Concert will feature performance of new work
SPRINGFIELD — Noted Creole scholar and composer Dr. Sybil Kein will be a special guest of UIS Music for two events on Friday, May 2, on campus at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
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Dr. Sybil Kein |
From noon to 1 p.m. in the campus' Visual Arts Gallery, Dr. Kein will present a free public lecture titled "Gumbo People: Celebrating and Teaching the Creole Culture of New Orleans." The program will feature poetry, folklore, and personal stories collected from a variety of primary sources, including Creole musicians, entertainers, and other historical and cultural figures. The Visual Arts Gallery is located in room 201 of UIS' Health and Sciences Building.
At 7:30 that evening in the Studio Theatre, Kein will be present as UIS Music's annual Spring Showcase Concert includes a performance of her Suite from Didn't He Ramble! This marks only the second performance of the piece, which is a condensed version of Kein's jazz musical Didn't He Ramble: Lil' Louie in New Orleans, about the early life of Louis Armstrong.
The concert will also feature the UIS Band, Chorus, Blue Rhapsody A Cappella Club, and Chamber Orchestra performing a varied repertory, including choral pieces from a broad geography and works by John Phillip Sousa, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and E.T. Paull. The Studio Theatre is located on the lower level of the Public Affairs Center.
A professor emeritus at the University of Michigan as well as a musician, composer, and poet, Kein is a recognized expert in Creole culture and history who is able to share her knowledge through artistic outlets. She has numerous books and CDs to her credit, and recently served as a translator and dialect coach for the Screen Gems production Bolden, a film about early jazz in New Orleans.
Dr. Kein's visit is sponsored by UIS Music, the Sociology/Anthropology and African-American Studies departments, and the UIS Speakers' Awards Committee.
Tickets to the concert are $6 and are available through the Sangamon Auditorium Ticket Office, phone 206-6160 or go to www.sangamonauditorium.org/. Five dollars from each ticket sold will benefit the UIS Music Student Merit Award.
For more information about either event, contact Todd Cranson, assistant director of Co-curricular Music at UIS, at 206-7549.
