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UW-Eau Claire's Summer Events Continue with Music and Poetry
RELEASED: July 13, 2009
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MIke Quick |
EAU CLAIRE — A performance by Mike Quick and friends July 20 and readings by four well-known area poets July 22 will highlight the seventh week of Summer Events at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Both free shows will begin at 7 p.m. on the Central Campus Mall (rain site: The Cabin of Davies Center). Audience members are invited to bring lawn chairs, blankets and a picnic. Free popcorn will be available.
Monday's Music on the Mall performer Mike Quick will be joined for this concert by two renowned musicians, jazz violinist Randy Sabien and percussionist Tiit Raid. Quick has been performing and writing music for more than 30 years. His original music has been played nationally and internationally, on public radio stations and on the RFD Cable television network. His most profound musical influences include early bluesmen like Charlie Patton, Skip James, Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt and the reverend Gary Davis, and jazz players like Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Jim Hall and John Coltrane. Contemporary songwriters who have made a lasting impression on Quick include Jack Tempchin, Will Jennings, Warren Zevon, John Prine, Steve Goodman, Tom Paxton, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. Quick's most memorable events as a performer include being on the same stage with Koko Taylor and being escorted from the White House grounds by the Secret Service after a brief performance on the south lawn.
The Shakespeare and Others in the Park series, scheduled for Wednesdays in July, celebrates the spoken word through short plays, prose and poetry. This week will feature poetry readings by four distinguished members of the area's literary community:
- Jim Larson lives in an oversized town about 18 miles west of Hudson. He stumbled into writing poetry when Gerald Ford was president. He has made several hundred attempts at writing a decent poem.
- Stephen Maddox has never sought publication or audience but enjoys the opportunity to share. A few of his poems have found their way into print in obscure and infrequently read publications. Others may have heard some of his works read at White Pine, the Acoustic Café or various informal venues around the area. This reading will be Maddox's first, outside family and friends gatherings, in some time.
- Norma Desprez has written and published two books, "Soliloquy" and "Silhouettes of Aging." She has read on radio and television and done numerous public and private readings throughout the area.
- Yvette Viets Flaten is writer of fiction, essays and short stories. She began writing poetry seriously in 1992 and currently is finishing a collection of poems titled "Chemo Sabe," chronicling her experience with breast cancer, chemotherapy and radiation.
The Fresh Start Farmers Mart is presented every Thursday from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. on the Central Campus Mall.
Soprano Mitra Sadeghpour and Friends will perform July 26 at 2 p.m. in Phillips Recital Hall of the Haas Fine Arts Center. This will be the final performance for the light classical Summer Sounds series, presented in cooperation with the department of music and theatre arts.
With the theme "Welcome to our Backyard," the Summer Events series continues through July 30. A complete schedule is available online or through the Service Center by calling 715-836-3727.
The eight-week series is funded by the students of UW-Eau Claire and coordinated by the University Centers.
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JS/DW
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