War & Peace Imagined Celebrates Lev Aronson, featuring Internationally-Renowned Cellist, Lynn Harrell

University Libraries UNCG and the UNCG College of Visual and Performing Arts is collaborating to make December 2016 a spectacular month for music fans. As many of you may know, the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections & University Archives at #UNCG is home to the largest single holding of cello music-related materials in the world, and every few years, we celebrate one of the musicians represented in our collection. This year’s campus theme is "War & Peace Imagined," an exploration of war and peace through the arts and humanities. Therefore, it is most fitting that we celebrate the musical legacy of cellist, Lev Aronson.

Lev Aronson is remembered as a distinguished cellist, teacher, and survivor of the Holocaust. With his family forced from their home in Latvia during World War I and losing five years of his life to the camps of World War II, Aronson endured one of the darkest times in human history, surviving these events to bring beauty to the world through music. Among Aronson’s many students is internationally acclaimed cellist, Lynn Harrell.

We are sponsoring a concert (Dec. 2, 2016) and recital (Dec. 3, 2016) featuring Lynn Harrell. The information is available below and tickets are on sale now:

Ernest Bloch Hebraic Rhapsody for Solo Cello and Orchestra

https://vpa.uncg.edu/war-and-peace-imagined/events?e=90

When: Friday, December 2, 2016, 7:30 pm

Where: UNCG Auditorium

Tickets: $10 adult/ $5 student: http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?pid=8319485

The UNCG Symphony Orchestra will accompany the world-renowned cellist as he performs Ernest Bloch's passionate and exotic work, Schelomo: Rhapsody for Solo Cello and Orchestra. Crafted in faith and misery, Schelomo premiered 100 years ago as part of Bloch's Jewish Cycle. This will be one piece in a larger concert from the UNCG Symphony.

UPAS: Lynn Harrell, recital

https://vpa.uncg.edu/war-and-peace-imagined/events?e=91

When: Saturday, December 3, 2016, 8:00 pm

Where: Recital Hall

Tickets: $30 adult/$25 student/ $25 senior

http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?pid=8300999

Lynn Harrell will complete his UNCG residency with this recital of virtuosic works including those of Lev Aronson, Mr. Harrell's cello teacher. Lev Aronson, himself a cellist and composer, was interned in both a Nazi Concentration Camp and a Russian Labor Camp. He eventually made it to the United States where he became the Principal Cellist of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and a beloved teacher of many successful cellists.

Program:

Sonata in G major (edited by Lev Aronson), Henry Eccles

Cello Sonata in C major, op. 119, Sergei Prokofiev

Cello Sonata, Claude Debussy

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Introduction, Theme and Variations, op. 82, no. 2 (arr. Gregor Piatigorsky), Franz Schubert

Cello Suite no. 3 in C major, BWV 1009, J.S. Bach 

What’s New in SCUA

Mary Channing Coleman

This month in SCUA, we’re showcasing a painting that we’ve recently acquired from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) Kinesiology Department.  The portrait is of Mary Channing Coleman, painted by Albert A. Wilkinson, head of the UNCG News Bureau from 1947-1967. Coleman was a long-time faculty member at Woman’s College; she was both a Professor of Physical Education and later the department head. Born in 1883 in Virginia, she attended the State Female Normal School (Virginia), Wellesley College and Columbia University.  In addition to her work at Woman’s College, Coleman served on the faculty of Winthrop College (South Carolina), Detroit Public Schools (Michigan), Margaret Morrison College of the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Pennsylvania), Columbia University (New York), and Toronto (Ontario, Canada).  She also served with the Red Cross Military Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during World War I.

Beyond her academic involvement, Coleman was heavily involved in organizations devoted to the advancement of physical education, including the North Carolina Physical Education Society (president), Southern Physical Association (president), and National Amateur Athletic Association (charter member).  She traveled all over the world studying centers of recreation, including those in Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, Greece, Austria, and Poland.  Coleman wrote articles for several professional journals and other publications.  She died in 1947 at the age of 64.  Coleman Gymnasium, now located on the UNCG campus, is named in her honor.

In an essay written about Ms. Coleman, now located in the University Archives, the author talks about her as being “knowledgeable, stimulating, inspiring, and strict…Her chief concern for the profession was to emphasize that physical education was an integral part of the education of all children.”  We hope that you’ll come by to view the painting of Mary Channing Coleman, and be sure to keep an eye out for our monthly exhibits.  And now you know “What’s New in SCUA.”

Rachel Sanders

Chairperson

Student Libraries' Advisory Council 

Webmaster

UNCG Historical Society 

Peer Career Ambassador

UNCG Career Services Center 

Phi Alpha Theta - History Honor Society

Kappa Delta Pi - Education Honor Society

A Cloud of Death Engulfs a Campus: Typhoid Fever and UNCG in 1899

In November and December of 1899, the State Normal and Industrial College [now UNCG] faced a major crisis that almost shut down the school permanently after existing for only eight years. On November 15, 1899, Linda Toms, a student from Shelby NC, died suddenly from typhoid fever. Following her death, twelve more students would contract the illness and die prompting President Charles McIver to shut down the school in an attempt to stop the sickness from spreading.

At the time, the deaths of 13 students accounted for 3% of the total student population. Based on today’s enrollment numbers, a 3% death rate would equal 558 students! Also, roughly 12% of the students became ill in 1899 meaning over 2,234 students would take ill today based on the same percentage. Amidst the current worldwide scare of H1N1, the University Archives invites you to view its newest exhibit A Cloud of Death Engulfs a Campus: Typhoid Fever and UNCG in 1899 and look back at UNCG’s first pandemic and learn about the scare it faced 110 years ago.

- Sean Mulligan

Exhibit Dates and Location
October 7, 2009 - January 4, 2010
EUC Connector