Patecky Abstract Art Slated for Hallie Ford Museum

Albert Patecky was a highly regarded Portland painter who helped introduce regional audiences to non-objective art. Although he was known for his paintings and prints of regional subject matter, Patecky flirted with abstraction during the late 1940s and ’50s. A small exhibition of his experimental abstract work will run Oct. 29 to Dec. 22 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

Born in Michigan in 1906, Patecky arrived in Portland in 1928 and worked as a cartoonist and illustrator during the 1930s and early ’40s. An opportunity to study at the Art Students League in New York led him to the Museum of Non-Objective Painting—the forerunner of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—where he was introduced to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian-born founder of the German Expressionist movement Der Blaue Reiter.

“Patecky was inspired by Kandinsky’s nonrepresentational work,” said John Olbrantz, museum director, “and created his own non-objective works, which were exhibited in the Museum of Non-Objective Painting for several years.

“Patecky was particularly interested in the clear geometric forms of Kandinsky’s 1930s work and in the analogy Kandinsky drew between painting and music,” Olbrantz said.

Organized by Willamette University Professor Roger Hull, the exhibition focuses on Patecky’s work from the late 1940s to 1966. Works have been selected from a number of regional collections. In conjunction with the exhibition, an article on Patecky will be published in the September-October issue of American Art Review. Limited copies will be available at the museum.

“Albert Patecky: Abstractions” has been supported by a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is located at 700 State Street (corner of State and Cottage Streets) in downtown Salem near the campus of Willamette University. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed Sunday and Monday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children under 12 are admitted free and Tuesday is an admission-free day. For further information please call 503-370-6855.

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Student Docents to Show Off Maori Exhibition

In conjunction with its current exhibition “Toi Maori: The Eternal Thread,” the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University will offer student-led exhibition tours through early December. Tours will be offered Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. from Oct. 25 through Dec. 6, and on Saturdays beginning at 1 p.m. from Oct. 29 through Dec. 3, with the exception of the Thanksgiving weekend. Student docents have studied Maori art and culture for several months and worked closely with the Maori weavers when they were in residence at the museum.

“Toi Maori: The Eternal Thread” is a major exhibition of traditional and contemporary Maori weaving on loan from New Zealand collections. Included in the exhibition are superb examples of kakahu (high quality woven cloaks), whariki (woven floor mats), kete (finely woven baskets) and other exquisite woven pieces. The exhibition runs from Sept. 24 through Dec. 22 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art and is the first time a major exhibition of Maori weaving has been presented in the United States.

Organized by the Pataka Museum of Arts and Culture in Porirua City, New Zealand, in partnership with Toi Maori Aotearoa-Maori Arts New Zealand, the exhibition is supported by a major grant from Te Waka Toi/Creative New Zealand. Additional funding was provided by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde through their Spirit Mountain Community Fund, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Oregon Arts Commission and the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax funds.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is located at 700 State Street (corner of State and Cottage Streets) in downtown Salem near the campus of Willamette University. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed Sunday and Monday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children under 12 are admitted free and Tuesday is an admission-free day. For further information please call 503-370-6855.

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Identity Theft Topic of Willamette Forum

State Attorney General Hardy Myers and Vice President and Investigator for Bank of America Dana Parks will discuss “Identity Theft and Corporate Responsibility: What’s in Your Dumpster?” Thursday, Nov. 3, at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland.

Myers and Parks will be joined by Drew Lianopoulos, attorney in charge of financial fraud and consumer protection at the Oregon Department of Justice.

The Breakfast Forum, co-sponsored by Willamette University and the Willamette Professional MBA program, is open to the public.

It begins with coffee at 7 a.m. and breakfast at 7:30 a.m. The breakfast meeting adjourns promptly at 8:30 a.m. Advance reservations are recommended. Register online at www.willamettealumni.com/forum, email alumni@willamette.edu or call 1-800-551-6794. The reservation deadline is Oct. 31.

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Lecture Explores Paradoxes and Struggles of 1940s Black Liberals

Lawrence Jackson will present “Black Liberals in the 1940s: The Unfulfilled Goals of Ralph Ellison, J. Saunders Redding and Horace Cayton Jr.” Thursday, Oct. 27, at 4 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of the Hatfield Library at Willamette University. Jackson teaches English and African-American Studies at Emory University and is the author of the biography, Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius.

“Ralph Ellison’s 1952 Invisible Man is one of the great American novels of the 20th century,” said Frann Michel, associate professor of English at Willamette. This complex, comic and surreal story takes its narrator from south to north and from innocence to experience, she said. “Drawing on folklore and preaching, blues and jazz, the novel explores American history, literature and modernity.”

J. Saunders Redding wrote detailed portraits of black life in America. Redding joined the faculty at Brown University in 1949, becoming the first African American professor at an Ivy League university. His book, On Being a Negro in America, was praised as “one of the most effective statements ... of the constant conflict experienced by the Negro between his reactions as a normal human being and those which life in America requires of him.”

Horace Cayton Jr. was a black slave who eventually became publisher of the Seattle Republican newspaper. He later worked as a political reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information call Frann Michel at 503-370-6389 or Thabiti Lewis at 503-370-6233.

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Oregon Symphony to Premiere Peel’s Work

The Oregon Symphony will feature the world premiere of composer John Peel’s “Sinfonia romanza” Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 8 p.m. in the Smith Auditorium at Willamette University. Peel is the composer-in-residence at the University.

Portland performances will take place Saturday, Oct. 22, and Sunday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m., and Monday, Oct. 24, at 8 p.m. in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

The night of classical music will also include two sweeping Romantic-era pieces, Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Chopin’s “Piano Concerto No. 1,” with James DePreist conducting and Horacio Gutierrez as piano soloist.

“Sinfonia” was composed in the desert of eastern Oregon, in a landscape of ancient volcanic ruins.

“It no doubt affected my sense of musical time and connectedness,” Peel said.

The piece is—in turns—brooding, heroic, lyrical, pastoral and brusque, and filled with unexpected elements, such as nostalgic tenor-tuba chorales and an unaccompanied horn solo. The one-movement symphony moves through a world of harmony that is at times lean and at times lush. Spiky woodwinds and biting trumpets give way throughout to velvety, muted strings and horns.

Peel is one of Oregon’s premier composers, having received numerous awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Fund and other agencies. Major ensembles that have commissioned and performed Peel’s chamber and orchestral music include the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Riverside Symphony, the American String Quartet, the New Arts Trio and Cuarteto Latinoamericano.

Peel was appointed composer-in-residence and Irene Gerlinger Swindells Professor of Music at Willamette in 1990. In this position, he has written new compositions and organized concerts, residencies and lectures.

“John has introduced Salem audiences to world-class performers and composers of new music,” said Carol Long, dean of Willamette’s College of Liberal Arts.

Tickets range from $20 to $38, and may be purchased at Safeway TicketsWest (1-800-992-8499).

Willamette University staff, students and faculty may purchase tickets for the Portland performances at a 20 percent discount by calling the Oregon Symphony Box Office at 1-503-416-6380, between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. weekdays. For the Salem performance, Willamette University staff, students and faculty may contact the Music Department at 503-370-6255 to arrange for discounted tickets. Students may also purchase tickets at the door for $5.

For more information call the Oregon Symphony Association in Salem at 503-364-0149.

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Ensemble Kaboul Brings Afghan Music to Salem

Note: Willamette staff, faculty and students can purchase tickets at the Music Department. Faculty and staff tickets are $12; student tickets are $3. Community members may purchase tickets at all Safeway TicketsWest outlets or by calling 1-800-992-8499. (There may be a service charge.) Tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for students and seniors. (11 October 2005)

The Grace Goudy Distinguished Artist Series will feature Ensemble Kaboul, with special guest Ustad Farida Mahwash, Monday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center at Willamette University.

Ensemble Kaboul combines the talents of six exiled Afghan musicians, weaving together traditional Indian, Persian, Arabic and tribal traditions to form rich, multi-textured music. Their performances blend poetic love songs, folk tunes and raga-like classical music, and feature hand percussion and flute-like and stringed instruments.

The group was recognized by BBC Radio with a World Music Award in 2003.

“No nation in recent history has suffered as greatly as Afghanistan,” said the BBC’s Garth Cartwright. “And amongst the many tribulations that nation’s citizens had to endure was the banning of all music—both making and playing—by the Taliban.” The post 9/11 removal of the Taliban led to a surge of interest in Afghan arts, Cartwright said. “Mahwash and Ensemble Kaboul are the best exemplars of Afghanistan’s traditional musical aesthetic.”

The Salem performance features Ustad Farida Mahwash, a powerhouse singer who was given the honorary title, “Ustad,” meaning “master.” No woman in the history of Afghanistan had been called “Ustad,” until Mahwash came along. She got her unexpected start while working as a typist at a radio station. When the radio director broadcast her songs during the 1960s and ’70s, her popularity led to a loosening of laws banning public performances by women.

“It’s an honor to represent Afghan women, whose voices have been suffocated,” Mahwash said.

Music making was also disrupted by the Afghan-Soviet conflict that began in 1979 and ended 20 years later.

“Afghanistan has suffered 23 years of war,” said Ensemble Kaboul leader Khaled Arman. “Most of the musicians have not survived. I don’t mean they died in combat. I mean they suffered psychological trauma. They couldn’t stand the weight of war and emigration. Now some of our instruments are disappearing because nobody is able to play them.”

The troupe’s exiled musicians have yet to play in Kaboul.

“Ensemble Kaboul not only brings rich, beautiful music to international audiences, but it is preserving one of the oldest musical traditions in the world,” said Pam Moro, anthropology professor at Willamette.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for students and seniors and can be purchased at the Music Department at Willamette. People may also contact TicketsWest at 1-800-992-8499 or www.ticketswest.com. (There may be a service charge.) Call Moro at 503-370-6645 for more information.

The public is invited to a free lecture Thursday, Nov. 10, at 12:45 p.m. in the Hatfield Room at the Hatfield Library at the University. Moro will introduce the audience to Afghani music, and will discuss the impact of politics on performance in Afghanistan as well as broader issues related to music and censorship.

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