Southeastern NEWS
Southeastern Louisiana University
Public Information Office
SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
publicinfo@selu.edu
www.selu.edu/NewsEvents
Date: 9/19/97
Contact: Christina Chapple 52
Editors: Photo accompanies release
SLU S FANFARE 1997 OPENS WITH BROWN BAG CONCERT, MOZART OPERA,
HUNGARIAN HERITAGE -- AND MORE
HAMMOND -- The first week of Fanfare, Southeastern Louisiana University s October-
long festival of the arts, humanities and sciences, offers jazz, a merry Mozart opera, Southern
fiction, Hungarian culture -- and much more.
The annual festival will feature approximately 50 events ranging from art and multi-
media exhibits spotlighting the environment to unique musical performances -- such as the
American debut of an award-winning trio of Russian musicians and a virtuoso performer on the
erhu, China s 1,000-year-old answer to the violin.
It all begins at noon on Friday, Sept. 26, with the Brown Bag Concert, Fanfare s
traditional kickoff. The Southeastern Jazz Ensemble, directed by faculty member and pianist
Willis Delony, will perform for picnickers in Hammond s downtown Cate Square as
Southeastern and city officials join Fanfare Artistic Director Harriet Vogt in introducing the
festival s 12th season. the Brown Bag Concert is co-sponsored by Guy's Quality Foods, Hancock
Bank and the Central Business District Committee of the Hammond Chamber of Commerce.
Next up is the first of three Music for a Sunday Afternoon concerts hosted by
Hammond churches. At 3 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 29, the First Christian Church, 305 E. Charles St.,
will present a free performance by Baton Rouge's only independent chamber orchestra, the
Louisiana Sinfonietta, directed and conducted by composer Dinos Constantinides.
In the first of six afternoon Fanfare lectures, Southeastern s own Tim Gautreaux, a
veteran member of the English Department faculty whose fame as a writer has grown far beyond
(MORE)
FANFARE -- WEEK ONE -- Add One
his Cajun roots, will read from his unpublished novel, Black Bayou. Gautreaux, says Laurie
Parker of LSU Press, writes exquisitely of the life of blue collar workers in the heat and hard
times of south Louisiana. His stories, which have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Harper's,
and Gentlemen s Quarterly, have been collected in the critically acclaimed Same Place, Same
Things." His writing captures the strength, resiliency and joy of life found in the lives of
"ordinary" modern-day Cajuns. Gautreaux s free reading is scheduled for 2 p.m., Oct. 1, in the
Music Recital Hall.
At 2 p.m., Oct. 2, also in the Music Recital Hall, the Eletfa Ensemble of New York will
treat Fanfare audiences to a free preview of their performance the following weekend at the
annual Hungarian Harvest Celebration and Dance in Hungarian Settlement. One of the leading
Hungarian folk music groups in North America, Eletfa is dedicated to preserving the musical
roots of Hungarian ancestry. Dressed in colorful costumes, the young Hungarian-American
musicians perform the exotic and exciting village music and songs of Hungary and Transylvania
on rare, authentic folk instruments such as the three-stringed viola and bass, the trumpet-violin,
the hurdy-gurdy and the gardon.
The group can be enjoyed again in Hungarian Settlement at the Livingston Parish
community s Oct. 4 Hungarian Settlement Harvest Celebration & Dance. The day-long
Arpadhon Hungarian Settlement celebration, which begins at 9 a.m., also includes a Hungarian
dinner, a Hungarian Harvest Dance, and tours of Hungarian-owned businesses and an historic
church and cemetery.
The highlight of Fanfare s first week has to be the SLU Opera/Music Theatre s
production of Mozart s comic opera Cosi fan tutte. Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein has said
that Cosi fan tutte is iridescent, like a glorious soap bubble, with the colors of buffoonery,
parody and both genuine and simulated emotion. To this, moreover, is added the color of pure
beauty.
Director Larry Gray and music director Scharmal Schrock have formed their production
around a cast of young professional singers, including two Southeastern faculty members, Steven
Rushing and Sandy Kelly; two alumni, Kay Wainwright Schepker and Cedric Bridges; graduate
(MORE)
FANFARE -- WEEK ONE --Add One
student Diane Pulte, and Southern University music professor Leon Turner. The orchestra will be
directed by SLU director of bands Frank Dubuy and set and lighting design is by Pete Pfeil.
Cosi fan tutte's amusingly farcical plot begins with cynical old Don Alfonso (Turner),
who is determined to prove to his two young friends, Guglielmo (Rushing) and Ferrando
(Bridges) that their fiancees, sisters Fiordiligi (Pulte) and Dorabella (Schepker), are not to be
trusted. All women, swears the Don, are fickle in romance. With the help of Despina (Kelly), the
ladies maid, he lays his plot. He tells the two sisters that their lovers have been called up for
military duty; then he introduces the ladies to two Albanians, who are, of course, none other
than Guglielmo and Ferrando in disguise.
After many inner conflicts, the two women succumb to the advances of the Albanians,
forcing Guglielmo and Ferrando to concede defeat. But Don Alfonso reveals the plot to the two
duped ladies and everyone lives happily ever after.
Cosi fan tutte s two performances, which will be in English, are scheduled for 7:30
p.m., Oct. 2 and 4, in the Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Tickets are $10 general admission,
$8 senior citizens and Southeastern faculty and staff. Southeastern students are admitted free
with their university I.D.
Fanfare's annual "special" film series begins Oct. 1 with the 1997 sensation The English
Patient," an epic film of adventure, intrigue, betrayal and love that all but swept this year s
Academy Awards. The film will be shown free of charge at 7 p.m. at University Cinema, 1006
N. Oak.
For a Fanfare brochure and ticket order form or for additional information about Fanfare
events, call the SLU Public Information Office, 504-549-2341, or send e-mail to
publicinfo@selu.edu. Fanfare information is also available on the World Wide Web at
www.selu.edu/fanfare/fan97.htm. Fanfare tickets are available at the Fanfare box office, 504-
549-2323, at Gate 1 of the SLU University Center on University Ave., from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.,
weekdays.
-SLU-
This press release is available on the World Wide Web:
www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsf97.htm