Roanoke College announces several upcoming events. Roanoke’s theme for the year is “The Challenge of Intellectual Inquiry,” as the College launches a new general education curriculum. Many events will focus, as does the curriculum, on what it means to study something deeply – to explore, inquire and examine. Happenings on the Salem campus in the coming weeks include the following:

Wind and Jazz Concert

Thursday, February 25, 7:30 p.m. Olin Theater. No tickets required.
The Roanoke College wind and jazz ensembles will present a joint concert of music by black composers and music based on significant events in black history under the direction of Dr. Joseph Blaha. Members of Roanoke College’s Black Student Alliance will assist in introducing the music for the evening.

The jazz ensemble will feature pieces by black composers who were prominent in the swing and bebop age, including writers and performers such as Sonny Rollins, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie along with Count Basie and Duke Ellington and their orchestras. St. Thomas, Four, Night in Tunisia and A Tisket, A Tasket are some of the tunes scheduled.

The wind ensemble will present music from the earlier periods of Black American music history as well as contemporary tone poems on subjects from more recent history. Two ragtime compositions of Scott Joplin (The Entertainer and Maple Leaf Rag) and a musical impression of a Dixieland funeral will bookend the contemporary works of Mark Camphouse and Ayatey Shabazz. Camphouse’s A Movement for Rosa is a musical depiction of the life of civil rights figure, Rosa Parks, while Shabazz’s Of Honor and Valor Eternal is a moving tribute to the World War II heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen.

MARCH

Lecture: Anatomy of an Execution author Todd Peppers
Sunday, March 7, 2 p.m. Colket Center Pickle Programming Lounge.

Co-authors Todd Peppers and Laura Anderson will speak on the story in their book, Anatomy of an Execution, concerning the life, trial and execution of a Virginia juvenile offender. Peppers, an associate professor in the public affairs department at Roanoke College, will explore larger issues such as the death penalty. Anderson, the condemned man’s high school teacher, will speak on her experience as his spiritual advisor while he was on death row.

This program is a part of The Big Read Roanoke Valley program. More information can be found at www.bigreadroanokevalley.org.
Elderscholar (SM) Lecture Program
Tuesday Series, March 9-April 13, 12:00-2:00 p.m., $75.00 (includes lunches).

Thursday Series, March 11-April 13, 12:00-2:00 p.m., $75.00 (includes lunches).

For details for the spring program, please call (540) 375-2323 or check us out on the Web at www.roanoke.edu/elderscholar.

Art Exhibit
March 12 – April 9. Olin and Smoyer galleries.

Opening Reception: Friday, March 12, 6-8 p.m. Smoyer Gallery.

Artist Lecture by Jeffery Stockberger: Thursday, March 11, 5 p.m. Olin Hall Room #231.

In Smoyer Gallery, Jeffery Stockberger will present paintings.

Stockberger is a graduate of James Madison University with a degree in painting and art history. He studied figure painting at the Corcoran Museum, College of Art and Design. His work has been published in Southern Accents, The Washington Post, Traditional Homes and D.C. House Magazine.

Stockberger’s desire to paint the figure, compose more dynamic spaces and ultimately develop a more expressive brushstroke has led him to the amorphous discipline of an indirect process. This method allows content to arise from the erosion of the preconceived as one constantly defines, destroys, and reestablishes form. He will pass over the entire canvas each day, moving and refining each layer, responding to the previous day’s work. The paintings develop a history and, in the end, exhibit a more evocative surface and suggestive content as the intellectual and technical skills of painting are allowed to engage in constant dialogue.

In Olin Gallery, Brian Counihan will present “Paraphernalia for the Passage.” In his exhibition of paintings and drawings, Counihan explores the notion of contemporary “phylatics.” Is it possible that we use fetishes and charms today to protect us from harm (literally prophylactics) as people once carried medals and icons for spiritual security? Sacred and secular, literary and art historical, humor and grief intermingle in his work as he ponders the means and media in which life’s mysteries have been unveiled to us though the cultural cannons we inherit.

Novelist Jane Hamilton
Tuesday, March 23, 7 p.m. Colket Center Wortmann Ballroom.

Jane Hamilton, author of five best-selling novels, will read new work and discuss a novelist’s creative process. Hamilton lives, works and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Wisconsin. Her short stories have appeared in Harper’s magazine, and two of her novels, The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, have been Oprah Book Club selections. The Book of Ruth won the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award for best first novel, and A Map of the World was made into a major motion picture.

Roanoke College, an independent, co-educational, four-year liberal arts college in Salem, Virginia, combines firsthand learning with valuable personal connections in a classic, undergraduate setting. Roanoke prepares students for their futures through its commitment to providing a true classic college experience. Roanoke is one of just 276 colleges nationwide with a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. The Princeton Review names Roanoke as one of the “best in the Southeast.”

For additional information, call the Roanoke College Public Relations Office at (540) 375-2282.