In a mood for jazz

Jazz musicians Grace Kelly and Phil Woods will perform Friday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. at Bloomsburg University’s Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall.

Along with the Grace Kelly Quintet, Kelly and Woods will perform selections from their saxophone duet album, “Man with the Hat.” This is Kelly’s sixth release since she was 12 years old. Now 20, she has been praised by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis as having “intelligence, wit and feeling.” Woods, age 80, is a veteran jazz musician who received the 2011 Jazz Legacy Award from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF). This performance is supported in part by the Jazz Touring Network, a program of MAAF, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Tickets are $34.50 for adults and $19.50 for children. For information or tickets, www.bloomu.edu/CAS or call (570) 389-4409. Kelly and Woods also will take part in BU’s annual jazz festival for middle and high school jazz ensembles. A free public performance will be presented Friday, April 13, at noon in Mitrani Hall.

This concert is the final show in the 2011-12 season of BU’s Celebrity Artist Series.

River Poets reading Thursday

The River Poets will hold their reading Thursday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m. at the Bloomsburg Public Library. The theme is "rivers and water" and the featured reader will be Mike DeMarco. Emcee is Richard Brook.

A final tour for a modern master

In dance circles Desmond Richardson is famous. Very.

And residents of the area will have the opportunity to see him perform in hist last tour as a principal dancer on Saturday.

Richardson and  Complexions Contemporary Ballet will be on stage Bloomsburg University on Saturday, March 31, at 8 p.m. in Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall.

Tickets are $34.50 for adults and $19.50 for children.

Complexions debuted in 1994 under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson. With appearances on “So You Think You Can Dance” in both the United States and Australia, the company works to remove the boundaries of dance by combining many styles and periods of the art, echoing the constant movement of our world.

The Complexions show is part of the university's Celebrity Artist Series. The final show for the 2011-2012 season is a concert featuring jazz artists Grace Kelly and Phil Woods on Friday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. also in Mitrani Hall. General admission tickets are $34.50. The box office number is (570) 389-4409.

If I was into dance (check that box) and free that night (unfortunately no), I would be sure to see this. (I still regret no seeing B.B. King at Penn State when I was a student). — EGF.

Roundup: Events for the week

At Bloomsburg University

Resistance — A touring photo exhibition about a Germany resistance to the Nazi regime, White Rose, is on campus through March 30 at the Kehr Union, Multicultural Center. The exhibit chronicles the brief yet intense bloom of the White Rose (Weisse Rose) resistance movement against the Nazi regime. The White Rose was formed by a small group of university students in 1942-43 in Munich, Germany, actively fought against the oppression of civil liberties and the persecution of Jews, and demanded an end to the war. There will be a seminar on the White Rose on Tuesday, March 27, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Multicultural Center. Students from Luke Springman's German courses will give presentations.

Speaking of minds — Stephen Elliott, author of the The Adderall Diaries and director of the upcoming film Cherry will speak at Bloomsburg University on Wednesday, March 28. He will give a talk on "Writing for New Media" at 4 p.m., in Kehr Union, Multipurpose A, and read from The Adderall Diaries at 7 p.m. in McCormick 1303.

Elliott is the author of seven books including The Adderall Diaries which has been described as “genius” by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Vanity Fair and was the best book of the year in Time Out New York, a best of 2009 in Kirkus Reviews, and one of 50 notable books in the San Francisco Chronicle. He is also the director the film Cherry, starring James Franco, Heather Graham, Dev Patel, and Lili Taylor, to be released this spring. Elliott's visit is part of the Bloomsburg's Big Dog Reading Series.

More concerts:

• Husky Singers – Friday, March 30, at 7:30 p.m. Alan Baker conducting. Mitrani Hall, Haas Center for the Arts. 
• Piano Master Class – Saturday, March 31, at 9:30 am with Melissa Marse, piano, in Haas Center for the Arts, Room 166. Contact Mark Jelinek, 389-4289. 
• University-Community Orchestra Spring Concert – Sunday, April 1, at 2:30 p.m. featuring Melissa Marse, piano. Mitrani Hall, Haas Center for the Arts. 

At the Moose

• Big Band and Swing Dancing- Live music provided by the B.U. Jazz Ensemble and demonstrations on how to swing, cha cha, rhumba, and tango. Sponsored by the CVPA Thursday, March 29th, 7 p.m., FREE admission.
•  Endless Records Concert- Maraud and Mystery Fyre Friday, March 30th, 7 p.m., $6 BYOB
• Community Market and Open Bowling- Featuring the Lexicon of Sustainability poster show Saturday, March 31st, 10 a.m.- 2 p.m.
•  Algars Music Concert- Call It Sleep, Mudera, Off The Coast, & Another Vendetta Saturday, March 31st, 6:45 p.m., $8 BYOB

Recap of the BU Dance Ensemble

A photo recap of the recent BU Dance Ensemble show is on the sister blog: www.bloomufocus.com.

Put on your dancing shoes

Bloomsburg University's Dance Ensemble will hold its spring show Thursday and Friday, March 22 and 23, at 7 p.m. at Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall. Admission is free, but donations are accepted.


Dance styles performed with include: Hip Hop, Tap, Latin, Irish, African, Lyrical, Ballet, Jazz, Acrobatic and Musical Theatre. The show typically draws a fairly large crowd each night with lots of support for the dancers from friends in the audience. A fun event.

Perspectives on faith

A long while ago while in college, I read The Arabian Nights (which is not a children's book at all)*, which lead me to read about Sufism. Along the way I came across this aphorism, by Al-Ghazali (shortened considerably here).

If you love someone because it makes you happy, it shouldn't be said that you love that person. Instead you love being happy. 

There's a toughness and honesty to that quote (even in it's longer form, look about halfway down the page). It's inconvenient to boot. Sufism in general, a great essay by Al-Ghazali (which can be found here)**, and that quote have stayed with me over the years. My personal variation of the quote:

If you believe something to be true that happens to be convenient to your needs, it's probably not true. It's probably just convenient to your needs.

So I think that it's wonderful that the Bloomsburg University student chapter of the Global Awareness Society International (GASI) Student Chapter is hosting an interfaith panel religious tolerance on Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m. in Hartline Science Center, room 108.

The event will start with a screening  the documentary of "The Muslim Jesus," which talks about the Biblical and Quran's account of Jesus's life and teaching. The documentary does not provide any commentaries on the validity of the stories, but rather provokes reflection on the harmony behind these two narratives. After the movie a panel of religious scholars will speak. Anticipated speakers will include: Rev. James Edwards, Episcopal Priest; Rev. Rick Phillips, Lutheran Pastor; Rabbi Shaul Rappeport, Orthodox Jewish Rabbi; Chaplain Karl A. Polm-Faudre, Buddhist Bodhisattva; Sonia Ammar, devout Muslim and professor of Management at BU. The panelists will be there to answer questions.

** From memory and in a nutshell: In his essay, Al-Ghazali observes that most people he encounters happen to believe what they were taught to believe as they grew up. That seems to him to be an indicator of coincidence and not truth, so he sets out to learn about all religions.

* The non-children's versions of The Arabian Nights feature a series of stories within stories. Heroine Scheherazade tells stories that never quite finish to a disturbed king. The king delays her execution so he can hear the ending. The original core of stories (eg: Fisherman and the Genie, Three Ladies of Baghdad) are believed to originate from what is now Syria. This group of stories within stories, sometimes three or four levels deep, features shifting narrators that have the effect of forcing the reader/listener to consider alternate perspectives ... in a way that is similar to a Sufi parable or Zen koan. Some well-known stories (Sindbad for example) are later additions and not as structurally complicated.

— EGF