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Welcome to "In the Spotlight," Howard Community College's show highlighting the Horowitz Visual
and Performing Arts Center. On this episode we'll introduce you to Jazz Musician Tom Benjamin;
you'll meet Rep Stage's new Co-Producing Artistic Directors and get a peek at the first show
of Rep Stage's 21st season. You'll also find out about Howard County's ARTsites program
and learn more about HCC's internet radio station.
HCC's Music Department continues their Guest Artist series this year. Angela Phillips has
more. The series features prominent guest musicians
who perform concerts and also work one-on-one with HCC music students. Dr. Wei-Der Huang
coordinates the series. We started the Guest Artist two years ago.
Actually before that we uh h-have a-a project for the uh uh invite the uh.. Anne Koscielny
to play the 32 piano sonatas here for whole year in c- in a concert and after that we
think that it be great to start a Guest Artist Series.
The opening artist this season, Tom Benjamin, is the first composer invited to take part
in the series. We selected Tom Benjamin uh because in the
past two years we invite the uh.. uh.. maso soprano pianist and jazz musicians and this
the first time we think its good to bring a composer to let our students to have the
chance to look at this different field
in music.
HCC's music department is dedicated to providing educational opportun ities for students in
and out of the.
I think this give them very good chance to really know the uh very well known performer;
how they present- how they perform on-stage and get the chance to talk to those musicians
after the concert or uh hear them to give the lesson during the uh Master Class and
know thats how they learn the music and put.. kind of make themselves kind of well-rounded
to become a great musician.
Benjamin's own interest in music began at an early age.
Earliest that I could remember is that I discovered an old saxophone in our attic, in our farmer
house in Vermont when I was oh 5 or 6 and brought it downstairs and asked my dad...
what is this. And he said it's the saxophone he played in the 1920's uh saxophone and banjo.
And so I thought it would be fun to play and started playing it then and there.
After a few years of clarinet and saxophone lessons, Benjamin found himself playing in
local dance and jazz bands in his small hometown in Vermont. He soon began arranging pieces
for the bands, which naturally led to composition.
I started doing some writing on my own by the time I was 11 or 12. It just turned out
that in our little Vermont town lived a person who I think is the greatest of all American
composers; Carl Ruggles. ...Uh and so Carl asked me if I would come over and show him
the pieces that I had written and I was very glad to and he was elaborately polite.. I'm
sure he was much more polite then he needed to be about these fledgling efforts. But that
was encouraging and got me going on the composing racket.
Benjamin seamlessly entered the world of music education after grad school, taking a position
at the University of Houston. In 1987, he was recruited by the Peabody Institute. He
recently retired from his long-time position, but remains a teacher for life.
There's something about teaching that's very engaging for me.. I love doing it. Uh I would
miss it if I weren't teaching at all.. I've always arranged to do some teaching. It's..
It keeps the mind alive uh every time I go into a classroom or teach a lesson uh I assume
I'm going to learn something. If I'm not learning something then I'm doing something wrong um
so I make sure that whatever happens.. either I'm learning something about an individual
student or something about music. Benjamin has enjoyed working with HCC students
this season. HCC students uh are on the whole kind of new
to the whole game and they're exploring and seeing what they have in themselves to bring
to the table.. the musical table. Um and I just think they're-they're a lot of fun to
work with.. because they don't have an overlay of sophistication uh they bring uh a certain
directness and excitement uh to the enterprise which I find really engaging and fun; I really
like working with them.
Guest artists this season include cellist Amit Peled, vocal and piano duo Joan Morris
and William Bolcom and returning pianist, Anne Koscielny. For more information on the
Guest Artist series, visit www.howardcc.edu/concerts.
For in the Spotlight, I'm Angela Phillips.
Rep Stage, the professional Equity theatre in residence here at HCC, is celebrating its
21st season. Taking over the artistic helm are Co-Producing Artistic Directors, Suzanne
Beal and Joseph Ritsch. This is a position that is, for the first
time, being shared by two people my partner Joseph Ritsch and I um are the co-producing
artistic directors and the-the responsibility of the artistic director of a theatre is really
to ah champion the theatre to select the season to do, you know to do some directing ah to
help the theatre move forward and reach out to the community um and to make sure that
the artistic quality of the work is the very, very best ah quality and that the work that
we do and that we produce engages and um engages the audience and transforms them in some kind
of way. An artistic director's I think main responsibility
is the vision for the theatre and the programming so that is something that Suzanne and I will
create together ah and that's always a delicate balance because you have to consider your
own personal vision and aesthetic as a theatre artist matched with the commercial end and
selling tickets and, and keeping your audience happy.
Beal comes to Rep Stage with a unique blend of experience in theatre and higher education
administration and instruction. An accomplished director and playwright, she is currently
the board chair of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre in Frederick, where she is also an associate
artist and resident director. I've got a very strong background in theatre
in fact I directed here years ago but my career has been for the most part in community college
um education. I've been a faculty member, an administrator and I think the combination
of those two make me ideal for this theatre, maybe not for a different kind of theatre
but, but Rep Stage is a professional theatre that's a part of a college and so the fact
that I have a background in academic administration I think makes me a good leader for-for this
organization. Ritsch is also a theatre educator and artistic
administrator. A director, performer, playwright, and a choreographer, he is the co-founder
of Iron Crow Theatre Company in Baltimore, where he also served as associate artistic
director. He believes that being a team player makes him a good fit for the position.
I think people really like being in the room with me um I'm really, really collaborative
um I think I really balance ah a strong opinion about my own vision about things but stay
really open to how that can be enhanced by the people that are in the room with me um
so I think that's my biggest strength in regards to that.
Both Beal and Ritsch are inspired by the unique experience of theatrical productions.
I've talked in the past about theatre creating a sacred communal space... we, we have very
few places where people congregate and experience something together and that's something that
theatre does it...unlike television or the movies...we have to experience theatre together
and I find that very inspiring and very moving and ah and very celebatory a lot of times.
I love storytelling ah I think it's really important and I think live theatre um you
tell stories in a way that no other medium can...um television, film...um I also love
the fact that you can have a room full of 150 to 1500-400 ...strangers coming together
and-and although their experience is very individualized they go on the same journey
together and there's something very empowering about that.
Since outgoing Artistic Director Michael Stebbins already selected shows for the 2013-2014 season
the duo's first priority is to assess and define the organization's mission.
We are really spending this fall doing some strategic planning with the Rep Stage community.
The people on our campus who are a part of Rep Stage either working directly for Rep
Stage or are connected visabe their-their role at the college thinking about the, the
mission, the vision and the core values of this theatre um you know Rep Stage has a mission
but we're going into our third decade and nows a wonderful opportunity for us with two
new leaders to stop and think about who are we, what do we want to be, how do we want
to focus our, our energies, what kinds of things do we want to produce um certainly
we want to reach out to the college community to make sure that we are well connected to
the curriculum and to the students. We want to reach out to the community of Columbia...I
mean I think I can say you know without question that one of the goals of Rep Stage is to be
absolutely the first choice for professional theatre for the residents of Howard County...
Beal and Ritsch are excited about working together to plan Rep Stage's future.
Well Joseph and I are really, really very different people...we've got different backgrounds,
different sensibilites ah different professional experiences but it is very exciting to bring
those together..what... Something that's real interesting is that even though we are very
different ah we see ah things very similarly. We found ourselves to be very compata- compatible
to you know we agree on some of the shows that we like um we've agreed on the way we
want to conduct our business here um and I think that's been really wonderful...
I think it's a good partnership because of our very individual backgrounds and the unique
experience that Rep Stage is being a professional theatre that's housed at a community college
and its connection with the college um so both Suzanne and I backgrounds um in those
areas as well as our artistic areas kind of coming-coming together make it a really great
partnership. For more information about Rep Stage or its
Co-Producing Artistic Directors check out their website at www.repstage.org.
Rep Stage's newest season opened with the play, "A Young Lady of Property" by Pulitzer
Prize Winner Horton Foote. Set in a Texas town in 1925 the play stars Rep Stage veteran
Christine Demuth in the title role of a young girl who loses her mother at an early age,
her greatest wish is to live in the house her mother left her.
I just love this character, she's-she's incredibly um matter of fact and but she's also a great
dreamer and um she lives with her aunt, her mother died when she was quite young and she's
kind of.. she's kind of not able to move forward in her life because she's still so attached
and kind of living in the past and her whole identity is build over the fact that she as
a 15 year old girl owns this property Wilma and her best friend, Arabella, played
by Kathryn Zoerb, dream of moving to Hollywood to become movie stars.
I think mostly what the journey is with her is she has these dreams of the future, big
dreams.. .she's constantly changing her mind about what she's going to do with her future.
When it becomes apparent that her dream is not likely to come true she struggles with
whether to stay in town or pack her suitcase and go. Wilma's Aunt Gertrude, played by Yvonne
Erikson, is a great support to her. Gurt's big investment in Wilma, uh other than
being her moral compass, is making sure that her future is insured and in this case it
means inheriting the family property.
Another important figure in Wilma's life is Minna, the housekeeper, played by former HCC
student Erica Lauren McLaughlin.
She pretty much gets two moms in Mina and her aunt Gertrude.. and you know with the
two of us and we've kind of formed this really kind of pieced together family um which is
really really lovely. And I love this character because it is something that you see all the
time like you know you always kind of have those housekeepers and things like that but
I love to be able to have uh a different version of that like somebody who's really a part
of this family in a really unique way.
"A Young Lady of Property" was directed by Former Rep Stage Producing Artistic Director
Michael Stebbins.
Working with this group has been really a joy uh a lot of that comes from Michael Stebbins
I think as any production is sort of measured by uh your leader um however I think uh because
we have people, a mix of people who have been on the stage here before and who haven't so
there's a new excitement about being here.
This ensemble is awesome, it-we they were so great um I feel like we all have a really
good chemistry together. Which is really, it doesn't always happen so it was really
a great thing um I guess that all comes um from Yvonne and Stebbins picking the right
people to work with each other, but I feel like we have a true love for each other and
a true joy and spontaneity on stage.
Erickson, who is also a Rep Stage staff member, feels "A Young Lady of Property" is relevant
for audiences.
It fits in to the Horowitz Center's theme of time and memory and uh Rep Stage's own
themes of time and memory as all of our shows touch on that this season. The memories that
Horton Foote uh elicits from I think the audience uh with this play are memories of home, family
um conflict.. but also resolution and how we go on with our lives.
I hope audiences will take away the sense of um joy and living in the moment and um
just appreciating the people that they're with now um and and being able to, as Wilma,
keep the memories of those they loved alive.. but not to let it prevent them from living
a full life and um not to let it scare them and just you know um just going for the future
and realizing their dreams, and realizing that there are new wonderful memories to be
made.
For more information on Rep Stages' 21st Season check out their website at www.repstage.org.
If you've visited the Horowitz Center recently, you've probably noticed intriguing works of
art at the North and South entrances. Grace Anastasiadis has more on the story.
Two sculptures, The Cycle by Hannah Jubran and Autumn Amber by Glenn Zweygardt, have
been brought to campus through a Howard County Arts Council program called ARTsites. Coleen
West, Executive Director of the Arts Council, is passionate about the program, now in its
second year. Public art enhances and enlivens community
uh community spaces and so a public art program like ARTSites o-offers the public an opportunity
to see art where they might not see yet. As part of the annual ARTsites initiative,
12 sites around Howard County are selected to receive a sculptural piece. Artists from
across the country are invited to submit works for selection.
The sites that are invited to participate uh get to pick their own artist. So they ha-
are invested in the process, they get very excited about the work that they-they- they're
selecting.
Response from the community has been encouraging to West and her team.
One of the stories uh that I've heard from a group of cyclist is you know, they cycle
around Columbia and they have been trying to get to each of the sculptures as a cycling
group.
HCC's ARTsites piece for 2012-2013 was The Cycle, located on the campus quad at the North
entrance to the Horowitz Center. The featured piece for 2013-2014 is Autumn Amber, located
in the Moxley Garden at the South Entrance to the Horowitz Center.
Glenn Swygardt was one of the artists who came to us through our promotional efforts.
His work was uh absolutely amazing, the stone work that he does is just so exquisite, his
craftsmanship is just e-excellent. Zweygardt was attracted to ARTsites for a
many reasons. I think I heard first through word of mouth
that uh I needed to look into the Howard County Arts Council because they were offering an
excellent fee for the rental or the exposure of your sculpture. And the other interesting
detail is that I attended graduate school at Maryland Institute, and I did a graduate
seminar on cities and urban development and ran across Columbia which was being developed
at the time. And it is laid out, it was planned to be an ideal community... and it's so fun
for me to come back and now be participating in the ideal community....
As a long-time faculty member of New York State College, Zweygardt values higher education
and is delighted to have Autumn Amber placed on a college campus.
I just think it really fits beautifully in this setting, and uh I think the two of-of
them are talking very much to each other. And that's really what I like about outdoor
sculpture... is that it can enliven its environment, it can be this kind of focal point.
West hopes the program continues in the future. The ARTSites program is a great first step
because it allows the Arts Council and its partners to experiment and test the idea of
public art. So this gives us an idea of what the community likes and enjoys and what they
would like to see more of without the financial risk involved um in a- a more formal program,
but we're going to take what we've learned from this process, continue to build on it,
and build towards a formal uh public art program and um so that we can continue to you know,
delight and engage the community for years to come.
HCC has purchased The Cycle, and the college is still accepting contributions towards the
piece. If you would like to play a role in supporting public art on campus, please contact
the HCC Educational Foundation at www.howardcc.edu/donors.
For information about the Arts Council's ARTsites program and sculpture locations, visit hocoarts.org.
Autumn Amber can be viewed at HCC through April 2014.
I'm Grace Anastasdias for In the Spotlight. When you tune into HCC's internet radio station,
The Dragon, you won't be able to miss the station's new sound or the familiar voice
of its new program director. I have uh 30 years of experience in commercial
radio.. the last 18 years I was host at Mix 1065 in Baltimore as JoJo Girard um.. at two
I-I was the leader of two shows, JoJo and Kenny for 12 years and JoJo and Reagan for
the last 6. And uh I did morning radio on four different markets in the United States
and one in Mexico. As program director, Sheltraw's first order
of business was to focus the station's playlist.
They were playing in an adult alternative format but there was no structure to it. Um
not that the music was bad it just wasn't structured. So what I did was I divided it
up into categories; current and oldies and the-that will rotate at a fairly even rate
so the biggest change I did was categorize the music.. and make it more current, playing
a lot more modern hits.
Although his background is in music radio, Sheltraw has continued some of the station's
talk programming.
There were two shows on the air that were different from music format... there was A
Look Ahead, which was a look at um the various events going on around campus that ran daily
and then um one of the uh employees here at HCC did a jazz/talk program which was half
music half talk. So what I did is I retained those two shows and then there was also a
sports talk show uh pertaining specifically to Howard Community College sports. And I
thought that was well done and and it was self sufficient they took care of it themselves
so that was retained.
In redeveloping HCC Radio, one of Sheltraw's biggest goals is to increase student involvement.
Working with him to achieve this is Assistant Radio Program Director and HCC alum, Cris
Oviedo. As a graduate of HCC's Television and Radio Program, Oviedo knows the importance
of hands on experience for the students.
I started as a student then I got a job here and that has helped me gain confidence you
know.. and-and move forward.. forward with my career so.. I invited students to do the
same thing. I invite them to take advantage if they have.. that we have this wonderful
person here working with us now you know.. Howard brings a lot of experience... he teaches
them you know he lets them go in and do their thing and then they bring something out to
him and he will tell them. He's like you know this works and this we can work on making
it better so that it actually can air. So I've seen a few students come in with projects
and after a few weeks they've been on the air. That's really exciting, that's really
great for students to have that opportunity to just be on air and have that on your resume,
I think it's great.
Oviedo is also responsible for adding Spanish language programming to the station.
Cris is from Ecuador originally and um she when I got here said I would like to do a
Latin show and I said- go for it. Um she's really passionate about that music, I think
it's an emerging uh format in-in professional radio. I mean every city now has uh spanish
language and latin music focused show or station so I thought that was a good idea.. and I
think also too it gives voice to that side of the HCC community...
Taking into account HCC's diverse student population Sheltraw and Oviedo developed programming
that enables any HCC student to get involved with the station.
You have students of all ages, of all backgrounds, and they also are working.. a lot of them
are part time or putting themselves through school that way. So their time uh availability
is limited and so what me and Cris did is that we came up with uh ways they can be involved
for as little as 10 minutes a week.. and so we put together a little newscast which highlights
things going on around campus that day that they can come in and record after class and
it'll only take up five minutes of their time. Sheltraw has enjoyed working with the students.
I think the experience for me, I didn't know what to expect coming in, and I think it's
been more rewarding then I thought.
There's Adam who came in here with a nugget of an idea and then worked at it and kept
developing it and-and seeing that development in him was-was rewarding.
The future of HCC Radio looks bright under Sheltraw's direction.
I'd like to take uh to get people out on the field and do more field recording... um go
to events and interview people out on location.. the more students involved the better... and-and
also I think there's a ... there's a gap, there's an idea that I have which is kind
of large scale is that Howard County doesn't have really a media voice. It's kind of stuck
between Washington and-and Baltimore or now.. if we could start putting together shows for
the community at large that would be kind of good too.
You can listen to HCC Radio, The Dragon, by visiting www.howardcc.edu/Visitors/hccRadio
or by downloading the Live365 app to your smartphone. If you'd like to find out more
about the station, contact Howard Sheltraw at HSheltraw@howardcc.edu or call 443-518-3029
Janelle Standup #7- Thanks for joining us. If you'd like to learn more about the Horowitz
Visual and Performing Arts Center you can go to www.howardcc.edu/horowitzcenter. I'm
Janelle Broderick for In the Spotlight, see you next time.