Yesterday’s Architeaser featured Byrne Hall on the St. John’s campus in the Heights. The building currently houses the offices of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Yesterday the ASO concluded the 2011-2012 MasterWorks series. This evening at the Clinton Presidential Center, this year’s final River Rhapsodies Chamber Concert will be held at 7pm.
This week we will look at some of the animals in Little Rock which are not at the Little Rock Zoo.
100 years ago today, people worldwide read newspaper accounts of the unthinkable disaster that was the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
The Museum of Discovery is set to unveil its latest traveling exhibit April 28 titled “Extreme Deep: Mission to the Abyss” revealing some of the ocean floor’s mystique, and how science and technology play integral roles in defining it.
Developed by Evergreen Exhibitions in collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the world’s largest non-profit ocean science research institution, this 3,000 square foot interactive exhibit is designed to engage museum visitors through hands-on exploration and discovery, submerging them into the deep undersea world. Extreme Deep depicts the mysteries of the ocean’s greatest depths. Newly discovered life forms, thermal vents, close-up views of deep-sea research submersibles as well as shipwrecks including the Titanic, are among the attractions in this deep-sea adventure. Museum goers will observe firsthand the technology that only recently has allowed men and women to travel to the ocean floor.
Extreme Deep puts the technology necessary for deep-sea exploration in the hands of museum guests. Visitors join fellow explorers in an interior replica of the submersible Alvin’s personnel sphere, which they can operate to simulate a dive to depths of up to three miles. They can fly a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) over a model of the Titanic’s deck. They can also test their skill at manipulating Alvin’s robotic arm by picking up lava rocks and clams from the seafloor while peering through a re-creation of Alvin’s four-inch viewport window.
Extreme Deep is presented by Little Rock Family Magazine, a member of the Arkansas Business Publishing Group. Little Rock Family is dedicated to providing informative family-friendly activities and resources for the central Arkansas region, and works to promote and support local businesses and non-profit organizations, as well as community-minded people.
“Together with our partners at Little Rock Family, we look forward to bringing Extreme Deep to Arkansas. People have long been fascinated with the ocean and what lies beneath. This interactive exhibit embodies our focus – creating a passion and an understanding for science and technology through discovery,” explains Nan Selz, executive director for the Museum of Discovery.
Extreme Deep brings the seafloor to the surface in an amazing display that illustrates the magnificent engineering feats of Mother Nature – like the building of enormous “black smokers” that spew mineral-rich fluid into the ocean supporting life vastly different from that flourishing on land or in shallow water.
The exhibit will run from April 28-July 29.
Yesterday’s Architeaser concluded Capital week with a column capital at Robinson Center Music Hall. The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra is playing there this weekend.
Today’s architeaser is below.
The Pulitzer Prizes are announced tomorrow. Two previous Pulitzer Prize winners are buried in Mt. Holly – poet John Gould Fletcher and publisher J. N. Heiskell. With an eye toward the Pulitzers as well as some of the sculpture in Mt. Holly, today the Sculpture Vulture focuses on a statue which honors the memory of Little Rock firefighter Henry C. Brookin.
The sculpture depicts a firefighter in a helmet holding a hose. On the base is the inscription “Erected by the Volunteer Firemen of Little Rock to the memory of Henry C. Brookin. Born Mar. 23, 1852, Died Mar. 11, 1891. He Was Killed Responding.”
The statue, forged in metal, is only a couple of feet tall but stands on a stone pedestal of approximately four feet tall. It marks Mr. Brookin’s grave. It is the only metal statue in the cemetery and the only one which does not depict an angel, child or religious figure.
Yesterday’s Architeaser featured one of the columns from the original 1910 Carnegie library which once stood in downtown. When it was torn down in the early 1960s, the columns were removed and ended up in private ownership. They were recently donated to the Central Arkansas Library System and now stand on the main campus in downtown.
Capital week concludes with the columns below.
The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Music Director/Conductor Philip Mann presents its final 2011-2012 MasterWorks concert this weekend. Entitled Desert & Sea it features performances of works by Wagner, Torke, and Debussy.
Gerassimez
The program will commence with the Overture to Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. Following that number will be the American premiere of Michael Torke’s Mojave Concerto for Marimba. Torke is the inaugural ASO Composer of the Year. The soloist on this selection is wunderkind marimbist Alexej Gerassimez. The program concludes with Debussey’s La Mer.
The concerts take place at 8pm on Saturday, April 14 and 3pm on Sunday, April 15 at Robinson Center Music Hall.
About Michael Torke
Michael Torke has practically defined post-Minimalism, a music which utilizes the repetitive structures of a previous generation to incorporate musical techniques from both the classical tradition and the contemporary pop world.
Highlights of his career include: Color Music (1985–89), a series of orchestral pieces that each explore a single, specific color; Javelin, recorded both for Argo and for John William’s Summon the Heroes, the official 1996 Olympics album; Four Seasons, a 65-minute oratorio commissioned by the Walt Disney Company to celebrate the millennium and premiered by Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic; Strawberry Fields, whose “Great Performances” broadcast was nominated for an Emmy Award; and two evening-length story ballets, The Contract, and An Italian Straw Hat, for James Kudelka and the National Ballet of Canada.
About Alexej Gerassimez
Alexej Gerassimez was born in Essen, Germany in 1987 and received his first piano lessons at the age of five. Two years later he began to play percussion. After various early successes in competitions, among others 1st awards in the International Marimba Competition in Nuremberg, the European Music Competition for Youth, the Southwest-German Chamber Music Competition, four 1st awards including the highest number of possible points in Jugend Musiziert (a renowned national music competition for youths) and he won the Deutscher Musikrat-Competition (a national competition in all instrument categories for young adults) in 2010. In the same year he received the 1st award, the Audience Award and the Press Award in the TROMP Percussion Competition in the Netherlands, one of the most renowned international competitions for solo percussion. Today Alexej Gerassimez is presumed to be one of the leading percussion soloists of his generation.
His vivid performance activities have lead him to a wide range of European countries as well as to Japan, where he gave solo performances in Tokyo and Yokohama in the context of the German Year in 2006.
The multi-faceted young artist dedicates himself to composition, too. First publications with the Danish publisher Edition Svitzer have already been performed in the USA, Canada, Japan, and Europe.
Yesterday’s Architeaser was from the front of the Old State House. Originally it was intended to have six columns on the front and six columns on the back. By the time it was built there were only four columns on the front and four on the back. During an expansion, the entrance on the Arkansas River side was closed off, so now all that remain are the four columns which face Markham Street.
Today’s column capital is featured below.
Little Rock Culture Vulture 