Chair’s Message

The lead-up to the federal election in January brought attention to many pressing and deserving issues of the day. Higher education was in the news from time to time, although culture and the arts did not grab any headlines whatsoever during the campaign. With another federal election not too far off in the future, and provincial contests coming up even sooner for some of us, we are reminded to keep our lobbying points for both education and the arts well-sharpened.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council has announced the next deadline for Research/Creation Grants in Fine Arts. Applications must be submitted by September 22, 2006. Application forms are not yet available, but the program guidelines and additional information are now posted on the SSHRC website (www.sshrc.ca). Susan Bernard, SSHRC Officer for the Research/Creation program, advised those gathered at the last CAFAD meeting that developing and fine-tuning a strong application can take months, so now is certainly the time to be thinking about this opportunity.

Plans are being made for the next CAFAD annual meeting, which will take place in Vancouver late in October. CAFAD Secretary/Treasurer David MacWilliam of ECIAD is developing a schedule of stimulating and informative discussions, presentations and special events. More details will follow in upcoming issues of the Newsletter.

Thank you all for your wonderful submissions to the current issue; it is inspiring to learn of the many accomplishments in Fine Arts education and research across the country.

Best wishes from Halifax.

Barbara Lounder

Dean, NSCAD University

Regina Report

Music

In collaboration with the local school boards and Yamaha Canada, the Department hosted I Tromboni, a B.C.-based group of 5 virtuoso trombonists. Students from both the U of R and the local schools attended. These partnerships develop the department’s relationships with the schools and are an excellent recruiting tool.

Japanese taiko drumming group, Fubuki Daiko, played to a sold-out crowd in Hall February. The concert was organized by faculty member Dr Charity Marsh, to enhance Music Department offerings by presenting world music artists.

Faculty member Alain Perron’s composition, Rupture for Saxophones Quartet & Piano, premiered in Montréal on February 18, 2006 in a performance by Nota Bene Saxophone Quartet & Jacynthe Riverin, piano. The work was funded by a Canada Council for the Arts grant.

Media Production and Studies

Canadian filmmaker Gary Burns was the visiting artist in the Department from February 8^th -10^th. As well as spending time on campus doing class visits and artist talks, Burns did a Q & A session following the screening of his third feature film waydowntown at the Regina Public Library Theatre.

Visual Arts

The Visual Arts department in conjunction with the University of Calgary and the University of Saskatchewan is presenting a series of class visits and artists talks in late March by Wu Yu Ren. Wu, a performance artist and photographer, is a visiting artist from China.

The department is working on a project in collaboration with the Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum and Wascana Centre Authority to create a major sculptural work to be placed in Wascana Centre around Wascana Lake.

Theatre

The department’s second major production of the season, Bertold Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan, ran from February 15 - 19. It featured a cast of 23 students with almost a dozen students involved in the backstage/technical areas during production. Design work was done by two graduating students: set design by Clayton Ksenych & lighting design by Jocelyn Nodge.

This spring a cast and crew of ten students will tour Gail Bowen’s new work, The Journeys of Dr Doolittle; A Canadian Adaptation, to Moose Jaw, Swift Current and the Battlefords. Bowen is an international author and playwright and teaches playwriting for the Department.

The Faculty of Fine Arts invites applications for a 10 month term Instructor position in Technical Theatre. The term runs August 1, 2006 – April 30, 2007. For details visit http://www.uregina.ca/hr/recruitment.html or contact the Faculty of Fine Arts Dean’s Office at (306) 585-5557.

Fine Arts at York

This is a banner month for the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University. On March 20, York is launching The Accolade Project,a visionary initiative that offers Canada's future artists, scholars and educators a striking new home in which to learn, create and innovate. This $107.5 million, 358,000 sq. ft. expansion project, designed by Zeidler Partnership and B+H Architects, provides state-of-the-art teaching, exhibition and performance facilities in two new buildings - Accolade East and Accolade West - framing the existing fine arts complex at the heart of York's Keele campus. Flagship facilities include a 325-seat proscenium theatre with orchestra pit, 325-seat recital hall with integrated recording studio, 500-seat cinema/lecture hall, two art galleries, and dozens of cutting-edge classrooms, labs and studios. As the new home of the Departments of Music and Dance, as well as the internationally recognized Art Gallery of York University, The Accolade Project brings all seven York Fine Arts departments together in one dynamic cluster. It offers an outstanding new showcase for the 250+ public events presented by York Fine Arts each year, as well as professional and community projects.

The Faculty of Fine Arts is celebrating the opening of The Accolade Project with a week-long Festival featuring 16 events, spanning all the disciplines and featuring both established and emerging artists, running March 20-26. For more information on the festival, visit www.yorku.ca/finearts/festival. For details on The Accolade Project, go to www.yorku.ca/accolade.

Windsor Writes
Theatre

The School of Dramatic Art recently hosted visiting artist Ellen Lauren, Associate Artistic Director of Saratoga International Theater Institute (SITI). Ms. Lauren conducted a rigorous and physically demanding four-day workshop for senior acting students in the Suzuki Actor Training Method and the Viewpoints improvisation technique.

David French and Hrant Alianak are returning to the UofW for a second presentation of their joint lecture series, The Lectures.

Visiting artist Jonathon Fox will be conducting a workshop in Playback Theatre – the improvisational form of theatre in which the audiences offer stories of their lives and the actors act them out – for students of our Drama in Education and Community program. The students have been taking their warmly received Playback performances to seniors’ residences and will be presenting a public Playback performance on April 1 on the theme Making Fools of Ourselves.

Visual Art

Professor Emeritus Iain Baxter (aka IAIN BAXTER&) is currently exhibiting Passing Through, a major retrospective of his photographic works until April 2006 at the Art Gallery of Windsor. Included in the exhibition are images which document Baxter’s time spent traveling across Canada (many of which have not been previously exhibited) and other excerpts from his 40 years of creative activity.

In program MFA students Gordon Frendo and Julie Tucker co -curated Diachronic an exhibition of contemporary sculpture and photography at the Thames Art Gallery / Chatham Cultural Center which runs until March 19, 2006.

The School of Visual Arts hosted numerous open to the public lectures in recent months including: editor of Canadian Art magazine, Rick Rhodes (in conjunction with the Green Corridor project) who encouraged artists, city planners, communities, institutions, developers to work together to improve communities.

The Border Zones Lecture Series was also in full swing with lectures from Eleanor Bond, Arthur Renwick and Think Architecture (Mörtenboeckl / Helge.) It is the aim of this series to open up dialogue around the multiplicity of issues that arise from borders, boundaries and territories both imagined and real.

Music

Recitals by faculty and students of the University of Windsor's School of Music were featured during the 2006 Windsor Canadian Music Festival, presented by the school and the Windsor Symphony Orchestra from January 12 to 15. The faculty recital was recorded for broadcast on CBC Radio Two's national new music program, Two New Hours. It featured music professor Brent Lee on piano for his composition, Clocks of the World.

The University of Windsor, School of Music hosting will host the 2006 Canadian Association for Music Therapy Conference in May and will feature Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women at a benefit concert for the Music Therapy Centre May 4.

CAFAD.com

For information on recent job postings, visit www.cafad.com. – look under Information – Fine Arts Opportunities.

A list of CAFAD member institutions and their representatives is available on the website.

Members of CAFAD who would like a copy of the current email list may contact maryhughes@saltspring.com

University of Lethbridge

Waves was installed at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience on the U of L. The sculpture by Canadian artist Robert Hedrick was originally exhibited at the University of Guelph and was donated to the U of L Art Collection in 1989.

Jesse Plessis, a first-year music major, was one of nine runners-up in the national CBC Radio Two Mozart Variation competition in honour of Mozart's 250th birthday. Participants created an original variation on Papagono’s aria A Girl or a Little Wife from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The judges enjoyed nearly 200 submissions, which ranged from bagpipes to computers, cowbells to rock and, of course, the piano, which was Jesse’s instrument of choice.

Mary Kavanagh’s (Art Dept.) exhibition ReCollect, was nominated for the Toronto 2005 Untitled Art Awards in the category of Best Solo or Group Exhibition in an Artist-Run Space.

In the new book An Alberta Art Chronicle: Adventures in Recent and Contemporary Art by Beth Laviolette more than 75 of the artists discussed have work in the U of L Art Collection. Other artists who had work represented in the book were Carl Granzow (Art faculty), Adrian Cooke (U of L Art Gallery preparator), David Hoffos (U of L alumni), and former Art Dept. faculty Janet Cardiff, Jeffrey Spalding, John Clark, and Bill McCarrroll. U of L art historians Leslie Dawn and Victoria Baster and former assistance curator Tim Nowlin provided comments and reviews. Various exhibitions by Art Dept. faculty Nick Wade and Glen MacKinnon were included as was a discussion of former Lethbridge artist George Bures Miller.

The Knowing Bird by Ron Chambers (Dept. of Theatre & Dramatic Arts faculty & alumni) had its world premiere at the U of L in March . It will also be produced in April at Keyano College in Fort MacMurray and has its professional premiere at Alberta Theatre Project's playRites Festival in Calgary, January 2007.

Faculty Updates

Michael Campbell (Art Dept) is the 2006 Artist-in-Resident at Trinity Square Video, Toronto. The residency is followed by an exhibition co-presented with the Images Festival of Film and Video. A joint project by Will Smith (New Media) and Craig Coburn (Geography) that transformed satellite images of Canadian cities into musical compositions was featured in Canadian Geographic Magazine (Jan/Feb) Vol. 126 No. 1 and on Sounds Like Canada (CBC Radio I) in January.

Sir Wilfred Grenfell College – School of Fine Arts

Visual Arts Associate Professor Barb Hunt is currently exhibiting her work as part of Beauty Queens at The Rooms in St. John’s. This follows close on the heels of her shows this fall at the University of Bath Art Gallery in England (Transience) and in Mexico City and Stratford, Ontario.

Visual Arts Professors Marlene MacCallum and David Morrish are featured in the exhibition Photogravures running from January until April 2006 at the Whyte Museum in Banff.

The Chair of the Visual Arts Program Pierre LeBlanc will have a solo exhibition at the Galerie d’art de l’université de Moncton this summer. As well Pierre has been invited to be one of nine Acadian Artists to be represented in Art from Acadie at the Virtual Museum of Canada from June 2006 to September 2011.

Painter Les Sasaki, also a Professor of Visual Arts will participate in Fabulous a show of six painters at the Dalhousie Art Gallery through March and April.

The Theatre Program’s production of Fear of Flight by Jillian Keilley and Robert Chafe has been invited to the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in St. John’s, Newfoundland in June. Fear of Flight is an original theatre piece created by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland as Artists in Residence with the Theatre Department in Winter 2005. It features original monologues commissioned from such major Canadian Playwrights as Daniel McIvor and Judith Thompson. A cast of 34 student actors is directed by Jillian Keilley with costume design by Stagecraft Professor Carol Nelson and lighting design by Technical Director Jim Chalmers-Gow.

Fourth year Theatre students have just returned from their annual two month residency at SWGC’s Harlow Campus in England. As has been the case for the past twelve years in England they were taught by our resident Master Teacher Peter Wight. Peter is currently appearing in the West End opposite Richard E. Grant in Simon Gray’s Otherwise Engaged and can be seen on the big screen in Pride and Prejudice and on DVD as the inspector in Vera Drake.

Report from Ryerson

This January, Ryerson University’s School of Interior Design launched the exhibition Process and Product in collaboration with the Helsinki Design Forum Finland. The project showcased groundbreaking design by Finland’s foremost designers. Process and Product centred around two exhibitions: Helsinki Contemporary Architecture, featuring the work of Finnish architectural photographer Jussi Tiainen, and Cool Dozen, featuring both chair and textile print design.

Jussi Tiainen has labelled Helsinki as the “Mecca of contemporary architecture.” It is one of the fastest growing centres in Europe and is considered to be one of the best designed cities in the world, leading Europe in the construction of significant buildings. The exhibition Helsinki Contemporary Urban Architecture presented one hundred of Tiainen’s photographs taken between 1998 and 2001 and has been touring worldwide since it was launched in Helsinki in 2001.

Cool Dozen featured the best of Finnish chair design and printed Marimekko textiles that offer a contemporary edge to traditional Finnish design. Iconic Finish designers were represented including Alvar and Aino Aalto.

In addition to the chair and textile design, Process and Product presented some of the most highly acclaimed ittala glass design from the past few decades.

The exhibition took over a year to prepare and Ryerson was pleased to welcome the Deputy-Mayor of Helsinki to the opening festivities. To accompany the exhibition, a lecture was held by Pentti Kareoja, Professor at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, followed by a panel discussion moderated by architecture critic Lisa Rochon with panellists who are leaders in the field of art and design both in Finland and in Canada.

The exhibition ran from January 26 to February 10, 2006. Ryerson was the proud venue for the exhibition’s Canadian premiere. It will continue to travel to Ottawa, followed by Vancouver, before hitting the international stage in Beijing.

The CAFAD List Serve has been discontinued. To circulate a query or message to your colleagues in CAFAD please send it to maryhughes@saltspring.com

Beaux-arts … Concordia … Fine Arts

Hitting the High Notes II

On April 6, 2006, the beautiful Verdi Requiem will be sung by four of the world’s finest singers in the stunning chapel of the Mother House of the Grey Nuns of Montreal. The benefit concert is in support of both the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal.

This ambitious project was launched last May, when opera superstars Renée Fleming and Bryn Terfel sang at the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall. Vice-President Kathy Assayag (Advancement and Alumni Relations) said the $303,000 that was raised at Hitting the High Notes I went to the Faculty of Fine Arts to fund graduate student awards. Assayag noted that, “Half the proceeds from this year’s event will go to support the OMM, and the remainder will go to Fine Arts to support an endowment for graduate students.”

Philanthropists Dr. Hans Black and Richard Renaud, who originated the first concert, are involved once again. “Mr. Renaud is a wonderful supporter of Concordia,” Assayag said. “He shared his passion for Concordia with Dr. Black, who is a great supporter of opera. They decided on Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, and knew just the right artists to perform it.”

These soloists are soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, tenor Neil Shicoff and bass-baritone James Morris. In addition to the soloists and the 71-piece OMM, there will be a 100-voice choir that includes 10 talented singers from the Faculty of Fine Arts — students, faculty and staff members.

Dean Catherine Wild said, “The role of the Faculty of Fine Arts is to passionately champion the arts as a vital and strategic activity that shapes and reflects contemporary culture. Our renowned reputation for innovative research and teaching excellence, across a diverse range of fine arts disciplines, is essential to attracting top-flight students to our seven graduate programs. But our reputation is only part of the puzzle. In today’s competitive post-secondary climate, funding is mandatory to attract and retain highly qualified applicants to our master’s and PhD programs. Outstanding graduate students are essential to maintaining Concordia’s position within the larger cultural community.”

The expansion of the Advancement and Alumni Relations Office will be in place in 2007 to meet the number one priority - to increase Graduate scholarships for the entire University.

For complete information on Hitting the High Notes: Verdi@concordia.ca or 514.848.2424 ext. 4397

Brock’s School of Fine and Performing Arts

Assistant Prof. David Fancy of the Dept. of Dramatic Arts was a recipient of one of the newly created Chancellor's Chairs for Teaching Excellence at Brock. Recognizing individuals who have demonstrated exceptional promise of outstanding contributions to post-secondary teaching and learning and/or have established an exemplary record of achievement in the scholarship of teaching, the award provides recipients with the opportunity to undertake a specific, three-year program of research and practice with an annual support grant of $5,000 in each of three years. A joint recipient with Prof. Susan Spearey of the Dept. of English, Dr. Fancy will explore the possibilities of incorporating skills from mindfulness meditation and forms of embodied and expressive activity into the teaching of contemporary critical theory.

Woodblock prints by Prof. Merijean Morrissey of the Dept. of Visual Arts were included in an exhibition in Tokyo of international artists and Japanese instructors associated with the Nagasawa Art Park Artist-in-Residence program.

Visiting Artist Amanda Burk gave a presentation of her work and also spoke on “Residencies and Artist-Run Centres in Canada” at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

The Dept. of Music recently hosted the Ontario University Choral Festival, featuring choirs from the University of Guelph, McMaster University, Redeemer University College, and Brock University. The final concert concluded with Assoc.Prof. Harris Loewen conducting all 250 voices in the world premiere of Gloria by Assoc. Prof. Peter Landey, commissioned especially for this event.

Assoc.Prof. Brian Power, Chairman of the Dept. of Music, has published “The Swiss Connection: Manuscript Transmission and the Introits of Trent Codex 93.”Recercare: Rivista per lo studio e la pratica della musica antica , 16 (2004): 7-22.

Asst. Prof. Jane Leavitt of the Dept. of Dramatic Arts is speaking in March at the Women as Global Leaders conference hosted by Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. Prof. Leavitt’s presentation addresses issues of curriculum and meta-curriculum in raising cultural awareness through courses in non-western theatre. Two mature Brock students of Iraqi origin are also presenting. Addil Hussain relates his experiences in creating Love and Sacrifice, a one-man show about Iraq which toured high schools in the Niagara region. Abbas Aldilami recounts how an excerpt from his play, By the Warmth of the Bullet that Kills, was produced as part of the mainstage production An Arabian Trilogy in February 2006.

NSCAD News

NSCAD University is hosting two exciting colloquia focusing on new areas of academic research and teaching.

From March 9- 11, the Film Studies Association of Canada (FSAC) Graduate Studies Colloquium will bring together 30 emerging scholars for a series of presentations and discussions on topics ranging from Early Cinema History to Gender Norms, Body Language and the Female Serial Killer. This colloquium has been organized by Dr. Darrell Varga, NSCAD’s Canada Research Chair in Contemporary Film and Media. Events will begin at the Alliance Atlantis Academy Building with screenings of new film and media works by some of the current graduate students in Media Arts at NSCAD University: Smriti Mehra (Bangalore), Jolanta Lapiak (Calgary), John Matthews (Belfast) and Stephan Schulz (Berlin). A highlight of the colloquium will be the keynote address by writer/actor and filmmaker Daniel McIvor, followed by a screening of his 2004 feature film Wilby Wonderful.

From March 7 to 30 NSCAD University will host a number of presentations and panels entitled The New Production Studio. This series explores how small creative industries and arts entrepreneurs can successfully integrate materials, technology, strategy and industry. NSCAD’s history as a hotbed for craft and design activity provides a great backdrop for this series. Among the presenters and panelists will be Nova Scotia textile artist Lesley Armstrong (of Armstrong Fox Textiles), Vancouver-based architect Stephanie Forsythe of molo Studio, and US jeweller Donald Friedrich, who will speak about “Things that Make my Heart Beat Faster”. Moderator for some of the discussions will be Assistant Prof. Glen Hougan of NSCAD’s Division of Design. The New Production Studio has received support through Nova Scotia’s Dept. of Economic Development.

Music at

Wilfrid Laurier

University

Laurier’s annual opera production was staged March 4, 5, and 6. Each performance of Albert Herring (by composer Benjamin Britten and librettist Eric Crozier) played to a packed house. The three-act comic opera, based on Guy de Maupassant’s short story, Le Rosier de Madame Husson, tells the story of Albert Herring, shy and inexperienced, who is crowned May King in his town’s annual spring celebration when no unblemished Queen can be found. The cast and chamber orchestra included current students, alumni, and professional performers, under the stage direction of Graham Cozzubbo and musical direction of Professor Leslie De’Ath.

A week later, opera alumna Jane Archibald returned to campus to speak with current voice students. Archibald has realized great success since graduating from Laurier in ’99. In 2005, the Stella Adler Fellow, competed with 1200 singers from 60 countries in the Neue Stimmen Competition, and was named a finalist. This September, the soprano begins an engagement as a soloist with the Wiener Staatsoper. Archibald said she has come to realize that success is a combination of talent, drive, hard work, and luck. Acting Dean of Music Dr. Gordon Greene says Archibald inspired those in the audience with simple truths; “Her words—that you must know yourself, that you must work hard to be the best in the room at each level—are good instruction no matter what the field.”

Carleton Contributes

Art History

Electrifying Art: Atsuko Tanaka 1954-1968, co-curated by Ming Tiampo (Carleton University) and Mizuho Kato (Ashiya City Museum of Art and History) at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (UBC) and the Grey Art Gallery (NYU) won an award from the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA): Best Monographic Museum Exhibition in New York, 2004-5 (2nd).

Music

In the Jan./Feb. 2006 issue of the Canadian Geographic, the www.nativedrums.ca website, created by Carleton University and partners with funding from the Canadian Content Online Program of Canadian Heritage is featured in an article on page 23. Some images of musical instruments from the website are included on pages 38-39. The manager of the team for this project, Dr. Elaine Keillor, Distinguished Research Professor, is quoted in the editorial on 15. She is also referred to in the online essays at www.canadiangeographic.ca The book, Sound the Trumpet, of Carleton alumnus Daphne Overhill is referred to and its author quoted in the article "The Band Plays On and On," page 24.

Film Studies

Andre Loiselle launched his new book Le Cinema De Michel Brault, A L'image D'une Nation in Montreal in February as part of a "Michel Brault Event" at the downtown NFB cinema and the Cinematheque Quebecoise. The event also included the screening of a new documentary on Brault as well as the launch of a DVD boxset of Brault's films from 1958 to 1974. Loiselle edited the 104-page booklet accompanying the DVD boxset.