FANFARE 2002 ROLLS INTO WEEK TWO
      HAMMOND -- Theater, music and lectures dominate the second week of Fanfare, Southeastern Louisiana University’s annual festival of the arts, sciences and humanities.
      Week Two starts with the return of a Fanfare tradition, the “Music for a Sunday Afternoon” concert series, hosted on Fanfare Sundays by area churches. The first concert, scheduled for 3 p.m., Oct. 6, at the First Baptist Church, 325 E. Pine St., in Ponchatoula, will feature the Ovation Brass Quintet in an eclectic program of modern, ragtime, Dixieland and classical works by composers from Hoagy Carmichael and Fats Waller to J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart.
      The quintet, founded by Southeastern alumnus Brennan Arceneaux, director of bands at Tara High School in Baton Rouge, also includes Southeastern students Dominick Messina and Justin Albritton, trumpet; Lacy Blackledge, horn; and Britt Cantrell, trombone. The concert is free.
      At 4 p.m., Monday, Oct. 7, aspiring young performers can try out for the Missoula Theatre Company’s Oct. 12 production of “Tales of Hans Christian Andersen.” Auditions are scheduled for the Men’s Gym. 
      A Fanfare favorite for a number of years, the Missoula Children's Theatre International Tour Project is the largest touring children's theatre program in the country. During a week-long residency, a team of two actor/directors develop and produce a full-scale musical with 50-60 local children as cast members. This season MCT will send out 24 teams to put on approximately 800 residencies, involving more than 45,000 young performers in all 50 states, Canada, Europe, South America and Japan.
      The public can enjoy the results of local children’s hard work and talent at the 2 p.m., Oct. 12 performance at the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $7 general admission, $5 for children 12 years of age and under. 
      The first of four films in Fanfare’s Jane Austen film festival, “Sense and Sensibility,” is also scheduled for Monday, Oct. 7. The free film will be shown at the East Gate Café and Cinema across from the Southeastern campus at 1006 N. Oak.
      Southeastern’s acclaimed Chamber Orchestra, conducted by music professor Yakov Voldman, will welcome a special guest for its Oct. 7 concert of Russian classics by Tchaikovsky, Glinka and Mussorgsky. The free concert is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Columbia Theatre.
      Joining the orchestra as quest soloist will be Ilya Kaler, the only violinist ever to win gold medals at all three of the world’s most prestigious competitions: the Tchaikovsky, the Sibelius, and the Paganini competitions.
      Kaler has earned rave reviews for solo appearances with distinguished orchestras throughout the world. He has performed with the Leningrad, Moscow, and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestras, the Montreal Symphony, the Danish and Berlin Radio Orchestras, and the Moscow and Zurich Chamber Orchestras, among others. His solo recitals have taken him throughout Europe, Scandinavia, East Asia, and the former Soviet Union.
      In recent years, he has performed with the Detroit, Baltimore, and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in the United States, and has toured Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, England, Venezuela and Japan. Currently, Kaler is a Distinguished Professor of Music, holding the Linda and Jack Gill Chair in Violin, at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana.
      Long-time Southeastern English professor Timothy Gautreaux, who has received national praise for his short stories and novels, will read from his newest work, “The Clearing,” at 2 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 8, in the Pottle Music Building Auditorium. 
      Gautreaux, who was named by Writer's Digest as one of "25 fiction writers to watch" during this decade, has been published in “GQ,” “Harpers” and other magazines, and is the author of several acclaimed novels. “The Clearing” is set in the early 1920s in a Louisiana sawmill camp and chronicles two brothers, one the mill’s manager, the other a disturbed and haunted World War I veteran.
      The Columbia Theatre will host a special concert by the Irish duo Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 8. 
      According to the Chicago Sun Times, Irish fiddle virtuoso Hayes and American guitarist Cahill “have a rare musical kinship.” The pair has garnered a reputation for taking traditional music to the very edge of the genre, combining jazz and classical music with traditional Irish tunes to create a unique sound.
      Tickets for the concert are $12 for adults; $10 for senior citizens, Southeastern faculty, staff and alumni; $8 for groups, and $5 for all students.
      Southeastern Theatre makes a bow to history with its Oct. 8-12 production of Thornton Wilder’s drama “Our Town.” The stage classic was the production that opened Southeastern’s grand new theatrical facility –  then known as the Humanities Theater – in March 1971. Later named in honor of Southeastern’s first theater professor, Vonnie Borden Theatre has undergone a major renovation, turning it into a first-class facility.
      Curtain time for “Our Town,” Wilder’s nostalgic and beautiful look at small town life in turn-of-the-century America, is 7:30 p.m. The Southeastern production is directed by Kay M. Files.
      Tickets for “Our Town” will be available at the Vonnie Borden Theatre box office in D Vickers Hall beginning from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 1 and at 6 p.m. on performance days. Tickets may also be obtained by calling the box office at 985-549-2115. Tickets prices are $5 general admission; $3 for students, faculty & staff, and senior citizens, and admission is free for all Southeastern students with valid ID.  
      The “Then and Now” lecture series, sponsored by Southeastern’s History and Political Science Department, continues during Fanfare’s second week with lectures by Southeastern philosophy professor Barbara C. Forrest and guest lecturer Ron Fritze of the University of Central Arkansas. Both are scheduled for the Pottle Music Building Auditorium.
      The Woman’s Hospital Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities, Forrest has written numerous articles on the threat of creationism to science. Her book, “Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design,” co-authored with Paul R. Gross, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2003. At 1 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 9, she will talk on “The Evolution of Creationism: Intelligent Design.”
      At 11 a.m., Friday, Oct. 11, Fritzie will present “Discovering Columbus’s Discovery.” Fritze is head of the Department of History at the University of Central Arkansas and author of “New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery, Travel Legend and Lore: An Encyclopedia” and “Legend and Lore of the Americas Before 1492.” His talk will examine the geographical evolution of the Americas in the European mind from 1497-1540.
      The City of Amite joins the Fanfare schedule on Saturday, Oct. 12, with its fourth annual “Explosion of the Arts,” scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Amite Community Center. The “explosion” of entertainment, catered by local restaurants, features the talents of Amite and Sumner high schools’ award winning choirs, student artwork, and performances by more than 100 elementary and high school singers, dancers, actors and musicians, many from the public school system’s Talented Art, Music and Theatre programs. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students.
      For a Fanfare brochure and ticket order form or for additional information about Fanfare events, contact the Public Information Office, 985-549-2341, publicinfo@selu.edu, or Fanfare, 985-543-4366, fanfare_ctpa@selu.edu. Fanfare information is also available online at www.selu.edu/fanfare. 
      Fanfare tickets are available at the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts box office, 220 East Thomas St., Hammond, 985-543-4371. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.ticketweb.com. Box office hours are noon to 5 p.m., weekdays. The box office is open until performance time for events at the Columbia Theatre.