Pitt-Bradford Announces Fall Spectrum Series Offerings

The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s fall Spectrum arts series will offer area residents fine arts, funk and even horror. Spectrum is the university’s oldest art series. Artists are selected by Pitt-Bradford faculty to enhance the arts curriculum.

Events are open to the public and free unless otherwise noted. For more information or tickets, contact the Bromeley Family Theater box office at 814-362-5113 or www.upb.pitt.edu/TheArts. The first event of the season will be an art exhibition celebrating America’s National Parks Centennial by local artist Denise Drummond. The show will take place from Sept. 6 through Oct. 2 in the KOA Gallery in Blaisdell Hall. Gallery hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. A reception will take place at noon Sept. 9. Drummond will share a collection of drawings and paintings inspired by years of travel to the National Parks across the United States, from Acadia to the Redwoods to Florida’s Everglades. Drummond works in graphite and watercolor to create nature scenes and has a special love for national parks and wilderness areas. The first musical offering of the year will be a piano trio of Susan Waterbury, violin, Elizabeth Simkin, cello, and Miri Yampolsky, piano, at noon Sept. 23 in the Studio Theater in Blaisdell Hall. The program will showcase favorites from the heart of the classical repertoire. October will begin with a visit from unjustly imprisoned former death row exoneree Anthony Ray Hinton, who is one of the subjects of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson’s book “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.” Hinton’s story was also featured on the television show “60 Minutes.” “Just Mercy” will be read by students in freshman seminar, writing, criminal justice and economics classes at Pitt-Bradford. The book is the Bradford Area Public Library’s One Book Bradford selection as well. Hinton will speak at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4 in the Bromeley Family Theater in Blaisdell Hall. Wyoming artist Rebecca G. Weed will open an art exhibition, “No Over Night Parking: A Field Guide,” with a reception at noon Oct. 7 in the KOA Art Gallery and KOA Speer Electronics Lobby in Blaisdell Hall. The exhibition will continue through Nov. 4. On Oct. 14, Family FUNKtion and the Sitar Jams, a trio of brothers on sitar, bass and drums, will bring a psychedelic musical experience to the studio theater at noon as the second installment in the Noon Tunes series. The Padmanabha brothers play a fusion of rock, funk and Indian classical and folk styles. During the Halloween season, Dr. Kevin Ewert, professor of theater, will direct “Apparition: An Uneasy Play of the Underknown,” a play of the horror genre by Anne Washburn. The student production will have four showings – three at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27-29, and a special late-night 10:30 p.m. performance Oct. 28, all in the Studio Theater. The cost for the public is $6. The cost for all students is $2. Writer Crystal Wilkinson (pictured), the author of “The Birds of Opulence,” “Blackberries, Blackberries” and “Water Street” will read from her work at noon Nov. 1 in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including most recently in the Oxford American and the Appalachian anthology “Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean.” She currently teaches at Berea College, where she is the Appalachian Writer in Residence. The final event of the semester will be a Noon Tunes holiday concert by the Vocal Arts ensemble at noon Dec. 6 in the KOA Speer Electronics Lobby. For disability needs related to Pitt-Bradford Arts events, contact the Office of Disability Resources at 814-362-7609 or clh71@pitt.edu.