Student composers showcase work before live audience in Conservatory’s New Music Series concert

By URSULA SAADEH Staff Writer

The BW Conservatory of Music’s New Music Series concert on March 19 at 7 p.m. in Fynes Hall of the Kulas Musical Arts Building gave student composers the opportunity to have their own music performed for a live audience.

The New Music Series is a concert series dedicated to performing new works by Conservatory students. Students work with faculty to polish their pieces and work alongside their performers in preparation for the concert.

Clint Needham, professor of music composition and composer in residence, works alongside the students participating in each concert. Needham said that the New Music Series is a way to give all composers — not just composition majors or seniors — a chance to share polished work.

Senior studio art majors reflect personal experiences through their work in new Fawick exhibition

By CAITLIN BOWSHIER Staff Writer

The 2023 Studio Art Senior Exhibition, which debuted on Feb. 27 and is running through March 24 in Fawick Art Gallery at the Kleist Center for Arts and Drama, will showcase the work of senior studio art majors.

The art exhibition will serve as a capstone for the artists, Nicole Ballachino, Aliyah Beechuk, Carissa Ferguson, Adrienne Jurick and Julie Wetzel, who have been working rigorously to compile their showcase over the last semester.

Each artist chose pieces they are proud to display, featuring several mediums such as ceramics, oil painting and woodblock print. Collectively, the artists share a concept of “internal portraits,” in which they showcased their individuality and personal growth.

“The most rewarding part of [the experience] was realizing that we all had a very similar theme within our work even though we’re all focusing on different aspects,” Jurick said.

Ferguson said that their ceramic sculpture titled “Shrill Pain,” inspired by her experience going through difficult times last year, is a good demonstration of the artist’s displaying their personal growth.

“My work deals a lot with shame and our defense systems—and I kind of derive that from the natural world,” Ferguson said. “[Shrill Pain] is what feels like an internal portrait of me going through that time. It’s really special to me to be able to look back on it.”

Jurick’s work utilizes natural elements, focusing specifically on caterpillars and their significance in the artist’s life. Jurick said her favorite piece is the large caterpillar sculpture she titled “My Buddy, Fear” due to a childhood experience.

“One of the first memories I have is looking at this giant green caterpillar in a tree and not knowing what to do with myself,” Jurick said. “So, I kind of turned caterpillars into a way of characterizing my emotions and showing how my anxiety affects me.”

Ballachino, whose display is largely composed of oil paintings, emphasized aspects of mundane life and personal objects.

“My whole show is basically a self-portrait, but through my items instead of paintings of myself,” Ballachino said. “I feel like you can learn a lot about someone by the items they have.”

Wetzel took yet another unique route in choosing to focus on radioactivity within

“The ‘New’ Music Series was the branding … [in] an effort to raise the profile of the student composer recitals,” Needham said. “I wanted it to be taken rather seriously because these composers put in a lot of effort when they hand their music over to performers to rehearse.”

Each concert showcases a variety of musical styles. Students are encouraged to explore when working with the faculty to polish their compositions.

“I love that the students come in, already engaged and yet open minded enough to grow and change directions,” Needham said. “We want them to choose their creative path, and we want to supply them with the techniques and tools to let them travel those paths independently and freely.”

On Saturday, sophomore composition student Brock Rudolph presented one of his pieces, entitled “Oh, Dear.”

“It's a music interpretation of a story that I wrote, based off the works of Reverend W. Audrey's ‘Thomas the Tank Engine,’” Rudolph said. “As a kid, I watched it religiously, and I thought, ‘I need to write a piece that incorporates it.’”

Rudolph’s piece expresses an important part of his childhood, and he said that a key part of “Thomas the Tank Engine” was that the narration in the show was underscored by music to bring attention to the story. For this piece, the music, rather than narration, is what tells the story.

“Writing music in a story sense was a bit hard for me, but it actually worked out in the long run because my feelings as to what was going on actually work in a story setting,” Rudolph said.

Sophomore composition and viola performance student Julia Grady was another composer in the concert, performing her work “Of Lovers Lost,” based on a poem written by her mother’s friend Emily Lane.

“She wrote me a poem specifically to set to music, and then I worked with her to figure out … what she wanted to convey with [the music], so that I could accurately do that,” Grady said.

Grady said that being able to work with a living poet was a valuable opportunity because she could communicate with the poet directly to clearly understand what themes needed to be portrayed.

As both a performer and composer, Grady said she enjoyed the experience of working with other performers in figuring out how to improve the piece.

“As a performer, we have such limited opportunities to actually work with composers and work with living composers,” Grady said. “Having the composer working with you, telling me what their intentions are of the piece, is such a great opportunity.” her work by mixing fantasy with reality. Her favorite piece, “Thyroid Butterflies on Radioactive Flower,” was inspired by a radioactive iodine treatment she recently underwent for thyroid cancer.

“My thinking with this piece was to do these thyroid butterflies, which are attracted to that huge radioactive flower,” Wetzel said. “Kind of like how, when I took that pill, it needed to grasp onto [the cancerous tissue].”

Wetzel said she’s proud of both her ambition in making this large complex sculpture and her ability to stay positive throughout her struggles.

“Honestly, even though what I went through wasn’t cool… going through personal experiences has led me to where I’m at right now,” Wetzel said. “I’m just proud of myself for being able to come up with something creative and make something good of the situation.”

The exhibit’s closing reception will be held Friday, March 24 at 5 p.m.

Theatre and Dance department to add new directing classes

By ELLA YORK Staff Writer

The BW Department of Theatre and Dance is expanding its program next semester by adding two new student directing classes to further develop the directing side of the B.A. Acting and Directing track.

The program will be adding a Fundamentals of Directing and Intermediate Directing course, while also making their advanced directing course permanent.

“Basically what we’re doing is we’re adding another level to directing,” said René Copeland, the professor leading the new classes. “So before, there was one directing class. Now there’s going to be a Fundamentals of Directing class and an Intermediate Directing class, so it’ll be a sequence.”

At the fundamental level, students will learn the “building blocks” of directing, such as analyzing a script, making a rehearsal schedule, running a rehearsal and directing a scene, Copeland said. The intermediate level will be akin to a scene study for directors, with students directing three or four scenes by semester’s end.

At the advanced level, students will direct a play in the 10-Minute Play Festival held during the spring, where they will use the skills they’ve learned in all three classes to successfully run a performance, Copeland said.

“My job is to just sort of guide them and help them,” Copeland said, “but they have to pick the plays, they have to schedule everything, they have to make all their own rehearsal schedules, they have to rehearse the plays, they have to figure out what marking ideas will be and they have to figure out what the sequence of the plays needs to be on the night of performance.”

Rachel Gold, a senior B.F.A. Acting major who recently directed a Lab Series production of “Stop Kiss” at BW, said taking directing classes and participating in the 10-Minute Play Festival made her realize all the hard work that goes into directing, and it encouraged her to take her passion for directing further.

“And from that point on, I knew I wanted to direct a full length play, so I submitted for the Lab Series spot which is filled by students,” Gold said.

According to Copeland, these new classes will be open to non-theatre majors, given the necessary prerequisites are completed.

For theatre students, taking a directing class can provide understanding and respect for what goes into directing, Gold said, and for those outside of theatre, a directing class can provide a means for creative expression while also helping to utilize certain critical skills.

“It's a really fun artistic outlet that is still educational and academic in the way that you have to … figure out where to input certain variables,” Gold said. “It’s applying the skills that you learn in a more academic course like science or math, but by utilizing your left brain, so it’s in a creative outlet.”

These new directing classes will be available next semester. The work by current Advanced Directing students can be viewed in this year’s 10-Minute Play Festival on May 2.