Van Go to show student work at CornerBank

Colorful two- and three-dimensional creations by youth artists working in Van Go Mobile Arts’ JAMS (Jobs in the Arts Make Sense) program will be featured in an upcoming art show at CornerBank, 4621 W. Sixth St.

Many pieces on display were created in the summer JAMS ’03 program, but additional works from previous projects also will be shown.

Van Go is an arts-based social service agency that provides after-school and summer program to high-needs youth. JAMS employs youth apprentices ages 14-18.

Artists and Van Go’s staff will attend a public reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at CornerBank. The exhibit will run Friday through Oct. 10.

Work may be viewed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 9 a.m. to noon Saturday.

Poetry, fiction wanted for writing award

Poetry and fiction submissions for the 2004 Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award are being accepted.

Writers who have lived in Douglas County for at least one year and are at least 21 are eligible. Writers who have published a book-length volume of poetry or fiction and previous winners are ineligible.

Application deadline is Nov. 15. Applications are available at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.

Winners will be announced Feb. 1, 2004, Langston Hughes’ birthday. A celebration and reading will be held in honor of the winners.

The awards recognize excellence and encourage achievement of new and emerging writers. The awards are co-sponsored by Lawrence Arts Center and The Raven Bookstore.

African drumming group to play KU concert hall

A West African percussion ensemble will bring a new beat Thursday to Swarthout Recital Hall at Kansas University.

Djembe Kaan, an African drumming group based in Kansas City, will perform at 6:30 p.m. at the recital hall.

Tickets are $5 for adults and $2 for students and seniors. Tickets will be available at the door.

The performance offers a preview of music that will be played April 4 at the second annual World Music and Cultural Diversity Concert at KU.

Lawrence muralist’s film accepted to festival

“Creating Counterparts,” a film documenting a cross-country student mural project coordinated by Lawrence artist Dave Loewenstein, has been accepted to the Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival in Temecula, Calif. The festival runs Wednesday through Sept. 14.

The 51-minute documentary recounts a 1999-2000 project in which high school students from Holcomb, Mo., (population 531) collaborated with students from a New York City high school to design and paint an 8-by-40-foot mural about their perceptions of one another and the communities they live in.

With help from Loewenstein and partner Sandra Stein of New York, the students did most of their work via e-mail and bulletin board technology. The mural, “Counterparts,” opened in April 2000 in New York. Loewenstein screened the documentary at Liberty Hall in March.

Photographers chosen for St. Louis exhibit

Lawrence artists Hobart and Shakura Jackson have had photos accepted into the national juried exhibition, “The Art of Photography,” which opens today and runs through Nov. 1 at the St. Louis Artists Guild, 2 Oak Knoll Park, St. Louis.

Hobart Jackson also had a painting accepted into a regional juried art exhibition, “Arts from the Heartland,” which opens Oct. 1 and runs through Oct. 31 at the Coutts Memorial Museum of Art in El Dorado.

The Jacksons are members of Valley Lane Art Studios in Lawrence.

KSU artists to show sculpture at KU gallery

Sculptures by 10 Kansas State University students will be on view today through Sept. 26 at KU’s Art and Design Gallery.

The show will consist of 10 to 20 pieces by undergraduate and graduate students. Organizers say the show helps build camaraderie between art programs at the two schools.

Admission is free. Gallery hours are 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday.

The Art and Design Gallery is on the third floor of the Art and Design Building at the northeast corner of 15th Street and Naismith Drive.

For more information on the exhibition, call (785) 532-6610 or (785) 456-6618.

Faculty recital mixes trombone, piano

James Michael Hall, assistant professor of trombone, and Robert Koenig, assistant professor of piano and chamber music, will perform 7:30 p.m. Monday at Kansas University’s Swarthout Recital Hall.

The event, free and open to the public, will feature a diverse range of pieces, including “Fantasy for Trombone and Orchestra, Opus 42” by Paul Creston, “Partita BWV 1013” by J.S. Bach, “Basta” by Folke Rabe and “Concertino” by Andreas Makris.

For more information, call 864-3436.

Music professors to play to benefit students

Sequeira Costa, distinguished professor of piano at Kansas University, will give a benefit Russian piano music concert at 3 p.m. Sept. 14 in Swarthout Recital Hall.

Costa, a world-renowned pianist who has been teaching at KU for 28 years, plans to use the event’s revenues to fund scholarships for KU piano students. The concert will highlight some of the world’s greatest Russian composers, including Dimitri Kabalevsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Michailovich Liapunov and Sergei Rachaminov.

Also on Sept. 14, piano professor Jack Winerock will commemorate his 30th year at KU with a benefit chamber music concert at 7:30 p.m. in Swarthout. He will join Ben Sayevich, associate professor of violin, Ed Laut, professor of violoncello and director of KU’s strings division, and Paul Stevens, assistant professor of horn. The group will play selections by Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms.

Tickets to both events are $10 for adults and $5 for students and seniors, and will be available at the door for both performances. The events will help raise scholarship funds for music students at KU.

For more information, call 864-3436.

Chamber Orchestra boosted by grant

The Lawrence Chamber Orchestra has received a $3,700 grant from the Kansas Arts Commission for operational support for its 2003-2004 concert season.

The grant will help the orchestra provide area audiences with quality orchestral music from baroque to contemporary chamber music. The orchestra will place increased emphasis on baroque programs and opportunities to broadcast such concerts in partnership with Kansas Public Radio.

The Kansas Composers series is also slated to continue, featuring a new composition by a composer with ties to Kansas. The Young Artist Competition, sponsored by the Wunsch Foundation, is scheduled for the spring of 2004. Top placers will give a solo performance with the orchestra.

The orchestra’s six-concert season begins Sept. 21 with “Bach’s Lunch,” the first of three programs scheduled at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.

For more information about orchestra, contact Mick Braa at 542-3829 or go to www.people.ku.edu/~bclark/LCO.