Classical and popular art on tap for 2015-16 arts season

Highlighted by the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and a visit by “Orphan Train” author Christina Baker Kline, the 2015-16 arts season at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford will bring both classical and popular arts to campus.

Events are open to the public and free unless otherwise noted. For more information or tickets, contact the Bromeley Family Theater box office at 814-362-5113 or www.upb.pitt.edu/TheArts.

The first event of the season will be an art exhibit by Pitt-Bradford faculty and staff Anna Lemnitzer, Courtney Mealy, Richard Minard, Anne Mormile, Merry Ryding and Samila Sosic. The show will open at noon Sept. 18 in the KOA Art Gallery in Blaisdell Hall and will remain up through Oct. 16. Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The Southern Tier Symphony will play its first of three performances for the year in the Bromeley Family Theater at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 in Blaisdell Hall. Additional performances are scheduled for 3 p.m. Dec. 6 and 3 p.m. May 8, 2016. Program details will be announced at a later date.

The Southern Tier Symphony is a regional orchestra in its 13th season of bringing high quality performances of classical and popular music to the area.

Music and dancing will be on display when the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre performs at 8 p.m. Oct. 2 in the Bromeley Family Theater. Tickets for the ballet are $20 for the public and $5 for all students.

The ballet performance will also serve as the centerpiece of the biennial Arts Gala to benefit the Marilyn Horne Archive Collection Project. The gala will include a dinner, cocktail reception, dancing and silent auction. Tickets for the gala, which include the ballet performance, are $125.

The ballet will open the university's Prism premier performance series. Other performances in that series are VOCALOSITY at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 5, 2016, and “A Tale of Two Cities” at 7:30 p.m. on March 14, 2016. Tickets to both performances are $16-$20 for the public, and $5 for all students.

Vocalosity is the new live a capella concert event from the creative mind of the artistic producer of “Pitch Perfect” and “The Sing-Off.”

The National Players, which presented “To Kill a Mockingbird” in October 2014, will return with the theater production of Charles Dickens' novel “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Spectrum, the longest-running of the university's three arts series, will open its season Oct. 8 with a Noon Tunes performance by Xak Bjerken and Miri Yampolsky playing piano four hands - two musicians playing on the same instrument - at noon Oct. 8 in the Studio Theater of Blaisdell Hall. A light lunch will be served.

On Nov. 5, the Pitt-Bradford writing program, freshman seminar and One Book Bradford will present Christina Baker Kline, author of “Orphan Train” at 7:30 p.m. in the Bromeley Family Theater. “Orphan Train” deals with orphaned, abandoned or homeless children who were sent from the East coast to the rural Midwest to be raised by foster families between 1854 and 1929.

The following day, Nov. 6, an art exhibition by Lisa N. Jarrett will open at noon in the KOA Art Gallery and continue through Dec. 4. The influences of Jarrett's upbringing in a post-Civil Rights era America are apparent in her work, which seeks to confront ideas of racial difference and perceptions of racial equality.

Student actors will take the stage Nov. 19-22 for “Escape from Happiness,” a screwball comedy that travels a distinctly dark and twisted path directed by Dr. Kevin Ewert, professor of theater. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 19-21 and 2 p.m. Nov. 22. Tickets are $6 for the public and $2 for all students.

Students will again be in the spotlight Dec. 1 and April 14, 2016, when the Vocal Arts Ensemble will perform at noon in the KOA Speer Electronics Lobby of Blaisdell Hall.

Student and community writers will share their work at the Baily's Beads Celebration to unveil the 2016 edition of the award-winning literary magazine at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2016, in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons.

The work of painter Aaron Kagan Putt will fill the KOA Art Gallery, beginning with an opening reception at noon Feb. 4, 2016, and continuing through March 4, 2016. Putt uses anthropological research as the basis for his paintings.

A second Noon Tunes concert will take place at noon on Feb. 18, 2016, in the Studio Theater featuring Blind Boy Paxton. Although only in his 20s, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton has earned a reputation for transporting audiences back to the 1920s and making them wish they could stay there for good.

In March, Spectrum and the Women's History Month Committee will present “The Other Mozart” at 7:30 p.m. March 2, 2016, in the Studio Theater. Little Matchstick Factory's “The Other Mozart” is the true and untold story of Nannerl Mozart, the sister of Amadeus, a prodigy, keyboard virtuoso and composer, who performed throughout Europe with her brother to equal acclaim, but her work and her story faded away, lost to history.

Following the performance, a faculty panel will join Sylvia Mylo, actor and project creator, for a discussion.

Later that month, “Affairs of the Art,” the annual exhibition of student artwork will open at noon March 18, 2016, and last through April 18 in the KOA Art Gallery.

Other special arts events throughout the academic year include an evening performance of “Goodnight Moon” and “The Runaway Bunny” at 7 p.m. Oct. 29 in the Bromeley Family Theater. Come early for a pajama party with milk and cookies at 6:30 p.m. in the KOA Speer Electronics Lobby. All tickets are $8.

“Exploration!” Pitt-Bradford's 4th Annual Photography Exhibit will feature the creative works of local amateur and professional photographers from the opening at noon Jan. 15, 2016, in the KOA Art Gallery through Jan. 29.

Finally, Dr. Marvin Thomas's popular annual history lecture will take place at 7 p.m. April 12, 2016, in the Rice Auditorium of Fisher Hall. This year's topic will be “A Decisive Moment for Kingship: Charles I and the English Civil War.”

For disability needs related to Pitt-Bradford Arts events, contact the Office of Disability Resources at 814-362-7609 or clh71@pitt.edu.

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