Discover Korea with Kate Lochte

Kate Lochte reports from Korea as she travels with a group of Murray State students and faculty.  Listen as she explores religion, daily life, and more.
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Athena Festival This Week

Today on Meridian WKMS enjoyed the company of Helen Walker-Hill and Mary Watkins.  Both are here on campus as part of the Athena Festival, which is going on now through Friday.  

The Athena Festival is a biennial event, sponsored by the Department of Music, devoted to the study and performance of music composed by women. With particular emphasis placed upon choral, vocal and keyboard music, the Athena Festival is a multi-faceted event reaching public school music students, MSU faculty and students, regional audiences and performers/scholars from across the country.

2007 ATHENA Festival Schedule
PAH – Performing Arts Hall.  LOV – Lovett Auditorium

Tuesday, March 6^th

10:00 a   PAH Reading Session for choral directors, PATSY FORD SIMMS

2:15 p     LOV Choir clinic with PATSY FORD SIMMS

6:30 p LOV MSU Quad-State Junior Choral Festival Concert, featuring PATSY FORD SIMMS    

Wednesday, March 7^th

10:00 a LOV “Meet the Composer” Concert with PATSY FORD SIMMS

            Kim Black, Murray Elementary School

            Tracy Leslie, North Calloway Elementary

             Leslie McManus, Calloway Middle School

             Amy Aucoin, MSU, University Chorale 

1:30 p PAH IAWM  Electronic Music Concert Kris Burns & Scott Locke

          featuring composers: Kristine Burns, Beverly Grigsby, (Florida Intern. U & MSU)

          Pauline Oliveros and Hsiao-Lan Wang and others 

4:00 p PAH Master Class with MARY WATKINS & HELEN WALKER-HILL 

8:00 p PAH MSU Faculty Chamber Music CONCERT, Dr. Stephen Brown coordinator

Premier of Hsiao-Lan Wang’s (Denton TX)

Trio in two movements for viola, vibraphone and piano

Reception following the concert hosted by the Department of Music

Thursday, March 8^th

9:30 a PAH Chiquinta Gonzaga – Woman of Courage and Vision Teresa Tedder

            (St. Catherine College, KY)

            Joanne Ximenes

            (Campbellsville U., KY)

10:30 a PAH coffee break 

11:00 a PAH For Thee We Sing:  The Historical Implication of Sonya Baker

      Marian Anderson’s 1939 Easter Concert (MSU) 

12 noon LUNCH 

12:30 p PAH Celebrating African American Women Composers: Sharon Guertin Shafer

      Art Songs and Spiritual Arrangements (Trinity U., D.C.) 

1:30 p PAH HELEN WALKER-HILL  Black Women Composers: An Overview 

2:30 p PAH Nkeiru Okoye’s “African Sketches” and Nan Childress Orchard

      “The Journey of Phillis Wheatley” (Caldwell College, NJ) 

3:30 p PAH Three African American Women who sought the Marietta Dean

      Inspired Teaching of Nadia Boulanger: Julia Perry, (Western Illinois University, IL)

      Dorothy Rudd Moore and Margaret Bonds Leonora Suppan-Gehrich

            (Quincy University, IL) 

4:30 p PAH Where Have All the Flowers Gone?  Women, Music Eldonna L. May

            and Culture in a Postmodern World (Wayne State U., MI) 
 
 

6:00 p PAH  MARY WATKINS

            informal session for Governor’s Minority Student College Prep Program 

8:00 p LOV  MSU Choir CONCERT,  Dr. Bradley Almquist director

            Premieres of Bonnie Miksch’s (Portland, OR) “There is No Rose” and

            Carol Barnett’s (Minneapolis MN) “Veni Sancte Spiritus” 

Friday, March 9^th

8:30 a PAH  HELEN WALKER-HILL  “Tonal Structures in the Orchestral Works of Florence Price, Julia Perry and Mary Watkins” 

9:30 a PAH Spirituals for Piano, arranged by Emma Lou Diemer Joan DeVee Dixon

                  (Frostburg State, MD) 

10:30 a PAH Composer Forum featuring Mary Watkins and competition winning composers 

11:30 a PAH HELEN WALKER-HILL  “A Social/Political History of African-American Music” 

1:30 p PAH You Stopped Loving Me:  the Functionary Use of Roberta Flack’s Randy Westbrook

            First Soundtrack (EKU, KY) 

2:30 p PAH Zenobia Powell Perry’s “Prelude”, “Episode I” and Lin Foulk

            “Episode II” for Horn and Piano (Western Michigan U., MI)

                  Bernie Foulk, pianist

                  (Western Michigan U., MI)

3:30 p PAH SAI Concert 

6:00 p CUR Gala Dinner, Helen Walker-Hill keynote speaker 

8:00 p  MSU Jazz Band CONCERT, Todd Hill director

            Wrather Museum Auditorium

            SAI hosted reception following concert 

Name that Show

NPR’s new show needs a name! You’ve read about Rough Cuts before, now help Michel Martin decide what to call it.  Submit your suggestions here. 

It’s Flu Season, still…

students and staff are getting sick left and right here.  And it’s not just Murray.  Students in Michigan are testing whether or not wearing surgical masks will help reduce their chances of catching the flu.  Hear more here.

Have any tips for avoiding the flu? Any stories you’d like to share? Leave a comment below!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Enjoy this week’s snow, according to Phil the groundhog it’ll soon be gone. Punxsutawney, PA’s rodent-in-residence has predicted an early spring this year. If you couldn’t be among the masses who traveled to witness the forecast firsthand, you can still get your groundhog fix courtesy of this ad campaign from Visit PA. Watch humans dressed as Phil and his “shadow” journey across the country to make it back to Pennsylvania in time for this morning’s proceedings.

If you’re wondering where we came up with this wierd tradition, here’s a little background (mainly from  wikipedia):

In traditional weather lore, if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow because the weather is bright and clear, it will be frightened and run back into its hole, and the winter will continue for six more weeks.

Medieval French, German, and Celtic peoples all marked this tradition on Candlemas day.  Superstition told that if the weather was nice on that day, the second half of Winter would be stormy and cold.  A Scottish legend put it this way:

As the light grows longer
The cold grows stronger
If Candlemas be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
If Candlemas be cloud and rain
Winter will be gone and not come again
A farmer should on Candlemas day
Have half his corn and half his hay
On Candlemas day if thorns hang a drop
You can be sure of a good pea crop

 The belief then developed that a hedgehog or a marmot fleeing from his shadow indicated the power of the oncoming season, and the animals became local stars for a day. Without any hedgehogs in America, people adopted the groundhog as the new world’s weather forecaster.  

For the early Christians in Europe, it was also the custom on Candlemas Day for clergy to bless candles and distribute them to the people in the dark of Winter. A lighted candle was placed in each window of the home.  

The weather continued to be important to the early Christians.  If the sun came out on February 2, the day halfway between Winter and Spring, it meant six more weeks of wintry weather.

The earliest known American reference to Groundhog Day can be found at the Historical Society of Berks County in Reading, Pennsylvania. The reference was made Feb. 4, 1841 in Morgantown, Berks County, Pennsylvania storekeeper James Morris’ diary: “Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.”

President’s Speech already Drawing Doubts

It’s been the buzz of Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, and probably will be for ATC as well. The president’s speech tonight is drawing a lot of speculation, and NPR.org has a Q&A guide for what to expect on it. 

from the article:

President Bush’s much-anticipated speech on Iraq, scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday, is already attracting skeptics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. The president is expected to call for a boost in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, which some term a “surge” and others an “escalation.”

What do you think of the “surge” proposal? Leave a comment on tonight’s speech by clicking below, and listen to WKMS at 8PM for the speech and followup commentary.

WordPress and Images…

There’s going to be some edits going through today, so apologies are in order to anyone whose RSS reader gets flooded. Images aren’t posting in posts, and they might have just all posted on their own. I’m doing what I can on my end, and hopefully wordpress.com will fix their end of the problem soon.
Update: problem solved. 

NPR Ornament/Menorah Contest

NPR’s holding thier First Ever Holiday Craft Contest. Design either a handmade menorah or a Christmas tree ornament. Post your project on Flickr.com with the tag NPRHOLIDAYCONTEST. They’re looking for designs that reflect the news of 2006, or quirky, funny and/or offbeat designs.  Winners get prizes from the NPR shop.

The Deadline is Dec 11.

More details on NPR.org.

Good luck!+

Obituary for the VHS

Hollywood’s Daily Variety has published an obituary proclaiming the passing of a technological icon: the VHS tape.

Hear NPR’s 1972 broadcast on the invention of VHS here.  Officially, VHS wasn’t marketed til September 1976, but the technology was developed in late 1971.  Other interesting tidbits:

• VHS does not stand for Video Home System or any similar phrase.  It’s Vertical Helio Scan, indicated the way the magnetic tape is read.
• The distinctive font used in the VHS logo is called “Lee”. It was created in 1972 by Leo Weisz for Visual Graphics Corporation (VGC).
• Of special note is the format of the VHS logo. In a “true” VHS logo, the horizontal bar of the “H” extends slightly to the left-hand side of the letter.
• In the late 1980s, Tandy marketed a computer data backup device based on recording to VHS tape.

Few companies are releasing new movies to VHS, but don’t throw out the VCR yet – many classic titles haven’t made their way to DVD format. 

Baking by Senses

Texan Emily Smith just shared her love of baking on This I Believe.  What’s more, she’s shared her secret recipe on npr.org. For Dorothy Smith’s Molasses Cookies and her Pecan Pie, or to hear Emily’s essay, click here.  Don’t forget that you can contribute to This I Believe online any time by visiting thisIbelieve.org.
Anyone else in the sharing mood?