2019 Winter Arts Preview

As classes resume and students return to campus, DU’s arts calendar begins to heat up for winter quarter. Music, dance, theater, visual art and more are on tap in the coming months.

Highlights of the winter performance calendar at the Lamont School of Music include a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. with the Lamont Wind Ensemble and the Spirituals Project Choir, with city council member Albus Brooks as narrator (Jan. 30); the Lamont Symphony Orchestra (Feb. 12 and March 12); a full-length Spirituals Project concert, “Songs of Freedom, Songs of Hope” (Feb. 27); the Lamont Jazz Orchestra (March 4); and quarter-ending performances by the music school’s various ensembles, including the percussion ensemble (March 5), vocal jazz ensembles (March 5), wind chamber ensembles (March 6), Lamont Chorale, Lamont Men’s Choir and Lamont Women’s Chorus (March 7), north Indian classical dance ensemble (March 8), steel drum ensemble (March 11), guitar ensembles (March 13) and wind ensemble (March 13).

DU faculty, staff and students may be particularly interested in daytime convocation concerts featuring winners of the DU solo honors competition (2:30 p.m. Feb. 8), students from the Lamont jazz program (2:30 p.m. Feb. 22) and chamber honors competition winners (2:30 p.m. March 8).

The Newman Center Presents series, which brings world-renowned touring artists to the DU venue, continues this winter with an appearance by Jad Abumrad, host of NPR’s “Radiolab” (Jan. 12); the Silkroad Ensemble (Feb. 1); Jessica Lang Dance (Feb. 7); Blind Boys of Alabama (Feb. 14); Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra (Feb. 26); B – The Underwater Bubble Show (March 14); Destination Freedom: Black Radio Days (March 22); and the return of Harry Potter parody “Potted Potter” (March 28), as well as two National Geographic Live presentations: mountaineer Hilaree Nelson on Jan. 23 and big cat expert Steve Winter on March 3. (Newman Center Presents offers free or discounted tickets for faculty and staff on some shows; visit their website for details.)

The DU theater department, meanwhile, has two offerings during winter quarter: “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” a musical by “Rent” creator Jonathan Larson, plays Feb. 7–17 in Johnson-McFarlane Hall; and Moliere’s “The Misanthrope” is on stage at the Newman Center’s Byron Theatre Feb. 28–March 10.

In the world of visual art, work by faculty members takes the spotlight in “Fieldworks: Creative Research by DU Faculty,” on display in the Vicki Myhren Gallery Jan. 10–Feb. 17. Offering “a candid view of the art-making process with a special focus on research, revision, successes and failures,” the show features new and old works, projects in progress and process materials by art faculty members Rafael Fajardo, Meg Jackson, Deborah Howard, Mia Mulvey (in collaboration with English professor Bin Ramke) and Chinn Wang.

Those studying or meeting in the Anderson Academic Commons may want to leave extra time to check out a trio of exhibits currently on display: “More Than a Headstone: The Lives and Legacies of Veterans at Fort Logan National Cemetery” (through March 15) is the result of a research project in which DU students investigated the lives of veterans interred at the local military cemetery; “Jacques Parker: The Mountaineer’s View” (through Jan. 15) features pencil, ink and watercolor works created by the 10th Mountain Division soldier during his deployment; and “Square Dance in the American West” (through April) documents the transition from traditional square dance to modern Western square dance.