News & Events 10/2005

October 12, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—The Amherst College Symphony Orchestra will present its annual Homecoming Weekend concert at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 21, in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Center at Amherst College.

Mark Lane Swanson, music director, will conduct, assisted by Rob Lane '05.

The 75-member symphony orchestra will open the Homecoming Weekend festivities with a full-length concert of exciting Russian classics. The program includes Rimsky-Korsakov's “Procession of the Nobles,” Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Shostakovich 's Symphony No. 5. The piano concerto will feature acclaimed guest soloist Henry Wong Doe.

Tickets are $5 for general admission and are available at the door on the night of the concert; the concert is free to faculty, staff and students with an Amherst ID.

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October 12, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—A party and CD release concert to celebrate “String Works,” the new Albany Records recording by Eric Sawyer, assistant professor of music at Amherst College, will be held at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at Amherst Books (8 Main St., Amherst, Mass.).

Scheduled featured performers will include Elizabeth Chang, violin; Francine Treste, violin; and Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello. Special musical guests may also drop by.

Composed from 1999 to 2002, “String Works” reflects Sawyer's belief in the expressive power of harmony. “While new sonorities, textures and physical rhythms that have infused much recent music are all marvelous additions to the musical lexicon,” Sawyer writes, “it is the domain of harmony that can most provide a context of emotional resonance.”

A member of the Amherst faculty since 2001, Sawyer received an A.B. degree in music from Harvard University in 1985, a M.A. in composition from Columbia University in 1988 and a Ph.D. in composition from the University of California, Davis, in 1994. He has held fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Harvard University. He was founding director of the critically-acclaimed contemporary ensemble Longitude. Recent performances include works on programs by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Brentano String Quartet, Seraphim Singers, Ensemble Phoenix, Radius Ensemble, Laurel Trio, Now & Then Chamber Players, Aurelius Ensemble, Opera Longy, Ives Quartet, Arden Quartet, Lighthouse Chamber Players, Earplay and Empyrean. He is completing an opera with poet John Shoptaw titled Our American Cousin.

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October 12, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Acclaimed young violinist Leila Josefowicz will continue the 2005-06 Music at Amherst Series with a concert at 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28, in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Center at Amherst College. The evening's program will include works by Ravel, Beethoven and Messiaen.

Josefowicz came to national attention in 1994, when she made her Carnegie Hall debut performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto under the baton of Sir Neville Marriner. Since then she has appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras and at summer music festivals such as New York's Mostly Mozart Festival, the Hollywood Bowl and the Salzburg Festival. She has also been featured on national television broadcasts including “Evening at Pops” and “Live from Lincoln Center” on PBS and “The Tonight Show” on NBC.

The Philadelphia Inquirer praises Josefowicz as a “serious musical force.” The Chicago Sun-Times notes that “she plays with a zest and fiery personality that has guaranteed her a distinctive profile among the current pack of twenty-something violinists.”

Admission to the concert is $22. Senior citizens and Amherst College employees can buy tickets for $19, and student tickets cost $5. Tickets can be purchased in advance over the telephone by calling the Amherst College Concert Office at 413/542-2195.

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October 11, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Alexander George, professor of philosophy at Amherst College, has launched a new Website, called AskPhilosophers (www.askphilosophers.org ), that allows anyone to ask anything-and get an answer from a thinker trained in philosophy.

George hopes that AskPhilosophers can address a "paradox surrounding philosophy. On the one hand, everyone confronts philosophical issues throughout his or her life. But on the other, very few have the opportunity to learn about philosophy, a subject that is usually taught only at the college level." The new site puts "the skills and knowledge of trained philosophers at the service of the general public" by gathering 33 respected academic philosophers who constantly scan questions posted on the Website, on topics ranging from emotion and ethics to language and logic, from politics to religion and science. Currently, the site examines the nature of truth, the existence of free will and whether time is timeless.

A member of the faculty at Amherst since 1988, George received a B.A. degree from Columbia University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. He is editor of Reflections on Chomsky (1989), Western State Terrorism (1991) and Mathematics and Mind (1994). His most recent philosophy book, written with Daniel Velleman, professor of mathematics at Amherst, was Philosophies of Mathematics (2002). With his Amherst colleague Lawrence Douglas, George is co-author of Sense and Nonsensibility: Lampoons of Learning and Literature (2004.) Douglas and George also have published humorous work together in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, McSweeney's and the Boston Globe, among other publications, and they contribute a regular column to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

George built the site with Qingsi Zhu, an Amherst College sophomore from Shanghai, China; Nick Doty, an Amherst senior from Winchester, Va.; and Paul Chapin, a curricular specialist for humanities at Amherst.

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October 11, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—In her new book of poems, Skeptic Traveler (David Robert Books, Cincinnati, 2005, 96 pp.), Susan Snively, the director of the Writing Center at Amherst College and associate dean of students, relays her travels throughout the United States and Europe in accessible and artful verse. Snively will read from her work at 8 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24, in the Alumni House at Amherst College. This reading is free and open to the public.

William Pritchard writes, “Skeptic Traveler is a collection graced by intelligence, wit, and also by a feeling heart. Susan Snively's skepticism, whether exercised in traveling to other countries, to her familial past, or to the nooks and crannies of a complicated present, is a humane one…. ” Richard Wilbur describes Snively as “clean-cut, fluent, witty, direct, full of personality and surprise. [She] can also be deeply meditative, grave and affecting, uproarious.”

Snively is a graduate of Smith College and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Boston University. She has been writing and teaching at Amherst College since 1981. In addition to her newest release, Snively has published several books of poetry, including From This Distance (1981), Voices in the House (1988) and The Undertow (1998).

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October 11, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Kieran Setiya, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, will speak on “Cognitivism About Instrumental Reason” at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 13, in Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather 115, at Amherst College. Organized by the Amherst College Department of Philosophy and funded by the Forry and Micken Fund in Philosophy and Science, Setiya's talk is free and open to the public.

Setiya specializes in ethics and philosophy of mind, and his work has been published in journals including the American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Perspectives and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He has also written reviews for the Philosophical Review and is a frequently sought lecturer on ethical issues. The winner of numerous awards, Setiya received the Princeton University Center for Human Values Mellon Graduate Prize Fellowship in 2000.

Born in England, Setiya received his B.A. with honors from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1996 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2001. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on ethics, history of ethics, practical reason and ethical realism.

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October 6, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Amherst College will provide the land, as well as volunteer labor, for the construction of four new affordable housing units. At the annual Pioneer Valley Habitat “Raising the Roof” breakfast in Look Park in Northampton this morning, the college and the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity announced a plan—the first in the history of Habitat for Humanity—to donate three acres of college land off South East Street in Amherst to the local chapter of the internationally active group that has brought capital, rather than charity, to those in need since 1976.

Construction of the first home is expected to begin in the fall of 2006. A new Habitat home will be started at the beginning of every academic year for the next four years, so that a maximum number of Amherst College students, faculty, staff and alumni can take part in the work of building. The volunteer workers are expected to raise each home in one year. Designed by Kuhn Riddle Architects, a respected architectural studio in Amherst, the architecturally compelling contemporary houses will be gracefully sited and landscaped and will incorporate features that will reduce energy consumption and environmental impact. Despite their contemporary flair, the houses have been simply designed to be built by volunteers of mixed skills.

All members of the Pioneer Valley are invited to participate in the project, but it is hoped that Amherst College students, faculty and staff will take the lead. Amherst College students have joined their Five-College peers in the hands-on experience of constructing homes since 1992.

Anthony W. Marx, the president of Amherst College, says, “The very first buildings of this college, at its founding, were literally built by the hands of the people of Amherst. The college is delighted to return the favor to the town.” The plan was initiated at Amherst College when James Patchett '00, who was a student at the time, approached then-president Tom Gerety with a proposal that Amherst provide something to a local Habitat chapter that no college ever had: land.

MJ Adams, the executive director of Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity, says, “ Amherst College is clearly interested in challenging students to grapple with issues of social justice as part of their education. It's an extraordinary partnership- benefiting Amherst, the town, and the students who may well find the habit of Habitating is a lifelong joyful opportunity to give back to one's community anywhere in the world." The Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity builds homes in partnership with low income families in need. More information is available online at www.pioneervalleyhabitat.org.

Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Ga., is an ecumenical ministry dedicated to eliminating poverty housing. By the end of 2005, Habitat will have built 200,000 homes and more than 1 million people will be living in Habitat homes they helped build and are buying through no-profit, zero-interest mortgages. More information is available at www.habitat.org.

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