Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
To those who have long wished life had background music, this weekend may just have enough musical possibilities to come close. On campus there are a range of arts events including two “Window on the Work” performances on Sunday and a variety of off-campus concerts as well.
Tonight, the Kitao Gallery’s “Entropy” opens at 5 pm, the play “Old Times” (see preview) premiers in the Frear, and Grapevine serenades in Alice Paul’s big red lounge at 8. On Saturday in Boyer Dance Studio, interested students can participate in an Arabic drumming and debkeh dance workshop beginning at 3:30. You can also stop by the new List Gallery exhibit “Painting Structures: Specificity and Synthesis.” The Philadelphia Mideast Ensemble will be performing traditional and popular Arab music on Saturday night in “Music and Memory: Legacy in a New World,” in LPAC, beginning at 8pm.
Sunday afternoon at 4 pm, two “Window on the Work” or artistic works-in-progress will be performed. Sasha Welsh ’00 will be presenting two experimental dance pieces, “Trace Decay,” which incorporates 1940s’ film footage and “Atopia,” an investigation of space, in Troy Dance Studio. Meanwhile the first act of Tom Whitman and Nathalie Anderson’s opera “A Scandal in Bohemia” will be staged in Lang Concert Hall.
Even the Philadelphia Flower Show has a musical bent, with a jazzy New Orleans theme (the show opens this Sunday in the Philadelphia Convention Center, student tickets $17.) On Saturday night, fans of the popular Brit singer James Blunt can hear him croon about how beautiful they are in the Keswick Theater.
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Serkin Plays Mozart” program this afternoon and Saturday evening at 8 includes Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff while the Perelman Theater will be hosting pianist Christopher O’Riley tonight, playing Radiohead, Elliot Smith, and Nick Drake, and Cameroonian bassist-vocalist-composer Richard Bona on Saturday evening. So take a study break, sit back, and enjoy the music!