Born in Macomb on February 21, 1910, Al Sears was a premiere American jazz tenor saxophonist and band leader.
A source of hometown pride, the area's annual Al Sears Jazz Festival showcases jazz talent from far and wide and will be featured prominently in the New Harmonies exhibition.
In preparation for the Jazz Festival, and in conjunction with New Harmonies, the Western Illinois Museum will present a series of four programs that explore the cultural and historical forces that helped shape this distinctly American art form and the life of the man from Macomb who embodied these traditions so well.
Today's program: Bill Maakestad, professor emeritus at WIU and founder and director of "Macomb Unplugged," along with Sterling Kernek, also professor emeritus at WIU and expert on the era of World War I, will present an historical overview of the life and influence of Al Sears.
Join us for the opening program of the New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music exhibit in Lena, Illinois.
The New Harmonies exhibition, provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Museum on Main Street Program and the Illinois Humanities Council, examines the on-going cultural process that has made America the birthplace of more music than any place on earth. The exhibition provides a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of multi-cultural exchange and offers communities an opportunity to celebrate their music traditions as they come to understand the origins of various roots music genres including; blues, country and western, gospel, jazz and folk.
The New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music exhibit is a cultural history of America's Musical Landscape. It's the story of a diverse mix of people interacting with the New World, a world where cultures and customs met, mixed, and mingled to create new sounds. The distinct cultural identities of all these peoples are carried in song - both sacred and secular - and the music that emerges is known by names like blues, country, western, folk, and gospel.
New Harmonies tracks the unique history of many peoples reshaping each other into one incredibly diverse and complex people - Americans. It also promises a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of cultural exchange with its multi-media components. As a unique traveling exhibition, it is full of surprises about familiar songs, histories of instruments, the roles of religion and technology in shaping new sounds, and the continuity of musical roots from the colonial period to modern day punk and hip-hop.
New Harmonies will display from September 4, 2010 through October 17, 2010.
"Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance," by Atul Gawande
Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Healthcare is a discussion-based program that brings hospital staff together monthly to reflect on the larger mission of medicine through facilitated conversations about literature.
2012 marks the centennial of the birth of Woody Guthrie, the greatest folksong writer the nation has produced. Coming of age during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, Guthrie would write hundreds of songs and become the voice of the nation's downtrodden, unemployed and homeless. At the same time, Guthrie celebrated the nation's natural beauty and its great democratic potential. Join Bucky Halker for a program that combines performance and commentary as he reviews the life and songs of Woody Guthrie.
Café Society will meet at Ron’s Barber Shop on Friday, September 10.
Special guest, Yasmin Nair will help kick-off the conversation at Ron’s Barber Shop.
From “Monogamy unnatural for our sexy species” by Christopher Ryan at CNN.
“Couples who turn to a therapist for guidance through the inevitable minefields of marriage are likely to receive the confusing message that long-term pair bonding comes naturally to our species, but marriage is still a lot of work. This is a problem because there is no reason to believe monogamy comes naturally to human beings. In fact, for millions of years, evolutionary forces have cultivated human libido to the point where ours is arguably the most sexual species on Earth.”
Born in Macomb on February 21, 1910, Al Sears was a premiere American jazz tenor saxophonist and band leader.
A source of hometown pride, the area's annual Al Sears Jazz Festival showcases jazz talent from far and wide and will be featured prominently in the New Harmonies exhibition.
In preparation for the Jazz Festival, and in conjunction with New Harmonies, the Western Illinois Museum will present a series of four programs that explore the cultural and historical forces that helped shape this distinctly American art form and the life of the man from Macomb who embodied these traditions so well.
Today's program: John Cooper, jazz artist, composer, and Director of Jazz Studies at WIU, will present a lecture, discussion, and demonstration on what makes jazz distinct from other forms of music.
The New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music exhibit is a cultural history of America's Musical Landscape. It's the story of a diverse mix of people interacting with the New World, a world where cultures and customs met, mixed, and mingled to create new sounds. The distinct cultural identities of all these peoples are carried in song - both sacred and secular - and the music that emerges is known by names like blues, country, western, folk, and gospel.
New Harmonies tracks the unique history of many peoples reshaping each other into one incredibly diverse and complex people - Americans. It also promises a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of cultural exchange with its multi-media components. As a unique traveling exhibition, it is full of surprises about familiar songs, histories of instruments, the roles of religion and technology in shaping new sounds, and the continuity of musical roots from the colonial period to modern day punk and hip-hop.
New Harmonies will display from September 4, 2010 through October 17, 2010.
