Don't Miss

Theodore Morrison, who is retiring from the School of Music after 18 years on the faculty, will conduct Johannes Brahms' choral masterpiece "A German Requiem" at 8 p.m. Feb. 15 in Hill Auditorium.

Music Professor Theodore Morrison will close his U-M career the way it began—with Brahms's 'A German Requiem.' (Photo courtesy School of Music)

Morrison conducted the requiem in 1987 at Hill with the University Symphony Orchestra (USO) and a large choir during his first semester on the faculty.

The Ann Arbor News said at the time, "This was the first full-length performance of Morrison with the USO since he joined the faculty of the School of Music, and if this is the quality of music making we can expect from Morrison and his troops in the future, their future is assured."

The requiem is considered one of the more uplifting of such endeavors, a work of mourning but also of consolation for the living. One music historian wrote, the work "follows a continually brightening course, shifting from the minor mode to the major, or from flatter, darker keys to sharper, brighter ones." The same writer called the work "one of the unmistakable monuments of western music."

The USO, University Choir, University Chamber Choir, Orpheus Singers and two soloists—School of Music faculty Carmen Pelton, soprano, and Daniel Washington, baritone—will make up the performing ensemble.

Morrison has served as both director of choirs and director of graduate studies in conducting during his years on the faculty. He has taught the Brahms Requiem each year to his conducting students, in part because of his love for the work and for the many challenges it presents to a conductor.

Upon his retirement, Morrison's focus will shift more to composition, work he has been engaged in since 1980.

The concert is free and open to the public.
—Joanne Nesbit, News Service

An evening of Japanese dance Feb. 22

The Department of Dance and Center for World Performance Studies will present "An Evening of Traditional and Contemporary Japanese Dance" by artist Heidi Durning at 8 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Betty Pease Studio Theater.

The program will include traditional Japanese and contemporary dances.

Japanese dance artist and U-M alumna Heidi Durning will perform at 8 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Betty Pease Studio Theater. (Photo by Mayumi Tonomura)

Based in Kyoto, Japan, Durning choreographs in an original style fusing traditional Japanese dance (Nihon Buyo) and contemporary dance. She received her professional stage name of Fujima Kanso o from the Fujima School of Traditional Japanese Dance.

Durning received her master of fine arts degree in dance from U-M in the 1980s and returned to Kyoto, where she established an active career as a dancer and choreographer.

Durning's weeklong residency in the Dance Department includes master classes and lectures, and is supported by funding from the Center for World Performance Studies and Department of Dance.

Tickets are $5 and will be available one hour before the show. Seating is very limited. For more information, call (734) 763-5460.

Early registration deadline near for depression conference

Last year, more than 700 people attended the "Depression on College Campuses: Connections to Stress, Sleep and Alcohol" conference, sponsored by the Depression Center and Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies.

To build on the momentum and success of that conference, the Depression Center and Rackham Graduate School will host the third annual "Depression on College Campuses" conference March 22-23 at Rackham.

This year, the conference will explore the effects of stigma on the onset and progression of depression in college students. Presentations, panel discussions and workshops will focus on this theme, as well as other factors that may impact depression in young adults.

The early registration deadline is March 1. For more information or to register, visit http://www.med.umich.edu/depression/college_2005.htm.

Renowned Polish poet Zagajewski to lecture

The annual Copernicus Lecture, featuring Polish poet Adam Zagajewski, winner of the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, will be at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Rackham Amphitheatre.

The reading is entitled, "Without End: A Poetry Reading by Adam Zagajewski."

In 1985, Nobel prize-winning author Czeslaw Milosz wrote of Zagajewski and his "joy to see a major poet emerging from a hardly differentiated mass of contemporaries," saying he took "the lead in the poetry of my language, a living proof that Polish literature is energy incessantly renewed against all probabilities."

Zagajewski (Photo courtesy Center For Russian And East European Studies)

Zagajewski continues in the traditions of Polish postwar poetry established by Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert, and Wislawa Szymborska, whose works are characterized by intellectuality, historical awareness, a strong ethical stance and formal sophistication.

In his poetry, Zagajewski combines tradition with innovation, and participation in a poetic community with staunch individualism. Zagajewski's poetry is made of disparate elements: reality and dreams, keen observation and imagination, artistry and spirituality, erudition and spontaneity of emotions, and culture and nature.

The event is free and open to the public.

The lecture is sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies, Institute for the Humanities, the MFA Program in Creative Writing, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

For more information, contact Marysia Ostafin at (734) 647-2237 or mostafin@umich.edu.