Prine, Dement Showcase Folk At Lied

John Prine (shown at right) and Iris DeMent (shown below), two acclaimed American singer/songwriters, will perform at the Lied Center stage at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 28. This event is a collaboration with the Lincoln Association for Traditional Arts.

Since his 1971 debut recording, Prine has earned a reputation as a songwriter who captures emotion in song. "Hello in There," "Angel from Montgomery" and "Sam Stone" have won Prine a place among charismatic performers. After a recent battle with cancer, Prine's career is on an upswing and his talent is more evident than ever. While always a heartfelt, soulful writer, Prine's voice is now wiser and more melancholy than before, many have said. His voice is now better able to reflect the poignancy of his lyrics, they've said. John Prine's post-cancer resurgence has amazed even his most loyal fans, while also earning him many new admirers.

In a world where rap and hip-hop music are radio mainstays and even country has become popularized and mainstream, singer/songwriters such as DeMent often find themselves as outcasts. Often categorized as folk/country, DeMent's unique sound has earned her legions of fans despite the lack of so-called commercial appeal.

The key to DeMent's success begins with her unusual voice. Her reputation is also based on the passion, honesty and depth of her lyrics. DeMent's rising star has garnered her appearances on the "Late Show with David Letterman," "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Austin City Limits," as well as many other television and radio programs. Her song "Our Town" was chosen as the closing tune for the last episode of the television series "Northern Exposure."

Iris DeMent will open the performance at the Lied Center.

It is a sure bet, however, that DeMent and John Prine will perform a few of the duets they recorded together on Prine's 1999 album In Spite of Ourselves.

L. Kent Wolgamott, entertainment and arts reporter for the Lincoln Journal Star, will deliver a pre-performance talk in the Lied's Steinhart Room 30 minutes before curtain.

To attend John Prine and Iris DeMent will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. L. Kent Wolgamott of the Lincoln Journal Star will speak 30 minutes before curtain. Tickets are $38, $34 and $30; half-price for students. Call 472-4747 or (800) 432-3231 for tickets.

Sheldon Takes Art To 13 Towns

The 15th annual Sheldon Statewide exhibition, Torn Notebook: The Creative Process, will tour 13 Nebraska communities through October 2002. The series is presented by the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden.

Torn Notebook: The Creative Process documents the development of this public sculpture by internationally renowned artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, installed in the fall of 1996 at 12th and Q streets in Lincoln.

Throughout his career, Oldenburg has kept a visual diary in notebooks, illustrating his thoughts in drawings and collage. Included in the exhibition is a selection of these original notebook drawings showing various ideas considered by Oldenburg and van Bruggen during the complex developmental process. Also included are a maquette of Torn Notebook, a soft sculpture titled Soft Drum Set that is typical of Oldenburg's work from the 1960s, and selected Oldenburg lithographs and prints from the Sheldon collection.

The 2001-2002 Sheldon Statewide exhibition schedule is:

• Alliance, The Carnegie Arts Center, to Sept. 30
• North Platte, The Mall, Oct. 2 to Oct. 26
• Grand Island, Edith Abbott Public Library, Oct. 28 to Nov. 30
• McCook, Museum of the High Plains, Dec. 2 to Dec. 28
• Aurora, Alice M. Farr Library, Dec. 30 to Jan. 25, 2002
• Holdrege, Public Library, Jan. 27 to March 1
• Beatrice, Gage County Historical Museum, March 4 to March 29
• Columbus, Columbus Art Gallery, March 31 to April 26
• Fremont, Fremont Area Art Association, April 28 to May 24
• Cozad, The Robert Henri Museum, May 26 to July 12
• Hastings, The Hastings Museum, July 14 to Aug. 30
• York, Cornerstone Bank, Sept. 3 to Sept. 27
• Norfolk, The Norfolk Arts Center, Sept. 29, 2002, to Nov. 1, 2002.

Sheldon Statewide makes Sheldon Gallery collections available to a broader audience throughout the state. Many images are accompanied by interpretive information on the Sheldon Web site, <http://sheldon.unl.edu>.

Since its inception in 1987, more than 200,000 people in 22 communities have visited a Sheldon Statewide exhibition. Many community volunteers throughout the state work closely with school officials and other civic leaders to provide tours.

Other exhibition sponsors are the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Nebraska Art Association, the Nebraska Arts Council and Rhonda and James Seacrest.

Sheldon's Wednesday Walks Series Explores Collections

Wednesday Walks, a lunch-time guided tour through the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, occur from 12:15-1 p.m. the third Wednesday of each month.

Gallery visitors enjoy an informal, guided tour of an exhibition and are able to query a curator, director or guest lecturer during the discussion.

The schedule for the academic year is:

• Oct. 17, "The Visual Culture of Prairie Schooner: 1927-2001," Daniel Siedell, curator, Sheldon Gallery.
• Nov. 21, "Sheldon Statewide: The Stieglitz Circle," Janice Driesbach, director, Sheldon Gallery.
• Dec. 5, (first Wednesday), "Permanent Collection Highlights," Siedell.
• Jan. 16, 2002, "Comics, Heroes, and American Visual Culture," Dan Howard, professor emeritus, art and art history, UNL.
• Feb. 20, "African-American Photography from the Permanent Collection," Siedell.
• March 20, "A Survey History of Ceramics from the Permanent Collection," Peter Pinnell, assistant professor, art and art history, UNL.
• April 17, "The Big Canvas," Siedell.
• May 15, "Losing our Instructions: An Aesthetic Intervention by Timothy van Laar and Barbara Kendrick," Dana Fritz, assistant professor, art and art history, UNL.

The series is free and open to the public. Coffee and cookies follow each talk.

Fuller And Narboni In Concert Sept. 23

The School of Music presents Craig Fuller, tuba, and Nicole Narboni, piano, in a faculty recital at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23 in Kimball Recital Hall.

Fuller will perform three classics of the tuba repertoire and a more recently composed work by Czech composer Evzen Zamecnik that Fuller contends will "almost certainly become a standard in the repertoire."

The "Old Classics" on the program will include Paul Hindemith's Sonata for tuba and piano, the first major solo work ever written for tuba. Other pieces on the evening's program include Introduction and Dance by French composer Edward Barat, and Encounters II by American composer William Kraft.

Fuller said Encounters was one of the first pieces to use avant-garde techniques on the tuba including humming and playing at the same time. It uses the full-range of the instrument and even considering that it was written more than 35 years ago, it is still one of the most challenging works for the instrument.

Additional works on the recital will include three arias by G.F. Handel, Two Rumanian Dances by Rumanian tuba virtuoso Dumitru Ionel, and A Maze With Grace by Thomas Alpert. On the Alpert work, Fuller will be assisted by area students, colleagues and friends in a mass tuba choir, conducted by Carolyn Barber, UNL director of bands.

The recital is free and open to the public.

Reception Sept. 21 For Alumni Exhibition

The Department of Art and Art History continues its series of exhibitions in the new Eisentrager-Howard Gallery with a new exhibition, 5 Studio Art Alumni, which continues through Oct. 26.

A reception honoring the artists will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Sept. 21 in the gallery on the first floor of Richards Hall.

Featured in the new exhibition are the work of five UNL Department of Art and Art History Alumni: Karen Blessen, graphic art, who is an independent artist in Dallas and Pulitzer Prize winner; Adele Henderson, prints/ works on paper, who is an associate professor of printmaking at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York; Doug Martin, paintings, who is an independent artist in New York; T.L. Solien, drawings, who is a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee; arid Ron Watson, painted reliefs, who is an art professor at Texas Christian University.

Call 472-5025 to confirm gallery hours.

Omaha Native Vivian To Read at UNL

Robert Vivian, a native of Omaha and recent graduate of the Ph.D. program in English at UNL, will read from his first book of creative non-fiction, Cold Snap As Yearning, at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 27 in the Dudley Bailey Library, 228 Andrews Hall. The book is published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Vivian has had more than 20 plays produced off- and off-Off Broadway. His work, both essays and poetry, has also been widely published in journals such as Harper's, New York Quarterly, River Teeth, Creative Nonfiction and Sycamore Review.

Vivian's work has been described as "Rooted in closely observed objects and situations . . ." it "exposes the strangeness that resides in the familiar, the extraordinary masked by the mundane. His subjects, finally, are men and women, isolation and alienation, city life, noise and nature - recognizable topics made new by Vivian's provocative juxtapositions, his compelling use of language, and his transcendent vision of what it means to be human in the 21st century."

The reading is free and open to the public. For more information, call 472 -0993.

Raz Poetry Volume Published

Hilda Raz, editor in chief of the University of Nebraska's Prairie Schooner literary magazine, has a new volume of her poetry due out this fall. Trans, a $12.95 paperback, is being published by Wesleyan University Press (Connecticut).

Raz will be featured in a coffeehouse poetry reading at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at Lee Booksellers, Edgewood Center, 56th Street and Highway 2. The author will read from and autograph copies of her new book.

Theatrix Opens 2001 Season With Two Rooms

Lee Blessing's Two Rooms, directed by Eric Underwood, will open the Theatrix season Sept. 27 in the Studio Theatre in the Temple Building. The play will be performed at 7:30 Sept. 27 and 29 and at 7:30 and 10 p.m. on Sept. 28.

Two Rooms is set amid the Beirut hostage-taking crisis of the 1980s.

The cast includes Chad Brown as Michael Wells; Erinn Holmes at Lainie Wells; Benjamin Beck as Walker Harris, and Jody Christopherson as Ellen Van Oss.

Tickets are $5 and available at the door.