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- September 2nd, 2005
- Einstein's Theories of Relativity
In this talk Dr. Greenside describes Einstein’s theories of relativity theories and some of their crazy but established consequences such as time slowing down and lengths contracting when an object moves quickly, that time travel into the future is possible (and has been accomplished), that energy can be converted to matter and vice versa, and that gravity arises from a warping of space and time by mass.
[ Show Detail ] - September 18th, 2005
- Carolina Clarinet Quartet
A selection of works by Andre Bloch, Claude Debussy, Pierre Max Dubois, Gabriel Faure, Charles Gounod, Darius Milhaud, and Henri Tomasi. The Carolina Clarinet Quartet are Tara Glaspey, Kristin Martin, Brent Smith, and Jim Williams.
[ Show Detail ] - October 9th, 2005
- Einstein and the Photon Concept
What is light? In 1905, Einstein made a radical proposition that light was not waves moving through some kind of medium like water but particles called “photons” that had wave-like features. In this talk, Dr. Greenside explains how Einstein’s suggestion of photons was the beginning of a scientific revolution called quantum mechanics that has greatly changed our understanding of what is matter and light and has become the deepest and most accurate scientific theory the human race has yet developed.
[ Show Detail ] - October 16th, 2005
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Ranked at No. 30 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 all-time greatest American films, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a genuine masterpiece that was, ironically, a box-office failure when released in 1948. At that time audiences didn’t accept Humphrey Bogart in a role that was intentionally unappealing, but time has proven this to be one of Bogart’s very best performances. It’s a grand adventure and a superior character study built around the timeless themes of greed and moral corruption. As adapted by writer-director John Huston (from a novel by B. Traven) it became a definitive treatment of fate and futility in the obsessive pursuit of wealth. Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, a down-and-out wage-worker in Mexico who stakes his meager earnings on a gold-prospecting expedition to the Sierra mountains. He’s joined by a grizzled old prospector (Walter Huston, the director’s father) and a young, no-nonsense partner (Tim Holt), and when they strike a rich vein of gold, the movie becomes an observant study of wretched human behavior. With dialogue that has been etched into the cultural consciousness and well-earned Oscars for John and Walter Huston, this is an American classic that still packs a punch.
[ Show Detail ] - October 23rd, 2005
- Einstein and Atoms
What is the world made of? The ancient Greeks thought substances were made of indivisible atoms but scientists were unable to confirm their existence until Einstein, in 1905, came up with a brilliant suggestion about how to prove their existence. Brownian motion has since become a metaphor for many complex patterns in space and time including financial time series and the fractal shapes of mountains and clouds. The existence of atoms has, in turn, provided the foundation for much of modern science, especially biology.
[ Show Detail ] - November 13th, 2005
- Jock Lauterer: "Roaming the Mountains with Pen and Camera"
Local favorite Jock Lauterer will share his experience running two community newspapers in the southern Appalachian Mountains. During that time he fell in love with the indigenous, elderly population of the region, and his slide presentation is a backwoods tour de force, sure to engage all who love the Tar Heel state and its people. Lauterer is founding director of the Carolina Community Media Project in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Launched in January 2001, the Carolina Community Media Project is dedicated to the proposition that strong community media help strengthen communities, and that communities – rural and suburban – with a vital civic life and a sense of place are key to high livability in a free democratic society.
[ Show Detail ] - December 18th, 2005
- Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)
Hailed as one of the most beautiful epics ever produced, Luchino Visconti’s 1963 historical drama is an Italian equivalent to Gone with the Wind. Set in Sicily during the tumultuous Garibaldi revolution, Il Gattopardo stars Burt Lancaster as the melancholy Prince of Salina — the aging aristocrat “leopard” of the title — who accepts change as inevitable during the struggle for a unified Italy. Giusseppe Rotunno’s masterful cinematography, representing the pinnacle of painterly beauty, is matched only by the authentic splendor of the film’s impeccable production design. The climactic, hour-long ballroom scene — called “one of the greatest of all passages in movies” — is utterly breathtaking. Anchored by Lancaster’s performance and the romantic pairing of Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, Il Gattopardo is sheer perfection. In Italian with English subtitles. Running time: 185 minutes.
[ Show Detail ] - January 8th, 2006
- Einstein's Theory of General Relativity: Black Holes, the Big Bang, and the Ultimate Computer
Einstein’s most spectacular achievement as a scientist was his 1915 general theory of relativity, which explained gravity as a geometric bending of spacetime by matter.
Dr. Henry Greenside, Professor of Physics at Duke University, will present a non-technical overview of Einstein’s theory and then explain some of its amazing implications, including the bending of light by gravity, how strong gravitational fields cause time to slow down, the properties of black holes that form when massive stars die, and how space itself can expand and contract. Dr. Greenside will desribe how general relativity is being used by scientists to understand many mysterious astronomical observations — monstrous black holes at the center of each galaxy, an ever-expanding universe, and the mysterious “dark matter” of which the universe consists.
Finally, Dr. Greenside will describe the major crisis with which physics is currently faced: our two greatest physical theories — general relativity and quantum mechanics — conflict with one another. The resolution of this crisis is likely to lead to spectacular and unprecedented insights.
[ Show Detail ] - January 15th, 2006
- Why Opera Matters
Why do so many people all over the world love opera? What makes opera such a powerful art form? Join us for live performances and in lively dialog led by Robert Galbraith, founder and artistic director of The Opera Company of North Carolina. NOTE: On Friday, February 17, and Sunday, February 19, in the newly renovated Memorial Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Triangle-based Opera Company of North Carolina will present “Salome” by Richard Strauss.
[ Show Detail ] - February 12th, 2006
- Salome -- What to Listen For
Strauss scholar, Duke faculty member, Opera News contributor, and Opera Company of North Carolina Advisory Board member Bryan Gilliam will lead us in a discussion of “Salome” — how it came to be and what to listen for in the upcoming Memorial Hall production (Friday, February 17, and Sunday, February 19) by The Opera Company of North Carolina.
[ Show Detail ] - April 9th, 2006
- The Marie Vanderbeck Trio
The Marie Vanderbeck Trio includes Ken Broun, piano; Mike Chrzanowski, bass; and, Marie Vanderbeck, vocals.
[ Show Detail ] - May 14th, 2006
- Chamber Music
An unusual chamber music concert featuring two cellos, two violins, and a viola. The concert will showcase the two-cello works of Boccherini and Schubert.
The players include several who have participated in this concert series as well as a newcomer to the Triangle, Ed Szabo, a recently retired faculty cellist and conductor from Eastern Michigan University. The other cellist is Richard Clark who has for many years participated in amateur chamber music presentations in Chapel Hill. He is recently retired from his day job as a professor of radiology at UNC-Chapel Hill. The violist is Kathryn Baerman, a surgical resident at UNC Hospitals, and the two violinists are Mark Furth, a molecular biologist at Wake Forest University and Johannes Rudolf, another scientist in the Research Triangle.
[ Show Detail ] - June 11th, 2006
- How to Create a Star and Save the Earth
The human race is approaching a difficult time in its history. There is a growing world-wide need for energy, a decreasing availability of oil, and increasing political instability because oil is owned by only a few countries. Even if oil were not scarce and were not owned by only a few, the burning of oil is causing a global warming such that ocean levels are rising, the ice caps are melting, and hurricanes occur more frequently and more intensely. In this non-technical talk, Professor Greenside will discuss one of the more promising solutions to these energy and environmental crises, namely the use of magnetic force fields to create a star on Earth that would generate energy the same way our Sun produces energy, by the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Using demonstrations, he will explain why fusion is so promising, why fusion has been difficult to achieve despite a 40-year international effort, and how close we are to making practical fusion machines.
Dr. Greenside is a Professor of Physics at Duke University. He does research in the physics of pattern formation, how complex patterns form and how to predict their properties, and is presently applying ideas of physics to understand how the brain processes information. He did his undergraduate at Harvard University and got his Ph.D. at Princeton University.
[ Show Detail ] - September 17th, 2006
- Dr. Zhivago
A Russian epic, the movie traces the life of surgeon-poet Yury Zhivago before and during the Russian Revolution. Married to an upper-class girl who is devoted to him, yet in love with an unfortunate woman who becomes his muse, Zhivago is torn between fidelity and passion. Sympathetic with the revolution but shaken by the wars and purges, he struggles to retain his individualism as a humanist amid the spirit of collectivism.
[ Show Detail ] - October 15th, 2006
- Joan Siefert Rose (WUNC)
Public Radio’s Voice in a Crowded Media Environment
Joan Siefert Rose, General Manager of North Carolina Public RadioPublic broadcasters face new competition-from satellite radio and the Internet – and need to respond to an audience that increasingly wants to listen to the programs they want, when they want them. Time shifting, downloading, and podcasting all threaten to disrupt the traditional public radio landscape. How can public radio stations respond to these new challenges while maintaining their core public service mission? Joan Seifert Rose will discuss her station’s strategy for the future and invite questions and comments from the audience.
At North Carolina Public Radio, under Seifert Rose’s guidance, listeners have a twenty-four hour schedule of nationally distributed programs such as Morning Edition, BBC News Hour, Fresh Air, and Car Talk, and, increasingly, through WUNC- produced original programming such as The State of Things and Back Porch Music. Dick Gordon, a popular NPR personality, was enticed to move to North Carolina to create a new, nationally syndicated program, The Story. This program began locally in February of 2006 with plans for the national launch in the fall. This new program reflects North Carolina and the southeast region for public radio listeners throughout the country.
North Carolina Radio became home for a new regional Marketplace, public radio’s daily magazine of business and finance. This bureau enhances and expands the coverage of business and economic news and issues across North Carolina and the southeast region.
The new satellite studio and office space at the American Tobacco Historic District in downtown Durham comes just in time. This expanded, state-of-the-art space with the latest technology houses the growing staff and many new programs.
Joan Siefert Rose, General Manager of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC FM, has worked as a professional broadcaster since 1979. She was a reporter and news anchor for fifteen years at commercial radio stations in New York, North Carolina, and Michigan before she became program director at Michigan Radio-WUOM in Ann Arbor in 1997. She came to North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC, as general manager in 2001.
As a reporter, she won a George Foster Peabody award, a National Headliners Award, two Clarion awards, and dozens of state and regional honors. As a general manager, her staff has won a DuPont-Columbia award, four Gracie Allen awards, and numerous state and regional awards for reporting.
She oversaw the station’s format change to news and information programming later that year. Her accomplishments include launching the daily talk/interview program, The State of Things, beginning a major gifts program and capital campaign, rebranding the station to reflect a more regional approach, and expanding the North Carolina Voices documentary series to concentrate on significant policy concerns in the state. In addition, she has recruited leading programming and development talent to advance North Carolina Public Radio’s service to a higher level.Joan lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, Jim, and two sons – Andy 16, and Ian, 13. Her mother, Margaret Siefert, is a long-time volunteer at the Chapel Hill Public Library. Please join us on October 15 at 3pm at the Chapel Hill Public Library.
[ Show Detail ] - January 28th, 2007
- The Road to the Opera House Stage - Two Singers' Perspective
Elizabeth Grayson, soprano, and Scott MacLeod, baritone, both with the Opera Company of North Carolina, will present a Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library Sunday Series program, “The Road to the Opera House Stage – Two Singers’ Perspective.”
These opera performers will discuss the evolution of their careers, from the initial recognition that they had a VOICE, through singing lessons, auditions, competitions, language training, acting lessons, and performances. They will illustrate the points they make with audio and video recordings as well as a capella singing. Some examples will be from La Boheme, The Opera Company of North Carolina’s upcoming production to be presented on Friday, April 13, and Sunday, April 15. In that production, Elizabeth Grayson will be singing the featured role of Musetta.
Ticket order forms for this production will be available at the lecture, which will include time for questions and answers. Learn about opera and hear it performed.
Elizabeth Williams-Grayson is a graduate of Converse College, SC, with a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance.
In 1982, she won the title of Miss North Carolina and went on to win talent and swimsuit scholarships in the Miss American pageant. Afterwards, she moved to New York City to work professionally in theater and television. Some of her most memorable roles were: Guenevere in the Broadway Touring Co. production of Camelot starring opposite Richard Harris, Eliza in My Fair Lady, Laurie in Oklahoma, Maria in Sound of Music, and many others. She also has had the opportunity to sing and perform on national television numerous time.
Elizabeth also has enjoyed operatic solo engagements in concert with Music Under the Stars Symphony in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her French Night concert was aired on Public Radio in Washington, DC and Paris. She also had the privilege to sing with the North Carolina Symphony conducted by Gerhardt Zimmermann.
Elizabeth now resides in Durham, NC with her husband Arthur and their two daughters, Stephanie and Juliana. She has enjoyed singing professionally locally for the Duke Children’s Classic. In 1999, Spectator Magazine honored Elizabeth with the “Best Local Actress” award for her role as Lorraine in the annual musical theater production of A Little Christmas Spirit. In April, she will sing the role of Musetta in the The Opera Company of North Carolina’s production of La Boheme.
A diverse and exciting performer, baritone Scott MacLeod has garnered critical praise in opera houses and concert halls across the nation. Media reviews have called him “impressive” (Pensacola News Journal), “Splendid” (operaonline.us), “emotional…equal parts sweetness and swagger” (Mobile Register), and “a voice to enjoy with every note” (Salt Lake Tribune). In addition to these accolades, Mr. MacLeod has been the recipient of many prestigious awards and fellowships. He has performed over 50 roles with some of the nation’s leading houses and abroad, including” Central City Opera, Opera North, Utah Festival Opera, Opera Birmingham, Mobile Opera, Opera Omaha, Des Moines Metro Opera, the Greensboro Symphony, the Tucson Symphony, and the National Symphony of Costa Rica.
Recent engagements include the title role in Gianni Schicchi, Schaunard in La Boheme, Giuseppe in The Gondoliers, Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, the title role in Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero, and William Clark in Opera Omaha’s debut of the new opera Dream of the Pacific. He can be heard in the role of Apollo in the world-premier recording of John Eccles’ Semele. He has taught voice and theatre as a guest at several prominent institutions and is in demand as a clinician and instructor.
Mr. MacLeod is a graduate of Northwestern University and holds a Master’s degree from Florida State University. He is a native of Michigan and lives in North Carolina with his wife, Rebecca, a strings professor at UNC Greensboro’s acclaimed School of Music.
[ Show Detail ] - February 18th, 2007
- Dr. Anne Mitchell Whisnant
Dr. Whisnant will show a power point slide show, complete with historic photos of the history and progress of the Parkway and discuss her new book: Super-Scenic Motorway, A Blue Ridge Parkway History, published in 2006 by the UNC Press.
According to popular myth, the Parkway was a New Deal “godsend for the needy”, built without conflict or opposition, by landscape architects and planners who traced their uniform vision along a scenic, isolated, southern landscape. Historical resources tell a different story.Whisnant reveals what the Parkway’s unruffled scenery tends to obscure: the road owes its appearance as much to the negotiated resolution of conflicts as it does to the natural features of the mountains.
The most visited site in the National Park system, the 469 mile Blue Ridge Parkway winds along the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia and North Carolina.
Dr. Whisnant will speak about the history of the Parkway as well as what need to be done today. She states: “The Parkway has always been a controversial and politically challenging undertaking.” Ashe County landowners, in the 1930s, felled trees across the road to protest. The Eastern Cherokees, for five years, resisted granting a right of way.
After growing up in Troy, Alabama, Anne Mitchell Whisnant received her B.A. in history from Birmingham-Southern College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at UNC, she specialized in the history of the American South.
Upon completion of her doctorate, she taught U.S. and North Carolina history at UNC for two years before moving into a career in academic administration. From 2002 to 2006 she worked at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University, where she developed and promoted an assortment of humanities programs. As of July 1, 2006, she became Director of Research, Communications, and Programs for the Office of Faculty Governance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Anne and her husband, David Whisnant, also run a historical consulting firm, Primary Source History Services, which does contract research for private individuals, communities, companies, and government agencies.
Anne’s study of the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway began in 1991, spurred by a love of the mountains nurtured in seven summers spent during her youth at Lake Junaluska United Methodist Assembly in western North Carolina.
Super-Scenic Motorway is the first history of the Parkway ever to be fully grounded both in the relevant scholarly literature and in thorough research in the extensive archival record of the road’s development.
Anne also has published two articles and delivered numerous public talks on the Parkway’s history, and has served as a consultant to the National Park Service. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation.
She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband and two sons.
Visit her extensive web page:
www.superscenic.com/Author/whisnant.html[ Show Detail ] - October 21st, 2007
- Doug Eyre - The Story of Isaac Emerson, the Bromo-Seltzer King
Dr. John Douglas “Doug” Eyre and his wife Olga have lived in Chapel Hill for 49 years. He holds three degrees from the University of Michigan and taught at UNC for 44 years. Doug was a geographer with a special interest in the economic and urban geography of Japan, Korea, and China. Active in a wide range of campus activities, Eyre was honored by the UNC Alumni Faculty Service Award in 2003. He has been a member of Chapel Hill Historical Society since 1974 and is a charter member of both the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill and the Chapel Hill Museum. For many years he has written a monthly column for the Chapel Hill News about Chapel Hill during and since the 1920s. Doug takes readers back in time by profiling the people who wove the tapestry of history in the community and describing the places where the history was made. With this column he lets us know of the rich mixture of talented people, events, and buildings that gave our town its distinctive character.
Isaac Emerson was Chapel Hill’s main contribution to the set of newly wealthy American families who were able to adopt extravagant life styles marked by conspicuous consumption in the period between the 1870’s and 1930’s. His wealth was derived from the manufacture and sale of his concoction Bromo-Seltzer, a remedy for upset stomach and headache.
Born to a farm family near Chapel Hill, he lived in town with his aunt, Mrs. A. J. McDade, during his studies at UNC where he earned a certificate in chemistry in 1879. While working for Dr. A. B. Roberson in his Franklin Street drugstore, he started the steps toward the discovery of a marketable new drug. However, it was after he moved to Baltimore in 1884 that he succeeded in the invention of Bromo-Seltzer. In 1891 he founded Emerson Drug Company for the manufacture and wholesale distribution of Bromo-Seltzer with himself as president and major stockholder. His extraordinary success was due mainly to his imaginative advertising.
Emerson, with a second wife and daughter, took to the splashy life style of the wealthy with gusto. There were beautiful homes for lavish entertainment, a pair of sea going yachts for long oceanic trips and periods on the French Riviera, and a hunting lodge in South Carolina. Naval affairs held a fascination for him and in 1898 he equipped and manned a naval squadron of 27 officers and 449 men at his own expense for service in the Spanish-American War. He remained extremely wealthy until his death in 1931.
Even though he resided in Baltimore for the rest of his life, Emerson never forgot his Chapel Hill family and friends and kept in general touch with what was going on there. During a triumphant return in 1910 he took care of major family housing and health care needs. Five years later, he donated enough money to UNC for its first multi-sport stadium, Emerson Athletic Field. It has since disappeared from the campus scene as larger more modern facilities have been built. In its place now is the massive Davis Library and adjacent new campus buildings.
Emerson’s presence remains in the School of Pharmacy through an endowment to support research and education in pharmacy. Although the fund bears Emerson’s name, Fonnie B. Andrews, a UNC alumnus and later president of Emerson Drug Company, established it in his honor in 1955.[ Show Detail ] - November 18th, 2007
- Scott J. Parker and Rob Franklin Fox
Scott J. Parker, recently retired Director of the National Institute of Outdoor Drama and Rob Franklin Fox, Director, of the Institute of Outdoor Drama,located at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, will speak about some of the 45 historical outdoor dramas occurring across the United States. The theatrical productions are held in outdoor amphitheaters under the stars, and are original plays that tell a historical story of significance for the areas.
Scott J. Parker was director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama from 1990 until August 2007. He is the former producer of Paul Green’s The Lost Colony, the nation’s first outdoor drama located on Roanoke Island, NC and co-author of Creating Historical Drama, a resource book for playwrights and theater organizations. In 2000, he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, received the Suzanne M. Davis Award for distinguished service to theater in the South by the Southeastern Theater Conference in 1992, and in 1991 was elected to membership of The Players Club in New York city.
Rob Franklin Fox was appointed Director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama in July 2007. He served as General Manager and as Assistant Box Office Manager for PlayMakers Repertory Company. He is past-president of the Triangle Network of Theaters, former board member of the Canton Community Players, and a member of the North Carolina Theater Conference.
[ Show Detail ] - January 6th, 2008
- Opera at the Library
In preparation for their performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, the Raleigh-based Opera Company of North Carolina will present a preview lecture and selections from the opera as a part of the Friends of the Library Sunday lecture series. Based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, the opera is a study of family love, power and conflicts and their consequences. The program begins at 3:00 PM.
The OCNC will present Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in Fletcher Opera Theatre on Thursday, January 17, at 7:30 pm, on Saturday, January 19, at 7:30 pm, and Sunday, January 20, at 3:00 pm.[ Show Detail ] - March 30th, 2008
- Opera at the Library - Favorite Italian Arias
Opera About Town, a talented troupe of young singers from The Opera Company of North Carolina, returns to the Chapel Hill Public Library for an informal afternoon concert titled “Favorite Italian Arias.” The free concert takes place on Sunday, March 30 at 3 p.m. in the meeting room on the lower level of the library.
The singers will perform selections from The Opera Company’s upcoming spring concert Va, pensiero – Favorite Italian Arias.
The Opera About Town features talented singers who perform throughout the Triangle at major arts events, schools, public libraries and senior living communities. The singers perform highlights from the season repertoire, other opera favorites, as well as familiar American standards and hits from Broadway. Some of the singers have appeared in lead and supporting operatic roles across the state, but most of the young singers are being carefully groomed for professional careers and hope to one day assume roles on the opera stage.
Opera About Town played to a full house and rave reviews at CHPL in January of this year. A word to the wise: car pooling and early arrival are very good ideas for this popular program.
The March 30 program at the Library is a preview of Va, pensiero – Favorite Italian Arias that is scheduled for Saturday evening, April 5 at 7:30 p.m., Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress energy Center in Raleigh. For additional information or to purchase tickets, call (919) 792-3850, or visit www.operanc.com.
[ Show Detail ]