2010 Favorite Films Festival This Weekend, January 29-31, 2010

The 4th Annual Favorite Films Festival will be held at Harris Center Cinema on the Grinnell College campus on Friday through Sunday, Jan. 29-31. The days and times:

Fri. 1/29:
4:30 p.m. Pan's Labyrinth
7:30 p.m. The Shining
10:30 p.m. Blazing Saddles

Sat. 1/30:
1:30 p.m. Blazing Saddles
7:30 p.m. Pan's Labyrinth
10:30 p.m. The Shining

Sun. 1/31:
1:30 p.m. Pan's Labyrinth

Showings are free and open to the public.

The films were selected by the college community as their favorite Western, Science fiction, and Horror films.

The festival is co-sponsored by the Grinnell College Libraries and the Student Government Association Films Committee.

Afrocentric Sounds to Honor Still on MLK Day

Afrocentric Sounds radio will pay tribute to American composer William Grant Still with a broadcast of the composer’s works on this year’s Martin Luther King Holiday. The broadcast, to be presented on January 18th, will include a wide range of Still’s compositions for solo instruments, voice, as well as chamber and large ensembles.

Known as the Dean of African American composers, Still’s educational and professional career spanned both popular and Classical music as he worked with musicians from W. C. Handy, Sophie Tucker, Paul Whiteman, and Artie Shaw to George Chadwick and Edgard Varese. Still broke many barriers, such as becoming the first African American to have a symphony performed by a major symphony orchestra, the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra in the United States, and the first African American to have an opera produced by a major American company.

Still is credited with over 150 compositions, including art songs, operas, ballets, symphonic and chamber works. He composed and arranged music for radio and for motion pictures, including the 1936 film, Pennies from Heaven and 1937’s Lost Horizon.

The Internet radio station Afrocentric Sounds launched in November 2009. It is the second station launched by music researcher Randye Jones (Listening Room Supervisor in Burling Library), whose recent performances and work have focused on African American musicians. Jones currently serves on the library staff at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa.

The “All Is Still” program has been made possible by the generous donation of numerous recordings by the composer’s daughter, Judith Anne Still. The broadcast may be heard by accessing the station at http://www.live365.com/stations/singin1?site=live365. For more information about Afrocentric Sounds, visit http://www.afrocentricsounds.com.

Burling Library in the News

Smartcollegevisit.com has a short blurb on Burling's jungle gyms. Take a look at http://www.smartcollegevisit.com/2009/12/smart-see-smart-do-grinnell-college.html. Thank you Mairead O’Grady '10 for the shout out!