2023-2024
SEASON
2023-2024
Pitt-Bradford Arts demonstrates the transformational power of the arts on our campus and in our communities by presenting surprising and rewarding artistic events and exhibitions that welcome and entertain, challenge and inspire and foster imaginative examination. The selected performances reflect the values and goals of our academic institution and its commitment to expanding the breadth of both the audience and their experiences.
We are grateful for the dedication and support of: ARTS COUNCIL MEMBERS: Tim Asinger, Linda Devlin, Dr. Kevin Ewert, Jeffrey Guterman, Matthew Hileman, Richard Johnson, Kathy Jones, Terri Leven, John Oberg, Jody Randolph, Jeanie Satterwhite, and Marie Troskosky. KALEIDOSCOPE COMMITTEE: Richard Johnson, Terri Leven, Jeanie Satterwhite, Diane Schuler, Carol Shannon, and Marie Troskosky.
TO PURCHASE TICKETS please call the Box Office at 814-362-5113, visit www.upb.pitt.edu/TheArts or stop by Monday-Friday 11:30 am to 4:30 pm. For more information contact, Courtney Mealy, at 814-362-5027 or email cmealy@pitt.edu
@PittBradfordArts
SEASON
Step Afrika! September 13, 2023 7:30 pm Bromeley Family Theater, Blaisdell Hall
Public: $20 / Faculty Staff: $16 Students: $5 / Pitt-Bradford Students: FREE Step Afrika! blends percussive dance styles practiced by historically African American fraternities and sororities, traditional African dances, and an array of contemporary dance and art forms into a cohesive, compelling artistic experience. Performances are much more than dance shows. They integrate songs, storytelling, humor and audience participation. The blend of technique, agility, and pure energy makes each performance unique and leaves the audience with their hearts pounding.
Pitt-Bradford: The Early Years September 5-October 6, 2023 Opening Reception, September 23 / 2 pm KOA Art Gallery, Blaisdell Hall FREE Celebrating Pitt-Bradford’s 60th anniversary, this exhibition will highlight the early years of the university through archived photographs from past faculty, staff, alumni, and friends. A special opening will be held during Alumni and Family Weekend September 22-24.
Young Original Concert – Fresh Music for Old Souls September 23, 2023 / 7 pm Bromeley Family Theater Blaisdell Hall
Tickets: $10 Pitt-Bradford Students: FREE Young Original is a 5-piece acoustic band with a passion for breathing new life into classic American music. Their unique sound features a striking combination of instrumental mastery and stunning vocal harmonies, a perfect concert for the whole family! This performance is co-sponsored by the Marilyn Horne Museum and Pitt-Bradford Arts for Alumni Family Weekend.
Erin Keane, Visiting Writer October 10, 2023 / 7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room Frame-Westerberg Commons
FREE
Erin Keane is the author of Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me, one of NPR’s best books of 2022. She received her MFA from Spalding University and is the author of three collections of poems: The Gravity Soundtrack, Death-Defying Acts, and Demolition of the Promised Land. Keane is also an award-winning journalist and chief content officer for Salon.com.
Explore 360: Virtual Reality Art Exhibition FREE
Modern Yesterdays: Kaki King October 12, 2023 / 7 pm Studio Theater, Blaisdell Hall
Public: $20 / Faculty & Staff: $15 / Students: $5 Considered one of the most unique and influential guitarists of our time, Kaki King continues to redefine the role of solo instrumental artists through virtuoso technique, insatiable imagination, and boundless humanity. Her signature multimedia performance uses projection mapping to present the guitar as a tool that can shape both music and video content, all triggered (and often improvised live) via her Ovation Adamas Signature 6-String Acoustic guitar, customized specifically for her multimedia performance.
Ravi Padmanabha & Dave Mussen, Musical Performance October 24, 2023 / Noon Studio Theater, Blaisdell Hall
FREE
Ravi Padmanabha and David Mussen have played music for many years in various groups and recently formed a duo that encompasses a newfound musical language. These multiinstrumentalist and cultural musicians have combined years of various styles into the duo, using gongs, crystal bowls, tabla, hand pan, clarinet, and ocean drum to present a full musical experience. Together, their music creates a journey that traverses ambient meditation to ecstatic trance music.
October 31-December 1, 2023 Reception October 31, 2023 / Noon KOA Art Gallery, Blaisdell Hall Bridging the gap between art and technology, this collaborative project will combine visual art, narrative, storytelling, spatial concepts, and shared user experience in immersive environments. Newly released technology like the Oculus Quest 2, HTC Vive Focus 3s, and Focus Plus’ and Augmented Reality items like the Microsoft Hololens and Google glasses will be utilized to view student projects.
Lynnell Edwards Visiting Writer November 2, 2023 / 7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room Frame-Westerberg Commons
FREE
Lynnell Edwards is author of three full-length poetry collections, Covet, The Highwayman’s Wife, and The Farmer’s Daughter, and the chapbooks, This Great Green Valley and Kings of the Rock and Roll Hot Shop. Her short fiction and book reviews have appeared in New Madrid, Connecticut Review, Cincinnati Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. Edwards is an associate professor of English at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, and has received many awards, including the 2007 Al Smith Fellowship.
Fall Student Theater Production: To Be Determined November 9-11, 2023 / 7:30 pm November 12 / 2 pm Studio Theater, Blaisdell Hall
Public: $6 / Faculty & Staff: $4 Students: $2 While the production for the fall is still being decided, we invite you to save the date for a performance that will highlight Pitt-Bradford students. Past productions include Concord Floral, The Drowning Girls, and Julius Caesar.
TheaterWorks USA presents
The Lightning Thief: TYA Edition
November 16, 2023 10 am & 12:30 pm Bromeley Family Theater Blaisdell Hall
Tickets: $7 / Grades 3-6 When teenager Percy Jackson discovers he’s a demigod, he and his friends embark on an epic journey to find Zeus’ missing lightning bolt and prevent a war among the gods. This dynamic musical adaptation of Rick Riordan’s bestselling book, The Lightning Thief, features an exciting rock score.
ALL THINGS EQUAL: The Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg November 29, 2023 / 7 pm Bromeley Family Theater, Blaisdell Hall
Public: $20 / Faculty & Staff: $16 / Students: $5 Written by Tony Award-Winning playwright Rupert Holmes Supreme Court Justice “RBG” welcomes a friend of the family to her cozy chambers to convey, over the course of 90 fascinating and often funny minutes, a sense of her life and its many trials. An evening with a great and compassionate icon of straightthinking American justice emerges ... an RBG who is not only “notorious” but victorious as she takes a stand for ordinary people facing the many challenges of a changing world. Bring your scrunchies, hankies, humor, and heart to this entertaining and uplifting event!
Vocal Arts Ensemble Concerts Holiday Concert, November 30, 2023 / Noon Spring Concert, April 2, 2024 / Noon Harriett B. Wick Chapel
FREE
The Pitt-Bradford Vocal Arts Ensemble, now in its 14th year, features student vocalists as soloists and choral singers who present a broad variety of music ranging from traditional hymns to present-day songs and everything in between.
Advent & Christmas Organ Recital December 8, 2023 / Noon Harriett B. Wick Chapel
FREE
Celebrating its 12th year, the university is once again hosting a holiday performance featuring the Sarah B. Dorn Organ, which was built by Schantz Organ Company, Orrville, Ohio. Past organists have included regional and internationally acclaimed performers.
Baily’s Beads Annual Literary Magazine Celebration January 24, 2024 / 7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room Frame-Westerberg Commons
FREE
Baily’s Beads has been named Best University Magazine seven times by the American Scholastic Press Association and has twice been named one of the top 12 student magazines in the country by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Selected among the best fiction, poetry, nonfiction, visual, and musical pieces submitted by students, faculty, alumni, and community members, the work in Baily’s Beads showcases the diverse talents of Pitt-Bradford and the surrounding community.
Coloured Pots: izikhamba kwamaKaladi by Fileve Tlaloc, Art Exhibition February 22-March 22, 2024 Opening Reception: February 22 / Noon KOA Art Gallery, Blaisdell Hall
FREE
Fileve Tlaloc’s work speaks to the emotional and physical condition of human struggles between power and peace, injustice and freedom, and the intersections of race, geography, and gender. As a multicultural, multinational, and multiracial person, Tlaloc explores various journeys into human identity. Her vision is to create beautiful and intricate paintings, drawings, and ceramic sculptures that inspire people to get to know themselves, others and the world around them.
Jeff Boyer’s Big Bubble Bonanza February 27, 2024 / 7 pm Bromeley Family Theater Blaisdell Hall
Tickets: $10
Bubble rainbows with people inside. Audience members making volcano bubbles! Gigantic bubbles that blow their own bubbles? See the newest, funniest, zany spectacular from world-famous, Guinness Book of World Records-holding, master bubble wrangler Jeff Boyer as he takes bubbles to the max with big bubble flair. Mixing comedy, music, and interactive bubblemagic, Boyer engages and delights audiences of all ages. It’s a sensory-friendly bubble extravaganza for the whole family!
Melody of the East: Guzheng Melody of the East: Guzheng Recital & Lecture FREE with Daisy Wu February 29, 2024 / Noon Studio Theater, Blaisdell Hall Zhongbei (Daisy) Wu is an award-winning guzheng artist whose musical performances fuse the guzheng’s (or Chinese Zither, a traditional Chinese instrument) ancient Eastern roots with Western and modern music. This event will also feature a lecture woven throughout the performance about the history of the instrument and much more. With an impressive soloist career, Daisy Wu has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the United Nations Headquarters, on China National Television, and at the National Press Club in Washington D.C to name a few.
TheaterWorks USA presents
Rosie Revere, Engineer, and Friends March 12, 2024 / 10 am & 12:30 pm Bromeley Family Theater, Blaisdell Hall
Tickets: $7 / Grades K-4
Ms. Greer’s classroom includes three inquisitive out-of-the-box thinkers. Rosie Revere has big dreams. Iggy Peck has a relentless passion for architecture. And Ada Twist’s curiosity can lead her to solve any problem. A fun musical based on the books Rosie Revere, Engineer; Iggy Peck, Architect; and Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty, which spotlights the STEM curriculum (focusing on science, technology, engineering and math).
Musica Spei March 16, 2024 / 3 pm Harriett B. Wick Chapel
Public: $15 / Faculty & Staff: $10 / Students: $5 For two decades, the vocal ensemble Musica Spei (Music of Hope) has worked collaboratively to bring choral masterworks of the Medieval and Renaissance periods to audiences in Western New York. The ensemble’s emphasis and particular specialty is the sacred music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance with forays into related territory. Musica Spei has sought to restore life to timeless music that continues to resonate with modern listeners.
Damian Dressick Visiting Writer March 19, 2024 / 7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room Frame-Westerberg Commons
FREE
Damian Dressick is the author of the novel 40 Patchtown (Bottom Dog Press) and the award-winning flash collection Fables of the Deconstruction (CLASH Books). His writing has appeared in more than 70 literary journals and anthologies, including W.W. Norton’s New Micro, Electric Literature, Post Road, New Orleans Review, Cleaver, CutBank, Smokelong Quarterly, and New World Writing. A Blue Mountain Residency Fellow, Dressick is the winner of the Harriette Arnow Award and the Jesse Stuart Prize.
Spring Student Production: An Originally Devised Theater Piece April 4-6 / 7:30 pm April 7 / 2 pm Public: $6 / Faculty & Staff: $4 / Students: $2 When we say “to be determined” we mean everything: subject, story, characters, time, performance, and location. Following previous original works like Tales from Edgar Allan Poe, a site-specific promenade production staged in downtown Bradford, and Seven Smart Spaces, where the finished performance piece was born from students’ examination of technology in their lives, this latest production will intrigue, amuse, all with details to be determined.
Celebration of the Arts: Interdisciplinary Arts Capstone April 12-April 28, 2024 Opening Reception: April 12, 2024 / 2 pm Blaisdell Hall
FREE
We celebrate students and their creative work from all areas of the arts: music, theater, creative writing, and visual arts in this unique, end-of-the-year event. Throughout Blaisdell Hall and its exhibition spaces, numerous capstone presentations will be presented and displayed.
2023-2024
SEASON SEPTEMBER
DECEMBER
13 Step Afrika!, Dance Performance
8
7:30 pm Bromeley Family Theater
5
Pitt-Bradford: The Early Years, Art Exhibition 2 pm KOA Art Gallery
Noon Harriett B. Wick Chapel
JANUARY 24 Baily’s Beads Magazine Celebration
7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room
23 Young Original Concert 7 pm Bromeley Family Theater
OCTOBER 10 Erin Keane Visiting Writer
7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room
12 Modern Yesterdays: Kaki King, Musical Performance 7 pm Studio Theater
24 Ravi Padmanabha & Dave Mussen Musical Performance Noon Studio Theater
31 Explore 360: Virtual Reality Art Exhibition Noon KOA Art Gallery
NOVEMBER 2
Lynnell Edwards Visiting Writer
7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room
9-11 Fall Student Theater Production 7:30 pm Studio Theater
12 Fall Student Theater Production 2 pm Studio Theater
16 The Lightning Thief School Matinee
10 am & 12:30 pm Bromeley Family Theater
Advent & Christmas Organ Recital
FEBRUARY 22 Coloured Pots: izikhamba kwamaKaladi by Fileve Tlaloc Art Exhibition Noon KOA Art Gallery
27 Big Bubble Bonanza Family Performance
7 pm Bromeley Family Theater
29 Guzheng Recital & Lecture with Daisy Wu Noon Studio Theater
MARCH 12 Rosie Revere, Engineer & Friends, School Matinee 10 am & 12:30 pm Bromeley Family Theater
16 Musica Spei, Musical Performance 3 pm Harriett B. Wick Chapel
19 Damian Dressick Visiting Writer
7:30 pm Mukaiyama University Room
APRIL 2
Vocal Arts Ensemble Spring Concert Noon Harriett B. Wick Chapel
4-6 Spring Student Theater Production 7:30 pm Studio Theater
29 All Things Equal: Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
7
30 Vocal Arts Ensemble Holiday Concert
12 Celebration of the Arts: Interdisciplinary Arts Capstone
7 pm Bromeley Family Theater
Noon Harriett B. Wick Chapel
Spring Student Theater Production 2 pm Studio Theater
2 pm Blaisdell Hall
SEASON
2023-2024
get your tickets!
Pitt-Bradford Arts 300 Campus Drive Bradford, PA 16701