Amherst Professor Debuts New Opera During Free Workshop Performance

 

In 1960, nationally renowned literary critic and Smith College professor Newton Arvin was arrested and tried for possessing homosexual pornography. On Sunday, June 7, his story came to the Buckley Recital Hall stage in The Scarlet Professor, a new opera by composer Eric Sawyer, professor of music at Amherst, and librettist Harley Erdman, a theater professor at UMass Amherst.

Political yet Personal: Student Documentaries Explore Torture and Immigration

June 16, 2015

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A former military police officer attempts to reconcile his love for music with the memory of hearing it used as a weapon while stationed at Guantanamo Bay.

An immigrant family from Cuba mourns the loss of their wife/mother/grandmother thousands of miles from the place they know as home.

These are the real stories behind two documentaries filmed, edited and produced by Ashley Blasczyk '15 and Joyzel Acevedo '15 as part of their Film and Media Studies senior thesis projects.