This year’s Performing Arts Series will welcome an array of sounds, ranging from jazzy-Spanish flair, to traditional-Irish reel, to classical-string melody. Over the span of September to February, eight groups of musicians will perform in Sauder Hall, bringing with them talent that has collectively earned more than 30 Grammy® Awards. The season will debut on September 19 with Doc Severinsen and El Ritmo de la Vida, a group that features Spanish music with a twist of jazz. Severinsen, who grew up in Oregon, is a Grammy award winner and has produced over 30 albums. His energetic trumpeting is best known...

By Becca Kraybill • September 9, 2009 • Arts

A “Break Up” is what happens when a truly under-rated musician and a world-renowned actress get together to make music. Although this break up is a fictional story between Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson, it makes for a great 11-track album.Three years after the making of the album in Yorn’s garage, the duo decided it was time to share their love story. The idea of the album came to Yorn in a dream in the aftermath of—that’s right—a break up. “I sat up in bed, and the whole thing was in my head, fully formed,” says Yorn. The album was...

By Trisha Danielle Handrich • September 9, 2009 • Arts

On Friday, Voices-n-Harmony, Goshen College's gospel choir, will present a benefit concert, the debut of their new director, Ron Bishop. The performance will be in Sauder Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m on Friday. A portion of the benefit proceeds will go to the Patrice Penny-Henderson Medical Fund. Penny-Henderson, the former director of Voices-n-Harmony, is currently experiencing medical troubles that have prevented her from leading the choir. Voices-n-Harmony is not only made up of Goshen students, but also faculty, staff and community members who sing to pronounce their love for God. Bishop, the new director, is an ordained minister and member...

By Daniel Martin • April 15, 2009 • News

As several senior recitals are slated to take place on the Umble Center stage and in Rieth Recital Hall over the coming days, a few students are utilizing a new performance space on campus. Yost room in Umble Center is traditionally only a classroom, but Alison “Darcy” Brookins, a sophomore, and Phil Stoesz, a first-year, are presenting independent shows in the space next Wednesday and Thursday. Prior to these performances, Jesse Landis-Eigsti, will premiere his short opera, “I Fratelli Mario,” on the Umble Center stage. Though he completed his senior recital and officially graduated in the fall semester, Landis-Eigsti is...

By Marlys Weaver • April 15, 2009 • Arts

Tami Jantzi, Andrew Landis and Kaleem Kheshgi will give their senior music recitals in Rieth Recital Hall before this academic year comes to a close. Jantzi, a mezzo-soprano and continuing education student, will perform a program entitled “Angels and Sinners” at 9:00 p.m. on Friday. The recital will feature works by composers Robert Schumann and William Bolcom. These works, Jantzi said, “highlight the conflicting facets of female passions.” Although currently completing her music degree at Goshen College, Jantzi is a professional vocalist based in Germany. She has collaborated with world-renowned conductors such as Daniel Barenboim and Christoph Eschenbach, and regularly...

By Peter Miller • April 15, 2009 • Arts

Audience members for the final Performing Arts Series concert of the year shouldn’t get too comfortable in their seats. The main event on Tuesday, Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz band, is sure to have the crowd moving with their Afro-Cuban salsa beats. The evening will also include the highly-anticipated announcement of next year’s Performing Arts Series lineup. Next year’s cast will feature more combined Grammy awards than any previous lineup in the prestigious series, which has included musicians such as Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck and Bobby McFerrin. Sanchez – a Grammy award winner for Best Latin Jazz Album in...

By Ben Noll • April 8, 2009 • Arts

Hymns from the nearby sanctuary drift through the open door as both church women and college students settle in to quilt. Some days participants pin on a name tag and get right to work, while other weeks they eat soup and bread together before getting started. This is the scene at “Passing on Traditions” night at College Mennonite Church where Goshen College students meet church members to learn how to stitch. The Wednesday night program grew out of a Goshen College production of the musical “Quilters.” Deb Brubaker, professor of music and a quilter herself, helped direct the play last...

By Paul Boers • April 8, 2009 • Features

This weekend, Nathan Swartzendruber, piano, and Peter Miller, cello, will present senior music recitals in Rieth Recital Hall. Both seniors have attended Goshen College for four years and are majoring in a musical field. Swartzendruber is a music education major and will student teach in Elkhart next fall. Miller is a senior English and music performance double major. Swartzendruber started his musical career in second grade when he first began taking piano lessons. Even before second grade, the love of the piano was surging through his veins. Swartzendruber had to complain and protest to his parents to let him start...

By Daniel Martin • April 1, 2009 • Arts

Two newlywed brides have only been married to their husbands for 30 minutes when they are hit with the news: one husband has actually been married to a foreign woman since he was an infant. To complicate matters, there is no way of knowing which one of the husbands has become this unintentional polygamist! On Friday, this spiraling plot will begin to unfold as the spring semester operetta, "The Gondoliers" opens at 8 p.m. The operetta – characterized by an operatic style dispersed with dialogue – by Gilbert and Sullivan, a 19th century duo best-known for such works as "Pirates of Penzance,"...

By Rachel Nafziger • March 25, 2009 • News

Two years after thrilling a packed out Sauder Concert Hall, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile will return to Goshen College next weekend as part of this year’s Performing Arts Series. But don’t expect the same mix of folk-y bluegrass Thile dealt out as one-third of the former band Nickel Creek. As frontman of his new band, The Punch Brothers, Thile is experimenting with genre-blending. Where Nickel Creek floated along on pleasant melodies and sweet harmonies, Punch Brothers ramp up the speed and challenge listeners with densely arranged, sometimes contradictory instrumentation on songs like “Punch Bowl,” which sounds more inspired by garage...

By Ben Noll • March 25, 2009 • Arts

After exploring the realm of international music in the fall and playing strictly world beats, Lavender Jazz will return to their roots of traditional swing jazz on Saturday for a final concert of the year. The concert is titled “Into Action,” a subtle reminder for the audience to put theirs goals into action during the performance, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Sauder Concert Hall. Pieces from composers such as Glenn Miller and Paul Desmond will be featured. Sonny Carreño, director of the band, hopes the music will make the audience dance in their seats. “I want people to...

By Alysha Landis • March 18, 2009 • Arts

“You, dear listener, are separated from me by a wall of the greatest impenetrability,” Greg Yoder playfully commented as he discussed the difficulties of piano performance. “The only way I can hope to reach you is through my little, black box.” “I sit on the stage, and I pour myself into the box,” Yoder continued. “I pour in my dreams, my fears, my triumphs and my failures.” Audiences will have the opportunity to witness such a performance when Yoder presents his senior piano recital on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Rieth Recital Hall. Yoder feature works by Bach, Chopin, Brahms...

By Ben Noll • March 18, 2009 • Arts

After six years of performing and five studio albums, singer/songwriter Jonathon Reuel and his collaborative band, JRL, will take a break from their extensive recording and touring schedule on Friday. Reuel and a large cast of special guests, including Kaleem Kheshgi, a senior, and Kimberly Glick, a Goshen College alumna, will take the stage for a final concert on Friday beginning at 7 p.m. at the downtown Goshen Theater. A special limited edition “Best of JRL” CD will be available only at the concert on a first-come, first-served basis. Each CD case was individually created by Reuel’s friends to mark...

By Ben Noll • March 18, 2009 • Arts

Projecting feelings of joy, sorrow and reconciliation, Dara Joy Jaworowicz will present works from Monteverdi, Beethoven, Debussy, Wolf and Mozart in her senior recital on Friday. Jaworowicz will also premier an original composition, accompanied on piano by Nathan Swartzendruber, a senior. The recital is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Rieth Recital Hall. “A good portion of the pieces are pretty athletic vocally, and I like to stretch myself,” Jaworowicz said. “On the other hand, it’s very rewarding because it makes performing pieces that aren’t quite so demanding a breeze.” The atonal characteristics of the Stravinsky piece will provide a contrast...

By Alysha Landis • March 11, 2009 • Arts

Where most album cases bear an official-looking warning from the FBI forbidding would-be pirates from distributing copyrighted material, Gina Holsopple’s new album reads: “Unauthorized duplication, while not recommended, is better than no music at all.” Holsopple, a 2000 Goshen College graduate, does little to belie the inviting tone of this anti-warning throughout her sixth studio record, “Unless.”  After rejecting the big-city folk scene of New York City, Holsopple moved to upstate Oswego, New York where she lives and works among nature. Pastoralist imagery is everywhere in Holsopple’s lyrics on a disc overflowing with metaphor, both to its benefit and detriment....

By Ben Noll • March 11, 2009 • Arts