Belmont’s College of Visual and Performing Arts hosted two summer music camps this week. The 10th annual Piano Camp, directed by Dr. Kristian Klefstad, hosted 28 students for master classes, lessons and performances in Harton Recital Hall. The 8th annual Summer Winds Band Camp, directed by Dr. Barry Kraus, welcomed 56 students from around the country for a week of chamber music, jazz ensemble and wind ensemble rehearsals culminating in a performance in McAfee Concert Hall.
College of Visual and Performing Arts Hosts Music Camps
Belmont Faculty Members Present at Christian Scholars’ Conference
Belmont faculty members recently presented essays in a session about “C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and the Inklings” at the Christian Scholars’ Conference. The Inklings were a group of Christian writers who gathered in the 1930s and 1940s in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford University or at the Eagle and Child public house to read and discuss their work. Tolkien described the name of the Inklings as “a pleasantly ingenious pun…suggesting people with vague or half-formed intimations and ideas plus those who dabble in ink.”
Don Cusic, professor of music business in the Curb College, presented on “Johnny Cash and C. S. Lewis.” Dr. Robbie Pinter, professor of English, presented “Fantasy Worlds in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia and George MacDonald’s Lilith: Thresholds, Portals and Crossovers.” Dr. Ann Coble of the College of Theology presented “Dorothy L. Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey.” Dr. Kenneth C. Hawley, professor of English at Lubbock Christian University, presented “Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and the Consolation of a Happy Ending.” The session was organized by Director of the Honors Program Dr. Jonathan Thorndike, who will be teaching his Inklings course in the Belmont Month in London program starting in July at King’s College London.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Memory, Tradition and the Future of Faith.” The mission of the Christian Scholars’ Conference is to create and nurture an intellectual and Christian community that joins individuals and institutions to stimulate networks of scholarly dialogue and collaboration. The conference was created under the direction of Dr. Thomas H. Olbricht, distinguished professor emeritus, Pepperdine University and has since been hosted by several faith-based universities. The conference calls together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines in the liberal arts, sciences, business, law, education and medicine to develop their own academic research and to reflect on the integration of scholarship and faith.
Students are “Happy Together” on Summer Tour
A group of students recently hit the road to join their professor, musical legend and co-founding member of The Turtles Mark Volman for the East Coast run of the Happy Together Tour. Created as a summer course, the 10 participating students will spend time in their “classroom” for nearly three weeks in June–a tour bus, hotel rooms, stages and countless green rooms. Starting in Biloxi, Mississippi, the students will follow the tour through Florida and back up to Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania before ending in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.
Under the guidance of Volman, assistant professor of entertainment industry studies and staff adviser Lucas Boto, the students are working with touring artists and crew professionals in tour management, stage management, audio engineering, tour accounting and merchandise sales. Additionally, students will get hands-on experience each day as they participate in load-in, setup, tear-down and load-out. These hands-on educational avenues outside of the classroom provide networking opportunities with some of the industry’s finest while allowing students to gain an understanding of the revenue flow from music consumer to touring performer.
“The Happy Together Tour class gives students a chance to experience life on the road and see principles taught in the classroom put into action,” Boto said. “Without touring experience, it can be difficult to secure a job on the road, but this allows those interested in this line of work to try it. Touring long term is a lifestyle commitment, and that’s hard to convey without experiencing it. Getting to hear stories and learn from legendary ’60s artists like Mark Volman is icing on the cake.”
Junior audio engineering major and tour participant Kaitlin Barnett has been interested in a career in the music industry since she was kid and the opportunity to hop on the Happy Together Tour was a dream she’s had for years. “Before even coming to Belmont, I had my sights set on this tour, because I thought it would be the perfect way to know if the road life was really for me,” she said. “I was ready to give up my summer in a heartbeat for this amazing opportunity.”
Just days into the experience, Barnett has already worked with lights, merchandise, photography and stage managing. Daily, students are assigned a new position, giving them the chance to experience every part of life on the road. But it’s not just the opportunity to work on a tour that’s exciting. “My favorite part so far is waking up in a new city every day and learning about the industry all across America,” Barnett said. “The relationships I am forming with the crew, bands and my classmate are really rewarding.”
The 2017 Happy Together Tour is named for The Turtles’s 1967 chart-topping single. It unites several pop/rock artists of the ‘60s on stage, starring The Turtles featuring Flo and Eddie, The Association, Chuck Negron (formerly of Three Dog Night), The Box Tops, The Cowsills and The Archies starring Ron Dante. Students will work 15 shows on the tour including:
- June 9 Imperial Palace Biloxi, Mississippi
- June 10 Ruth Eckerd Hall Clearwater, Florida
- June 11 Florida Theatre Jacksonville, Florida
- June 13 Mayo Performing Arts Center Morristown, New Jersey
- June 14 State Theatre New Brunswick, New Jersey
- June 15 Calvin Theatre Northampton, Massachusetts
- June 16 Theatre @ Westbury Westbury, New York
- June 17 The Palace Theater Albany, New York
- June 18 Music Hall Tarrytown, New York
- June 20 Bergen PAC Englewood, New Jersey
- June 21 Keswick Theater Glenside, Pennsylvania
- June 22 Penn’s Peak Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
- June 23 Community Arts Center Williamsport, Pennsylvania
- June 24 American Arts Theatre Lancaster, Pennsylvania
- June 25 Hampton Beach Casino Hampton Beach, New Hampshire
For more information on tour details, click here.
Pharmacy Faculty, Students Attend Summer Institute on Health Policy
A group of eight Belmont Pharmacy faculty and students, the largest to-date, is participating this week in the Summer Institute on Health Policy, a yearly interdisciplinary educational event held at Meharry Medical College. The focus of the course is social epidemiology, and attendees are discussing underlying reasons and potential solutions to disparities in health care access and outcomes.
This year’s course is being taught by Dr. Amani Nuru-Jeter from the University of California Berkeley with assistance from Dr. Derek Griffith from Vanderbilt University.
Student Wins LaunchTN Pitch Competition
Belmont student and entrepreneurship major Sara Beth Perry recently participated in LaunchTN’s 36|86 Student Pitch Competition and won in her category, Technology Enabled, earning her $15,000. With the Band, Perry’s startup, is a platform that allows devoted fans, new artists, songwriters and established artists the opportunity to engage and connect in a collaborative way.
Belmont was also represented by two other teams including Annabelle Bright and Jacob Kissamiss, Bloom Brightly Paper Co., in the Consumer Goods/Services category and Alex Wieseler, a current MBA student, who pitched PATH EX in the Commercialized Technology category and won.
Last fall, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship Elizabeth Gortmaker applied to become a LaunchTN University Venture Challenge partner and received the largest partnership amount from the organization which sponsored Belmont’s recent Business Plan Competition. As a UVC partner, the winners from Belmont’s competition could apply to pitch at 36|86, LaunchTN’s premiere technology event. With the Band and Bloom Brightly Paper Co. were both chosen to pitch at the event.
Gortmaker said, “LaunchTN’s 36/86 Conference is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to network and learn. We were thrilled to have four Belmont students selected to pitch their businesses this year. The students selected to pitch represented the best of the best from universities around the state, and having representation in three of the 13 selected businesses shows the fantastic work our students are doing.”
(Featured image L to R: Gortmaker and Perry pose with Perry’s check.)
Murray Included in Oxford University Press Virtual Anthology, Serves as Chawton House Library Visiting Fellow
In honor of the bicentennial of Jane Austen’s death, the Oxford University Press (OUP) has created a virtual anthology of recent work on Austen, including an essay by Professor of English Dr. Douglas Murray. All of the essays appeared in Review of English Studies, the OUP’s flagship journal of historical criticism.
The editor’s introduction to Murray essay said, “History for Austen also discloses more than her characters know. In ‘Donwell Abbey and Box Hill: Purity and Danger in Jane Austen’s Emma’, Douglas Murray re-reads Emma in light of techniques adopted from cultural and historical geography, with particular focus on Box Hill’s long-established identity as a site of social conflict and transgressive acts.”
To view the anthology, click here.
Additionally, during the month of June, Murray is serving as a Visiting Fellow at the Chawton House Library in Hampshire, England. The Chawton estate was owned by Austen’s brother Edward and she revised or drafted all six of her novels in a cottage in Chawton Village. During the last two decades, Edward’s manor house has become a preeminent center for the study of women’s writing from 1600-1830.
Massey Alumni Graduate from Inaugural Young Leaders Council Partnership
Young Leaders Council (YLC), a Nashville-based nonprofit organization that has trained more than 2,500 men and women to effectively participate on the boards of nonprofit agencies since 1985, recently announced the graduates of its inaugural partnership with Belmont’s Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business. The Massey alumni who have completed 28 hours of leadership training include Kurt Alexander, Touchstone Medical Imaging, Mark DeYoung, Alfa Insurance Company, Cameron Eades, W Squared, Inc., William Gilmore,Anderson Piping / Proctor & Graves, Tyler Graham, Bradford Real Estate, Aaron Harris, BubbleUp, Courtney Hensley,Aon Risk Solutions, Colton Langianese, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, Lindsay Mathews, BDO USA, LLP, Aaron Montlary, HCA Healthcare, Londa Morgan, Smith Travel Research, Tim Morrison, Ernst and Young LLP, Jennifer Pagliara, CapWealth Advisors, LLC, Jennifer Patterson, c3/consulting, Joshua Roberts, BlueCross BlueShield of TN and James Sherer, SalesOlogy.
In addition to the partnership with Belmont, more than 130 graduates enter the nonprofit community each year from four other YLC classes including two in Davidson County and two in partnership with the Williamson Chamber and the Junior League of Nashville. YLC was created by the Council of Community Services, the HCA Foundation and the United Way in 1985 to address the need to broaden and strengthen Nashville’s volunteer leadership base. For more information about Young Leaders Council, contact Diane Hayes at (615) 386-0060 or click here.
School of Music Recognized as Top 20 Program Nationally
SuccessfulStudent.org just named its Top 25 Music Programs in the country, and Belmont’s School of Music was ranked No. 19. The website noted the importance of personal skills, connections and the reputation of one’s school for graduates to obtain the upper ground in a competitive job market. The ranking took into consideration each school’s overall reputation, acceptance rate, diversity of programs offered and success of alumni in its listing.
Dr. Stephen Eaves, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, said, “The Belmont School of Music is pleased to be recognized nationally as a top music program. We are committed to the highest standard of excellence and providing serious study of all musical styles. We actively mentor and equip students to reach their potential and become musical leaders in the 21st century.”
Student Wins Big on Price is Right
Senior music business major Jaice Cousins recently appeared on The Price is Right and walked away with an impressive package including $500, two tablets, designer sunglasses, a vacation to Maui and a sailboat. After attending two tapings, Cousins was selected to ‘come on down’ and won the third item, two tablets, with a perfect bid of $1,000. Cousins hit the stage to play “1/2 off,” earning the right to spin the show’s signature big wheel.
Cousins spun a 90, out of a possible 100 and was included in the Showcase Showdown. Coming within $1,500 dollars of the package’s actual price, she was dubbed winner. Cousins said the opportunity to appear on The Price is Right was an exciting opportunity for her — especially as she spent the last semester in Los Angeles for the University’s Belmont West program. “When I moved to LA for Belmont West, my mom told me that I should try to get tickets to a show taping because I ‘am the lucky one in the family,'” Cousins said. “I laughed it off originally, but eventually looked into tickets and decided to go for it. I could not believe that I was actually lucky enough to be called down, and my mom was right about this, again!”
Despite winning her exciting package, Cousins said the best part of appearing on the show was her time in the studio. “Being in the studio was so amazing,” she said. “There is nothing like the energy that fills that room.”
As for the boat? “What will I do with a boat in Nashville?” Cousins said. “Time to go sailing!”
Grossnickle Spends Summer in Senegal, Teaches Microfinance Classes to Locals
Sean Grossnickle, a Belmont junior and international business major, is spending the summer in Senegal as a Lumos Scholar. Having been there for just over a month already, Grossnickle will be in the country until the middle of August living in Saint Louis, just a few hours north of the capital, Dakar. While there, he is serving as an intern with Projects Abroad’s microfinance program, an opportunity that provides disadvantaged men and women in the community with the opportunity to improve their lives through loans of $50-$300.
“I get to do just about everything, which is really cool,” Grossnickle said. “I help collect repayments from people who already have loans, teach classes to potential beneficiaries (in French, of course!), draw up business plans, make formal loan presentations and give questionnaires to check on participants. I get to walk with people every step of the way and see the difference our program makes in their lives.”
As a Lumos Scholar, Grossnickle began preparing for his summer abroad last fall–completing his application, researching the opportunity and proposed budgetary needs and preparing for such an intensive experience. Created to transform student lives by embarking on a self-designed international working adventure, Grossnickle said he was interested in taking part in a Lumos project in Senegal as a way to deepen his understanding of international business, improve his French skills and put his learning in action. “I felt like I could make a difference in people’s lives while gaining invaluable skills that I hope to use professionally.”
Moving forward, Grossnickle is interested in pursuing international business after graduation–he’s hoping this summer will provide clarity into whether microfinance is his niche. Of course, he’s especially interested in putting his French speaking skills to good use.
Featured image: Ladies in one of Grossnickle’s microfinance classes participate in a lesson.
