Hartford's Humanities Center Names Larry Alan Smith As Faculty Fellow

Larry Alan Smith, Professor of Composition at The Hartt School, has been named a Faculty Fellow of the Humanities Center for the 2009-2010 academic year. The Humanities Center Seminar for this year is led by Lauren Cook, Assistant Professor of Cinema, and the theme is "Framing War." Smith's Fellowship takes place during the spring, 2010 semester.

The subject of war has been an important aspect of Smith's work as a composer and as a poet. Symphony No. 2 (1984) and All Good Men (1986) are just two of his large-scale works that focus on the topic. The first work includes aural depictions of the Battle of Antietam and the end of an imagined nuclear war. The second work uses war poems by Herman Melville and Wilfred Owen. Another work, An Infant Crying . . . (1984), uses a war-related Whitman poem as its centerpiece.

During his years as a Kellogg Fellow, he was able to spend time in many troubled places around the world, including South Africa prior to the end of apartheid, Namibia, and the death camps near the Mexican-Guatemalan border. He also has spent time recently in Serbia and Croatia giving lectures and conducting concerts.

Supported by this Fellowship, Smith currently is writing a war-related piece that will be premiered and discussed at a lecture on April 6, 2010, at 7:30 PM in Berkman RecitAl Hall. Soprano Cherie Caluda, Assistant Professor of Voice, will perform the new work in collaboration with Smith who will serve as the pianist. The lecture, "Framing War through Music and Poetry," is free and open to the public.

The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford that offers innovative degree programs in music, dance, and theatre. With more than 400 concerts, recitals, plays, master classes, dance performances, and musical theatre productions a year, performance is central to Hartt's curriculum. For more information on The Hartt School, visit www.hartford.edu/hartt.

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