Tag: Arts

  • Nation & World

    Gazette writer Gewertz dies at 63

    Ken Gewertz, teacher, editor, and longtime staff writer for the Harvard University Gazette, died of cancer on Sept. 7 at his home in Watertown, Mass. He was 63. Gewertz gave 22 years of service to the University. As a reporter for the Gazette, he covered almost every aspect of life at Harvard, concentrating on the…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Are boundaries between ‘the arts’ irrelevant?

    What does Harpo Marx’s bicycle horn have to do with Richard Wagner’s epic opera “The Ring of the Nibelung”? Everything, if you ask Daniel Albright, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature. Albright, who studies the intellectual history of comparative arts, is currently at work on a book about the boundaries and overlaps between different artistic media.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    American Academy of Arts and Sciences inducts fellows

    Twenty Harvard University faculty members were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) at a ceremony at the academy on Oct. 11. The AAAS is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Davis explains how he makes his operas swing

    A former Harvard professor returned to campus last week to explain how he makes opera swing. Anthony Davis, a composer known for his diverse approach to music, incorporating diverse elements like jazz, improvisation, minimalism, and the Javanese gamelan (an Indonesian musical ensemble that includes gongs, xylophones, and bamboo flutes) into his work, recently discussed his…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Maestro Previn guides students with expertise, wit

    Music great Sir André Previn’s motto, listed on his official Web site, reads, “A day without music is a wasted day.” Several Harvard students and two classical master composers put their day with the maestro to good use on Monday (Oct. 6).

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    GSD students develop innovative plan for local school for deaf

    Stricken with scarlet fever as a young boy, David Wright grew up in a silent world. In his moving autobiography, “Deafness: A Personal Account,” the South African-born author tells that story.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Du Bois fellow makes ‘Little Fugitive,’ take two

    The wonder of Brooklyn’s iconic amusement park Coney Island as seen through the eyes of a young runaway is at the heart of the 1953 classic film “Little Fugitive” by the directing team of Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin. What lies at the heart of Joanna Lipper’s ’94 recent remake is much darker.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Translating the color code

    From snail shells to bird feathers to the changing skin of a chameleon, nature uses colors in ways that range from the electric blue of a poison dart frog’s warning to the invisible ultraviolet patterns of flowers that call bees to pollinate. The development, use, and perception of color is the subject of a new…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Picture Perfect

    We live in a world flooded with images. There has been an explosion of cell phone cameras, social networking sites, digital photography, blogs, and surveillance cameras, and we have a 24-hour news cycle that feeds on pictures.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    RiverSing rings in autumn

    Fall was grandly ushered in by local residents on Sunday (Sept. 21) with RiverSing, a unique arts festival along the Charles River in Boston and Cambridge.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Christo and Jeanne-Claude discuss art of the deal

    The dynamic husband and wife artistic team of Christo and Jeanne-Claude are likely better negotiators than many foreign leaders. The pair is best known for their massive art installations, often using nylon or woven fabric to highlight buildings or works of nature. Their most recent project (2005), “The Gates,” consisted of 7,503 16-foot-tall steel gates…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Radcliffe Fellow Markovits talks about ‘mad, bad, dangerous’ poet

    George Gordon, Lord Byron died in 1824 at the age of 36 — a short life, but long enough for Byron to become a personage so vivid and controversial that he was arguably the modern era’s first celebrity.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Grace in the Dark’

    In her one-woman shows, Tony- and Pulitzer-nominated writer and actress Anna Deavere Smith spins interviews into a theatrical performance. Weaving the words she has collected into an evocative tapestry, she brings to life characters ranging from a photographer in Iraq to a Harvard theologian to a Kentucky Derby jockey to a Rwanda genocide survivor.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Visual history of Fine Arts Library covers decades

    In preparation for the Fine Arts Library’s relocation in 2009 during the renovation of the Fogg Art Museum, the library presents “‘An Invaluable Partner …’: Eighty Years of the Fine Arts Library.”

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Du Bois Institute announces new fellows

    Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, has announced the appointment of 18 new institute fellows for the 2008-09 academic year.

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    J.J. Audubon the beginner featured in new book

    Although the name John James Audubon is synonymous with beautifully detailed, scientifically accurate drawings of birds, many of his early drawings were destroyed by Audubon himself, but an intriguing selection remains in the collections of Harvard’s Houghton Library and the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ).

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Scholar, curator, connoisseur Welch dies at 80

    Stuart Cary Welch Jr., curator emeritus of Islamic and later Indian art at the Harvard Art Museum and former special consultant in charge, Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, died Aug. 13 while traveling in Hokkaido, Japan. He was 80 and a resident of New Hampshire.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sackler hosts ‘Re-View’ exhibition

    In June, with an ambitious renovation in mind, Harvard closed the doors of 32 Quincy St., a stately fixture on campus since 1927. But by 2013, the University’s three art museums — now collectively known as the Harvard Art Museum — will take up residence there in one major facility.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HRC to hold auditions

    In preparation for its 2008-09 repertoire (including performances of Mozart’s “Requiem” and Poulenc’s “Gloria”), the Harvard Radcliffe Chorus (HRC) will be holding auditions for University students on the following days and times: Sept. 11 from noon to 3 p.m.; Sept. 12 and Sept. 14 from 1 to 4 p.m.; and Sept. 15 from 1 to…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Harvard News Office writer Ken Gewertz dies at 63

    Longtime writer for the Harvard News Office Ken Gewertz died on Sept. 7 at his home in Watertown, Mass. He was 63.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Radcliffe appoints Sharyn Bahn associate dean for advancement

    Sharyn Bahn was appointed the associate dean for advancement at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, effective Aug. 4.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Gates documentary series receives $12M in funding

    The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) recently announced funding in the amount of $12 million for three, new public television documentary series in which Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. will explore the meaning of race, culture, and identity in America. Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lori Gross named associate provost for arts and culture

    Lori E. Gross, director of arts initiatives and adviser to the associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been named associate provost for arts and culture at Harvard University, Provost Steven E. Hyman announced today.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard’s Department of Music announces fellows and award winners

    Harvard’s Department of Music recently announced a host of fellowship and award recipients. The Oscar S. Schafer Award is given to graduate students “who have demonstrated unusual ability and enthusiasm in their teaching of introductory courses, which are designed to lead students to a growing and lifelong love of music.”

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Peabody awards Gardner Fellowship to Singh

    The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has announced that Dayanita Singh of New Delhi, India, has been awarded the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Bhabha, matchmaker of disciplines

    Homi K. Bhabha is a marriage counselor of sorts — a literary scholar with a wide range of intellectual appetites whose role is to bring together a diversity of scholars.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Changing lives with music and science

    When Bong-Ihn Koh’s mother brought home a cello piece by mistake, the young Koh got his hands on it and was hooked.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Student work graces Mass Hall

    Bringing home (literally) Harvard’s newly invigorated commitment to the arts, President Drew Faust has opened up Massachusetts Hall to an exhibition of selected artwork by talented undergraduates.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Radcliffe Fellows include scholars, artists to work on range of projects

    The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has announced the names of 34 women and 18 men selected to be Radcliffe Fellows during the 2008–09 academic year. These 52 fellows include 16 humanists, 14 scientists, 12 creative artists, and 10 social scientists.

    13 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Craig Hugh Smyth

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 6, 2008, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Craig Hugh Smyth, Director of Villa I Tatti Professor of Fine Arts, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Smyth was a promoter of the study and practice of art conservation.

    5 minutes