I first heard Heinrich Isaak’s choral piece, Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen, in a Renaissance music history course as an undergrad at Southwestern University. The piece (with the tune in the tenor voice) made me cry. I seem to recall telling my classmates that it was the saddest melody ever written.
Walking to Innsbruck Altstadt
Isaak lived from 1450 to 1517, which is roughly from Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press to Luther’s 95 Theses. Not too much is known about Isaak’s life, but we do have at least some of his music, and we have scattered references to his career, here and there. Isaak was so prolific, and so popular and influential in German-speaking lands, that a later writer even called him “Henricus Isaak Germanus.”
This past academic year, I faced a personal challenge, and in view of this challenge, a friend and colleague asked me a very interesting question: What do you tell yourself about all this? Walking the centuries-old Philosophenweg up the Heiligenberg in Heidelberg, I found myself thinking about this question again.
National Day of Racial Healing, exhibition juried by student art majors and social practice art projects staged by Art faculty and students.
Honors Painting show
43rd Annual Student Art Show and awards (president’s awards, purchase awards, juror’s awards). Juror, Shea Little, Executive Director of Big Medium
Borders of Belonging Show in conjunction with Peace and Conflict Symposium. Juried by guest artist and speaker, Daniela Cavazos Madrigal.
Borders of Belonging Symposium was organized by Peter Bonfitto, Assistant Professor of Art History: included musical performances, dance, spoken word, art juror’s talk, Artists Panel, and conversation with Alejandro Escovedo.
WEST Austin Studio Tour: Various exhibits and student art sale throughout building 4000 and studio demos; WEST’s group show and DUE WEST kick off event.
Immerse yourself in the urban trend of raising chickens in your own backyard this Summer. This hands-on class teaches the basics from chicken lineage to coop maintenance.
Hey Riverbats. Are you excited about the summer vacation but have no idea what to do with all this free time?
Well, look no further because I’ve got you covered. ACC offers a huge amount of fun and unique classes you can use to impress friends, families and first dates. Interested in cooking? There’s a class for that. Interested in plants? There’s a class for that. Are you passionate about your art? There’s a class for that. For anything else, there’s ACC.
Austin Community College welcomes WEST Austin Studio Tour’s Group Exhibition and “Due WEST” party to our Highland Campus location!
Go West!
WEST is a city wide event that invites the public to visit home art studios, galleries and exhibitions on the west side of Austin. For more information, see west.bigmedium.org.
If you teach at a community college, please take a moment to read this open letter to a composition teacher by Elaine Maimon, president of Governors State University.
Now let’s talk. This past Monday, I taught Plato’s Republic VII for the Free Minds Program. If you aren’t familiar with it, VII is where Plato gives us one of the most famous moments in all of Western philosophy, the Allegory of the Cave. As expected, I helped my students navigate technical issues, like what the various elements in “the story” correspond to, allegory-wise. But there was a moment in that exploration in which students started to see Plato’s point: Education is not about filling an empty but otherwise receptive container, but about “turning around,” the transformation of the student. The icing on the cake, so to speak, was when I wrote the word education on the board, and broke down the etymology: both “to train or mold” and “to lead out.”
When I was training as a psychotherapist, my supervisor (an M.D. psychoanalyst) told me an interesting tale: Researchers had a group of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists review histories and perform diagnostic interviews for every member of the first-year class at a famous medical school. They rendered a diagnosis, where appropriate, and noted the prognosis. Researchers followed these students for 15 or 20 years, to see how accurate the evaluations had been. The result? Guess!
The prognoses were uniformly pessimistic. The students were better adjusted than expected, both as a group (meaning, the percentage of correct diagnoses and prognoses was lower than assessed) but also individually (meaning, severity of dysfunction was generally lower). In other words, both the group and the individual people turned out better than expected, over all.
I’m hosting a group of faculty from Stephen F. Austin University for a faculty-student networking event on Friday, May 10, 1:00 to 2:30 PM, at HLC 4000. Our visiting professors include:
Dr. Joyce Johnston (me) – BAAS, Modern Languages and Communication Studies
Dr. Anne Smith – Philosophy
Dr. Dana Cooper – History
Dr. Christine McDermott – Creative Writing, English
Dr. Dianne Dentice – Sociology
Dr. Leslie Cecil – Anthropology
Dr. Darrell McDonald – Geography
Dr. Kwame Antwi-Boasiako – Political Science
Dr. Scott Hutchens – Psychology
Let your students know about this opportunity to meet faculty and talk about programs at SFA!
Lumberjacks and Riverbats frolicking at HumaniTea Time
ACC faculty: Plan to attend our HumaniTea Time immediately after this networking event! We’ll have tea and cookies, plus time to connect with our SFA colleagues.
SFA Faculty Meet and Greet: Friday, May 10, 1:00 to 2:30 PM, HLC 4000 Lower level
HumaniTea Time: Friday, May 10, 2:30 to 4:00 PM, HLC 4000 Lower level
Have you even wondered what deans do on Easter Weekend? Wonder no more.
Deans Tom and Matthew music up
Yesterday, Tom Nevill (of ADM fame) joined me at Christ Lutheran Church to make music for Easter worship services. You may not know this, but Tom is an ace timpanist — his DMA is in percussion. So, Tom joined me on Christ Lutheran’s new custom German Baroque organ, built Ken Mowell (who put up with my obsessive attention to details like which Krumhorn we should include on the Positiv, the absolute need for both north and south German baroque principals in 8′ and 4′, and how the speakers for the reeds should be installed in the chamber. That’s all organist-speak, incidentally.)
We hit the ground — joined by JayNee Nutting at the piano — with a nifty (and majestic) setting of Thine is the Glory, which you may know from a hymnal. Or if you’re a Handel freak, you’d recognize it from his oratorio, Judas Maccabeus.
From there, we did what any musicians would do for Easter, the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. (Yes, it was a big day, but we knew we could handle it. That’s handle it—get it?)
Hallelujah!
As the postlude, Tom and I turned away from Handel and did the Fanfares from Mouret’s suite in D major. You might know that Mouret tune from Masterpiece Theater — it was the theme music.
Dueling deans, or just good chemistry?
Except that I played the string and trumpet parts on the organ, and Tom played the timpani part on the timpani. We decided that would be easier than playing the trumpet part on the timpani, mainly because the organ doesn’t sound like drums.
So, now you know. That’s the sort of thing deans get up to when you turn them loose on Easter.
