Alaska News

Jazz giants stand up for bullied kids

Concerts for good causes are not news, but the upcoming jazz program headlined by Jeff Golub and Rick Braun caught our attention for several reasons. Golub's previous appearances in town as part of the popular "Guitars and Saxes" shows have tended to sell out. His elegant, enticing style and cool passion has a lot of fans here. His latest CD, "Avenue Blue," shows him stepping out to explore blues, so this concert -- 7 p.m. Friday in Atwood Hall -- could prove particularly interesting.

Then there's the cause: It's a benefit for Bye-Bye Bullies, a program to address school violence that originated in Anchorage and is now being effectively used in school districts around the country (though not here; go figure). On the same day as the concert, organizers will bring Dorothy Espelage, an expert on the topic from the University of Illinois. She's spoken about the issue on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Today," "CBS Evening News" and other national shows. Her current research looks into ways to prevent date rape. Espelage will appear on Anchorage radio stations, address students and families at Lumen Christi school at 1:20 p.m., student teachers at UAA at 4 p.m. and introduce the performers at the Atwood concert.

Tickets for the concert range from $25 to $100 and are available at centertix.net.

Alaska singers help set record

A group of Alaska women have helped set a new Guinness World Record -- by taking part in the biggest ever singing lesson. Members of Alaska Sound Celebration joined more than 6,600 other women at the event last month in Nashville, Tenn., where they were competing in the Sweet Adelines International Convention for the first time.

"We qualified for the international competition by winning the gold medal at the Regional championships in April 2008," said Peggy McBride, who co-directs the chorus along with Karen Leet.

The Alaska choristers placed 18 th out of 33 competitors in Nashville. Leet was philosophical. "To crack the Top 20 in our first appearance at international was a great achievement," she said. "Our next goal is to win our regional event again in April."

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Since the regionals will be held in Anchorage next year, locals are hungry to repeat their first-place finish in their home town. One key to making that happen is to build up the numbers, so the group is on a recruiting drive.

"We are running a six-week guest performance program starting on Nov. 10," said McBride. Participants will have the chance to sing with the group and the Midnight Sons men's barbershop chorus at their joint Christmas program on Dec. 18.

"We are challenging women to do something different this holiday season," said Leet. "It's the best time of the year to be a singer."

For details visit www.alaskasoundcelebration.org or phone 566-3987

Organ-oboe collision avoided

A chamber music recital featuring oboist Sharman Piper, violist Anne Gantz Burns and pianist Cynthia Epperson has been planned for months to take place this afternoon at Anchorage Lutheran Church, 420 N Street. Then came word that Paul Jacobs, head of the organ department at Juilliard, would perform at the same time at St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3230 Lake Otis Parkway.

Jacobs, whose national reputation is nothing short of spectacular, is winding up a marathon of performances in all 50 states, Alaska being his final checkpoint.

So the Alaskan women moved their own program -- which includes Telemann, Hindemuth and, most intriguingly, the rarely heard Franco-American master Charles Loeffler -- back a few hours. Jacobs's milestone concert will take place at 4 p.m.; Piper and colleagues will perform at 7 p.m. Both events are free, with donations accepted.

Monday musings

Bill Sherwonit will read from his new book "Changing Paths: Travels and Meditations in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness" and present a talk from 5-7 p.m. Monday at the University of Alaska Anchorage Campus Bookstore. The event is co-sponsored by the bookstore and UAA's Creative Writing and Literary Arts department. Information about the book can be found at www.billsherwonit.alaskawriters.com.

Also on Monday, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Kimura Art Gallery in the UAA Fine Arts Building, an opening reception will take place for a show of drawings by Don Decker. This appears to be the second part of the "Disclosures" series that debuted last month at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art. Decker will speak at 7:15 p.m.

Both events are free.

Sunday celebration

Wells Fargo is hosting the Alaska Native Heritage Month Celebration at the Anchorage Museum, 625 C St.. Admission is free all day today. From 1 to 4 p.m. Native artists will offer demonstrations, storytelling and art activities.

Performances include Patricia Wade's "Ahtna History and Stories" and Allison Warden's "Ode to the Polar Bear."

And the judges are...

Following up on the news that Anchorage poet Joan Kane had received the prestigious Whiting Writers' Award last month, we were asked who the judges were who, way back in 2000, selected her poem from a pile of hundreds to win the college poetry category in the relatively more modest Daily News Creative Writing Contest.

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The answer, librarian Michael Catoggio and Greg Lottridge, a carpenter and Catoggio's son-in-law at the time.

A salute is due to two readers whose instincts and taste turned out to be prescient.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332. Daily News copy editor Kathryn McKee contributed to this column.

By MIKE DUNHAM

mdunham@adn.com

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham has been a reporter and editor at the ADN since 1994, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print.

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