Friends of Chamber Music concert set; RTP announces 5 Minute Fringe Fest

Feb. 11—The Friends of Chamber Music of Reading will present a free concert by the Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the WCR Center for the Arts, 140 N. Fifth St., Reading. No tickets are needed.

The program will feature Brahms: Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 101; Bohdana Frolyak: Lamento; and Beethoven: Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97 "Archduke."

Combining the talents of three award-winning soloists — Yael Weiss, piano; Mark Kaplan, violin; and Peter Stumpf, cello — the trio brings to each performance its distinctive fusion of authority and experience, energy and passion. These three musicians comprise an ensemble that embraces the music of the future while offering fresh insights into three centuries of masterworks.

Hailed by The New York Times as "three strong voices, locked in sequence," the trio was founded under the name Sequenza in 2001, and was joined in 2014 by the distinguished cellist Stumpf. It has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The trio is also known for its stimulating and varied programming of the entire trio repertoire, and notably for performances of Beethoven's complete cycle of works for piano trio, an ongoing part of its programming and the focus of a new recording.

The trio is well known to American radio audiences through nationwide broadcasts on shows such as NPR's "Performance Today" and WNYC's "SoundCheck."

For more information, visit www.chambermusicreading.org.

Theater

The Reading Theater Project has announced its ninth annual 5-Minute Fringe Festival: WONDER, featuring new work by 12 playwrights and performers from around the region.

Performances run Feb. 29 through March 3 at the Yocum Institute for Arts Education's black box Schumo Theater, 3000 Penn Ave., West Lawn.

The festival is a platform for performing artists to create something new, to challenge expectations, to experiment and explore new ideas, and to connect with an artistic community. This year, audiences can look

forward to short plays, monologues, dance and music, as well as pieces that intermix performance genres.

Each night of the performance will be followed by a talkback so audience members can share observations and ask questions of the performers and writers.

Playwrights and performing artists selected for the production include Andrea Kennedy Hart, Chris Heslop, David Nice, Andrew Pochan, Nadia Pochan, Adam Richter, Elaine Soltis, Beth Toner, Charles Troxel, Jessica C. Warchal-King and JCWK Dance Lab with Marty Bonk, Eric Williams.

Pianist Andy Roberts will play throughout to link one piece to the next. The production will be directed by Vicki Haller Graff, stage managed by Sean Sassaman, and production managed by Jody Reppert.

"Our goal with Fringe is to give local performing artists a platform to develop new work," Haller Graf said. "Many actors are used to performing the work of others, but creating new work is a unique challenge. With a goal of 5 minutes, new work becomes accessible to more people."

All tickets are Pay What You Will, including free, with a recommended price of $20. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit readingtheaterproject.org/5-minute-fringe-2024.

Music

Penn State Berks will offer a new course titled "Taylor Swift, Gender, and Communication" starting in the fall 2024 semester. The class will hold 100 seats with 50 spots reserved for current Berks students and the other 50 spots available for incoming first-year students.

Cross-listed as both a communication arts and sciences and a women's studies course, it will take the unique approach of examining Swift's cultural and musical impact and her portrayal in the media, rather than focusing on Swift's marketing strategies or how her lyrics fit into literary canon like other universities' courses on the singer.

The course was developed and will be taught by Michele Ramsey, associate professor of communication arts and sciences and of women's, gender, and sexuality studies. Ramsey's research interests include representations of gender in the media, women's rights rhetoric, social movement rhetoric, political rhetoric and advocacy for the humanities.

The course will start with a three-week overview of the impact music has on personal identities, the historical intersections of music and politics, and gendered expectations of female performers. It will also focus on the career and media treatment of Swift, including subjects such as changes in gendered expectations in shifting from country to pop music; challenges faced by young female musicians as they move from adolescence to adulthood; and the public battles Swift has faced with other celebrities and media representations of those battles that include a tendency to pit successful women against each other.

Ramsey admittedly hasn't been a longtime "Swiftie." However, she took an interest in Swift when she noticed the amplified online criticism of Swift's songwriting, accusations of her lip synching, and Swifties dancing in the movie theaters and at her performances — which inspired her to create this course.

"When you watch social media posts of the concerts or 'Eras Tour' movie screenings, you see so many important things happening," Ramsey said. "You see legions of women — grandmothers, moms, young women, teens, tweens, younger girls and those who don't fit into our strict social constructions of gender and sex identity — daring to take up space to enjoy something they love together."

Ramsey knows that teaching this course in Swift's hometown makes it a rare experience for students. The course encourages students to enter their "Berks era" studying the importance of something they love and leave with a better understanding of the expectations and pressures placed on women in our culture.

Books

Myerstown author Dominic Murgido has released his third book, titled "Life Changes While Grieving: Three significant changes. One ultimate outcome." The book is an overview of one man's thoughts and actions concerning his journey of grief after the tragic, sudden death of his wife and the life changes he encountered and created to further his healing process.

In the book, Murgido looks back at the life changes that brought risks and choices to his world while trying to move forward and find resilience for his future.

The author explains what he experienced during each life change that took him to another level of coping and understanding where he was and where he needed to be. There were days that he struggled, moments that took him by surprise, and triggers that brought him to tears, but in the end, all became good because the author learned to live with loss.

Murgido founded sudSSpirit, a bereavement support group, a few years after the sudden, unexpected death of his wife.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, "Life Changes While Grieving" is available at traditional brick and mortar bookstores or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store and Barnes and Noble.

Lecture

The Know Your Symphony Lecture Series, a continuing education service of The Penn State College of Arts and Architecture in cooperation with the Reading Symphony Orchestra League, will present its next talk on Wednesday, February 21, at 7:30 p.m., at The Highlands, 2000 Cambridge Ave., Wyomissing. The lecturer will be local Grammy-winning guitarist David Cullen.

The talk will serve as a primer for the next Reading Symphony Orchestra concert, taking place Feb. 24 at the Santander Performing Arts Center, Reading, and featuring guest guitarist Ana Vidovic performing Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo with the RSO.