SCI Region IV Conference 2010 & Greensboro, North Carolina

 

The second day of SCI Region IV Conference 2010 at Greensboro was cripplingly plagued by the magnificent Snowmaggedon. The entire campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro was closed and buried under the heavy wintry mix. The conference hosts Alejandro Rutty and Mark Engebretson and their well-prepared team kicked off the Plan B, smoothly moving exciting music events to the gorgeous First Presbyterian Church. Exuberant composers, performers, and conference participants, accompanied by conference hosts’ witty announcements, cheerfully braved the horrendous weather condition to share musical thoughts, insightful conversations, and critical colloquies on new music.

During the lunch break, I drove to the downtown Greensboro to visit the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, learning more about the Sit-in Movement initiated by the Greensboro Four, four African American students from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College including Ezell A. Blair Jr., David Leinhail Richmond, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain, at the lunch counter of F.W. Woolworth on February 1, 1960. After an excellent guided-tour in the museum, I walked around the downtown area to take few pictures while the weather continuing its cranky display. My camera-action must looked somewhat silly in the dreadful wind, cold rain, and soggy snow, as a nice reporter from WFMY News and her camera team blocked my way in the middle of the Elm Street and offered me an interview opportunity. I bashfully muttered some music-related excuses and swiftly sneaked into Fincastles Diner to have an amazing Po’ boy.

The International Civil Rights Center & Museum | 2010 | Photo by Jen-Kuang Chang

SCI Region IV Conference 2010, hosted by Alejandro Rutty and Mark Engebretson of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, featured ten concerts, two discussion sessions, one CD exchange session, and a reception. Performance venues included Organ Hall, Recital Hall, and Alumni House at UNCG, sanctuary at the First Presbyterian Church, and atrium at the Weatherspoon Art Museum.

No Comments / Feb 05.10 / Music, Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

Homestead National Monument of America

 

After a long and winding and occasionally breathtaking road trip, my mindless mind was abnormally constricted to a supernatural degree, seemingly attempting to compensate the bodily peculiarity of Stargate-like travel movement.  Archiving photos taken in the Homestead National Monument of America near Beatrice, Nebraska in this kind condition in a quiet motel far, far away from home felt like using Holden Caulfield’s brain to think like Midori Kobayashi and trying to solve Fermina Daza’s issues. Odd.

No Comments / Feb 04.10 / Photo, Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

Levine Museum of the New South

I was meditating on the cinematic essence of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece Rashōmon and its comparative relevance in association with Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s original short stories when pacifyingly resting in a café in downtown Charlotte after a long walk. The jovial Espresso con Panna thawed out my emotional dust and gleefully sore legs, iota by iota, like a baby polar bear slowly licking his very first playground-wound. With Bob Dylan singing songs from his Blonde on Blonde album through cafe’s speakers to me, I rolled the scenes directed by Kurosawa over and began to study the map to find my way to my next stop, the Levine Museum of the New South.

The Levine Museum of the New South, located in East Seventh Street in downtown Charlotte, North Caroline, was envisioned by Sally Dalton Robinson and Anne Batten and was incorporated in 1991. The new facility was opened in 2001, featuring the permanent exhibit “Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers: Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont in the New South.”

The Levine Museum of the New South

No Comments / Feb 04.10 / Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

Transylvania University & Gratz Park Historic District

 

After a brief and delightful visit to ArtsPlace, a facility operated by the Lexington Arts and Cultural Council in the downtown Lexington, I insouciantly ambled toward the Gratz Park Historic District nearby with colossal expectations to be vehemently wowed. The composed atmosphere of the park and grand 19th-century townhouses gradually transformed my big wows into a still and exquisite monotone with few startlingly loud interruptions by my camera’s shutter sound. I felt culpable for robbing the silence.

The Gratz Park Historic District, located in downtown Lexington, Kentucky, comprised of a city park and sixteenth historical buildings, including the Hunt-Morgan House, the Bodley-Bullock House, the Carnegie Library. In 1793, the park was purchased by the Transylvania Seminary to be the location of its Lexington campus. The main building for the seminary, designed by Lexington architect Matthew Kennedy in 1816, was destroyed in the fire in 1829. The “Old Kitchen Building” was the only surviving building from the original campus in the park. In 1833, the “Old Morrison” building, designed by Kentucky architect Gideon Shryock, was completed under the supervision of Henry Clay as the only campus building in that era. The “Old Morrison” building was designated a Registered National Historical Landmark in 1966 and is now serving as the Administration Building in Transylvania University.

No Comments / Feb 03.10 / Photo, Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

Victorian Square in Lexington, Kentucky

Walking through the deserted Victorian Square with nippy playbacks of emotionally convoluted scenes from Chinese film In Love We Trust, also known by its literal English translation Left Right, formed an inexplicable gloom around my tired being following ten hours of bad-weathered road trip. Wang Xiaoshuai’s brilliance as the director and lead-actress Liu Weiwei’s convincing performance tangoed all over me like unutterable snowflakes of affliction. I was emotionally exhausted, feeling like a hundred-year-old building begging to be accidentally forgotten.

Victorian Square, listed in the National Register of Historic Buildings, is located in the downtown Lexington, Kentucky. The square was established since the 1880’s, featuring a block of sixteen buildings of shops and an opera house. In 1985, the square was renovated to improve the accessibility while preserving the architectural elements of these historical buildings.

No Comments / Feb 03.10 / Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang