It will be a weekend of celebration that will do Mount Holyoke founder Mary Lyon proud. Since Lyon included vocal music, speech, and drawing in her original seminary curriculum, it seems fitting that the festival that celebrates both her and the November 8 anniversary of the college she worked so hard to establish, has an arts focus. This year, Founder's Day weekend festival events range from author Gish Jen's lecture and booksigning to a performance by Irakere, a twelve-piece Latin music ensemble that blends the sounds of Cuba with contemporary musical styles. Concerts by Mount Holyoke's own--the glee club, chamber singers, concert choir, Cantamus, and jazz ensemble--along with performances by the Girls Choir of Harlem and the Yale Slavic Chorus are also highlights of the festivities.
Author Gish Jen will kick off both the Founder's Day weekend festival
and the Mary Lyon Lecture Series for the 1999 - 2000 academic year,
when she reads from her writings Friday, November 5, at 4
pm.
Gish Jen, whose work has been widely acclaimed for its humor and insight, will kick off both the Founder's Day weekend festival and the Mary Lyon Lecture Series for the 1999 - 2000 academic year when she reads from her writings Friday, November 5, at 4 pm in Mary Woolley Hall's New York Room. A reception will follow.
Jen's first book Typical American was a New York Times notable book of the year and a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award. It inspired Richard Eder of the Los Angeles Times to say, "Jen has done much more than tell an immigrant story. She has done it more, and in some ways better, than it has ever been done before." Jackie Jones of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Gish Jen has secured her place in American literature with this touching tale."
Her second novel, Mona in the Promised Land, was also a New York Times notable book. The Los Angeles Times named it one of the ten best books of 1996, and Amy Tan called it "hilariously funny and seriously important." Her latest book, Who's Irish, continues to receive rave reviews. One critic writes, "one of the greatest charms of Gish Jen's fiction is her position as a bemused chronicler--of the way things are in this crazy mishmash of an America, of the power and the limitations of family roots, and of the hugely comic potential in human nature."
Gish Jen has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, the New Republic, and the New York Times. Her short fiction has appeared in the Best American Short Stories (1988 and 1995), as well as in a host of textbooks and anthologies, including The Heath Anthology of American Literature and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. A story by Jen was one of the twenty recently chosen by John Updike for Best American Short Stories of the Century.
Gish Jen has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. She received her undergraduate degree in English from Harvard University in 1977 and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1983.
Three MHC musical groups will continue the Founder's Day weekend celebration with a concert Friday at 8 pm in Blanchard Campus Center. An informal evening, the concert will feature the Mount Holyoke Jazz Ensemble, Concert Choir, and Cantamus. Among the songs being performed by Cantamus is "I'll be Seeing You," while the jazz ensemble's program will include tunes such as the Count Basie Orchestra's "Lil' Darlin' " and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Desafinado." Led by MHC music instructor Mark Gionfriddo, the jazz ensemble will provide a big-band sound, when fourteen performers, primarily instrumentalists, take to the stage. Christopher Aspaas directs the Concert Choir and Cantamus.
The Girls Choir of Harlem
On Sunday, November 7, at 4 pm in Abbey Chapel, the Mount Holyoke Glee Club will host a Women in Song choral concert, sharing the stage with two acclaimed women's choirs--the Girls Choir of Harlem and the Yale Slavic Chorus. A young and professional choir of fifty-five inner-city girls and young women ages 13 - 18, the Girls Choir of Harlem was featured on 60 Minutes in 1998. The group's program will include European liturgical music, a jazz medley, and spirituals. The Yale Slavic Chorus, comprising eighteen Yale students, is dedicated to the authentic performance of Eastern European women's music, sung in original languages. The eighty-five-member MHC Glee Club and select chamber singers will also perform, conducted by choral director Catharine Melhorn and graduate assistant Sarah Deveau '97.
Irakere
Irakere, reputedly Cuba's hottest band, will cap the Founder's Day weekend festival Sunday evening with a 7 pm concert in Mary Woolley's Chapin Auditorium. A twelve-piece ensemble, Irakere has received outstanding praise from daily newspapers in the United States. The band combines traditional Cuban folk music with jazz, salsa, classical, and even funk and rock music. Tickets for the concert, which is being held in conjunction with the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, are $5 for students with an ID and $15 for the general public. Tickets will be available at the door on the evening of the performance.
For details about Founder's Day weekend events, please see next week's CSJ calendar.
![[Index]](../index3.gif){kind=small}