Newberry Seminars Chicago Culture

SUMMER 2015 Newberry Seminars Chicago Culture Best Addresses: Notable Residential Streets in Chicago Tuesdays, 6:15 – 7:45 pm June 9 – August 4 (class will not meet July 7; we will meet from 6:15 – 8:15 pm on June 16) Through a series of walking tours, we will explore some of Chicago’s best addresses—streets known for significant domestic architecture, influential residents, or notable historical events. Examples will be drawn from a variety of neighborhoods, including Prairie Avenue, the Gold Coast, Streeterville, Lake Shore East, Lakeview, and Hyde Park. We will pay special attention to how residential architecture and urban design shape local identities as well as the way historic landmarks promote tourism, commerce, and design innovation. Only the Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 1929. From first session will meet at the Newberry. Eight The Stanolind Record, a Standard Oil publication. sessions, $200. Newberry Midwest MS Barrett-Sandburg: Box 3, Folder 38 Diane Dillon holds a PhD in art history from Yale University and has been a regular seminar instructor post-meeting field trips to contemporary Chicago at the Newberry since 2003. establishments that illustrate the evening’s conversation. Six sessions, $180. Chicago Playwrights and Their Plays Bill Savage is associate professor of instruction at Tuesdays, 6 – 7:30 pm Northwestern University and has taught Newberry June 9 – July 28 Seminars since 1992. He has also worked in area bars This seminar offers the unique opportunity to since 1980. meet Chicago-based playwrights, engage in an in-depth dialogue about their work, and gain an intimate glimpse into their creative process. Each week we will read and discuss one work from Arts, Music, and Language our visiting playwright, ranging from established plays that have had a number of productions, to Andiamo in Italia: An Italophile’s Travel Course scripts still in the developmental process. Cheryl Tuesdays, 5:45 – 7:45 pm Coons, Shayne Kennedy, Nicholas Patrica, June 9 – August 4 Roger Rueff, Kelli Strickland, and other local playwrights will participate. Eight sessions, $200. Whatever the passione that has made you an italophile—fine art, architecture, music, film, Todd Bauer holds an MA in liberal studies from fashion, gastronomy, or shopping—this seminar Northwestern University. He is a playwright and is intended for you. Our classroom role-play of director whose work has been performed in Chicago real-life travel situations and presentation of high- and New York. frequency language patterns will prepare you for a more enjoyable and authentic exploration The City That Drinks: Chicago Saloon History, of Italian language and culture. Participants Culture, and Literature should have prior experience traveling in Italy or Wednesdays, 6 – 7:30 pm studying the language. Nine sessions, $250. June 17 – July 22 Susan Pezzino, a lifelong italophile and former United Bars, taverns, and saloons have long been States Fulbright Scholar, holds an MA in applied central to Chicago culture. From the city’s first linguistics and works as a professional language teacher election—held in the Sauganash Tavern—through and multimedia curriculum designer in Chicago. the opulent saloons of the Gilded Age and the speakeasies of the Prohibition era, to generations Degenerate Music in the Nazi Era of ethnically-identified bars, such venues have Wednesdays, 2 – 4 pm provided a “third place” where people create June 10 – July 29 community and negotiate identity. We will discuss how writers and filmmakers have represented In the twentieth century, music audiences Chicago not just as “the city that works,” but also split into the traditional and the avant-garde. as “the city that drinks.” The class will include Composers who were prominent in one world Registration opens April 21. The early registration deadline is May 30. Register online at www.newberry.org/adult-education-seminars or call (312) 255-3700. were usually unacceptable in the other. Today the art form. We will study the development of this divide continues, with many concert early jazz in New Orleans, the swing era, bebop, audiences listening only reluctantly to music fusion, and more. No previous familiarity with of the past hundred years. This seminar is an the idiom is necessary. Eight sessions, $230. opportunity to explore key figures of post- Karl E. H. Seigfried has appeared on 25 recordings Romantic German and Austrian music, most of as bassist and guitarist, including on award-winning whom were labeled “degenerate” (entartet) by the jazz albums of his own compositions. He has played German government during the Nazi period. We with Fred Anderson, Bobby McFerrin, John Medeski, will examine the structure and beauty of works Roscoe Mitchell, and many other jazz greats. by Alban Berg, Hindemith, Erich Korngold, Hans Krasa, Ernst Krenek, Schoenberg, and Viktor Ullman. Eight sessions, $230. The Rise and Demise of the Piano Concerto Thursdays, 2 – 4 pm John Gibbons, a music teacher and lecturer, holds June 18 – August 6 a PhD in music composition from the University of Chicago and is a long-time instructor at the University For 150 years the piano concerto was a prominent of Chicago Graham School. genre. Masterworks by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and others were highlights of the concert stage. But in the twentieth century interest began The Golden Age: Dutch Art in the Age to fade, and in the past 50 years not a single new of Rembrandt concerto has gained a place in the canon. We will Wednesdays, 5:45 – 7:45 pm consider how the concerto developed and changed, June 10 – July 22 and why it is disappearing. Can it be revived? Has (class will not meet July 15) another genre replaced it? Eight sessions, $230. The Dutch Golden Age of the seventeenth Guy A. Marco has taught in 11 universities, published century witnessed a flourishing of the visual arts 50 books, and written more than 100 articles and in a prosperous and proudly independent nation. reviews. He holds a PhD from the University of No longer thought of as simple “realism,” Dutch Chicago and has led Newberry Seminars since 1996. art is now appreciated for its complexity and sophistication. This seminar will explore Dutch artists’ creativity and virtuosity in what were A Romance Within: Recapturing the Music thought of as lesser genres in the wider world of of the Nineteenth Century art—landscape, still life, and scenes of everyday Thursdays, 5:45 – 7:45 pm life—culminating in an examination of the June 18 – August 6 towering genius of Rembrandt. Six sessions, $200. This seminar will explore the intense passion Jeffrey Nigro is an art historian and lecturer who has with which nineteenth-century composers been affiliated with the Art Institute of Chicago for over expressed their ideas about life’s meaning through 25 years. music. Myths, folklore, sacred texts, and great literature will guide us as we sample the music of Berlioz, Brahms, Chopin, Stephen Foster, Franck, Leonard Bernstein: His Life, Music, Contribution, Grieg, Liszt, Mahler, Mussorgsky, Schubert, and Legacy and Wagner, among others. Each class will Tuesdays, 2 – 4 pm focus on the Romantic treatment of one musical June 16 – August 4 genre, including Lied, piano music, chamber Leonard Bernstein was one of the greatest music, symphony, concerto, and culminating in musicians of the twentieth century. We will Romantic opera. Eight sessions, $230. explore his career as a conductor and composer, Stephen Kleiman holds an MM in music composition as well as his life as a vibrant, controversial man from the University of Michigan and was an orchestra of his time. This seminar not only will examine conductor in Europe and music director of the National Bernstein’s symphonies, choral works, concertos, Chamber Orchestra in Washington, DC. ballets, chamber music and, yes, even West Side Story, but will also delve into his impact as an interpreter of classical music. Bernstein’s gifts Vincent van Gogh: Artist and Legend as a teacher will be discussed, using as support Saturdays, 10 am – noon his “Young People’s Concerts” and lectures as June 20 – August 1 (class will not meet July 4) Harvard University’s 1973 Charles Eliot Norton The 125th anniversary of Vincent van Gogh’s Professor of Poetry. Eight sessions, $230. death offers a fresh opportunity to reconsider Stephen Kleiman holds an MM in music composition the artist in light of recent research, including a from the University of Michigan and was an orchestra comprehensive online edition of his letters and a conductor in Europe and music director of the National monumental biography. What are the relationships Chamber Orchestra in Washington, DC. between van Gogh’s words, life, and work, and how can we excavate the art from the myth? This course will address this complex web through Jazz: A Listener’s Guide consideration and discussion of the paintings, Wednesdays, 5:45 – 7:45 pm correspondence, and interpretations of the artist. June 17 – August 5 For the first class, participants should read pages Gain a deeper understanding of America’s ix-xxxi and 75-93 in The Letters of Vincent van original music from a listener’s perspective. Learn Gogh, Penguin edition. Six sessions, $200. about the great musicians of the jazz tradition, Margaret Farr is an art historian who worked at the explore the music’s fascinating social history, Art Institute of Chicago for 17 years and has taught at and discover Chicago’s unique contributions to St. Xavier University and Columbia College. Philosophy and Religion History and Social Science The Nature of Forgiveness in Biblical Texts Folly and Fury: The Diplomacy of the Mexican Wednesdays, 2 – 4 pm Revolution, 1910–1917 June 10 – July 22 Saturdays, 10 am – 2 pm June 6 – June 13 What is forgiveness? This seminar explores and compares the varieties of forgiveness found in The Mexican Revolution was an epic event in biblical stories.

Load more