Acclaimed String Quartet Plays Salem

The Grace Goudy Distinguished Artists Series will feature the Cuarteto Casals Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall at the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center at Willamette University.

Since its founding in Madrid in 1997, the Cuarteto Casals has become recognized as one of Europe’s most talented young string quartets. The Spanish quartet has garnered extensive critical acclaim and has won top prizes at many international competitions. They have performed in Europe, the United States, Japan and South America.

“Its sound [is] simultaneously powerful and sensitive... [The quartet] impressed the audience with its technical sovereignty and passionate joy of playing,” said a Die Welt review.

The New York Times also praised the quartet. “One string quartet may play with more or less warmth or unity than another, but comparatively few produce the kind of distinctive tone that sets an ensemble apart. The Cuarteto Casals ... has a vivid sonic signature.”

The concert will feature pieces by Mozart, Ligeti and Brahms.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for students and seniors, and are available at all Safeway TicketsWest outlets or by calling 1-800-992-8499. Willamette staff, faculty and students can purchase tickets at the Music Department. Faculty and staff tickets are $12; student tickets are $3. Call 503-370-6255 for more information.

Two master classes will be offered, one with the University Chamber Orchestra Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 5 p.m. and one with student chamber groups Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 10:20 a.m. Both will be in Hudson Hall at the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center. They are free and open to the public.

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Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation

A major exhibition of ancient steppe art on loan from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in New York will run Jan. 21 through April 1 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University. The exhibition brings to life the complex cultures that flourished across the Asian grasslands from northern China and Mongolia to Central Asia and Eastern Europe during the late second and first millennia BCE.

Curated by Trudy Kawami, director of research for the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, “Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands” reveals how the ancient, horse-riding cultures of Mongolia and Central Asia used the animal world as a source of symbols to indicate tribe, social rank and connection to the spirit world. The exhibition shows how these complex cultures helped facilitate travel and trade along the Silk Road during the first millennia BCE.

The exhibition features more than 80 masterpieces of steppe art, including bronze belt buckles, plaques, pendants, ornaments and weapons. Animal motifs such as antlered stags, wild boars and birds of prey are a primary theme. The exhibition includes text panels, annotated labels, a map, photomurals, a free color brochure and a full-color, hardcover book by scholar and research consultant Emma Bunker.

As a special feature, Kawami will present an illustrated lecture on the ancient bronzes of the Asian grasslands Friday, Jan. 27, from 5 to 6 p.m. in the Paulus Lecture Hall at Willamette’s College of Law. She will discuss the role of bronzes among the ancient, horse-riding cultures of Mongolia and Central Asia. Admission to her lecture is free.

In addition to Kawami’s lecture, an ongoing series of gallery talks on the exhibition will be offered Tuesday afternoons from 12:30 to 1 p.m. from Jan. 31 through March 24. Gallery talks will be presented by Elizabeth Garrison, the Cameron Paulin Curator of Education, or a Hallie Ford Museum of Art docent. Admission is free.

Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987), a research psychiatrist, medical publisher, connoisseur and art collector, established the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in 1965 to make his extensive art collections available to a wide audience. The foundation collection has more than 1,100 works of art, including Chinese ritual bronzes and ceramics, Buddhist stone sculpture and the Ch’u Silk Manuscript, the oldest existing Chinese written document.

Kawami received her doctorate from Columbia University in art history and archaeology, where she specialized in the art of ancient Western Asia. She has conducted research in Turkey, Iran and Israel and is the author of “Monumental Art of the Parthian Period in Iran” (Leiden: 1987) and “Ancient Iranian Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections” (New York: 1992). Kawami is a frequent lecturer and has published numerous articles.

“Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation” has been supported by grants from 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 (the 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 more information call 503-370-6855.

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Jazz Festival Concert at Willamette Feb. 11

Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath will be featured at the 25th Annual Willamette University Jazz Festival concert Saturday, Feb. 11, in Smith Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Tickets at the music department are $12 for adults and $6 for students and seniors. If available, patrons may purchase tickets at the Smith Auditorium box office one hour prior to the performance. For more information, call 503-370-6255, or visit www.willamette.edu/go/jazzfestival.

The annual festival welcomes 24 outstanding high school bands from Oregon and Washington. One of these bands will be invited to join Heath and the Willamette Jazz Ensemble on stage during the concert.

Heath will also offer a free clinic Saturday, Feb. 11, at noon in Smith Auditorium. Registration is not required.

The festival is sponsored by the Grace Goudy Distinguished Artists Series at Willamette.

Heath has long been recognized as a brilliant instrumentalist, composer and arranger. He has performed with nearly all the jazz greats of the last 50 years, including Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis.

In 1948 at the age of 21, he performed in the First International Jazz Festival in Paris with McGhee, sharing the stage with Coleman Hawkins, Slam Stewart, and Erroll Garner. One of Heath’s earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, and Nelson Boyd.

During his career, Heath has performed on more than 100 record albums and has written more than 125 compositions, many of which have been recorded by other artists including Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, J.J Johnson and Dexter Gordon.

After having just concluded 11years as professor of music at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Heath maintains an extensive performance schedule and continues to conduct workshops and clinics throughout the United States, Europe, and Canada.

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Teacher Workshop for Ancient Bronzes Exhibition

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University will present a workshop for teachers interested in bringing classes to see the “Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands” exhibition Wednesday, Feb. 1, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the museum. The workshop is free, although advance registration is required so that teacher kits can be produced. To register, please call 503-370-6855.

The workshop, taught by Elizabeth Garrison, the Cameron Paulin Curator of Education at the museum, will help teachers prepare students for a fieldtrip to the exhibition and propose ideas that reinforce the gallery experience and broaden curriculum concepts back in the classroom. Garrison has written a teacher packet on ancient steppe art and culture that will be available to attendees. For those who cannot attend, the teacher packet will be available online.

“Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation” is a major exhibition of ancient steppe art on loan from one of the foremost collections of Asian art in the United States. The exhibition brings to life the complex cultures that flourished across the Asian grasslands from northern China and Mongolia to Central Asia and Eastern Europe during the late second and first millennia BCE. It runs from Jan. 21 through April 1.

“Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands” has been supported by grants from 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 (the 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 more information call 503-370-6855.

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Willamette University Hunger Banquet Raises Awareness of Global Issues

The Community Service Learning Office of Willamette University will host its annual Hunger Banquet Friday, Jan. 27, from 5 to 7 p.m. in Cat Cavern at the Putnam University Center.

The Hunger Banquet is an event that explores issues surrounding world hunger and what the students of Willamette University can do to actively make a difference. The program will feature a speech given by anthropology Professor Joyce Millen, a “meal” that simulates the discrepancy in global food distribution and an open-ended discussion.

Those who partake in the meal will be divided into one of three groups, designated from the card they are given at random as they enter the dining area. The card, designed in the method used by many Oxfam Hunger Banquets, will have a short description of an individual living in the global society who comes from either a first-, second- or third- world country.

Twenty percent of the students will receive a first-world card, and will receive full meals. Thirty percent of the group will receive second-world cards and will represent individuals in second-world countries. They will have a simple meal away from the table. Fifty percent of the group will receive third-world cards, and sit on the floor and receive a meal of plain white rice. It will be up to the participants in the event to decide what to do with the situation at hand—whether to maintain their position, share food between the groups or come up with a number of alternatives. This interaction and the speech by Millen will give rise to an interesting discussion, as students share their thoughts and ideas about what they experienced during the meal and how this simulation relates to the global issue of world hunger.

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Creativity at the Heart of Portland’s Vitality

Chris Coleman, artistic director for Portland Center Stage, will discuss “Creativity: The Fuel in Our Engine” at the Thursday, Feb. 16, Willamette University Breakfast Forum at the Multnomah Athletic Club.

Coffee is at 7 a.m., breakfast is served at 7:30 a.m. and the event adjourns at 8:30 a.m. Tickets are $15 per person and $100 for a corporate table of eight. To register, visit www.willamettealumni.com or call 1-800-551-6794.

The program is sponsored by Willamette University and the Willamette Professional MBA program located in Portland.

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Speaker Exposes Tax Myths

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Cay Johnston, author of “Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else,” will speak at Reed College Monday, Feb. 6, in the Vollum Lecture Hall at 7 p.m.; at Willamette University in Salem Tuesday, Feb. 7, in Cone Chapel at 7 p.m., and at the LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m. All lectures are free and open to the public.

The title of the lecture is: “Stealing from the Future: Tax Cuts for the Super Rich—Debt for You.”

The series is sponsored by the Willamette Valley Forum, Reed College Krause Fund for Economics Lectures, Willamette University and Oregon State University.

In an interview with Forbes.Com, Johnston said, “Most Americans believe what turns out to be a myth—that we heavily tax the highest-income Americans to subsidize the poor. What the government’s data show is that the middle class and upper middle class—people making $30,000 to $500,000 per year—are subsidizing the highest-income taxpayers. Tax rates on the middle and upper middle classes are rising, the government’s data show, but for the people who make millions per year, effective tax rates are falling dramatically.”

The New York Times hired Johnston in 1995 to conduct a running investigation of how our tax system actually operates, as opposed to what politicians say about it. His work has shut down tax dodges valued by Congress at $258 billion.


Johnston’s investigative reporting captured the Pulitzer in 2001; he has been a finalist for that award three times since 2000, a record unmatched by any other journalist.

“Perfectly Legal” a New York Times bestseller, was honored as Investigative Book of the Year by Investigative Reporters and Editors, an association of 5,000 journalists.

In 1968, at age 19, Johnston became the youngest reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, and went on to report for the Detroit Free Press, Los Angeles Times and Philadelphia Inquirer before joining The New York Times in 1995.

What other writers say about “Perfectly Legal”:
“My favorite authority on taxes is David Cay Johnston of The New York Times, who won a Pulitzer for reporting on the terminally unsexy topic of taxes. His book ‘Perfectly Legal…,’ "is the single best work on public policy of recent years, I think.” Molly Ivins, nationally syndicated political columnist.


“David Cay Johnston is one of this country’s most important journalists. A nine-year veteran of the tax beat for The New York Times, Johnston combines the best of Eliot Spitzer and Seymour Hersh. He’s an old-fashioned crusading reporter who mines the internal revenue bureaucracy and comes up with potent, pertinent reports on tax fraud and other financial shenanigans…Johnston’s stories always have steam coming off them. Now, he’s poured that decade's worth of hard-won expertise into book form, arguing the tax system itself deserves much of the blame for America’s growing economic inequality.” Nicholas Thompson, senior editor at Legal Affairs and a Washington Monthly contributing editor.

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Public Invited to 2006 Dempsey Environmental Lecture

Dr. Robert Costanza, director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, will deliver the 2006 Dempsey Environmental Lecture Thursday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. in the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center at Willamette University. He will discuss “Ecological Economics: Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future.” The lecture, sponsored by the Dempsey Foundation, is free and open to the public.

Costanza is best known for his pioneering work on ecosystem valuation. In 1997 a team of researchers headed by Costanza published an analysis in the preeminent journal Science that put a dollar figure on the services ecosystems provide to the continued functioning of our planet, ranging somewhere between $16 and $54 trillion.

Costanza and ecological economists around the globe have spent the ensuing years confirming and refining their valuation process. His research also includes landscape-level spatial simulation modeling; analysis of energy and material flows through economic and ecological systems; and analysis of dysfunctional incentive systems and ways to correct them.

He is the author or co-author of more than 350 scientific papers and 19 books, and reports on his work have appeared in Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times, Science, Nature, National Geographic, and National Public Radio and other media. He is the co-founder and past president of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE).

Costanza received his Ph.D. in systems ecology with a minor in economics from the University of Florida in 1979. He also has a master’s degree in architecture and urban and regional planning from the University of Florida.

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“Tom Foolery: Miniature Environments” at Hallie Ford Museum

Tom Foolery is a highly regarded Montana mixed-media artist who creates miniature tableaux and environments in theater spotlights and vending machines. A small exhibition of his work will run Jan. 7 through March 11 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

Born in Wisconsin in 1947 and raised in Livingston, Mont., and Corvallis, Ore., Foolery attended Oregon State University and the University of Washington, where he studied drawing and painting. In 1975, inspired by the New York sculptor and self-taught artist Joseph Cornell, he began to create miniature tableaus and environments. The first took place on the dashboard of his Rambler, while the next appeared in the box of a Brownie camera.

A friend who owned a lighting business in Hollywood introduced the artist to theater spotlights. For Foolery, the interior of each light fixture offered a different sized interior stage on which to tell his stories and dramas. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, his work poked fun at the contemporary art scene, a scene he understood as an artist and as a professional art handler in San Francisco.

In 1994, after numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Canada, Foolery left California and returned to Montana. After a six-year hiatus during which he designed and built a solar-powered house and studio, he returned to the studio and began to make art. Instead of subjects based on the contemporary art scene, however, he shifted his attention to Western art and replaced the posh galleries and street scenes of San Francisco with the facades, galleries, saloons and brothels of small Western towns.

In addition to a shift in subject matter, Foolery began to work with cigarette, candy and pop machines. For Foolery, the vending machine provided a larger format to tell his stories, and as a vehicle for his dramas, had greater familiarity for the typical viewer than a theater spotlight. The current exhibition includes a range of Foolery’s work from the early 1980s to the present.

“Tom Foolery: Miniature Environments” 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 more information, please call 503-370-6855.

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