Campus Stories - Theory & Practice

Campus Stories

Professor Documents the Emotional Effect of Chopin’s Music at Cantor

Stanford music professor Jaroslaw Kapuscinski grew up steeped in Frederic Chopin’s music. He trained as a classical pianist and composer in Chopin’s hometown of Warsaw, and constantly encountered Chopin’s music outside of school, too. “Chopin is clearly the most treasured composer in Poland,” he says. That experience prompted Kapuscinski to create Where Is Chopin?, a…

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Pan-Asian Music Festival Founder and Artistic Director Jingdong Cai conducts the California Youth Chinese Symphony and the China National Orchestra at Bing Concert Hall on Chinese New Year's Eve.
Campus Stories

A weekend of sold-out performances at Stanford’s Pan-Asian Music Festival

Ninety musicians filed onstage Saturday night with their erhus, konghous, pipas and zhongruans.  At the end of a two-hour orchestral performance, the audience wouldn’t let them leave the stage. Finally, after several standing ovations and four encores, the appreciative musicians headed backstage. It was an auspicious performance and the first Chinese New Year’s Eve concert to be held in Stanford’s…

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Sophomore Kenneth Qin and Junior Tina Miller experiment with the use of a violin bow on the bars of the vibraphone.
Campus Stories

Stanford students’ variations on a theme by Kotche

A Glenn Kotche performance is a physically impressive feat. Kotche is a percussionist – best known as the drummer for the rock band Wilco – renowned for his solo percussion shows. Without melodies and harmonies to hide behind, these concerts leave him with the task of making a seamless, full composition out of what seems…

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Actor, author and former Stanford faculty member Anna Deavere Smith introduces the St. Lawrence String Quartet on Friday.
Campus Stories

Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall opens to rave reviews

Early reviews of Bing Concert Hall from the press, performers and patrons are in, and they are glowing. The best of the bon mots include: “The sound popped like champagne,” “The hall exudes a serenely majestic air,”  “The acoustics in the room and the intimacy of the space made performing an incredibly personal musical experience,”…

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Mark & Tracy Photography
Campus Stories

Students from across campus bring Beethoven to Bing

Alessandra Aquilanti is a fourth year PhD student in Italian whose thesis explores the humorist authors and magazines of fascist Italy. This is her fourth year as principal of the viola section of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and she also plays in the Stanford Philharmonia Orchestra.  Student musicians representing nearly every academic major will perform…

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Section of The Spiral Word: El Codex Estánfor
Campus Stories

MURAL ARTIST CREATES A SPACE FOR STUDENTS TO CELEBRATE THEIR IDENTITIES AS LATIN AMERICANS, AND STUDENT RESPONDS WITH POETRY

On Nov. 9, Stanford inaugurated its newest mural The Spiral Word: El Codex Estánfor at El Centro Chicano. The mural was designed and created by Berkeley-based international muralist Juana Alicia. The artist was on hand at the ceremony to give a blessing, talk about her work and officially turn the murals over to the community. The…

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Campus Stories

Ceremonial turning of the soil delights the Anderson family and guests

Earlier this week, at a groundbreaking ceremony on the north side of the Cantor Arts Center, more than 200 invited guests looked on as Hunk, Moo and Putter Anderson put golden shovels in the dirt to commemorate the official start of construction on the building to house the Anderson Collection at Stanford University. Provost John…

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Campus Stories

Alexander Nemerov and Richard Meyer Join the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University

Stanford University is pleased to announce the appointment on August 1, 2012, of two distinguished scholar-teachers as professors of art history in the Department of Art & Art History: Alexander Nemerov and Richard Meyer. The arrival of Nemerov and Meyer reinforces Stanford’s preeminent leadership in American art and further enhances the excellence of the department. Nemerov…

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Campus Stories

Pianos everywhere

Have you played a piano recently? If you are on the Stanford campus, there is no excuse not to be practicing your Chopin or plunking out Chopsticks year-round, because there are more than 200 acoustic pianos on campus and more than half of them are found outside of the classroom, ready to be played. Stanford…

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Campus Stories

Excavating an Echo

The Byzantine Empire was married to water. Jutting out at the tip of a peninsula, ancient Constantinople was embraced by the Bosporus Sea on one side and the Marmara Sea on the other. And at its heart, the magnificent Hagia Sophia. At once a bulwark against the sea and an apotheosis of its marvels, the basilica…

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Campus Stories

Miwok, Stanford’s monumental outdoor sculpture by di Suvero, moves to a new home

Moving art can get complicated very quickly. Frames aren’t always stable, wires fray, pastels and old paint don’t like movement. Sculptural elements become loose or detached, doorways and halls that were adequately high and wide when moving a piece in are inexplicably smaller when moving out. Large-scale outdoor sculpture often takes complicated to a whole…

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Campus Stories

New building, new faculty demonstrate ambitious growth plans for Stanford’s Department of Art and Art History

Earlier this month, during their final meeting of the academic year, the Stanford Board of Trustees moved two significant building projects forward: the Anderson Collection at Stanford University and the McMurtry Building for the Department of Art and Art History. Ennead Architects’ renderings of the building to house the Anderson Collection of post-World War II American art…

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Campus Stories

Stanford Dancers Take DC

Twilight Composite has truly been the little engine that could. When we began the rehearsal process for Diane Frank’s new dance work last September, neither I nor the six other student dancers could imagine the unbelievable adventure that it would take us on.  We expected our one and only performance of the work to be…

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Julia Neidert and Sanjay Saverimuttu rehearse Twilight Composite in Roble Gym before going to the American College Regional Conference.
Campus Stories

Dance company proves March isn’t just for hoops

March is not just for hoops. While the Cardinal basketball teams participated in the NCAA and NIT tournaments, another team of Stanford stars took the floor. The Stanford dancers went to the American College Regional Conference this month to perform Twilight Composite – and it was selected as the strongest work at the conference. In…

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