December

The following members of the ICL Writing Group, Paul Rice, Vernelle Judy, Carol Moeller, Lois Rosen, Bob Muir, Betty Kasoff, and Becky Miller-Moe, will offer a blend of their stories and poems. You are most cordially invited to enjoy the mix of vivid, lively writing.

Terry Morton has been working in Tanzania in East Africa since 2011, with an organization called Albino Peacemakers. People with albinism have suffered serious stigma, discrimination and violence in Tanzania for millennia. In 2016 local witch doctors starting a myth that their body parts can be used to make a person wealthy fast. There have been 76 murders and 78 attacks reported since then. The rates of skin cancer are staggering, and 90% die by the age of 30. Many children don't go to school, because their low vision makes them unable to see the blackboard and parents and teachers think they're mentally disabled. Walking to and from school has also become very risky.
Terry is helping the Tanzanian staff of Peacemakers to educate villagers about albinism, skin cancer and children going to school. They teach people with albinism about skin protection, provide wide-brimmed hats, and help them to access medical treatment. They also assist more than 50 children with albinism to attend safe boarding schools, and train teachers and students about albinism and accommodating their vision needs.

Terry has five children here in Oregon, one of whom, Philip, is with us today. Philip attended Willamette from 2000-2004, and then went to Japan to teach English with the Japanese Teaching Exchange program. He stayed another 7 years, met and married Megumi Inoue, and returned to Oregon to start family and a bouldering gym in Eugene.

The action of Mikhail Glinka's opera "A Life for the Tsar" takes place in 1613, during a war between Russia and Poland. The struggle is depicted musically by setting those portions of the opera dominated by Russians with Russian folk-like music and those sections dominated by Poles with Polish dance music. The almost comic contrast between Russian gravitas and Polish foppishness belies the historical conflict between Russia and Poland as we understand it today. Keep in mind, however, that Russia wasn't always the aggressor; there was a time when Poland was the invader and occupier. The story behind Glinka's opera "A Life for the Tsar" is what has come to be known as Russia's time of troubles.

Robert Greenberg earned a B.A. in music, magna cum laude, from Princeton University and received a Ph.D. in music composition, from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied with Olly Wilson. At the San Francisco Conservatory of Music he was chairman of the Department of Music History and Literature and Director of the Adult Extension Division. Dr. Greenberg is currently Music Historian-in-residence with San Francisco Performances. Greenberg has lectured for some of the most prestigious musical and arts organizations in the United States, and is the resident composer and music historian for National Public Radio’s Weekend All Things Considered. He is also the Music Historian in Residence at San Francisco Performances, and hosts their "Saturday Morning Series" (a lecture combined with performances) with the Alexander String Quartet.

Most opera-goers are far more familiar with Boris Gudonov's place in Russian history than that of Ivan Susanin, the subject of Glinka's opera.. Modest Mussorgsky used Alexandr Pushkin's drama as the basis for the libretto of his opera Boris Gudonov. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. After the composer's death, several composers, including Nikolai Rimsky -Korsakov and Dmitri Shostakovich, created new editions to "correct" perceived weaknesses in the composer's original score. Although those versions held the stage for decades, Mussorgsky's individual harmonic style and orchestration are now valued for their originality, and the revisions have fallen out of fashion. For many, Boris Gudonov is the greatest of all Russian operas because of its originality, and it is the most recorded Russian opera.
We will view several scenes from Boris Gudonov and consider the historic perspective it gives this Russian ruler, in comparison to that given by Glinka, 62 years earlier.

Our presenter is ICL member and WOU Music Professor Emerita Solveig Holmquist.

ICL is made up of a very interesting group of folks with fascinating backgrounds. In this session which has become an ICL tradition, we will get to know a few of them a little better as we ask them to share an interesting story from their family, their work experience, or world experience. Today we will hear stories from Barbara McReal (2017); Phil Sperl (2014); Eric Reif (2018); Becky Miller-Moe (2017), Lucy Foster (2018) and the Nichols, Ron and Else (2013).

Holiday Luncheon