Classes

The Great Male Singers

Also see Session 2 & Session 3

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter or Mars . . .

From Rudy Vallée to Frank Sinatra, from Bing Crosby to Tony Bennett, from Cab Calloway to Johnny Mathis, from Louis Armstrong to Nat King Cole, from Fats Domino to Elvis Presley to the Beatles, the great men of song have chronicled a romantic history of our lives. For generations, crooners have given voice to the Great American Songbook. The music and lyrics of the great tunesmiths live in their voices.

Celebrate the great vocalists who stood in front of the bandstand and sang the songs that told us who we were, where we were, and how we felt. A great singer can instantly trigger the soundtrack of our lives and take us into the heart and soul of a song. Hearing Strangers in the Night or Love Me Tender or Moon River or Eleanor Rigby can instantly transport you back to a special place in time when it was just you, the singer and the song.

Fly Me to the Moon will feature a cavalcade of male singing stars from the world of Big Bands, Jazz, Blues, Pop, and Rock who will lift your heart and make your spirits soar.

Cozy up, for it will be standing-room-only for the great men of song!

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore…

The Great Male Singers

Also see Session 1 & Session 3

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter or Mars . . .

From Rudy Vallée to Frank Sinatra, from Bing Crosby to Tony Bennett, from Cab Calloway to Johnny Mathis, from Louis Armstrong to Nat King Cole, from Fats Domino to Elvis Presley to the Beatles, the great men of song have chronicled a romantic history of our lives. For generations, crooners have given voice to the Great American Songbook. The music and lyrics of the great tunesmiths live in their voices.

Celebrate the great vocalists who stood in front of the bandstand and sang the songs that told us who we were, where we were, and how we felt. A great singer can instantly trigger the soundtrack of our lives and take us into the heart and soul of a song. Hearing Strangers in the Night or Love Me Tender or Moon River or Eleanor Rigby can instantly transport you back to a special place in time when it was just you, the singer and the song.

Fly Me to the Moon will feature a cavalcade of male singing stars from the world of Big Bands, Jazz, Blues, Pop, and Rock who will lift your heart and make your spirits soar.

Cozy up, for it will be standing-room-only for the great men of song!

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore…

The Great Male Singers

Also see Session 1 & Session 2

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter or Mars . . .

From Rudy Vallée to Frank Sinatra, from Bing Crosby to Tony Bennett, from Cab Calloway to Johnny Mathis, from Louis Armstrong to Nat King Cole, from Fats Domino to Elvis Presley to the Beatles, the great men of song have chronicled a romantic history of our lives. For generations, crooners have given voice to the Great American Songbook. The music and lyrics of the great tunesmiths live in their voices.

Celebrate the great vocalists who stood in front of the bandstand and sang the songs that told us who we were, where we were, and how we felt. A great singer can instantly trigger the soundtrack of our lives and take us into the heart and soul of a song. Hearing Strangers in the Night or Love Me Tender or Moon River or Eleanor Rigby can instantly transport you back to a special place in time when it was just you, the singer and the song.

Fly Me to the Moon will feature a cavalcade of male singing stars from the world of Big Bands, Jazz, Blues, Pop, and Rock who will lift your heart and make your spirits soar.

Cozy up, for it will be standing-room-only for the great men of song!

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore…

Realists, Impressionists, Monarchs and Republicans—France in the Second Empire and the Third Republic

France during the beginning of the 19th Century could hardly be called stable. Revolution followed revolution, coup followed coup, France could have a king one day and a Republic the next… that is until the advent of the Second Empire and Napoleon III. For twenty years, 1851-1871, France again became the power of the world, seemingly prosperous and at peace. Political, social and artistic fissures were forming that would eventually consume France and the Second Empire and all its artistic traditions. But all hope was not lost with the formation of the French Third Republic at Versailles. It would seem that politics, art and ideas were infused with a new energy, an energy that would so tragically be snuffed out by World War I. Using Proust as a guiding influence, this series of lectures will look at the dramatically changing world in France during the second half of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th through the lens of the Fine Arts.

Week 1: Where do we go from here?
France in 1848—the end of the world or a new beginning—or maybe it is a little bit of both, but whatever the case, Paris is the center of the world. Romanticism, Neo-Classicism or Realism? What do we choose? Delacroix, Gericault, and Courbet.

Week 2: Napoleon again?
Napoleon III, Haussmann and Paris. The completion of the Louvre and the building of the Paris Opera—Garnier and extravagant excess while dancing on the head of a pin. The artistic establishment, the French Academy and the need for something new. Artistic bankruptcy or imaginative richness—but who has what or which? Of course it is Manet, is it not?

Week 3: Manet and a new view of the World
Behind all that glitters is not gold. The painting of Modern Life. Is he a Realist or an Impressionist? “I don’t care, all I want to be is accepted by the artistic establishment.” No such luck. The ups and downs of being an artist in Second Empire France.

Week 4: The ideal of the French Academy or Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the triumph of the Bourgeoisie
Gerome, Meissioner, Flandrin, Winterhalter and Bougereau, the beauty and fatigue of an artistic style. “I know what we will do, we will infuse our works with beautiful women and depict the exotic and ideal world.
That way no one will realize we have exhausted the Academic Tradition and the world is falling apart around us.”

Week 5: The end of the world, again
The fall of Napoleon III and the establishment of the French Third Republic. Pierre de Nolhac, Versailles, and the need for Artistic legitimacy. “We don’t care about that” say the Impressionists, “we just love light, color and pretty things.” Not so fast, there is so much more to the Impressionists than color and light. In the end the Impressionists were commenting on Modern Life and the harsh realities of the World. Pisarro, Caillebotte and the representation of the city and, of course, Monet and Renoir, two horses of a different color going in two distinctive directions.

Week 6: Proustian Paris and the Paris of Memory
The fraying of the Impressionistic World and the move to Post-Impressionism as the World marches towards War. Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Gauguin. Now it really is the end of the World. “We have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

The Life of the Mind

While mythology and religious texts reveal profound thinking about different aspects of the world, the Ancient Greeks began an intellectual movement that formed the basis of Western philosophy and science. Called the development of rational thought, these early investigators sought to explain the world from observation rather than the imaginative descriptions of mythology. Their research included mathematics, astronomy, theology, language, ethics and more.  While the subject may seem deep, it is not daunting and will be readily accessible to all. Students will receive handouts of the early Greek thinkers to be discussed in class, and are asked to read one fairly short and enjoyable text by Plato, The Symposium.

The Russian revolution of 1917 was a cataclysmic event that completely changed the course of the history in this country and had a profound influence all around the world. The Russian Silver Age is a time period in art history before and after the revolution, around 1880 to 1925. The Russian Golden age was the first true blossoming of arts during the first half of the 19th century, Pushkin and Gogol in literature and Glinka in music. In the end of the 19th century Russian poets and writers began experimenting with symbolism which initially developed in France. In music, symbolism found expression in mystical compositions of Alexander Scriabin and early works of Sergei Prokofiev. Gradually, in spite of the very popular following of the late Romantic Russian composers Sergei Rachmaninoff, Anton Arensky and Alexander Glazounov, a new generation of modernists developed it before and after the revolution. Modernism was strongly expressed in Stravinsky’s ballets Petroushka and even more so in The Rite of Spring which initially caused an immense scandal. Sergei Prokofiev’s operas The Fiery Angel and The Love of Three Oranges and his first three piano concertos were seen as extremely modernistic and cutting edge works at the time. After the death of Vladimir Lenin, the Communist Party clamped down creativity and persecuted modernism which they associated with the capitalistic values and lifestyle. The Silver Age ended around 1925 and a new era, often called “social realism” was officially pronounced in 1929. Hear the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovitch and many others performed by pianist Alexander Tentser.

Connecting with Music in our Lives and Our Culture

Music touches our lives in many ways, and on many levels – physically, emotionally, technologically and culturally. How can we better understand music’s place in our world, and in the process learn a bit about the important role that music has played in our own lives? This series will examine music in many forms, from the perspectives of scholarly research, cultural anthropology and documentary filmmaking.

Week 1: The Three Big Questions
Want to understand music and its role in our world? To do so, we only really need to ask three basic questions. We’ll examine these questions more deeply in a presentation on the music of West Africa.

Week 2: Musical Universals…and a Near-Universal Musical Experience
Is music really a “universal language”, and why or why not? Dan will share his UA-funded research and documentary film on the subject.

Weeks 3-4: Rock ‘n’ Roll, from Infancy to Adolescence
We will discuss rock ‘n’ roll’s early years, and learn about Zoom Records, a tiny 1950s Tucson record label, through Dan’s award-winning documentary film.

Week 5: The Shape of the Song
We’ll look at musical forms, from blues to pop to classical, as well as some challenging musical forms from indigenous cultures.

Week 6: Jazz Conventions
Learn to recognize the palette of “conventions” that make jazz performances sparkle and tie together the “musical threads” we’ve explored in this six-week series.

Painters of all levels are invited to come together for instruction, inspiration, and encouragement. Review the basic elements of painting and receive plenty of individual attention in a small and supportive class environment. Work on projects of your choice or those suggested by the instructor. Discuss methods for color mixing, techniques for paint application, and ideas for still life, landscape, and portrait. Bring any art supplies you have. Additional supply needs will be discussed at the first class.

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

Also see Oro Valley Session

During the 19th century, American poets, like those of Europe, were writing in traditional verse forms and the poems were nearly always in rhymed verse. We all remember memorizing those rhythmical lines from Longfellow and Poe. Actually, Emerson once called Poe “the jingle man” after reading The Raven, The Bells, and Annabel Lee. Then, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson arrived on the American poetic scene and became beacons of change and experimentation. Both received criticism for their poetry and were totally misunderstood for their unorthodox styles. Poetry scholars today realize that both Whitman and Dickinson were challenging the norms and greatly influenced the movements in poetry following World War I such as Modernism, Imagism and beyond.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) began his career in poetry in writing verse that was typical of the early part of the 19th century; however, in 1855 he published his first edition of Leaves of Grass. That book and later editions of it changed American poetry (and world poetry) forever. He created free verse which had no rhyme and no specific form. His lines of poetry were of vastly different lengths; his poems didn’t look like poems on the page. He made use of long lists which he called catalogs, phrases celebrating the unique character of the American people, democracy, and the beauty of the landscape. He also was the first to celebrate the human body and sexuality – giving graphic descriptions of the parts of the female and male bodies. He described not only heterosexual love, but also homosexual love. He was also the first poet to honor the great diversity of the American people in gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. There are many other inventive accomplishments to be found in Whitman’s numerous editions of his Leaves of Grass, an American classic that has changed poetry for the 20th and 21st centuries.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) wrote over 1,775 poems but only published eleven during her lifetime. But today she is one of the most celebrated American poets. Who has not read I’m Nobody, Some Keep the Sabbath, or A Narrow Fellow in the Grass? Emily, too, was breaking new ground in creating new types of rhymes which she called “sight rhymes” (eye rhyme) and “half rhymes” (slant rhyme). She experimented with punctuation by eliminating most commas and periods and making significant use of the dash to show her breaks in thought and to allow her readers to fill in the missing words. Another experiment of hers was the unorthodox use of capitalization in unusual places to show emphasis. Dickinson was the forerunner of the confessional poets of the 1950’s-1970’s: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich. She wrote of her inner-most feelings, passions, torments (“I had a terror I could tell to none.”). She was also a forerunner of the 20th century modernist poets as her poems deal with very complex themes such as her questioning the existence of a benevolent God or anguishing over her fears of life and an afterlife. Dickinson gave American literature a body of poetry that was unfettered by time or fashion and became the idol and inspiration for many poets who followed her.

Perspectives from Archaeology and Paleoanthropology

Paleoanthropologists have tracked the story of human evolution through over 7 million years, by following the archaeological evidence of human development. The story begins with our large bodied Miocene apes in Africa, traces the origins of bipedalism and cognitive expansion, and then follows human expansion out of Africa and into the rest of the world and beyond. Topics include understanding evolution, early hominids and the origin of bipedalism, cooking and anatomy, early migrations, art and cave paintings, the peopling of the Americas, and recent discoveries that are changing how we understand the development of modern humans.

Week 1: Understanding the Evolutionary Process and Origin of Species
Modern Evolutionary Biology: Review the basics of Darwinian evolution, and current research that help us understand how evolutionary forces mold species.
DNA: Also focus on DNA studies that are illuminating paleoanthropology. Consider theories, methods, and findings from this area of paleoanthropological research.

Week 2: Early Hominids and the Origin of Bipedalism
Ardipithecus Group and Early Hominids: Look at some of the earliest fossils in the hominin lineage, discuss significant changes in the skeletal anatomy, and discuss what this suggests to us about the behavior of each species.
Origins of Bipedalism: Examine theories of the origin of our unique form of locomotion and consider the evidence and potential links between past environmental change and hominin evolution.

Week 3: Cooking, Technology, Modern Human Anatomy
The Cooking Ape: Desmond Morris famously dubbed modern humans “the Naked Ape”. Since then, others have employed similar labels. Explore a theory that connects human digestive anatomy to cooking and to increases in cognitive ability.
The Archaeology of Food: Discover how archaeologists and paleoanthropologists learn about past diets, and discuss several methods employed in the exploration of past food systems.

Week 4. Early travelers
The Travels of Homo erectus: Trace the expansion of hominins from Africa into the rest of the world and discuss some of the theories and important sites associated with this first migration and expansion.
Expansion of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens: Explore the expansion of modern humans and Neanderthals in the upper Paleolithic, looking at the timing and evidence of this migration.

Week 5: Development of Artwork and Cave Paintings
The Upper Paleolithic: In the Upper Paleolithic we see an explosion of new technologies as modern humans move into new ecosystems. Consider some of these technological developments and ideas about the interaction between hominin species, as modern humans move into inhabited landscapes.
Cave Paintings, Rock Art, and the Creative Human Mind: Look more closely at the expansion and development of art in the archaeological record and famous cave sites, Lascaux and Chauvet Cave, and discuss the importance of the development of art.

Week 6: Expansion into the Americas
Clovis First: The peopling of the Americas is a lively topic in archaeological research. Examine the history of the research and the development of major theories about the timing, route, and source of the first Americans.
Pre-Clovis Research: Consider the current research on the peopling of the Americas, discuss major findings and new discoveries, and explore how these findings change our understanding of human expansion into the Americas.

Week 7: Recent Developments in Paleoanthropology
New Species: In this final section, we will discuss new findings that are dramatically changing the way we think about human evolution and explore the new species discovered over the past few years.
Stones, Bones, and Wrap Up: Review recent developments and discuss the implications for future research on the origins of modern humans.