Madrigal Dinner and Madrigal Singers 2008

Madrigal Singers Entertain at the Annual Madrigal Dinner

This Friday and Saturday evenings, December 12 and 13, Dr. Tom Ediger's Madrigal Singers once again, and for the eighteenth year in a row, provided wonderful fanfare, glorious color, bawdy humor, excellent food, and music, music, music.




The Madrigal Singers' offerings included the beautiful "Song of the Bells," one of the group's concluding numbers you can listen to on You Tube at this site.


This year's opera The Royal Conundrum featured all the members of the chorus in a story about a king with strange inventions, a queen who thinks she is a cat, and well, an heir born as a drum, and a second son whose name no one seems to remember (Duh).

This year, I made a video of the entire opera and uploaded here a section of the opera of around three minutes, a fun song, "The Well Bred Princess" from which the following photograph comes:




To view some photographs taken during the show, including a group of shots taken of parents, friends, and singers after the show, take a look at this site.

As always, you feel free to download whatever appeals to you. And give last year's performance a look by clicking this link.

In addition to photographs taken of the show and many of the people in attendance--and both nights enjoyed strong audiences--I took a number of posed pictures of the group, one of which is featured above.

To view these images, just click here.

This year's Madrigal Dinner marked the last performance for three long-time members of the group, Amy White, Apryl Schwartz, and Jeff Schwartz, pictured below with Dr. Tom Ediger.

We wish the three good fortune and thank them for their years of service and fanfare.


Dr. Tom Ediger and the Madrigal Singers wish everyone a productive final week of Fall 2008 and a wonderful and restful holiday season.

Peru State College Band Fall Concert

On Sunday afternoon at 3:00 in the Peru State College Theater, the Fall Concert took place.

The Concert Band, in its first performance of the year, and the Jazz Band entertained its audience with a variety of excellent music, from Robert Jager's Japanese Prints to the late native Nebraskan Buddy Miles' Them Changes.

The Peru State College Concert Band

You can see a number of photographs of both bands in action. As usual, feel free to download any images that appeal to you.

Clicking here will take you to last year's Christmas Concert where you can hear the Concert Band perform a couple holiday tunes.

Under the direction of Dr. Pat Fortney and Mr. Kenneth Meints, the Concert Band opened Sunday's engaging program, which included Japanese Prints.

You will find here on You Tube (again, remember to click for "highest quality") the final moments of "Yumi Kato," Jager's piece's second movement, and all of the concluding "Kopama."

The Concert Band concluded its portion of the Fall Concert with "McKissick's Island" by Roland Barrett, who, before moving on to the University of Oklahoma's Music Department over two decades ago, served as band director at Republican Valley High School in Indianola, Nebraska, and at Fairbury High School in Fairbury, Nebraska.

While Sunday's marked the first public performance of the year for the Concert Band, many of the students also perform in the very popular Pep Band--here you can watch the band and the Peru State Cheerleaders perform at the first football game of the year.

The Jazz Band opened its college season with an outdoor performance early in the term at the 16 September re-dedication of the Al Wheeler Center followed by a 2 October show in front of the Fine Arts Building.

Other gigs include a Pep Rally in Auburn and recent performances at a hospital in Syracuse and a return trip to Falls City where the band entertained for the second year in a row at the annual Fall City Farmers Appreciation Banquet.

To conclude its section of the concert, the Jazz Band offered a high-voltage version of Them Changes, the best known composition by Omaha native and drummer for Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, Buddy Miles.

To watch the Peru State Jazz Band's exciting homage to Miles, just click here.

The Peru State College Jazz Band

Marketing Management Class and the Durham Museum

Management Marketing Class Project 2008

Last week, Dr. Bill Snyder's Management Marketing class gave a presentation in Benford Hall to a small group of people, who offered a critique of the group's work on this year's project. Those who offered suggestions included Dean Bruce Batterson, the Mayor of Auburn, Bob Engles, and Dennis Wittmann, President of the Auburn City Council.

Many will remember that the Management Marketing class last year organized an on-line contest that served to identify the Seven Wonders of Southeast Nebraska; read the Lincoln Journal Star article here.

The Peru State College Campus of a Thousand Oaks made the list, and the Trace Trail and Sherman Memorial Area earned second place.

To read more about the trail and the sculptures just visit this site.

This year's project focuses on the Durham Western Heritage Museum.

The Durham Western Heritage Museum contacted the Peru State College Marketing Management class to develop brochures for its summer camps.

The class developed three alternative brochures and presented their creations to a focus group of young mothers and fathers. The class took the suggestions and criticism and modified the original creations into one summer brochure and one summer camp brochure.

The last step in the process will be to present the proposal to the Durham Museum as if the class were a for profit marketing firm.

Members of the class include the following individuals pictured below: Joe De Kock, Jeff Friedman, Ashley Grant, Lacee Gustafson, William Hays, Gary Lux, Joshua Mount, Kelley Scanlan, Dustin Sealy, and Mary Trecek.

I posted a few pictures from the presentation.

On Wednesday, December 10, the group gave a very successful presentation to enthusiastic museum officials. The the Durham Museum will utilize the fruits of the Peru State College class's projects described in the preceding paragraphs.

Congratulations to all members of Dr. Bill Snyder's Management Marketing class for another successful community project.

Choir Concert on Sunday, November 16

The Fall Choir Festival at Peru State College

Sunday afternoon at 3:00 on November 16, the Concert Choir, Madrigal Singers, and the Misty Blues put on a great show for the audience gathered in the Peru State Theater.

Enjoy images of the performances.

And click at this site to watch on You Tube the Concern Choir sing the beautiful "The Last Words of David." Remember to click on "highest quality" for optimal viewing of this moving piece.

At this site, you will enjoy the sights and sounds from last year's Choral Concert.

The Madrigal Singers also performed and will once again present an always excellent Madrigal Christmas program of entertaining dining pleasure.

Make sure to get your tickets for this year's festivities for Friday and Saturday, December 12 and 13th--tickets are $26.00 each. Just click on the poster at this blog entry's conclusion for all the information you will need.

To view some of the images from last year's Madrigal Dinner fanfare, just visit this site and look around.

This year I plan to make a movie of a number or two for your enjoyment and to showcase the group's talent.

This year's Choral Concert concluded, as always, with the Misty Blues. The group last performed on 30 October as part of the Show Choir Festival held at Peru State College.

To see photographs of the Misty Blue's performance from last month and to view a couple very popular films of their songs, go to this site.

The three choirs put on a well-received and much-appreciated performance on Sunday afternoon for those in the audience lucky enough to attend the annual concert.

Foreign Film Conference At LSU

Foreign Film Conference: Exile, Migration, Identity
Louisiana State University

Balcony in the French Quarter of New Orleans

Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon, November 13-15, I attended a Foreign Film Conference at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. I presented a paper, "The Stalker's Dream," on a cult-favorite Russian Science Fiction film, Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Other presentations focused on Spanish, Italian, French, and Hebrew films, from Los Managers (Spain) to The Band's Visit (Israel).

My wife, Linda, gave a presentation about a French film, Nuit Noir, from 2007, about the massacre in Paris by French police in 1961 of at least two hundred unarmed Algerian men, women, and children, an incident suppressed until the past decade.

Linda and I flew into the New Orleans airport late Wednesday night; and before heading to Baton Rouge Thursday morning, we walked for a few hours in the French Quarter in New Orleans, an area that did not succumb to the Katrina floods.

And Friday evening after the presentations concluded, we drove to Lafayette, around an hour away, to visit a Biologist friend.

See this link for a look at the blog entry created for my friend, Dr. Beth Middleton, about a fascinating place not far from Madison, Wisconsin, the Lodi Marsh. I will return there this summer for more photography.

While in Lafayette, the Heart of Cajun Country, we three enjoyed sitting in the Blue Dog Cafe before heading to Prejean's Restaurant for Cajun food and music.

After my wife's presentation on Saturday morning, we headed back to New Orleans Airport for afternoon flights, but not before taking a picture of the White Heron included here.

I posted a few photographs from the trip.

English Club Board Game Night

On Tuesday, November 11, the English Club sponsored an evening of fun with board and card games in the Student Center.


English Club members Mary Trecek (President), Abigail Linnerson (Vice President), pictured on the right, and Kristopher Miller (Treasurer, pictured playing a Zombie game on the right below) organized this event.


I loaded a few photographs.


The evening's fun also included the Board Game Club's visit to the Burr Oak Room. Dr. Keith Sinkhorn's group brought along some pretty impressive games, such as the one pictured here:


At the conclusion of this blog entry, you will find an announcement about the Board Game Club.

The English Club provided games, prizes, and an excellent Nacho feast to go along with Scrabble, that something to do with Zombies mentioned previously, and other and challenging games.

As Dr. Dan Holtz and I discovered by looking at the literature version of Trivial Pursuits, we actually know very little about books.



We remind everyone about the deadlines for the Toney McCrann Memorial Writing Contest and inclusion in this year's Sifting Sands literary journal.

Just click here for further information.

Dr. Peter Kuznick Speaks at Peru State College

On Monday, 10 November, Dr. Peter Kuznick gave two information-packed, hour-long presentations in the college's Academic Resource Center.

Titled "The Kennedy Assassination: History's Greatest Turning Point?," his talk argued that at the time of his tragic death in Dallas, President John F. Kennedy planned to turn our country in new and challenging directions.

These new initiatives included the end of the Cold War, the Space Race, and our involvement in Vietnam.

Phi Alpha Theta and The Durham Museum sponsored Dr. Kuznick's visit. Enjoy a short slide show of today's event.

Peter Kuznick, a noted historian of the Cold War who has written extensively, among other things, on the bombing of Hiroshima, is an Associate Professor of History at American University. He serves as the Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute and is the author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists As Political Activists in 1930s America (1987) and co editor of Rethinking Cold War Culture (2001).

At this site, you can listen to an interview in which Peter Kuznick speaks on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. And here you will find more information about Kuznick's work in connection with the Nuclear Studies Institute.

You might also find interesting, a Barry Student video of Dr. Kuznick's speech at American University last year about the Iraq War. At this site, you can download Dr. Kuznick's talk and those of other scholars presented at the Whistleblower Conference at American University on September 18, 2007.

A quick look on the Internet reveals multiple links that involve Dr. Kuznick's work. You might find interesting, for example, the following two articles by Peter Kuznick published in The Asia Pacific Journal located here: "Defending the Indefensible: A Mediation on the Live of Hiroshima Pilot Paul Tibbets, Jr." and "The Decision to Risk the Future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb and the Apocalyptic Narrative."

Jazz and Pep Bands Play in Auburn

Peru State Jazz and Pep Bands Perform in PSC Pep Rally at Auburn High School

This Saturday morning, the Peru State Jazz Band and Pep Band took part in a pep rally in the cafeteria at Auburn High School.

Both bands entertained the hot-dog eating crowd that included Auburn's mayor and other Peru State College supporters.

I posted a short slide show of the bands' performances.

And at this site, you can see the Jazz Band's impressive and energetic version of Aretha Franklin's signature song, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." This number features the high-powered vocals of

I also have a short video of the Pep Band's "Fight Song" and will work to get that tune loaded for your enjoyment.

All in attendance enjoyed the morning activities before the football game, a Peru State College victory. And the organizers aim to make the pep rally an annual event.