In this Email:
- Afiara String Quartet
- Design Revolution
- Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte
- Osher Lifelong Learning
- Sounds of Science
College of Creative Arts February E-lert
Concert
Morrison Artists Series: Afiara String Quartet
After a fellowship at SF State that led to national acclaim and a residency at Juilliard, this exciting young group returns to dazzle and delight. Described as “quicksilver and delicate…electric and filled with sentiment” by the San Jose Mercury News, the quartet will play works by Mozart, Berg and Mendelssohn.
Join composer and Professor Ronald Caltabiano for a pre-concert talk at 2pm.
Exhibition
Design Revolution Road Show
A Project H Design initiative, this traveling event show features a biodiesel-powered truck and Airstream trailer exhibit of 40 humanitarian design solutions showcased in the book Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, by Project H founder Emily Pilloton. Each product is an example of how design can enable and improve life, rather than simply take up space as a commodity or accessory.
Opera
Cosi Fan Tutte
Trickery and disguise test the devotion of young lovers in Mozart’s classic comedy. This workshop production, set in a contemporary high school, explores fidelity with drama teacher Don Alfonso directing the chaos. Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Directed by Alissa Walters Deeter. Conducted by Tristan Arnold.
News
Welcome to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
SF State’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute has a new home at the University, in the College of Creative Arts. The institute inspires new energy in people ages 50 and up: to take a fresh look at themselves, the future, their generation and the world of possibilities. Its stimulating and provocative courses, forums and interest groups challenge and inform and animate creative expression.
Positive message earns student filmmaking award
An SF State film was named Best Documentary at the Seventh Annual International Student Film Festival in Hollywood. One Sister at a Time: Positive Women’s Stories explores the lives of several American women of varying ages and backgrounds who are HIV positive. The collaboration brought together students from several disciplines, including Veronica Deliz, Brett Hickman and Ryan Hildebrant from Cinema. The film was a final project in the Documentary for Health and Social Justice class.
Applause for Cinema professor’s recent projects
Weimin Zhang could have won a gold medal herself. As a unit director for The Everlasting Flame: Beijing 2008—the official Summer Olympics documentary—the assistant professor raced from a protest-filled torch relay in San Francisco to training camps in San Diego, Texas and Argentina and, finally, to the games. Recently, The Everlasting Flame and three other of her film projects garnered eight honors at festivals in four countries.
Dig This
Miya Masaoka: sounds of science
Miya Masaoka. Photo by Lori Eames.
No matter if it’s a piano, a Japanese koto, a choir of 100, fetal heart sensors or even cockroaches, Miya Masaoka can transform it into beautiful, innovative music. She has been featured everywhere from Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet to the Venice Biennial.
Described by the Los Angeles Times as “masterful and conceptually restless,” Masaoka uses performance art with sound to investigate physiological responses of plants, the human brain and her own body, and insect sounds and movements. Her latest project features a kimono made from 500 LEDs.
A onetime high-school dropout who attended SF State while parenting her young child, Masaoka (B.A., Music, ’91) is most proud of her ability to dig deep into her work. Many of her pieces have taken a decade to complete.
Masaoka’s ouevre recalls her faculty at SF State. Eric Moe introduced her to counterpoint. Wayne Peterson shaped her skills in composition form and design. Herbert Bielawa developed her talents in electronic music. Sachiko Nakamura opened her to Japanese American art and expression.
Masaoka also took courses in printmaking and woodwork. At the time, she dreaded having to take three science courses for general education. She is now glad she did, as what she learned in those courses informs her work.
“Much of the educational experience seems irrelevant at the time but it ends up as part of your database,” she says.
Related link: Miyamasaoka.com
About this Newsletter
Thank you for signing up for the College of Creative Arts E-lert newsletter. Each month we feature a few of our upcoming events and performances. Having problems reading it? View this mail in your web browser.
Images: Afiara String Quartet by Rory Earnshaw, Design Revolution Road Show courtesy of Project H Design.