William Neil, FAAR'83 will be a guest composer-pianist at the First D. H. Lawrence International Symposium in Gargnano, Italy, in September. Neil will perform at the piano, with Bethan Jones on clarinet and John Worthen as narrator, at the world premiere of Where There Is No Autumn at the Sala Castellani in Gargnano, Italy.
For this piece twenty-seven birds of the wetland region of southwest Wisconsin were recorded and transformed into a sonic fantasy for piano, flute, and digital acoustics. Twenty-Seven Birds was performed at the 2012 Earthday Festival in Gays Mills, Wisconsin. Neil comments that the process magically transforms the cascade of bird calls digitally, and the result will be a resource for several future works.
Jack Risley (1999 Fellow) has just moved to Texas, where he will be the new chairman of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. He was formerly at Virginia Commonwealth University. In a press release Risley said, “I am absolutely thrilled and honored to join the College of Fine Arts. The University of Texas at Austin’s deep commitment to the arts sets it apart from other institutions. The College of Fine Arts has great reach, and its influence can be felt nationally and internationally. The Department of Art and Art History has a potent mix of programs each with a long and distinguished history.”