UIS Music Program presents spring recital

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Music Program presents a Spring Recital featuring performances by the UIS Flute Choir, UIS Chorus, Camerata student musicians, UIS music faculty and honorable mention recipients of the UIS Music Soloist Competition. The performance is free and open to the public.

WHEN: Friday, March 1, 2019, at 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: UIS TV Studio – Office of Electronic Media, located in the Public Affairs Center at UIS

DETAILS: The event will feature a wide array of chamber and solo music from UIS Music students and faculty. This recital will also feature UIS Music Soloist Competition honorable mention soloists Meredith Crifasi (violin) and James Ukonu (voice).

The UIS Flute Choir will open the program with arrangements of J.S. Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” and Catherine McMichael’s “Silver Celebration.” UIS Camerata student musicians will be playing the “Romance” movement of Rachmoninoff’s first string quartet and Eric Whitacre’s “Five Hebrew Love Songs” for voice, violin and piano. UIS Music faculty soloists Yichen Li, Bill Mitchell, Kristin Sarvela, Josh Song, Abigail Walsh and Pei-I Wang will perform works for trombone, oboe, guitar, flute and piano in various combinations. Directed by Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology Sharon Graf, the UIS Chorus will finish the program with a set of three songs including “Africa” by David Paich and Jeff Porcaro.

Donations are welcome and will be used to benefit the UIS Music Student Merit Award. The UIS Music program began in 2001 and is comprised of students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as Springfield community members, all with a variety of skill levels.

UIS Visual Arts Gallery presents "The Magnificently Mundane" curated by Professor Brytton Bjorngaard

The University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery is pleased to present “The Magnificently Mundane,” a group exhibition that presents works selected from the field of graphic design. The exhibit is curated by Brytton Bjorngaard, UIS assistant professor of digital media, and features designers from around the country.

The exhibition will open on Thursday, February 28, and run through Thursday, April 11. An opening reception for the exhibit will take place on Thursday, February 28, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. in the Visual Arts Gallery.

According to Bjorngaard, “Design is part of our everyday. It’s the cereal box opened at breakfast to the junk mail when home from work. It’s the mundane. It’s also the invite for a friend’s wedding -- to the art adorning the living room wall. It’s the magnificent. Whether created for a client, part of a research project, or created for pleasure, ‘The Magnificently Mundane’ showcases what it means to be graphic design.”

“The Magnificently Mundane” features works from Thom Caraway (Spokane, Washington), James Ewald (Edmond, Oklahoma), Lisa Hammershaimb (Chicago, Illinois), Jessica Hawkins (Shreveport, Louisiana), Alma Hoffman (Mobile, Alabama), Laura Huisinga (Fresno, California), Taekyeom Kim (Boone, North Carolina), Jeanne Komp (Royersford, Pennsylvania), Renee Meyer Ernst (Davenport, Iowa), Shannon McCarthy (Richmond, Kentucky), Ed Outhouse (Joplin, Missouri), Chris Sickels (Greenfield, Indiana), Becky Simpson (Nashville, Tennessee), RJ Thompson (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Kim Topp (College Station, Texas), Teruko Tsubaki (Omaha, Nebraska), Natalie Tyree (Bowling Green, Kentucky) and Neil Ward (Des Moines, Iowa).

At UIS, Bjorngaard teaches courses in graphic design and digital media, including technology, print, typography, web, animation, digital and film photography and professional skills. In addition to teaching, she is a freelance graphic designer, exhibiting artist, a Springfield Art Association board member and was a member of DEMO Project (a former artist-run contemporary and alternative project gallery space in Springfield).

The Visual Arts Gallery is centrally located on the UIS campus in the Health and Science Building, Room 201, and is open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information, visit the UIS Visual Arts Gallery website at www.uis.edu/visualarts/gallery or contact the gallery by phone at 217/206-6506 or by email at alach@uis.edu.

UIS Speaker Series presents “Hiking the Keystone XL Pipeline: A 1700-Mile Eco-Adventure”

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series presents “Hiking the Keystone XL Pipeline: A 1700-Mile Eco-Adventure,” a talk by award-winning author Ken Ilgunas, a professional travel and environmental writer.

WHEN: Thursday, February 28, 2019, at 6 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: Ilgunas spent 5 months hiking the entire length of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which will deliver oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas. Along the way, he collected stories from landowners about how the pipeline will impact their lives, local environments, and the global climate. Ilgunas will share what this journey taught him about environmental politics, climate change, and culture in the American heartland. He will take an environmental studies approach, weaving together science, history, personal reflection, cultural studies and environmental philosophy.

Ilgunas has penned articles for The New York Times, Time, Backpacker, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He is also the author of three books that have been featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and NPR and in The New Yorker and National Geographic. He holds a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Buffalo in history and English and a master’s degree in liberal studies from Duke University.

This event is cosponsored by the UIS Campus Senate Committee on Sustainability, UIS Department of Environmental Studies, UIS Green Fee Committee and Students Allied for a Greener Earth (SAGE).

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217/206-8507 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS Speaker Series explores the plight of the Rohingya Refugees of Myanmar

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series will explore the plight of the Rohingya Refugees of Myanmar during a lecture by Azeem Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy in Washington and the author of “The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar's Hidden Genocide.”

WHEN: Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 7 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: The Rohingyas, a Muslim ethnic group living in the predominantly Buddhist country of Myanmar, are described by the United Nations as among the most persecuted people in the world. The re-emergence of a newly democratic Myanmar on the global stage has been accompanied by international scrutiny of its maltreatment of minority groups resulting in the recent creation of a high-level commission on the issue led by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. As part of his lecture, Ibrahim will argue that the use of religion as a unifying nationalist sentiment has left the Rohingya disenfranchised and marginalized.

Ibrahim earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, World Fellow at Yale and a Rothermere Fellow at the University of Oxford. Ibrahim has been researching the Rohingya crisis for more than half a decade and has made numerous trips to Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand. He has also been published by The New York Times, Washington Post, Daily Telegraph, Newsweek, CNN, Foreign Policy and others and is regularly invited to advise policy makers on this issue.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217/206-8507 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS Lunch & Learn Series presents "Lincoln on the Circuit & Mary Lincoln in the White House"

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield’s Office of Advancement, Alumni SAGE Society and the Illinois State Historical Society presents “Lincoln on the Circuit & Mary Lincoln in the White House” as part of the Lunch and Learn Series.

WHEN: Tuesday, February 26, 2019, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Student Union Ballroom, 2251 Richard Wright Drive, Springfield

DETAILS: Guy Fraker, a retired attorney, author and Lincoln historian, will discuss Abraham Lincoln’s 20-plus year career as a lawyer and part-time judge on the 8th judicial circuit.

Kathryn Harris, immediate past president of the Abraham Lincoln Association, and former director of library services at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, will present a first-person portrayal of Elizabeth Keckley, former slave and Mary Lincoln’s trusted friend and modiste, who later wrote about her White House years.

The cost for the hot buffet lunch and program is $23/per person. Reservations are requested, as seating is limited. The registration deadline is one week prior to each event. A discounted series subscription is available for $60/per person now through February 19.

Other upcoming Lunch & Learn events include “Irish Heritage & History” on March 27 and “Three-I Baseball & Forgotten Voices of Illinois” on April 30. These lunch-time programs will stimulate thinking as they build upon the University’s tradition of open and intelligent dialogue.

Visit https://go.uis.edu/LLspring2019 to register online. For more information, contact the UIS Office of Advancement at 217/206-6058 or email advancement@uis.edu.