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: 10/16/97
Contact: Christina Chapple 52k
Editors: Photo accompanies release
FANFARE FINALE INCLUDES GAINES, DANCEWORKS, MUSIC
HAMMOND -- After a month's worth of excitement and entertainment, don't expect
Southeastern Louisiana University's October arts festival to go quietly. Fanfare has saved some
of its best for last.
You could say that the theme of Fanfare's finale is "encores and debuts." The festival's
final five days includes the perennially popular Fanfare event, Picnic-n-Pops!, and the return of
two past guest artists: award-winning Louisiana author Ernest Gaines and New Orleans' Moses
Hogan Chorale. Fanfare "firsts" include the American debut of a Russian music trio with a
Hammond connection and the premiere of a new modern dance work by Southeastern's own
dance company, danceworks.
Fanfare at night
7:30 p.m., Oct. 26, SLU University Center. Under the baton of Bill Grimes,
associate dean of the Louisiana State University Graduate School of Music, the Louisiana
Philharmonic Orchestra will treat audiences to some of its best-loved favorites -- from Dvorak to
Sibelius to Wagner. Joining the symphony for masterpieces of American popular song will be
talented vocalists Leah Chase, soprano, and Phillip Manuel, baritone. The dynamic young
singers will treat the picnicking audience to works by Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Duke
Ellington.
The University Center's doors will open for Picnic-n-Pops! picnickers at 5 p.m. The
entertainment, sponsored, as always, by the Hammond Rotary Club, begins at 7:30 p.m.
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Table seating for Picnic-n-Pops! is sold out, but arena tickets are available for $5.
Children under 12 get in free if accompanied by an adult.
7:30 p.m., Oct., 27, Vonnie Borden Theatre. In honor of Fanfare's "Art and the
Environment" theme, danceworks, Southeastern's resident dance company, will stage an original
modern dance work based on a Navajo legend. Directed by Southeastern dance professor Martie
Fellom, "The Four Mountains" was choreographed by four danceworks members: Nicole
Fassbender, Lillian Gray, Jeanne Labourdette and George V. Traylor. The modern ballet tells the
story of the Navajo deity Estsanatlehi, a kind-hearted earth goddess who symbolizes the ever-
changing earth on which plants yearly grow, died, and are reborn. Labourdette, a Southeastern
student from Violet, has the lead role of Estsanatlehi.
Tickets for "The Four Mountains" are $5 general admission, $3 senior citizens, SLU
faculty and staff and non-SLU students. Southeastern students are admitted free with their
university I.D.
7:30 p.m., Oct. 27, Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Born on Lake River
Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish near New Roads, La., the "Bayonne" of all his fictional work,
Ernest Gaines fills the pages of his novels and short stories with the human fortitude, passion,
violence, hard work and struggle of the South's turn-of-the-century poor blacks. His latest novel,
"A Lesson Before Dying," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and received the 1993 National
Book Critics Circle Awards -- among other kudos.
Gaines says his desire to write germinated in a public library where, as a teenager, I
discovered the Russians, Turgenev, Gogol, who spoke of the peasants. Then the French,
Flaubert, Maupassant, Zola. But no one was telling me the story of my people. Thus, I decided to
write.
Gaines will read passages from A Lesson Before Dying and will autograph books from
3:30-5:30 p.m. at downtown Hammond s Bayou Booksellers. Tickets for his lecture are $6
general admission, $4 senior citizens, SLU faculty and staff and all students.
7:30 p.m., Oct. 28, Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Internationally acclaimed as
one of the finest African-American choirs, the New Orleans-based Moses Hogan Chorale fuses
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all the elements of the African-American choral tradition: classical, spirituals, gospel, jazz and
blues. Founded by accomplished pianist, choral conductor and composer Moses Hogan, the
chorale has won rave reviews for performances at Lincoln Center s Avery Fisher Hall and with
the National Symphony and San Francisco Symphony. Tickets for the performance are $10
general admission, $8 senior citizens, SLU faculty and staff and all students.
7:30 p.m., Oct. 29, Pottle Music Building Auditorium. The Moscow Piano Trio has
received Russia s highest cultural awards, Artist of the People of Russia and the Prize of the
City of Moscow. Since its beginning in 1968, the trio--now consisting of founding member and
pianist Alexander Bonduriansky, violinist Vladimir Ivanov and cellist Mikhail Utkin--has
become one of the most highly esteemed chamber ensembles in Russia. The three members are
all professors at the Moscow Conservatory.
Although they have performed throughout Russia and Europe, the Moscow Piano Trio s
Fanfare concert marks the musicians American debut. And although they are new to the United
States, at least one member will have some familiar faces in the audience.
Alexander Bonduriasky will be reunited for the first time in five years with his sister,
Raisa Voldman, a part-time member of the Southeastern music faculty and one of the
department s staff accompanists. Voldman and her husband, Southeastern violinist and conductor
Yakov Voldman, have been Hammond residents since 1989. They came to the United States
from their native Moldova in the former Soviet Union.
7 p.m., Oct. 29, University Cinema (1006 N. Oak). Filmmaker Neil Jordan feels that
he will never make a more important film than Michael Collins, the life of one person who
formed the north and south of Ireland as they are today. "Michael Collins" is based on the life of
the charismatic revolutionary who led the fight for Ireland s independence from the British in the
1920s. Despite his triumphs, Collins' fate was an ironic and tragic one. He was sent by Eamon de
Valera to London to negotiate a treaty for Ireland's independence but, in so doing, became a
political victim of the divided sentiments of a nation. Upon his return to Ireland, Collins was
assassinated by some of his former supporters, who felt that he had compromised Ireland's
hard-fought freedom with a treaty that continued to allow the British control over Northern
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Ireland. Liam Neeson stars as Michael Collins and Julia Roberts stars as the passionate Kitty
Kiernan, who is loved by both Boland and Collins but who gives her heart to Collins.
7:30 p.m., Oct. 30, Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Southeastern faculty
members will take the final bows of Fanfare 1997. SLU Faculty Jazz , consisting of pianist
Willis Delony, trombonist Harry Watters, trumpet player Mark Auffarth, percussionist Leon
Anderson, saxophonist David Wright, guitarist Hank Mackie, and bass player John Palensky,
will perform standard tunes from the late 1950s early 60s and novelty pieces such as a Latin
samba version of "Over the Rainbow." The concert is free.
Fanfare by day
3:30 p.m., Oct. 28, Music Recital Hall. The Foreign Film Series concludes with
Bizet s Carmen, a dazzling screen opera starring Placido Domingo and Julia Migenes-Johnson.
Shot entirely on location in Adalusian Spain, the film has been hailed as the definitive version of
the classic opera. Carmen is free to the public.
For additional information about Fanfare events, call the SLU Public Information Office,
549-2341. Tickets are available at the Fanfare box office at Gate 1 of the SLU University Center
on University Ave., 504-549-2323. Box office hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m., weekdays.
-SLU-
This press release is available on the World Wide Web:
www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsf97.htm