and Lionel Hampton. The Drexel Jazz Orchestra and Jazztet, directed by Dr. George Starks, will pay tribute to composer/saxophonist Oliver Nelson by presenting a program of his compositions and arrangements. 

The free performance is on March 12th at 7 PM in the Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.). For more information, call 215-895-ARTS. Be sure to arrive early, because it’s always a packed house!

DETAILS:

• Tenth Annual Jazz Extravaganza
• Thursday, March 12, 7:00 PM
• Mandell Theater, (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• FREE and open to the public
• Information: 215-895-ARTS

Arts Administration Annual Auction

The Arts Administration Graduate Program’s 6th Annual Art Auction, a reception and silent auction, on March 6th at 7 PM in the Bossone Lobby and Atrium (3128 Market St.) serves as a fundraiser so that students can participate in Americans for the Arts’ Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C.  In these tough economic times, the arts need our support more than ever
Each year, the silent auction offers a wide variety of art, crafts, and tickets to numerous Philadelphia-region cultural attractions to the highest bidder.  Admission to the reception is $10 with a Drexel student ID and $15 for general admission and includes cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and credentials for bidding. 

DETAILS:

• Arts Administration Art Auction
• March 6, 7 PM
• Bossone Lobby (3128 Market St.)
• $10 with Drexel student ID, $15 for the public
• Please E-mail auction.aaga@gmail.com if you’re interesting in donating artwork, which will be accepted until March 6th.

Greening Your Brand

Orly Zeewy, a brand identity consultant for Fortune 500 companies will be the guest of the Design & Merchandising Program for a talk on creating stronger products and companies through the use of sustainability and environmentally conscious strategies. Orly provides strategies to make company brands both greener and more visible to the public.  Her talk, Greening Your Brand: Standing Out in the Green Economy will be Thursday, March 5th at 6:30 PM in Stein Auditorium. 

With over 25 years of experience in design, marketing, communications and brand development, Ms. Zeewy currently consults with The University of Pennsylvania, Titan North America and W.S. Cumby. She directed all of the marketing materials for The Vanguard Group as senior design manager. Orly was the principal of Zeewy Design and Marketing Communications whose work was featured in leading design publications Print, How and Graphis.

DETAILS:

• Orly Zeewy, Greening Your Brand: Standing Out in the Green Economy
• Thursday, March 5, 6:30 PM
• Stein Auditorium, 33rd and Market Sts.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, please call 215-895-1029

Classic in the Dorms

The next campus concert with musicians from The Philadelphia Orchestra will feature Jeff Lang on the horn along with violinist Daniel Han and pianist Natalie Zhu. The free performance is tonight, March 3rd at 8 PM in the Van Rensselaer Ballroom (3320 Powelton Ave.). So students, feel free to come in your pajamas. Here are two other reasons why students won’t want to miss this concert: we’re raffling off a sleek 8 GB iPod Nano and we’re also providing dinner. The Drexel Campus Concert Series with The Philadelphia Orchestra is presented by the Westphal College, the Pennoni Honors College and Drexel Student Life.

Jeffery Lang is Associate Principal Horn for the Philadelphia Orchestra and was previously Principal Horn for the Israel Philharmonic.  Jeff has been a guest player with the New York City Opera and played on the soundtracks for the films Failure to Launch, The Producers and The Good Shepherd. Violinist Daniel Han has been a member of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Fort Worth Symphony, and was a guest concertmaster of the Daejeon Philharmonic in Korea. Pianist Natalie Zhu has performed throughout North America, Europe and Asia as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. In 2005 Natalie and renowned violinist Hilary Hahn released a CD for the Deutsche Grammophon label. 

DETAILS:

• The Philadelphia Orchestra Campus Concert Series
• Tuesday, March 3, 8 PM
• Van Rensselaer Ballroom, 3320 Powelton Ave
• Free and open to the public
• iPod Nano Raffle!, refreshments served
• For more information, please call 215-895-1267

Habijam for Humanity

Popular local artists Agent Moosehead, The Color Karma, The Last Emperor, The West Philadelphia Orchestra and Tha Itis will take the stage in the Mandell Theater for the 2nd Annual Habijam for Humanity on Thursday, March 5th. Drexel’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity is teaming up with Drexel’s radio station, WKDU 91.7 FM, Late Night Series Philly, and MadKo Concerts to raise money and create awareness for Habitat for Humanity’s mission of building ‘simple, decent, and affordable’ housing for the less fortunate. The show starts at 6:30 PM with a $5 donation at the door. If you can’t be there, tune into WKDU 91.7 FM for the live simulcast.

Agent Moosehead is a local fusion group that performs a hybrid style featuring jazz and progressive rock elements. Aside from the band’s full inventory of original, mostly instrumental songs, they are also widely known for their live renditions of Nintendo music, TV themes and Frank Zappa covers. The West Philadelphia Orchestra describes themselves as a “community” of musicians. With over twenty collective members, the band integrates different backgrounds, influences and instrumentations mainly from Eastern European folk tradition. The Last Emperor, one of Philadelphia’s most renowned emcees, will bring his distinctive brand of hip hop to the stage. The Color Karma and Tha Itis will also bring their unique brand of experimental and progressive rock to the bill.  For more information on the concert, please email Rich Mancinelli at rrm34@drexel.edu. For more information on Drexel’s Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, click here.

DETAILS:

• Habijam for Humanity
• Thursday, March 5, 6:30 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• Open to the public, all ages
• $5 donation at the door
• For more information, please email Rich Mancinelli at rrm34@drexel.edu

Business Planning Competition

Thanks to the generosity of Drexel Trustee Nina Henderson, we have an endowed fund that supports teaching Westphal students how to plan and run their own businesses. Each year, our students are encouraged to participate in the Nina Henderson Challenge, a two phase competition, which has students’ first submitting concepts for their own businesses and then developing full business plans.  We are excited to report that participation was up 100% in this year’s Business Concept Competition. Join us in congratulating this year’s winners: Novel Notions from Design & Merchandising students Stephanie Fortunato, Samantha Edwards, Antonella Durantine and Elise Shim; University Mobile Video Productions from Dylan Steinberg and Bruce Pinchbeck; Fresh Paint Skate Shop from Design & Merchandising students Julia Freidland, Amanda McPartland, Arianna Riccioni, Lesli Fonte and Dana Dougherty; and FreePhillyTix.com, from Arts Administration student Eugene Westbrook. The Novel Nations and University Mobile Video Productions teams placed in the Top 10 on a university-wide basis and will be presenting at the Baiada Center’s Pitch Competition where three winners will be selected. 

The Henderson Challenge now moves on to the Business Plan Phase. Westphal students submitting detailed business plans compete for cash prizes of $3000 (1st place), $2000(2nd) and $1000 (3rd); participation in the Concept Phase is not a requirement. The deadline for entrée is May 4th and you can register to participate here.  If you’re thinking that you may want to start your own business when you graduate, the experience of creating a business plan is indispensible. And top entrees from the Henderson Business Plan competition are frequently chosen to participate in the Baiada Center’s Business Plan Incubator Competition where the prizes range from $12,000 to $4,000. Click here for more information on the Incubator Competition.

DETAILS:

• Henderson Challenge Business Plan Phase and Business Plan Incubator Competition
• Deadline is May 4th
• Click here for Business Plan Phase and here for Business Plan Incubator

Animated Animation

Talented Digital Media student David Lally has compiled an array of his classmates’ impressive animations into a five minute video. Click here to see the video.  Additionally, the work of fifteen Digital Media students featuring advanced rendering, modeling and animation techniques will be featured this Thursday night on DUTV as part of the DUTV Student Fest. 

The students and work featured in the Drexel Student Animation Fest are: Jessie Amadio, Dali and Ice Fishing; Corrine DeOrsay, Jessie Amadio and Jacob Fradkin, Plants; Brett Angelillis, diy; Nick Avallone, Evan Boucher, Kevin Hoffman and David Lally, Bazi; Nick Avallone, Lip Sync (Audio: Chuck); Ben Cary, Pop Art Pinball and Purgabot; Evan Boucher, Lip Sync and Apple of My Eye; Diego Garcia, Monster Friends; Jacob Fradkin, Robot Theater; Brian Gadomski, An Effect; Dan Letarte and Brian Gadomski, So Money; Brian Gadomski, The Program, David Lally, Lip Sync (Audio: Heroes); Peter Stratton, Cellar Soliloquy; Nick Avallone and Evan Boucher, That Was Easy; Kristen Ward, Dream Machine and Tea Time; and Game Dev Workshop and duplicate: That Was Easy.

DUTV STUDENT FESTIVAL

The four-night DUTV Student Festival, showcasing the incredible work of Westphal students on DUTV, starts Tuesday, March 3rd. The Fest will feature the world premiere of UNIVERSITY 101, the drama series that brought together students from Screenwriting & Playwriting, Film & Video, Interior Design, Fashion Design, Music Industry and a cast of professional actors.

The Fest kicks offs tonight with our broadcast of the 2008 Drexel Fashion show features the outstanding collections of graduating Fashion Design students.

Wednesday, March 4th will be a night of MAD Dragon Records’ music, featuring MDR recording artists The Redwalls, Matt Duke, Andrew Lipke, Hoots & Hellmouth, The Swimmers, and guest artists The Spinto Band, Illinois and Slo Mo (is this hyphenated).

Thursday night, March 5th, we’ll premiere UNIVERSITY 101 followed by the Film & Video Student Film Fest and a Digital Media Student Animation Fest.

We close the Fest on Friday, March 6th with rebroadcasts of two events presented by the Kal and Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies: one featuring an interview with Tom Brokaw, and the other a conversation with Electric Factory Concert’s legendary founder Larry Magid.

DETAILS:

• DUTV Student Festival
• March 3 through March 6
• March 3, 8-9 PM: 2008 Fashion Show
• March 4, 8-10 PM: 2008 and 2009 MAD Dragon concert
• March 5, 8-10 PM: University 101, Student Films & Animations
• March 6, 8-10 PM: Tom Brokaw & Larry Magid
• DUTV channels 54 or 62 for Comcast subscribers
• For more information on the Festival, please call 215-895-1029
• For more information on DUTV, click here.

Red Herring

The Drexel Players will take the stage for five performances of Michael Hollinger’s hilarious Cold-War era play Red Herring with opening night on Thursday, February 26th. Directed by Barrymore Award-winner Lee Etzold, a member of last year’s MPiRP resident company New Paradise Laboratories, Red Herring is a light-hearted look at complicated love and espionage set against a backdrop of 1950’s McCarthyism.
Award-winning playwright Hollinger will do an artist talk-back following the Friday, February 27th performance. Hollinger’s most recent play, Opus, began at the Arden Theater and transferred to off-Broadway last fall. He is the recipient of the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays and a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play.

Tickets are now on sale at the Mandell Theater Box Office: $5 for Drexel students, faculty and staff (with ID) and $15 for general admission. Group rate tickets are available for public groups of ten or more.  For more information please contact Nick Anselmo at nick.anselmo@drexel.edu or visit www.drexelplayers.com. To purchase tickets, call 215-895-ARTS.

DETAILS:

• The Drexel Players present Red Herring
• Thursday, February 26 through Saturday, February 28 at 8 PM; Saturday, February 28 and Sunday, March 1 at 2 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd and Chestnut Sts.
• $5 for students, faculty and staff with Drexel ID; $15 for general admission
• To purchase tickets, call 215-895-ARTS
• For more information call 215-895-1275 or visit www.drexel.edu/westphal

Scandinavian Design

Melane Kirstiansen of the Danish Institute of Design’s (DIS) Textile Design Program will visit from Scandinavia and give the lecture Textile Processes from a Scandinavian Perspective on Wednesday, February 25th at 6 PM in Stein Auditorium. DIS is a study abroad institution that helps place students throughout Scandinavia. Melane, as part of her visit, will be exploring further opportunities for our Interior Design and Fashion students to study abroad with DIS. Ms. Kristiansen’s lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 215-895-1029.

DETAILS:

• Melane Kirstiansen, Textile Processes from a Scandinavian Perspective
• Wednesday, February 25, 6 PM
• Stein Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market St.
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, please call 215-895-1029

Express Yourself With Ink

Master Japanese calligrapher Chukin Takagi will exhibit her recent typography paintings and work with students as a Rankin Scholar of the Graphic Design program.  Her expressive typography will be featured in OMOI, an exhibition featuring a visual translation of a 7th century chanted Buddhist teaching, Hannyashingyou.  The exhibition is now on display in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery and runs through March 20th. At the exhibit’s opening reception on February 19th at 6 PM, Janice Merendino, Director of the Branch Out Project and founding member of The Clay Studio, will give an introduction on the history of Japanese/Asian calligraphy followed by Chukin’s demonstration of her traditional calligraphy.  A reception with traditional Japanese food, including sushi and plum wine, will follow Chukin’s talk.

Chukin has studied Shodo (a style of scripting) since childhood.  She received her graduate degree from the Japanese Shodo Education Association in Tokyo and subsequently won three prestigious Amori Provine awards.  In 2006, Ms. Takagi was appointed the Director of the Northern Shodo Institute in Hirosaki.

DETAILS:

• Chukin Takagi, OMOI Exhibit and Reception/Demonstration
• Exhibit, February 16 through March 20
• Opening Reception, February 19, 6 PM
• Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, 33rd and Market Sts.
• Gallery Hours: Mon-Thurs, 11-7; Friday 11-5
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, please call 215-895-2548

Madrigal Dinner

Tickets are on sale for a journey back to 1609 as Drexel’s Great Court is transformed into a royal’s dining hall. A sumptuous feast will be served in the company of court jesters and royalty while the Drexel Chamber Singers perform Elizabethan madrigals, French chansons and lute songs at this year’s 19th Annual Madrigal Dinner. Tickets for the two extravaganzas -- Friday, February 27th or Saturday, February 28th, both at 7:30 PM -- are now on sale for $21.95. Balcony seating is available for $3.00 and discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 215-895-1275.

DETAILS:

• 19th Annual Madrigal Dinner
• Friday, February 27 or Saturday February 28, 7:30 PM
• Menu: mulled cider, osso bucco or poached salmon, potage Jacqueline with butternut squash, roasted potatoes, roasted turnips, peas, artisanal bread and upside down warm apple tart.
• A vegetarian option is available if requested ahead of time
• Drexel’s Great Court (Main Building, 3141 Chestnut St.)
• $21.95 per person including dinner, or $3.00 for balcony seating
• Reservations: call 215-895-1275

Producer/Director Mike Rubbo

Award-winning independent producer and director Mike Rubbo will be visiting the Film & Video Program and the Pennoni Honors College for a several day residency to work with students. During his visit, two of Rubbo’s 50 plus films will be screened for the Drexel community. On Monday, February 23rd, Sad Song of the Yellow Skin will be screened at 3 PM and Waiting for Fidel will be shown at 6 PM. Both films will be screened in the University Crossings Large Screening Room.

Waiting for Fidel is considered one of the first stalka-mentries, inspiring Michael Moore to make Roger and Me. In fact, Rubbo was a pioneer of the personal authored documentary, one of the first practitioners, if not the first in English. Waiting for Fidel is part of the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Mike has been honored with retrospectives of his documentaries in New York at Film Forum, the Chicago Art Institute and in San Francisco at the Pacifica Film Archive, Berkeley.

For 25 years Rubbo worked at the National Film Board of Canada, directing over 40 documentaries including Sad Song of Yellow Skin (1970), Waiting for Fidel (1974), Solzhenitsyn’s Children (1979) and Daisy: Story of a Face Lift (1982).

DETAILS:

• Mike Rubbo screening Waiting for Fidel and Sad Song of the Yellow Skin
• Monday, February 23, 3 PM and 6 PM
• University Crossings Large Screening Room (028)
• Free and open to all students

Global Media and Sustainability

Graduate students from the Paul F. Harron Graduate Program in Television Management will present a panel addressing perspectives of the global media coverage of issues related to the energy and environmental crises on Friday, February 20th at 1:30 PM in Behrakis Hall B. The event is part of the day-long Student Conference on Global Challenges titled, Energy and Environment: Cooperate, Coordinate and Collaborate, presented by Drexel University’s Office of International Programs. For more information, click here.

DETAILS:

• Energy and Environment: Cooperate, Coordinate and Collaborate
• Friday, February 20, 1:30 PM
• Behrakis Hall B, Creese Student Center, 33rd and Chestnut Sts.
• For more information, click here

Debut of The Brass Quintet

The Drexel Music Program presents an afternoon of chamber music on Sunday, February 22nd at 4:30 PM in the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery. Program highlights include the Symphony for Brass by Victor Ewald, performed by the new Student/Faculty Brass Quintet, The Liberty Bell March by a student flute quartet and chamber music improvisations based on the Event Pieces by New York composer Daniel Roumain, who was in residence at Drexel last fall. The Student/Faculty Brass Quintet is co-directed by trumpet faculty member Darin Kelly, who plays with the IRIS Chamber Orchestra of Nashville and has recorded with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and trombone instructor Barry McCommon, a bass trombonist for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Opera Delaware and Ocean City Pops, among others. The concert is free and open to the public.

DETAILS:

• Chamber Music
• Sunday, February 22, 4:30 PM
• A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery, Main Building, 3141 Chestnut St.
• Free and open to the public

Your First Job in Television

Come learn How To Get Your First Job In Television from the leading area TV professionals at a career forum sponsored by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) on Saturday, February 21st from 9:30 AM-12:30 PM at FOX29 studios. Participating students will meet in small groups to get expert advice, and also take part in a panel discussion with Thomas Drayton, FOX29 anchor; Marshall Harris, Comcast SportsNet anchor; Lee Meier, FOX29 Executive Producer; John Barra, NJN Public Television producer/director; Dan Stamm, NBC10 content media producer; and Rob Alverina, Philadelphia Eagles Vice President Broadcasting/Executive Producer. Students, as an added bonus you can sign-up to have your demo-tape critiqued!

The cost for the career forum is $15. For an additional $5, students also receive a one year NATAS membership which includes free movie passes, reduced prices on other programs and an invitation to the Emmy Nomination Party. For information on how to register, please contact Jennifer McFarlane at 215-310-9099 or Jennifer@natasmid-atlantic.org.

DETAILS:

• How To Get Your First Job In Television Career Forum
• Saturday, February 21, 9:30 AM-12:30 PM
• FOX29 Studios, 330 Market St.
• $15
• Open to all college students and high school seniors
• For more information or to register, call Jennifer McFarlane at 215-310-9099 or email Jennifer@natasmid-atlantic.org

UNIVERSITY 101 Premiere Screening

While we’re sorry to report that there will be no red carpet or klieg lights, our premiere screening of UNIVERSITY 101 is none the less a special event. On Monday, March 2, days before its broadcast on DUTV, come join the cast and crew for a screening of our original drama series. UNIVERSITY 101 takes place on the campus of fictitious Dexter University and follows the lives of six students, their parents and teachers. The scripts were written by Screenwriting and Playwriting students, costumes were designed by Fashion Design students, sets crafted by Interior Design students, musical scoring by Music Industry students, and all aspects of physical and creative production were done by Film & Video students.  Our students worked with a cast of professional actors from Philadelphia and NYC. The screening will be on March 2nd at 7 PM in the Large Screening Room (028) in University Crossings. Free pizza will be served.

DETAILS:

• UNIVERSITY 101 Premiere
• Monday, March 2, 7 PM
• Large Screening Room (028), University Crossings (3175 JFK Blvd).
• Free for all students, pizza will be served
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

Ink not Ink

Ink not Ink, a major exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, makes its only stop in the United States at Drexel after shows at China’s Shenzen Art Museum and the Beijing Today Art Museum. Featuring the work of 40 acclaimed artists including Wenda Gu, Wei Quingji and Lin Tianmiao, the exhibition includes nearly 100 paintings, prints, sculptures and videos. The center-piece of the show will be Wenda Gu’s United Nations: Man & Space Year 2000, a colossal 100-ft. tall installation, representing the flags of every nation. Ink not Ink is the first ever survey-scale exhibition of contemporary Chinese art to be presented in Philadelphia and is the largest show of art ever presented at Drexel. Ink not Ink will be on display from April 2nd-May 9th.  Organized by Dr. Joseph Gregory, Art & Art History Department Head, and Drexel Trustee Abbie Dean, Ink not Ink will be installed in five different locations on the Drexel campus including the I.M. Pei designed Bossone Research Center, the Frank Furness designed Paul Peck Alumni Center and the Pearlstein Gallery. 

On April 1st there will be a symposium comprised of leading scholars from the United States and China including Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale School of Art, Richard Vine, Senior Editor, Art In America, Melissa Chiu, Director of the Asia Society Museum Fan Di’an, the Director of the National Art Museum of China and Lu Hong, curator at the Shenzhen Art Museum. It will create an important dialogue between Chinese and American scholars on the topic of contemporary Chinese Ink painting. Dr. Pan Qing, curator at the National Art Museum of China will serve as moderator. The Ink not Ink exhibition and symposium will be free and open to the public. For much more information, please click here.  

On the evening of April 1st, there will be a Gala preview and reception, with paid admission, for our visiting Chinese artists and scholars along with dignitaries from the Ministry of Culture, members of the Consulate General’s Office in NY, the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and American dignitaries. Jenny Chen of the Curtis Institute of Music will perform. 

Drexel University’s presentation of the exhibition and symposium is made possible through the generous support of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the Marketing Division of the Ministry of Culture of the P. R. of China, the Shenzhen Foundation of Cultural Promotion and Development, Beijing Zhongwenfa International Cultural Exchange Co. Ltd, Continental Airlines and HSBC.

DETAILS:

• Ink not Ink Exhibition and Symposium
• April 2 –May 9
• Bossone Research Center (3128 Market St.), Paul Peck Alumni Center (3142 Market St.), The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St.)
• Exhibit Hours: 10 AM-5 PM Daily
• Symposium: April 1, 3:30-5 PM, Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St.)
• Exhibit and Symposium are free and open to the public
• For more information, please visit www.drexel.edu/inknotink or call 215-895-2548

Vote Early and Vote Often!

We need your help!  With your support (and votes) we can send seniors Dylan Steinberg (Music Industry) and Bruce Pinchbeck (Film & Video) to the 81st Annual Academy Awards to represent the college student demographic.  Dylan & Bruce created a hilarious video for MTV U about why they should be chosen to report live from the Red Carpet on all things Hollywood.  To no one surprise, Dylan & Bruce made it to the finals and are now competing against nine other college correspondents for the chance of a life time.  MTV U leaves the power in our hands, putting the 10 finalist on-line for a vote.  The team with the most votes by this Friday, February 6th wins the grand prize and will be reporting live from the Red Carpet when 81st Academy Awards airs Sunday, February 22.  Vote as many times as you can.  Get your friends, classmates and parents to vote; there is no limit on voting.  Go to MTVU’s web site and vote Dylan & Bruce to the Oscars!

DETAILS:

• Full Web Site: http://www.mtvu.com/win/2009-oscars-student-correspondent
• Voting Ends: Friday, February 6
• More info: 215-895-1029

Calling All Students

We strongly encourage all Westphal students to showcase their most impressive creative work and research at this year’s Research Day on April 23rd at the Daskalakis Athletic Center. To do so, abstracts must be submitted between February 23rd and March 12th.  Hundreds of students from all Drexel colleges and schools participate each year, and the creativity and innovations of our student’s work always stands out.  Beyond poster presentations, our students present animations, films, dance performances and designs from various disciplines.  Cash prizes are awarded to those selected by faculty judges at a reception on the evening of April 23rd. Click here to see who your program’s contact is and for submission guidelines. On February 23rd, click here to start the submission process.

DETAILS:

• Research Day submissions
• Due no later than March 12
• For more information, click here.

Art for Arts Administrators

The Arts Administration Graduate Program’s 6th Annual Art Auction, a reception and silent auction, on March 6th at 7 PM in the Bossone Lobby and Atrium (3128 Market St.) serves as a fundraiser so that students can participate in Americans for the Arts’ Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C.  In these troubled economic times, the arts need our support more than ever, so please donate your paintings, sculptures or drawings so that our Arts Administration students can remind our legislators to not forget this important need.

Each year, the silent auction offers a wide variety of art, crafts, and tickets to numerous Philadelphia-region cultural attractions to the highest bidder.  Admission to the reception is $10 with a Drexel student ID and $15 for general admission and includes cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and credentials for bidding.  Please E-mail auction.aaga@gmail.com if you’re interesting in donating artwork, which we’ll be accepting right up until March 6th.

DETAILS:

• Arts Administration Art Auction
• March 6, 7 PM
• Bossone Lobby (3128 Market St.)
• $10 with Drexel student ID, $15 for the public
• Donate by emailing auction.aaga@gmail.com

Polish Posters till February 6th

Don’t miss your chance to see selections from Westphal’s remarkable collection of over two thousand Polish posters at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery before the show closes on February 6th. The posters, created by legendary graphic artists while Poland was a communist regime, advertise movies, theater, sports and consumer products. Political overtones, dark humor and incredible artistic talent are evidenced in the more than 40 posters from our collection that was originally put together by Frank Fox over a lifetime of collecting.

DETAILS:

• Polish Poster Exhibit
• Ends February 6
• Gallery Hours: Monday-Thursday, 11-7; Friday, 11-5
• For more information, please call 215-895-2548 or email gallery@drexel.edu

An Evening of African American Music

Celebrate Black History Month with Drexel University’s Gospel Choir, Jazztet and String Ensemble as they perform songs by renowned African American artists at a free concert Sunday, February 8th at 5 PM in the Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.). The Jazztet, under the direction of Dr. George Starks, will perform three selections from the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue in honor of the 50th anniversary of the recording. Under the direction of Reverend Gregory Ross, the Gospel Choir will perform such mainstay hymns as Blessed Assurance, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms/What a Fellowship and The Solid Rock. Ron Lipscomb will direct the String Ensemble through their performances.

DETAILS:

• Celebrating African American Music
• Sunday, February 8, 5 PM
• Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• FREE and open to the public
• For more information, please call 215-895-ARTS

Free Pizza and the Big Cheese

Hey students, do you have a question, complaint or suggestion about how we do things at Westphal College? If you do, then come spend an hour with Dean Allen Sabinson. Joining the Dean will be Assistant Dean of Student Services, David Feldman; Director of Administrative Services, Rosalind Sutkowski; and Director of Recruitment, David Miller. And, if that’s not compelling enough, we’ll be serving pizza, compliments of the USGA and the Westphal USGA rep Liz Kelly. Westphal students only are invited on Monday, February 9th at 5:30 PM in Stein Auditorium (111 Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.). 

DETAILS:

• Free pizza and soda with the Dean
• Monday, February 9, 5:30 PM
• Stein Auditorium (Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.)
• FREE for Westphal students ONLY
• For questions, call 215-895-1029

MAD Dragon Concert

The Spinto Band, Illinois and Slo-Mo along with MAD Dragon recording artists Hoots & Hellmouth and The Swimmers will take the stage on February 6th at 7 PM at the Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.). The concert is free to Drexel students with ID and $10 to the public. The concert will be simulcast on Drexel's radio station, 91.7 WKDU.

Hoots & Hellmouth and The Swimmers represent MAD Dragon Records, Drexel’s award winning student-run record label.  Hoots & Hellmouth have spent the past few months recording a new album, produced by Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, Man Man). The Swimmers and Hoots & Hellmouth were just named by Magnet Magazine as two Philadelphia bands defining the shape of local music. Click here to read the story.

Delaware-based The Spinto Band, with two big selling albums to their credit,  will headline the show.   The College Media Journal (CMJ) said of Bucks County-based Illinois, “they’re just fun to watch.” And, Slo-Mo, a Philadelphia hip-hop/bluegrass band will round out the impressive line-up of local rising music stars. 

The concert will be recorded for broadcast at a later date on DUTV, Drexel’s television station. The MAD Dragon Concert is made possible through the generous support of the Kal and Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies.  To purchase tickets visit www.ticketweb.com or call 866-468-7619. 

DETAILS:

• MAD Dragon Concert
• Friday, February 8, 7-11 PM
• Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts.
• The Spinto Band, Illinois, Hoots & Hellmouth, Slo-Mo featuring Mic Wrecka and The Swimmers
• Free for students, $10 for general admission
• For more information or to purchase tickets, call 866-468-7619, www.ticketweb.com

Photography Contest Exhibition

The winners of this year’s Westphal College High School Photography Contest have been chosen. The Photography program received a record number of entries, over 3100, from high school students from 41 different states. Congratulations to this year’s winners: Kathleen Schenk, (CA) Flags for the Fallen, 1st Place; Sarah Hafey, (CT) Audition, 2nd Place; Shir Inbal, (NJ) The Façade of Glamour, 3rd Place; and Brian Hirschfeld (CT), Sarah Gepigon (NJ), Alyssa Hoeper (OH), Honorable Mention. The contest culminates with an exhibition of the award winners’ work alongside 125 additional  selected entries.  The exhibition runs January 31st to February 28th with a public reception on January 31st from 1-3 PM in the Academic Building Photo Gallery (101 N. 33rd St. 4th floor). For more information, please email photog@drexel.edu.

DETAILS:

• Drexel University High School Photography Contest Exhibit & Reception
• Exhibit: January 31-February 28
• Reception: January 31, 1-3 PM
• Free and open to the public
• Photography Gallery, 101 N. 33rd St., 4th floor
• For more information, please email photog@drexel.edu

Faculty Focus: Dr. Miriam Giguere

Dr. Miriam Giguere, Program Director of our new Dance major, grew up with dance in her blood. Performing everything from ballet to modern to folk, she has “always felt that the discipline chose her.” Miriam studied and performed while at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a BA in psychology and an MS in Education. Upon graduation, Miriam became a reading specialist. Three years later she left this work to pursue her passion and devoted herself fulltime to dancing as a company member of Ann Vachon/Dance Conduit, South Street Dance Company and the Terry Beck Troupe. As a dancer, Miriam performed extensively in the United States and throughout Europe.

Miriam pursues an active research agenda. She views dance as an expressive medium and important cognitive activity, focusing her research on children’s creative processes and cognitive activity while dancing. Miriam presents research with regularity at the National Dance Education Organization’s annual conferences. She was chosen as one of only two Americans invited to guest-teach at the Tainan University Summer Institute in Taiwan in 2007.  As a dance professor, Miriam directs and produces the Drexel University Dance Ensemble and teaches many of the courses in both the Dance major and the minor.

Early on as a member of Ann Vachon/Dance Conduit, Miriam met Jan Schleiger, then the director of Drexel’s dance ensemble. In 1990, when Ms. Schleiger retired, Miriam was hired to succeed her. Miriam worked part-time with the Drexel dance ensemble from 1990-1997, growing it from 12 to 40 dancers, and she joined our faculty full time in 1997. By then, students in the ensemble wanted a formal dance major. The merger of Drexel University and Hahnemann University in 1998 provided a necessary component for the dance major to develop.  Miriam asked the faculty of Hahnemann and its highly respected Dance/Movement Therapy Program (now in the College of Nursing and Health Professions) to partner in creating a dance major which would track undergraduates into the master’s program in dance therapy. It took Dr. Giguere nine years to bring her vision for a major to life, writing and revising the curriculum and adding a dance education option. She was a tireless advocate working to win support from the College and University. Ultimately, she secured funding and a space to locate a new dance studio and the first class of Drexel Dance majors began this fall. 

Meet Director Malcolm Lee

Malcolm Lee has directed many successful films including Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Roll Bounce, The Best Man, and Undercover Brother. He got his start working with his cousin Spike Lee on the sets of Malcolm X and Clockers. Malcolm will screen his recent hit film Soul Men followed by a Q & A session for free tonight, January 22nd at 7 PM in Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St.). Soul Men stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mack in one of his final performances. The film follows two retired soul singers as they travel across the country to a reunion concert.

DETAILS:

• Malcolm Lee, Soul Men screening and Q & A
• Thursday, January 22, 7 PM, Doors at 6:30 PM
• Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St.)
• Free and open to the public
• For questions or more information, please call 215-895-1029

Winter Dance

Don’t miss Drexel’s Dance Ensemble this weekend as they bring to life all kinds of comings and goings in Arrivals & Departures featuring premiere works by guest artist, Taiwanese choreographer Kun Yang-Lin. The winter dance concert series runs from January 22nd to the 24th with performances at 8 PM in the Mandell Theater (33rd and Chestnut Sts.). The concert also features new work by Dance Program Director Dr. Miriam Giguere, Professor Olive Prince and student choreographers. To reserve tickets, call 215-895-ARTS.

Kun-Yang Lin is one of Taiwan’s finest choreographers and the Artistic Director of Kun-Yang Lin Dancers. He has performed and choreographed with Dance Fusion, DanceNow/NYC and The New York Theater Festival.  He will perform Writing II, which explores ways to use the body as a calligrapher would use a brush. Dr. Giguere’s new work is entitled Borrowed, and seven student-choreographed pieces will be performed.
These works will be danced by 55 Drexel student dancers representing 26 different university programs. The cost is $5 for students and $8 for general admission.

DETAILS:

• Winter Dance Performance, Arrivals & Departures
• Thursday, January 22 through Saturday, January 24, 8 PM
• Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• $5 for students, $8 for general admission
• For tickets or more information, call 215-895-ARTS

Product Design Seminar

The School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems and the Westphal College are presenting a seminar ‘Concept to Concrete: Design Collaboration in the Production of Innovative Products’ by Westphal Product Design Professor, Mike Glaser. The seminar, on January 23rd at 4 PM in 109 Matheson, will discuss a collaborative design model for moving a concept from the lab to reality. Or, you can watch the presentation in real time on the internet. Click here for more information.

DETAILS:

• Mike Glaser’s Seminar: ‘Concept to Concrete: Design Collaboration in the Production of Innovative Products’
• January 23, 4 PM
• 109 Matheson, 32nd St. between Market & Chestnut) or simulcast in real time by clicking here.

$25,000,000 For New Westphal Design Center

The Westphal College is honored to have received the largest individual private gift in the history of Drexel University, $25 million, from a most generous and appreciated anonymous donor. With this gift, the University has acquired two buildings that will serve as a new home for the Westphal College’s design programs. The buildings, 3501 Market St. and 3401 Filbert St., will house our programs including architecture, interior design, fashion design, design & merchandising, graphic design, a new product design program, as well as exhibition space for art and Drexel’s Historic Costume Collection. 3501 Market Street was designed by iconic Philadelphia architect Robert Venturi and boasts a notable Market Street façade.

The two buildings purchased represent 143,000 square feet and are sited on over three acres. This real estate acquisition means a nearly 5% increase in the size of the Drexel’s campus and will allow for future University expansion westward on Market Street beyond 35th Street.  Additionally, new quarters for some programs in the Performing Arts and Cinema & Television departments will become available in existing college facilities.

Robert Venturi, winner of the Pritzker Prize, designed the Seattle Art Museum, the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London, Oberlin’s Allen Memorial Art Museum, the Provincial Government Center in Toulouse, France, and numerous iconic Philadelphia area buildings. The college has been seeking a new building for many years in order to accommodate increased enrollment and our new academic programs. It is tremendously gratifying that we’ll be able to house our outstanding design programs in a noteworthy building designed by an architectural giant.

 “Westphal College is at the pinnacle of media arts and design programs in the nation,” said the donor, a Drexel Trustee who asked to remain anonymous. “I am pleased to help the College develop a facility that will position it for even greater success.” President Papadakis and the University have also accepted a challenge from the donor to raise an additional $30 million to fund outfitting of the buildings and to complete the projects.  While the renovations are expected to be finished by the 2010 academic year, we need your help. If you’re interested in assisting our fundraising efforts, please contact David Toll, Assistant Vice President, Institutional Advancement, at david.toll@drexel.edu or Dean Allen Sabinson at allensabinson@drexel.edu.

Read the The Philadelphia Inquirer coverage of this great news here. Read the Plan Philly coverage here.

MAD DRAGON TOPS THE IMAs

MAD Dragon Records (MDR) was awarded the 2008 College Record Label of the Year by the Independent Music Awards, the top national awards for college music recording programs and independently produced music. The Redwalls’ self-titled release earned the label this award for the second year in a row. Last year, Mad Dragon Records won for Hoots & Hellmouth’s self-titled debut.  The 2008 judges included Peter Gabriel, Anthony DeCurtis (Rolling Stone), Joe Cuello (MTV Networks), Roger Daltrey (The Who), Butch Walker (Producer) and Bob Ludwig (Mastering Engineer) among many others. The IMAs place winners and finalists in front of more than 15 million new fans via promotion, marketing and distribution

After MAD Dragon President Terry Tompkins and his students from the Music Industry program's A&R (artist and repertoire) class identified The Redwalls as an artist for our label, the deal proved to be beyond their budget. But, thanks to support from the Kal and Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies, we were able to close the deal. The Redwalls went on to appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman and have sold more albums than any other MAD Dragon release. All 12 of MDR releases have been made possible with the support of the Rudman Institute.

World Premiere, Freedom on the Fence

The Graphic Design program welcomes filmmakers Andrea Marks and Glenn Holsten to campus for the world premiere of their film Freedom on the Fence,a documentary that examines the rise and importance of Polish Poster Art.  Through interviews and imagery, the film looks at the period from WWII through the fall of Communism to capture this flourishing art form within a Communist regime.  This world premiere of Freedom on the Fence is at 6 PM on Thursday, January 15th in Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St.) starting with a reception where you can meet Andrea & Glenn.  Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with the filmmakers.

Andrea and Glenn are Westphal College Rankin Scholars in Residence. During their residency they will use the Polish poster collection to support classroom engagements with Graphic Design, Film & Video and Art & Art History students. Mr. Holstein’s previous films include Saint of 9/11 and Thomas Eakins: Scenes from Modern Life. Selections from the College’s 1500 posters make up our Polish Poster exhibit, currently on display in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery through February 6th. The exhibit features posters created between the 1930’s and 1990’s designed to generate awareness about Polish and American movies, sports, tourism and consumer products. The collection was originally collected by Professor Frank Fox from works of internationally known graphic artists whose work brought Poland to the forefront of modern poster design.

Poster art rose to a position of prominence in Poland in the late 19th century and the First International Exhibition of the posters took place in Cracow, Poland in 1898. In recognition of the importance of Polish poster art, the First International Poster Biennale was held at Warsaw's Zacheta Museum in 1966, and two years later a museum dedicated solely to poster art was opened in Wilanow.

DETAILS:

• Freedom on the Fence film screening and Q & A & Polish Poster Exhibit

• Screening:Thursday, January 15, 6 PM

• Exhibit: January 7 through February 6

• Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St.)

• Free and open to the public
• For more information, please contact Elizabeth Gault at 215.895.2548 or email gallery@drexel.edu

Honoring Dr. King

In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, the Westphal College and Drexel’s Office of Multicultural Programs will screen To Kill a Mockingbird, followed by the panel discussion, Yes We Can: American Civil Rights from Martin Luther King Jr. to President Obama, on Sunday, January 18th. The free event begins at 5 PM with a reception featuring complimentary cheese steaks and gyros from the Philly Steak and Gyro Company. The screening is at 6 PM in Bossone Auditorium (3128 Market St.).

Our notable panel includes Dr. Reverend Thomas Lane Butts, Minister Emeritus of First United Methodist Church in Monroeville, AL and author of Tigers in the Dark; Donald F. Tibbs (moderator), Professor from the Earle Mack School of Law and author of Black Power, Prison Power: Race and Legal Consciousness in the Making and Unmaking of the Jones Case ; Carl Singley, Dean Emeritus, Temple University Beasley School of Law and an attorney at WolfBlock LLP; and Dr. Sheldon Hackney, President Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania and former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The panelists will be introduced by Drexel Trustee Dr. Donna Gentile O’Donnell who was instrumental in organizing this event.

To Kill a Mockingbird, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee, is a beloved film and book that tells a story of racial inequality, injustice and the destruction of innocence. Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his performance and Horton Foote for his adaptation of Lee’s novel.

DETAILS:

• To Kill a Mockingbird Screening and Panel Discussion: Yes We Can: American Civil Rights from Martin Luther King Jr. to President Obama
• Sunday, January 18, 6 PM, Reception with cheese steaks & gyros at 5 PM
• Bossone Auditorium, (3128 Market St.)
• For more information, please call 215-895-1029

Indiana Jones’ Costume Designer

Deborah Nadoolman-Landis, the Academy Award-nominated costume designer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Animal House, Blues Brothers, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Coming to America, will be the guest of the Fashion and Design & Merchandising Department as a Rankin Scholar-in-Residence. She will give a talk, open to all, on January 15th at 6 PM in Ruth Auditorium (Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.) followed by a reception and book signing.

Dr. Nadoolman-Landis’ books include Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design and Screencraft: Costume Design.  She compiled and edited the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences catalog 50 Costumes/50 Designers: Concept to Character and a chapter of “Designing Hollywood: Women Costume and Production Designers” in Women Designers in the USA. Nadoolman-Landis graduated from UCLA with a M.F.A. in Costume Design and graduated with a Ph. D. in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art in London.  Her work is on display at the Smithsonian Institution and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

DETAILS:

• Deborah Nadoolman-Landis lecture/presentation
• Thursday, January 15, 6 PM
• Ruth Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall (3215 Market St.)
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

Season’s Greetings!

I want to take this opportunity to wish you all a safe and joyous holiday season.  The year’s end gives us a moment to pause and think about the state of the world. While hardships abound, may our holiday wishes for peace on earth and for those less fortunate than ourselves bring hope and progress in the New Year.

It has been a busy and successful fall term. We welcomed filmmaker Lance Hammer who screened his Sundance award-winner Ballast.  Violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain gave a fantastic performance and worked with dozens of student musicians in his two day residency. We learned about shoes and sex, and fretted about security for the wonderful Manolo Blanik and Roger Vivier shoes and the chairs from Phillippe Starck and George Nakishima in our Rest Your Feet exhibition. Five recent college graduates screened their first full-length feature Happy Birthday Harris Malden. MAD Dragon released new albums from Andrew Lipke and Matt Duke and The Drexel Fusion Band released an album as well. Our students and programs continue to earn major awards: Last Designer Standing at the Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA) Conference, at KlingStubbins Design Competition, at the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, and MAD Dragon Records was nominated for three Independent Music Awards.

We’ll enliven the cold winter days with residencies that feature Raiders of the Lost Ark costume designer Deborah Landis and Japanese master-calligrapher Chukin Takagi. University 101, our student-produced drama series, will premiere on DUTV in February, the same month we’ll feature Red Herring, the latest stage productions from the Drexel Players, the 19th annual Madrigal Dinner and the MAD Dragon concert at Mandell. Our newly-acquired Polish poster collection will be on display in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery in January, and we’ll present the premiere of Andrea Marks’ film Freedom on the Fence, about the political and cultural significance of this poster art.

Again, best wishes to you and yours for a wonderful holiday season.

Assistant Dean Jeannette Elliott Brown to Retire

With some sadness and much gratitude, we are announcing the retirement of Jeannette Elliott Brown, Assistant Dean and Director of Student Services. Jeannette joined Drexel University in 1978. Eight years later she joined our College, then the Nesbitt College of Design Arts (CODA), as the Administrative Services Coordinator, and ultimately rose to the position of Assistant Dean and Director of Student Services. Throughout her career, Jeannette has been a tireless and devoted advocate for the students of our College. She has overseen the growth of the Office of Students Services from two staff members to the current staff of six. She went from being responsible for the advising of several hundred students to overseeing the advising of over two thousand students today. We wish we had kept track of the thousands of problems and issues she has solved over the years.  Jeannette has earned our trust and become our friend and we will miss seeing her on a daily basis. We wish her well in her future endeavors and we’ll be determined to keep Jeannette a trusted and important member of our community.

David Feldman who joined our college in 2003 and has been the college’s Senior Academic Advisor will become the College’s Assistant Dean and Director of Student Services. Dawn Gibian will be promoted to Senior Academic Advisor. Please join me in extending our best wishes and thanks to Jeannette and congratulations to David and Dawn on their promotions.

Graphic Design Awards

Graphic Design students again are the recipients of prestigious awards at recent major competitions. Kyle Cook (’08) won the Gold Award at the international Graphis New Talent Annual 2009 competition for his motion graphic ‘Chromesthesia.’ Kyle’s work will be included in the hard-cover Graphis publication. At the University & College Designers Association (UCDA) competition, Stephen Nunes (’08), won the Electronic Media Award of Excellence for his ‘John Cage Poem and Music.’ Andrew Wright (’08), who previously won the Gold Award in Print Media, received ‘Judges’ Choice Best of Show’ for the entire conference for his American Psycho book jacket.

Avant-Garde Theater Icon Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson, the acclaimed theater and opera director, is indisputably one of the world’s greatest artistic visionaries. Mr. Wilson will speak about his life’s work in the lecture/performance entitled “1. HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE 2. NO THIS IS THE FIRST TIME” on December 4th at 7:30 PM in the Mandell Theater in a special Drexel event that’s free to the Drexel and Philadelphia communities. Seats are limited so to reserve a ticket, please email Westphal@drexel.eduPhilip Glass and Wilson created the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976, and Wilson has collaborated with artists such as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Tom Waits, Lou Reed and David Byrne.  

Over the course of his career, Robert Wilson has demonstrated a towering passion for words and language, an innovative and signature reinvention of theatrical production design, stage directions featuring simple movements, and talents as a visual artist in a variety of media. The New York Times described Wilson as “a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space onstage. Transcending theatrical convention, he draws in other performance and graphic arts which coalesce into an integrated tapestry of images and sounds.”

Robert Wilson has received numerous awards and honors including a Pulitzer Prize nomination in Drama, two Guggenheim Fellowship awards, the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Golden Lion for sculpture from the Venice Biennale and an Obie award. He was named the ‘Commandeur des arts et des letters’ by the French Minister of Culture. His original drawings, furniture designs and installations have been exhibited in such museums as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao.

This event has been made possible with the support of Drexel alumnus, Ambassador Earle Mack, benefactor of the Earle Mack School of Law.

DETAILS:

• Robert Wilson lecture/performance
• Thursday, December 4,  7:30 PM
• Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• Free and open to the public; to reserve your tickets please e-mail westphal@drexel.edu
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

Chris Matthews and Presidential Speechwriters

 “How Would You Address America?,” an event featuring US News & World Report opinion editor Robert Schlesinger, MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews, Mary Kate Cary and J. Terry Edmonds who was the first African American speechwriter to serve a president, will take place at the National Constitution Center (NCC) on December 8th.  The all-star line-up of presidential speechwriters will be captured for broadcast by DUTV and its student crew.  The panel will discuss the ideas, themes and values President-Elect Barack Obama will explore in his Inaugural Address. This event is mad possible through the support of the Kal and Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies and is part of our ongoing collaboration with NCC which kicked off last year with our telecast of Tom Brokaw’s BOOM! Voices of the Sixties.

We only have a few free tickets remaining for students who want to attend the event which we’ll distribute on a first-come, first-serve basis. E-mail westphal@drexel.edu for a ticket or watch the event on DUTV in January. Drexel’s 24-hour television station can be found on Comcast Cable Channels 54 or 62 and also on their Online Media Center.

DETAILS:

• How Would You Address America?
• Monday, December 8, 6:30 PM
• National Constitution Center (525 Arch St.)
• DUTV broadcast, January 9 at 8 PM, January 17 & 18, 2 PM & 8 PM
• For more information, call 215-895-1029
• For more information on NCC, click here

Fall Music Festival

Drexel’s Fall Music Festival features performances by student musicians in several ensembles.  Dr. George Starks will direct the Jazz Orchestra and Jazztet as they perform pieces by Tadd Dameron, Oliver Lake, Bobby Watson and Lionel Hampton on Thursday, December 4th at 8 PM in the elegant AJ Drexel Picture Gallery, home to19th century paintings by artists of the Barbizon School and Dusseldorf Academy.

The Percussion, Mediterranean and Rock Ensembles will come together for a concert on Wednesday, December 3rd at 8 PM. Director Bruce Kaminsky will lead the Percussion Ensemble through a musical tour of the Orient and Europe.  Special guests include Meesha and Rena of the Belly Dance All Stars, as well as members of the Seven Animal Martial Arts School.

Wanda Canfield’s Keyboard Ensemble will perform Red River Valley, Habanera from Carmen and selections from the Polovetzian Dances from Prince Igor on Friday, December 5th at 7:30 PM.

‘Naturally Sharp,’ Drexel’s Vocal Jazz Ensemble directed by Dr. Steven Powell, will perform the 1947 big band hit Time After Time, the New York Voices’ arrangement of Sing, Sing, Sing, and Duke Ellington’s classic Hit Me With a Hot Note and Watch Me Bounce, along with many other jazz standards, at their concert on Saturday, December 6th at 3 PM.

Singing from the Psalms will be the theme of the Gospel Choir concert on Saturday, December 6th at 7:30 PM. Reverend Gregory Ross will direct works by Calvin Rhone, Kevin Davidson, Norris Garner, Joseph Pace and more.

The University Chorus and Chamber Singers, directed by Dr. Steven Powell, will perform In Windsor Forest by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Festival Te Deum by Benjamin Britten and various spirituals and madrigals on Sunday, December 7th at 3 PM. This concert will take place in the Main Auditorium in the Main Building.

Drexel’s Concert Band will close the festival on Sunday, December 7th at 7 PM with a program of American music. Dr. Mike Moss will conduct the musicians as they present Simple Gifts, a selection of songs by George Gershwin, A Movement for Rosa, a tribute to Rosa Parks and Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. 

All concerts are free and open to the public at the Mandell Theater or Main Auditorium. The Jazz Orchestra will perform in the AJ Drexel Picture Gallery. For more information call 215-895-ARTS.

DETAILS:

• Fall Music Festival
• Percussion, Mediterranean and Rock Ensembles, Wednesday, December 3, 8 PM, Mandell Theater
• Jazz Orchestra, Thursday, December 4, 8 PM, AJ Drexel Picture Gallery, 3rd Floor, Main Building
• Keyboard Ensemble, Friday, December 5, 7:30 PM, Mandell Theater
• Vocal Jazz Ensemble, Saturday, December 6, 3 PM, Mandell Theater
• Gospel Choir, Saturday, December 6, 7:30 PM, Mandell Theater
• University Chorus and Chamber Singers, Sunday, December 7, 3 PM, Main Building Auditorium
• Concert Band, Sunday, December 7, 7:30 PM, Mandell Theater
• FREE and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-ARTS

D&M Journal

Five Design & Merchandising students are now published authors. Students in ‘Design Directions’ were instructed in how to write traditional academic papers, synthesizing visual art ideas into a scholarly format for peer-reviewed publication. Their final assignment was to write a paper on any aspect of menswear. D&M Professor Joe Hancock and librarian Ann Keith Kennedy served as editors and chose five out of the twelve papers written to be published in the premiere issue of the Journal of Culture and Retail Image.

This is an official undergraduate journal publication that is permanently archived in the Drexel library. The next issue—out in 2009—will be about the great Philadelphia retailer Wanamakers. The Journal of Culture and Retail Image is a joint effort of the Design & Merchandising program and Drexel Libraries, with help from the University's Writing Center.  

Directors Lab 5

Five short hilarious comedies from All in the Timing, by contemporary American playwright David Ives, will be directed and performed by Drexel students in “Directors Lab 5.” David Ives is known for his verbal dexterity, theatrical invention and quirky humor. He has adapted 22 American musicals for City Center’s acclaimed Encores series, as well as South Pacific with Reba McEntire, and Jubilee for concert versions at Carnegie Hall; and My Fair Lady for the New York Philharmonic. Free performances are on December 5th at 7 PM and December 6th at 7 and 9 PM in the Main Auditorium, Main Building.  For more information, please contact Nick Anselmo at nick.anselmo@drexel.edu.

DETAILS:

• Directors Lab 5: All in the Timing performance
• December 5, 7 PM & December 6, 7 and 9 PM
• Main Auditorium, Main Building (3141 Chestnut St.)
• For more information, please email nick.anselmo@drexel.edu

Dred Violinist

Composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) will perform his critically-acclaimed etudes4violin&electric, a work that fuses classical music with electronica and hip-hop as part of his two day residency at Drexel. The Boston Globe reports, "One minute you'll think he's a classical musician, the next a jazz improviser. Then you'll think he's into electronica or ambient noise. Truth is, all of these descriptions apply over the course of his brilliant new nine-track album, etudes4violin&electronix." The Haitian-American musician, fresh off recent performances at Carnegie Hall and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, will take the stage in the Bossone Auditorium with Elan Vytal (aka DJ Scientific) and keyboardist Wynne Bennett. The free concert, supported by the Kal and Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies, is on Thursday, November 20th at 8 PM.

Daniel’s residency will include lectures and master classes for students who participate in Drexel’s music ensembles.  He will rehearse with students and faculty, teaching about his style that sculpts unique sounds into ground-breaking arrangements. For more information about Daniel’s residency, please contact Music Program Director Mike Moss at mdm79@drexel.edu.

Early in his career DBR composed orchestral pieces for chamber ensembles, but he soon branched out adding parts for electronic instruments and turntables. Some of DBR’s latest work contains video and spoken-word elements to create extended-length compositions such as Darwin's Meditation for the People of Lincoln, a grandly conceived work that employs SymphoNYC, a 20-piece chamber ensemble.

DETAILS:

• Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) featuring Elan Vytal aka DJ Scientific and Wynne Bennett
• etudes4violin&electronix
• Bossone Auditorium, (3128 Market St.)
• Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 8 PM
• FREE and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029 or visit www.drexel.edu/westphal

MAD Awards

MAD Dragon Records has been nominated for three 2008 Independent Music Awards (IMAs). The label has two entries in the “College Label of the Year” category: The Swimmers’ album Home and The Redwalls, a self-titled release. The final nomination, “Best Rock/Pop Song,” for The Redwalls’ “Modern Diet” is a ground-breaking achievement.  All independent labels, not just college labels, will compete for this award.  Peter Gabriel, Roger Daltry, Anthony Decurtis from Rolling Stone and MTV’s Joe Cuello are among this year’s judges.

Hoots & Hellmouth won the IMA’s 2007 “Best College Label,” competing against fellow MAD Dragon artist Andrew Lipke.  Earlier this month, Andrew released Motherpearl & Dynamite, his second MAD Dragon release, to rave reviews. WXPN 88.5 FM has invited Andrew to perform at “Free @ Noon” from the World Café Live on Friday, November 28th. For information about how to attend Andrew’s performance, visit the WXPN website here.

The IMAs support independent artists and labels through promotion, marketing and distribution and finalists and winners can reach upwards of 15 million new fans by participating. Entries are accepted from all over the world including the United States, Japan, Cuba, Israel, Russia and the United Kingdom.

BLOOD BROTHERS

The Drexel Players’ production of Blood Brothers will stage five performances at the Mandell Theater, November 20th - 23rd.  Blood Brothers,the longest running musical in London, follows Mrs. Johnestone as she secretly sells one of her twin babies to her wealthy employer. Over time the boys, privileged Eddie and impoverished Mickey, become unlikely friends and fall in love with the same woman, the gorgeous working-class Linda. 

Tickets for Blood Brothers are on sale at the Mandell Theater Box office. To reserve tickets: call 215-895-ARTS or stop by the box office, Monday-Friday, 2-5 PM.  Contact Theater Program Director Nick Anselmo for group-rate specials.  Student and faculty tickets are $5 with Drexel ID and general admission is $10.
Directed by Theatre Program Director, Nick Anselmo, the performance stars Melinda Glass from the College of Arts & Sciences as ‘Mrs. Johnestone’; Matt Flocco from the Architecture program as ‘Mickey’; Mike Long from the Film & Video program as ‘Eddie’; Michael Colligan from the LeBow College of Business as ‘Sammy’; Emily Kleimo from the Graphic Design program as ‘Linda’; Jennifer Ickovics from the Entertainment & Arts Management program as ‘Mrs. Lyons’; Jeremy Toll from the Music Industry program as ‘Mr. Lyons’; and Steve Pribis from the College of Engineering as the narrator.

DETAILS:

• Blood Brothers Performances
• November 20-22, 8 PM
• November 22-23, 2 PM
• Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut Sts.)
• $5 with Drexel ID / $10 for the general public
• Box Office Hours: Monday-Friday 2-5 PM
• Box Office: 215-895-ARTS

 

Khachaturian

The life of prominent Soviet-era composer Aram Khachaturian is the subject of an award-winning documentary by filmmaker Peter Rosen. You’ve probably heard noted 20th century composer Khachaturian’s ‘Sabre Dance’ on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Simpsons or perhaps on The Ed Sullivan Show, even if you don’t know the composer by name. We will be screening Khachaturian followed by a Q&A session with Rosen in the Bossone Auditorium on Wednesday, November 19th at 7 PM.

Peter Rosen has produced 36 films on the arts. His subjects have included Van Cliburn, Garrison Keillor, Enrico Caruso, Artur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein, I.M. Pei and Toscanini. In addition to screening his film, Rosen will work with students in our Music, Art & Art History and Film & Video programs as well as the Pennoni Honors College during a two-day residency.

DETAILS:

• Khachaturian screening and Q & A with producer Peter Rosen
• Wednesday, November 19, 7 PM
• Bossone Auditorium (3120 Market St.)
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029
• For more information on Peter Rosen, click here

Very Cool Shoes and Chairs

Your time is running out to see magnificent shoes—by Salvatore Ferragamo, Roger Vivier, Prada and Lacroix—alongside breakthrough chairs—including Harry Bertoia’s 1952 asymmetrical chaise lounge and Bill Stumf and Don Chadwick’s 1994 Areon Chair—in our unique Rest Your Feet exhibition in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.

Rest Your Feet includes pieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Drexel Historic Costume Collection, and Temple University’s Shoe Museum. Faculty and students from the Fashion and Design & Merchandising department and Interior Design and Graphic Design programs organized the exhibit.

DETAILS:

• Rest Your Feet Exhibition
• Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St.
• Exhibit runs through Friday, December 12
• Free and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029 or visit www.drexel.edu/westphal

On Co-op in Ireland

This summer Film & Video major Brian Johanson spent his co-op on the set of Neil Jordan’s latest film while it was shooting in Ireland.  Neil Jordan, the director and producer of The Crying Game and Interview with a Vampire, recently completed production on Ondine starring Colin Farrell. Any ideas Brian had about seeing the Irish countryside were quickly erased with 6 AM calls and 14 hour days. 

Brian told us that he worked with a crew of top film professionals “who had worked on everything from Lawrence of Arabia to the Harry Potter movies. I was the video operator and my responsibility was to record everything the camera sees so that the director and crew could get a sense of how each shot is working.” Brian was first to the set every morning and quickly found his services in demand.  He worked at ten different locations and fifty sets in Castletownbere and West Cork Island, shooting in cottages and fields in these small Irish villages. He even shot in the cabin of a fishing boat at sea. “Working in Ireland on a Neil Jordan film gave me the opportunity to work closely with highly instructive people,” said Brian. “In Europe there is an apprenticeship style, so that the next generation learns from the current one.”

Fall Music Festival, December 2nd - December 7th, 2008

Philadelphia- Mark your calendars for the annual Fall Music Festival, a week-long event presented by the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design and the Department of Performing Arts, to be held December 2nd through December 7th. Throughout the week, a variety of music ensembles, comprised of hundred of Drexel University students, will perform a diverse selection of works representing cultures and genres galore. All of these events are free and open to the public. Below is a table with important event details to make listing submission simple for publication.

Ensemble	Date	Time	Location
Fusion Band & Guitar Ensemble	Tues, Dec 2nd, 2008	7:30 PM	Mandell Theater
Percussion & Mediterranean Ensembles	Wed, Dec 3rd, 2008	8:00 PM	Mandell Theater
Jazz Orchestra	Thurs, Dec 4th, 2008	8:00 PM	Mandell Theater
Keyboard Ensemble	Fri, Dec 5th, 2008	7:30 PM	Mandell Theater
Vocal Jazz	Sat, Dec 6th, 2008	3:00 PM	Mandell Theater
Gospel Choir	Sat, Dec 6th, 2008	7:30 PM	Mandell Theater
University Choir	Sun, Dec 7th, 2008	3:00 PM	Main Auditorium
Concert Band	Sun, Dec 7th, 2008	7:30 PM	Mandell Theater

• What: The Fall Music Festival
• Where: Mandell Theater, 33rd & Chestnut Sts, Drexel University (unless otherwise noted), Main Auditorium, 3141-51 Chestnut St. Drexel University
• Cost: FREE
• More Information: 215-895-1275

Sex and Shoes

Dr. Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) will give a free lecture, ‘Sex and Shoes,’ in Ruth Auditorium on November 18th at 6 PM as part of the Rest Your Feet exhibition. The Washington Post described Dr. Steele as “fashion’s brainiest woman.” She has authored 17 books including The Black Dress, Paris Fashion and most recently Gothic: Dark Glamour. In 1997, she founded Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture and today serves as editor-in-chief.  Dr. Steele has been on The Oprah Winfrey Show and the PBS specials Undressed: The Story of Fashion and The Way We Wear.

Rest Your Feet is on display at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery through December 12th. The history, evolution and role of shoes and chairs as practical objects and  high design are illustrated in shoes by Roger Vivier, Salvatore Ferragamo, Prada and Christian Louboutin and chairs including Bertoia’s 1952 asymmetrical chaise lounge from Knoll International and Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick’s 1994 Aeron Chair from Herman Miller. Rest Your Feet is a collaboration of the Fashion and Design & Merchandising Department and the Interior Design and Graphic Design programs.  FOX29’s Good Day recently featured the exhibition.

DETAILS:

• Dr. Valerie Steele Lecture and Reception
• ‘Sex and Shoes’
• Tuesday, November 18, 6 PM, Reception, 5 PM
• Ruth Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St.
• FREE and open to the public
• Gallery Hours: Monday-Thursday: 11 AM – 7 PM, Friday: 11 AM – 5 PM
• For more information, call 215-895-1029 or visit www.drexel.edu/westphal

See the Sundance Winner



A favorite at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Lance Hammer’s film Ballast will be screened exclusively for the Drexel community on November 13th.  Winning awards for Dramatic Directing and Excellence in Cinematography, The New York Times calls the film "a startlingly assured, pitch-perfect first feature.” All Drexel students, faculty and staff are invited to this special premiere of Ballast in the Bossone Auditorium at 8 PM on the 13th.  After the screening, Lance will discuss the unique ways he made the film and how he is bypassing traditional Hollywood distribution to market his film.

Set in the Mississippi Delta, Ballast is about three people’s efforts to triumph over tragedy and circumstance in an impoverished small town. Hammer made his movie with a cast of ordinary people—not trained actors—and created his superb soundtrack from the sounds and rhythms of life in the rural deep-South.  Click these links to read rave reviews from The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and NPR. 

The screening and director’s Q&A are free, but a Drexel ID is required for entry. For more information on Ballast visit: www.ballastfilm.com


DETAILS:

• Ballast screening and Q & A with Lance Hammer
• Thursday, November 13, 8 PM
• Bossone Auditorium (3120 Market St.)
• Open to the Drexel community only, Drexel ID required
• For more information, call 215-895-1029

Faculty Focus: Terry Tompkins



Terry Tompkins, Assistant Professor in the Music Industry Program and President of MAD Dragon Records, discovered and signed Columbia Records artist John Legend long before Legend’s multi-platinum albums and Grammy-award winning successes.

For years Terry played in rock bands while also managing their bookings and promotions. He founded Big Fish Management in 1995 and went on to sign artists to Arista, Blackbird/Atlantic and Sanctuary/BMG Records. Terry served as the Showcase Director of the Philadelphia Music Conference from 1997-2001.  Some of the relatively unknown artists he worked with then are hardly unknown now: John Legend, Jill Scott, Convoy, Imogen Heap, and Saliva. Terry’s keen ear and knowledge of the business led to his appointment as an Artist & Repertoire (A&R) rep for Columbia Records.

Terry joined the Music Industry faculty in 2004. His teaching about touring and concert promotion led Terry and his students to create DraKo Booking, a student-run booking agency. DraKo has booked nearly 500 live music performances across the United States since then. Terry also played a key role in bringing the three-day music festival, POPPED! to Drexel in the summer of 2008.  POPPED! drew a crowd of nearly 4,000 to Drexel University and featured performances by Vampire Weekend, Mates of State, Gogol Bordello, and MAD Dragon recording artists Hoots & Hellmouth.

As President of MAD Dragon Records, Professor Tompkins works with students, artists, fellow faculty and Ryko Records on A&R, marketing, distribution, publicity and international licensing. MAD Dragon Records has released records from Matt Duke, Andrew Lipke, Jules Shear, Hoots & Hellmouth, The Redwalls, and The Swimmers. Each year, Terry’s students identify and secure the bands for our Unleashed compilations series, with four Unleashed albums to date.

Terry is a regular at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music convention in Austin, TX.  He’s invited to speak on SXSW panels and has moderated a session for the College Media Journal (CMJ) Conference in New York. Terry continues to present at the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) regional and national conventions and is currently working on a research paper that investigates why some new recording artists are successful.

Cold Duck Sauce



Drexel’s Fusion Band has just released their new album Cold Duck Sauce, The Best of Drexel Fusion Band which was recorded in the Drexel recording studios by Music Industry students. Fusion Band Director Lynn Riley arranged 12 classic jazz, r&b, latin and rock songs including notable hits like ‘Summertime,’ ‘What’s Going On,’ ‘Ran Kan Kan’ and ‘Moondance.’

The album title, Cold Duck Sauce, comes from a recording session of the Eddie Harris jazz standard ‘Cold Duck Time’ which was accidentally labeled as ‘Cold Duck Sauce,’ probably by a hungry engineer. The album can be purchased by contacting Lynn Riley at l.riley@verizon.net or Adriane Adams in the Performing Arts Department at 215 895-2451. Or come to the November 11th release party to hear this great band, eat free pizza, and buy the CD, all at Creese from 7 to 9PM.

MadKo For a Cause



MadKo Concerts, the concert promotion arm of our Music Industry’s MAD Dragon Records, and Drexel Greek Life will host a free concert and charity drive featuring The Absolute Zeros, Creeping Weeds, andMAD Dragon recording artist Andrew Lipke. The bands and special guest stars will hit the stage at the Rotunda on Sunday, November 23rd at 7 PM while the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and other Drexel fraternities hold a Toys for Tots drive to help families in need.

MAD Dragon artist Andrew Lipke will play songs from his just released Motherpearl & Dynamite. The new album, with guest appearances by some of Philadelphia’s hottest musicians, showcases Andrew’s melodic voice and virtuoso guitar playing. The Philadelphia Inquirersays Motherpearl & Dynamite is “rich and moody, with cello, pedal steel, dobro, and a chorus of backing vocals sneaking into songs ranging from weighty rockers to plaintive weepers.” Click here to read a Philadelphia Weekly article about the album and here to listen to his new songs.

DETAILS:

• MAD Dragon Showcase
• Sunday, November 23, 7 PM
• The Rotunda, 4041 Walnut St.
• Free and open to the public, but bring a toy for Toys for Tots
• For more information, call 215-573-3234

High School Photography Contest '08



The Photography Program is conducting its annual High School Photography Contest. The competition is open to all high school students and the deadline for submissions is December 6, 2008. All photographic processes including black and white, color, silver prints, digital prints and historical processes can be submitted. Students may submit up to three matted photographs using 8x10 or 11x14 mats.

"This is an exciting opportunity for all high school students to have their work reviewed and entered into this contest. Every year we continue to be impressed by the diversity and level of talent represented in this competition" states Paul Runyon, Program Director, Photography.

The Photography Program faculty will judge the competition. Students' work accepted in the competition will be on exhibit in the gallery space at the Photography Program. The exhibition will culminate with an opening reception on January 31, 2009. Light refreshments will be served and the exhibition will run through the month of February. All accepted entries will be notified my mail. For more information and to download a copy of the contest application, click here.

New College Video



The highlight of the Drexel social season is the annual A.J. Drexel Society Gala. Each fall, Drexel thanks its biggest supporters with an elegant evening of dining and dancing.  The best part of this year’s gala will be the premiere of the new Westphal College video, featuring impressive work by our students. Click here to watch the video which was masterfully produced and edited by Film & Video student Micah Haun, with Music Industry student Matt Campana’s original score and graphics by Graphic Design student Maggie Ruder.

The College was delighted to assist in many of the preparations for this year’s Gala.  Media Arts Department Head Sandy Stewart and Graphic Design Program Director Jody Graff created invitations, banners and menus, and selected the motifs for table decorations. Senior VP for Institutional Advancement Elizabeth Dale will wear a gown designed by Fashion graduate Autumn Kietponglert. Autumn won ‘Best in Show’ at the 2007 Fashion Show and worked with Katya Roelse, winner of the Lilly Pulitzer prize for ‘Most Creative Graduate Collection’, on constructing the dress.  All Gala guests will go home with an array of items created by Westphal students including the D&M Magazine, the 2008 Photography Annual, and MAD Dragon Records latest album release, Matt Duke’s Kingdom Underground.

Classical Music Up Close



The Drexel Performance Season’s  next concert with The Philadelphia Orchestra's talented musicians features the Wister Quartet; Nancy Bean and Davyd Booth, violins; Pamela Fay, viola; and Lloyd Smith, violoncello. The free concert is Tuesday, November 11th at 8 PM in the AJ Drexel Picture Gallery, Main Building.


The acclaimed Wister Quartet has shared the stage with Yo-Yo Ma, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Alicia de Larrocha. Nancy Bean is Assistant Concertmaster, Lloyd Smith is the Assistant Principal Cellist and Davyd Booth is a Second Violin member of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Pamela Fay performs with the Concerto Soloists chamber orchestra and frequently plays with The Philadelphia Orchestra. Among other pieces, the Wister Quartet will be performing work by local New Jersey composer Frank Staneck. Mr. Staneck will be attending the performance, introduce his work and lead a discussion following the performance.


The College Performance Series, sponsored by the Westphal College and the Pennoni Honor’s College, offers the Drexel community an opportunity to hear remarkable music in informal setting with ample refreshments served prior to all concerts.


DETAILS

• College Performance Series: The Wister Quartet
• Tuesday, November 11, 8:00 PM
• AJ Drexel Picture Gallery, Main Building
• FREE and Open to the Public
• For More Information call: 215-895-1267

Who Were the Last Designers Standing?



This past summer interior design students embarked on a journey to create the ideal home for senior citizens.  Now, students Diana Dougherty and Michelle Prieston have been awarded a $1,000 cash prize and were named Last Designers Standing at the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA) Annual Conference which was just held at Philadelphia Convention Center. 

The competition assigned our student teams a project to create design solutions that address healthcare, safety and quality of life issues for senior citizens. Working on the floor of the Convention Center, our Interior Design students painted, hammered and sawed their ideas to life.  They had 48-hours, a small budget and a union carpenter to transform a nursing-home room into a special home for an AAHSA member while conference attendees watched and then voted on their favorite design.

Congratulations to Amanda Pincin, Christopher Hansen, Megan McGregor, Katelyn Goodman, Ravneet Yerram and Veronica Lawson who also participated.

Go Dragons!



When the Women’s Basketball team opens its season, WKDU 91.7 FM, the university’s student-run radio station, will be on hand to capture all the action.  For the first time ever, WKDU will broadcast a Lady Dragon’s basketball game as they open their season on November 16th at 2 PM at American University.  Veteran broadcaster Pat Delsi will call the game and students Brett Fischer and Mike Mazzeo will do commentary and analysis. For more information on WKDU, click here.

DUTV, Drexel’s television station, also has a hand in basketball. The Bruiser Flint Show will premiere its second season on Friday, November 14th at 6 PM. The show features the head coach of the Drexel Men’s Basketball team and we’re introducing a new segment called ‘Fast Break’ which will feature profiles and information on all things Drexel sports.  The show is hosted by Dan Baker, play-by-play voice of Drexel men’s basketball, and Brett Fischer, sports editor of The Triangle.  The Bruiser Flint Show airs every other week throughout the season and is broadcast via Comcast throughout metropolitan Philadelphia. We’ll shortly be telling you details of DUTV telecasts of upcoming basketball games, and  you can watch The Bruiser Flint Show on DUTV’s website.

Pull Up A Chair, Rest Your Feet 



Magnificent shoes by Salvatore Ferragamo, Roger Vivier, Prada and Lacroix will be exhibited alongside breakthrough chair designs including Harry Bertoia’s 1952 asymmetrical chaise lounge for Knoll International, and Bill Stumf and Don Chadwick’s 1994 Areon Chair for Herman Miller, in our unique Rest Your Feet exhibit in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery from November 3rd through December 12th.

As part of Rest Your Feet and the Sibby Merkel Brassler Lecture Series, we’re presenting two important guest speakers: Linda O’Keefe, Creative Director of Metropolitan Home, will speak on November 5th at 6 PM, and Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), will talk on November 18th at 6 PM. Dr. Steele has curated over 20 exhibitions including London Fashion which won the first Richard Martin Award from The Costume Society of America. A cocktail reception will precede each lecture at 5 PM in Nesbitt Hall (33rd & Market St.).


Rest Your Feet will include pieces from the Drexel Historic Costume Collection, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Temple University’s Shoe Museum. Faculty and students from the departments of Fashion and Design & Merchandising and Architecture & Interiors organized the exhibit.


DETAILS:

• Rest Your Feet Exhibition & Speaker Series
• Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St.
  Exhibit runs Monday, November through Friday, December 12
  Opening Reception, Wednesday November 5, 2008 5:00-7:30 PM
• Speaker Series:
• Linda O’Keefe, Wednesday, November 5, 6 PM, reception 5 PM
• Dr. Valerie Steele, Tuesday, November 18, 6 PM, reception 5 PM
• FREE and open to the public
• For more information, call 215-895-1029 or visit www.drexel.edu/westphal

Celebrating Music Professor Howard Haines



The life of esteemed Drexel Music Professor, Howard Haines, will be celebrated with a memorial concert by the University’s Chambers Singers featuring requiems by Mozart, Brahms and Fauré. The concert will also feature 23 choral program alumni and former students of the beloved Haines.

Haines was a music professor and director of the chorus from 1971-1988. He passed away in February 2008. The memorial concert, free and open to the public, will be held at the Trinity Center (22nd & Spruce Sts.) on Saturday, November 1st at 4 PM.

DETAILS:

• Howard Haines Memorial Choral Concert
• Saturday, November 1, 4 PM
• Trinity Center, 22nd & Spruce Streets
• Free and open to the public

Recent Grads Direct, Star and Write their First Feature Film 



Talented and funny Westphal alums Nick Gregorio, Eric Levy, Juan Cardarelli and Matthew Sanchez ignored immediate opportunities in corporate America, choosing instead to write, produce and star in their first full-length feature film, Happy Birthday Harris Malden. Nick, Eric, Juan and Mathew, now the principals of Sweaty Robot Productions, needed several years to find financing, locations and produce their original comedy, but now it’s ready to be shown to the world. On October 23rd, the free Philadelphia premiere of Happy Birthday Harris Malden will be held in the Bossone Auditorium.   

Happy Birthday Harris Malden, produced entirely in Philadelphia, is a charming comedy about a young man who breaks down when a personal secret is revealed to his friends and neighbors. Our Sweaty Robot alums handled the key creative and production roles for the film and they also play many of the starring roles. After the screening, the filmmakers will hold a Q&A.  Happy Birthday Harris Malden has recently screened at the CineVegas Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival and the Woodstock Film Festival. For more information on the film and to view the trailer, click here, and to hear a National Public Radio review of the film, click here. To read more about Sweaty Robot, click here.

DETAILS:

• Happy Birthday Harris Malden Screening
• Thursday, October 23, 7:30 PM
• Mitchell Auditorium, Bossone, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public

Drexel Football?



Still undefeated, still hilarious. The Drexel Football Team, the university’s comedy improv group, kicks off their new season on Friday, October 17th at 8 PM in Stein Auditorium (33rd & Market St.). Since 2005, the Drexel Football Team has been playing to standing-room-only crowds.

Screenwriting and Playwriting student Luke Giordano has been the moving force in Drexel’s growing comedy scene. To keep you laughing, Luke’s also put together a monthly comedy showcase featuring rising Philly comics, entitled Stand-up at the Bully Pulpit which premieres on October 24th at 8 PM in Stein Auditorium.

The line-up for the first Bully Pulpit show includes Conrad Roth, Drexel alumni and host of the Center City Comedy Show; Doogie Horner, a regular at Helium Comedy Club and host of Ministry of Secret Jokes; Dave Walk, writer of the Philly comedy blog and host of a stand-up show in the Shubin Theater; and Kent Haines, the 2008 winner of Helium’s Philly’s Phunniest Contest and host of a talk show ‘Why Am I Not Famous?!’ at the Shubin Theater.

For further information, please contact Luke Giordano: lucas.m.giordano@drexel.edu.

DETAILS:

• THE DREXEL FOOTBALL TEAM IMPROV COMEDY SHOW
• Friday, October 17, 8 PM
• Stein Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall (33rd & Market St.)
• Free and open to the public
• THE STAND-UP AT THE BULLY PULPIT COMEDY SHOW
• Friday, October 24, 8 PM
• Stein Auditorium, Nesbitt Hall (33rd & Market St.)
• Free and open to the public

I’m Going to Disney Land



If you’re a creative, forward-thinking student designer, then make sure you enter the 2009 Walt Disney ImagiNations Design Competition.  This year’s competition offers students from across all Drexel’s schools and colleges an opportunity to develop creative and technical concepts relating to theme parks, attractions, hotels and entertainment venues. On Wednesday, October 22nd, former Imagineer and competition finalist, and now Digital Media faculty member Kristy Pron will hold an information session for students studying Architecture, Digital Media, Interior Design, Theater, Construction Management, Engineering, Project Management, Creative Writing, Fine Arts and Media Arts and Production in the large screening room in University Crossings, Room 028, at 6:30 PM. Pizza will be served.

If you’re selected as a finalist, Disney will fly you and your team members all-expenses paid to Disneyland in Glendale, California for ten days where you’ll present your project to a panel of Disney professionals and compete for “Best in Show Honors.”

DETAILS:

• Walt Disney ImagiNations Design Competition information meeting
• Wednesday, October 22, 6:30 PM
• University Crossings, 15 N. 32nd St., Room 028
• Pizza will be served
• For more information, email Kristy Pron at klp29@drexel.edu

Co-op Profile: Sabryna Gancarz



Drexel co-ops send students out to work the world over. This summer, Interior Design student Sabryna Gancarz worked for an architectural firm on the Greek island of Crete where she assisted architects and interior designers on small scale commercial project including a local fitness center. However, Sabryna did much more than work while in Crete.

Sabryna reveled in Crete’s Venetian and Isalmic-influenced architecture. Her co-op was a world away from our Philadelphia campus and her upbringing in suburban Maryland.  Naturally, she spent weekends camping on beaches, rumbling in the ruins at Knossos, and exploring Greece’s incredibly beautiful Mediterranean islands. “It was the best thing I have done with my life so far,” she said. “You really have to be flexible and creative. In Crete, there are no standard sizes for things like doorways, windows and stairs.” Other Westphal students have had incredible co-op experiences in Scotland, Ireland, India, Germany and Japan.

Economic Dé jà Vu?



Dr. Gray Brechin, co-founder of the ‘Living New Deal Project,’ is the first speaker of this year’s Farajollah & Maryam Badie ARFAA lecture series in architecture. Dr. Brechin will address the important engineering and architectural achievements of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and their relevance today. Under the aegis of the WPA, such public buildings and roads as LaGuardia Airport, Camp David and the Golden Gate Bridge were built. Founded in 2003, the ‘Living New Deal Project’ is a collaborative effort attempting to document the engineering and architectural achievements of Depression era-relief agencies. Dr. Brechin’s presentation, Another World Was Possible: The Indispensible New Deal Today, will be at the Mandell Theater on October 21st at 6:30 PM.

DETAILS:

• AARFA lecture series in architecture: Dr. Gray Brechin
• Tuesday, October 21, 6:30 PM
• Mandell Theater (MacAlister Hall, 33rd and Chestnut St.)
• Free and open to the public

Photographing Dance



Prima Philadelphia dance photographers JJ Tiziou, Bill Herbert, Bob Emmott, Gabriel Bienczycki and Deborah Boardman will review their kinetic work in Capturing Movement: The Art of Dance Photography on October 16th at the Mandell Theater. Bill Herber has shot photos of dance companies FloMotion, Illadelph Legends of Hip Hop, BalletX and the Koresh Dance Company. Bob Emmott has collaborated with Jeanne Ruddy Dance on Breathless, which incorporated his images into the production design.  JJ Tiziou has been photographing the Philadelphia Fringe Festival since 2003. Gabriel Bienczycki recently worked with Seattle Dance Project on Project Orpheus and Project One, and Deborah Boardman has been photographing the dancers of the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Metropolitan Dance Academy for 24 years.

DETAILS:

• Capturing Movement: The Art of Dance Photography
• Thursday, October 16, 7 PM
• Mandell Theater (33rd and Chestnut St.)
• Free and open to the public
• For more information click here or email Miriam Giguere at mgg22@drexel.edu.

Women in Film



The Women in Film and Television is a worldwide organization devoted to promoting and assisting women in ‘the business.’ Now, Women in Film and Television is launching its Philadelphia chapter with an event hosted by the Westphal College. Executive Director of the Philadelphia Film Office, Sharon Pinkenson; QVC’s ‘Mom’s on the Go’ producer and host Linda Swain; WPVI broadcaster, Lisa Thomas Laurie; actresses Jill Whelan (Love Boat) and Dawn Wolfrom; Comcast Senior Vice-President for Programming Jennifer Gaiski; and local casting and talent agent, Mike Lemmon will be with us for a panel discussion and reception at 6 PM on Wednesday, October 29th in the atrium of the Bossone Research Center. This free event is a terrific learning and networking opportunity for students and staff.

DETAILS:

• ‘How I Scared Up My Career in Film & Video’
• Women in Film and Television, Philadelphia Launch
• Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 PM
• Bossone Atrium, 3rd Floor, Bossone Research Center, 3128 Market St.
• Free and open to the public

Philadelphia Orchestra Back on Campus



The Westphal College and Pennoni Honor’s College launch this season’s College Performance Concert Series featuring musicians from The Philadelphia Orchestra with a concert this Thursday. Our second season of concerts once again offers students and the Drexel community the chance to hear incredible chamber music in an informal campus settings. Each concert is structured to allow interaction with the musicians, free food and, by the way, the concerts are always free.  Our opening concert will feature The Philadelphia Orchestra’s violinists Daniel Han and Yayoi Numazawa and pianist Natalie Zhu on Thursday, October 9 at 8 PM in Van Rensselaer Ballroom. The concert series will continue with a November concert and two additional concerts in the New Year.

Han, Numazawa and Zhu began studying and performing as young children. When they are not playing with the Philadelphia Orchestra, they travel the world performing concerts as soloists and with chamber ensembles.  Mr. Han begins his third year with the Philadelphia Orchestra and is the recipient of numerous awards and performance residencies. Ms. Zhu has performed worldwide since 1994 and enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music at age 15. She recently completed a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music. Ms. Numazawa joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1995 while still a student at the Curtis Institute.  She took up the violin at age five, winning her first competition at age twelve, and she has taught many talented students in her private studio.


DETAILS

• College Performance Series: Daniel Han, Yayoi Numazawa, and Natalie Zhu
• Thursday, October 9, 8:00 PM
• Van Rensselaer Ballroom (3320 Powelton Avenue)
• FREE and Open to the Public
• For More Information call: 215-895-1267

Graphic Design Student Work to Aid Rwandan Villagers



The small Rugerero Survivors village in western Rwanda is home to many survivors of that country’s violent past. The villagers hand press sunflower oil, that they then sell, to support themselves. Now, a grant awarded to Graphic Design Program Director Jody Graff and the Westphal College by Sappi Fine Paper’s Ideas that Matter program will enable our students to work with the villagers to create product packaging and brand identity so that their sunflower oil can be sold throughout their country and beyond. 

Sappi’s Ideas that Matter program is the only grant giving program for the graphic design profession and has funded over 225 projects with over eight million dollars since 1999. Jody Graff explained, “Our students will use their training and design skills for a humanitarian effort that will affect many lives.” Click here to read more about the Sappi grants on Techpedia.org.

See Our New Dance Studio



We’re unveiling the newly constructed dance studio located next to the Mandell Theater with a reception and performance on October 3rd at 7 PM. The studio was created to support our new Dance major and has been named in honor of Ellen Forman, a Philadelphia dance pioneer. An original dance choreographed by the late Ms. Forman will be performed by the Drexel Dance ensemble and a video on Ms. Forman’s contribution to the Philadelphia dance scene will be shown.

Westphal now offers students a Bachelor’s degree in dance which can lead to a Master of Arts degree in dance/movement therapy in partnership with the College of Nursing and Health Professions or a Master of Science degree in elementary education with the School of Education.

Ellen Forman was the co-founder and director of South Street Dance Company and was a scholar on the work of Isadora Duncan. Each year she produced five concerts at the Painted Bride Art Center entitled Body/Language which brought together artists to explore the integration of text and dance. An innovative choreographer and a charismatic performer, Ms. Forman worked extensively as a teaching artist in residence for Philadelphia area schools. The new studio was made possible in part because of a grant from the Ellen Forman Memorial Fund, a donor advised fund of the Philadelphia Foundation. 

DETAILS:

• The Ellen Forman Memorial Dance Studio Grand Opening
• Friday, October 3, 7 PM
• Mandell Theater and Dance Studio, MacAlister Hall (33rd and Chestnut St.)
• Free and open to the public, reservation requested at 215-895-ALUM
• For more information visit www.drexel.edu/westphal/dance

Student Filmmakers with a Cause



For the third year in a row, Westphal Film & Video students will participate in The Tripod Initiative, a program of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office that funds students to produce videos for nonprofit organizations. These student films highlight important non-profit organizations and tell their stories in compelling ways. This year, our students’ video was for the Open Arms Adoption Network, an organization that offers a progressive approach to building healthy families through adoption. Produced by Film & Video students Josh Sgarlata, Eric Stalzer, Angelina Zak, Megan Ramsey, Alexandra Hanes and Noelle Kandigan, you can see their film here. Last year, our students’ spot was for Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse in Fairmount Park. The Smith Playground and Playhouse has provided an extraordinary play space for over 10 million visitors in the past 100 years. Our students’ video for the Playhouse can be seen here.

The Tripod Initiative provides students with an ample budget to support their production and matches them with film making professionals who serve as mentors. To learn more about the Tripod Initiative, click here.

Thinking Pink in October



The Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design is named for the late Antoinette Passo Westphal, a 1959 graduate of the College who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996. Shortly after her diagnosis, Antoinette, using her own experience and her wonderful abilities to get things done and work with people,
became a founding board member of Breastcancer.org, where she served until her passing in 2005. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it’s a good time to remind our community that Breastcancer.org is the world’s leading resource for credible, medically vetted information and the home for a vibrant peer community providing unparalleled support for all of those affected by breast cancer.

Knowledge is essential to preventing and finding a cure for breast cancer. We encourage you to learn more and to get involved by visiting www.breastcancer.org where you will find information, upcoming events, ways to volunteer, and more.Click here for a full schedule of upcoming events, including College Night on the Lanes: ‘Bowling for Boobs.’

Breastcancer.org has recently launched a prevention initiative for young women inspired by Taking Care of Your “Girls”, a groundbreaking book written by Dr. Weissand her daughter Isabel. The book addresses the many questions young women have about breast development and breast cancer, and offers easy lifestyle tips that promote breast health and can help reduce the risk of breast cancer. Dr. Weiss and Isabel have honored their connection to our own dear Antoinette by dedicating their book to her. You can get a copy of Taking Care of Your “Girls” through the site or on loan by emailing comad@drexel.edu.

A child of Italian immigrants, Antoinette viewed her education at Drexel as a springboard to a rich life of selfless service to her family, her careers, and her University—which she never forgot. Antoinette, along with fellow founding Breastcancer.org founding board member Dr. Marisa Weiss, shared a vision to demystify the complex medical information about breast cancer, making it available to everyone at no cost. The reality now matches the vision: Breastcancer.org, a beacon of care until the care, is nearly ten years young. 

Christine Fortune, Class of 1938, Creates Major Scholarship Fund



In the 1930’s, opportunities for women in higher education were limited, but Christine Fortune saw Drexel’s College of Home Economics as a conduit to a career. After graduation in 1938, Ms. Fortune taught middle school in Trenton, NJ and worked for Westinghouse Electric before returning to Philadelphia to become the assistant to the dean of Admissions at Drexel. She lived in Allentown with her husband Robert who worked at Pennsylvania Power and Light Company for 35 years before becoming President and CEO of Aegis Insurance Society. The couple traveled extensively prior to Robert’s passing in 2006. 

“Robert and I wanted to help undergraduate female students get the kind of great education that prepared me for so much in my life,” said Ms. Fortune.  Her generous gift by Ms. Fortune creates an endowed scholarship in honor of Dean Ardenia Chapman that will fund 75% of one noteworthy female student’s education each and every year. “Dean Chapman was an expert in textiles and fashion who had an extraordinary influence on all of us young girls.” 

If you would like to make a difference for our students, please contact David J. Toll at 215-895-4982 or dtoll@drexel.edu to learn more about how you can support scholarships and Westphal College programs.

Architecture Student Show



Graduating architecture students complete their studio sequence by choosing an independent thesis project on a design challenge. Their impressive drawings, models and digital images, resulting from these year-long projects, are on display at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery through October 24th.  This is your chance to see the finalists in the Izenour and the Stewardson competitions and the medal winners in the Michael Pearson Thesis Prize.  

DETAILS:

• Annual Exhibit of Architecture Student Work
• Now through October 24
• Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market St.)
• Gallery Hours, Monday through Thursday 11 AM–7 PM and Friday 11 AM–5 PM
• Free and Open to the Public
• For more information, call 215.895.2409 or email gallery@drexel.edu

Faculty Focus: Jen Blazina



Jen Blazina, Assistant Professor in the Art & Art History Department, is a mixed media artist who focuses on screen printing and large-scale installations. Beyond an extensive schedule of solo and group exhibitions, Jen conducts workshops & master classes, and she lectures in the States and abroad. The Cranbook Art Museum in Bloomfield, Michigan, the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California, and The Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio are three of eight institutions that house permanent collections of Jen’s work. 

Since 1997, Jen has been featured in 27 solo exhibitions and 64 group exhibitions. Her large scale exhibit, Recollection, was shown in Philadelphia, Miami and Chicago.  She has also exhibited in solo exhibitions in Belgium, Germany, New York, New Mexico and Florida. Jen’s recent group and two-person exhibits include Multiplicity, an exhibit at the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., Time Capsules at Gallery Imperato in Baltimore and Historia, Jen Blazina and Michael Markwick in Dordrecht, Netherlands. 

Jen is represented by galleries in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Palm Springs.  “I will continue to exhibit, lecture and conduct workshops,” Jen said. “It is important for me to experiment with my work technically, educate myself further in a variety of media and challenge myself conceptually to broaden the themes and content in my work.”


In the summer of 2008, Jen was a resident artist at the Frans Masereel Centrium in Belgium for a four week printmaking workshop. She was awarded residencies at Scuola di Grafica in Venice, Italy and the Kala Institute of Art. In 2009, she will be the resident artist at the Toos Neger Studio in the Netherlands.  The National Endowment for the Arts recently awarded Jen an artist residency grant at the Woman’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York.  She has also received the Maryland State Art Council Individual Artist Grant, and locally, the Windows of Opportunity Grant from the Leeway Foundation, and the Independence Foundation Artist Fellowship Grant.

Jen describes working with multiple pieces of art in large-scale exhibits as a “conglomeration of one experience,” where she can create a space and organize her pieces into a specific vision.

Last Updated:May 29^th

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