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Students and Faculty in the College of Fine Arts and Communications Bridge Imagination and Innovation in the Dynamic World of Arts and Media.

News

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BYU Grad Lands Photo Internship with Los Angeles Lakers After Years of Pushing the Limits

November 14, 2019 12:00 AM
It was NCAA star player Grayson Allen’s first game back after his suspension that came from deliberately tripping an opposing player. Everyone in the press room was fighting their way to him, including 20-year-old Abigail Keenan. This was only the beginning of many experiences where fighting her way through unseen obstacles would lead her to achieve her dreams. Her ability to pivot and find unique opportunities led her to photographing The Bucket List Family and to interning with the Los Angeles Lakers. With everyone surrounding Allen in the locker room, Keenan had to think fast. She knew that she wanted that shot, but how could she get it? “This was my first time rushing into the locker room, and I had no idea what to do,” Keenan said. “Being the newcomer once again, I saw a three-person deep wall surrounding Allen.” Clawing her way through eager reporters, she still couldn’t fight her way through the barricade of people surrounding Allen. Keenan reached down and tilted her camera up. She took a chance and shot between the legs of the man in front of her. With her fingers crossed that the angle was right, she snapped a picture hoping to capture where Allen was sitting. She then looked at the picture on her camera, and to her surprise, the photo was not only in focus but also in perfect lighting. What occurred that day in the press room foreshadowed the rest of Keenan’s journey — nothing is off limits. Keenan, a former Daily Universe photographer and 2019 BYU School of Communications graduate, saw what felt like a far-fetched dream became reality when she scored an internship with the Lakers. However, the path that led her there was anything but conventional. Read the full article at universe.byu.edu.
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Fidalis Buehler Will Explain the Relationship Between His Faith and Practice as Part of the 2019-2020 Faith + Works Lecture Series

November 13, 2019 12:00 AM
Buehler will present the importance of collecting personal histories in his upcoming lecture
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A Bridge to China

November 12, 2019 12:00 AM
A bond forged 40 years ago was renewed this year by BYU’s largest-ever performing tour. In the most unlikely of long shots, BYU’s Young Ambassadors became the first Western performing group to enter communist China in 1979, finding sudden fame and forging an improbable bond with the Chinese people—a friendship now 40 years strong. It’s a relationship marked by academic and cultural exchanges, faculty collaborations, long-standing study-abroad programs, and 30 repeat trips by BYU performing groups. In nearly six decades of sending student performing groups abroad, BYU had taken on some pretty ambitious tours, but the 2019 tour exceeded them all with eight groups combined for 167 performers in total. Throw in the tech crew, directors, and other support staff, and the company numbered more than 200. For two years Janielle Hildebrandt Christensen, producer Michael G. Handley (BS ’83), and others worked to craft a show around various Chinese audience interests—including Broadway, Riverdance and American clog, ballroom dance, a capella, and an addition of BYU's dunk team for basketball-crazed Chinese audiences. Wanting more than just a variety show, the creators wove together a theme of shared values—family, learning, friendship, harmony, and love. Calling it BYU Spectacular, they built a show to live up to the name, with pump-up lighting for the dunk team’s acrobatics, laser projections for a John Williams fanfare by the Chamber Orchestra, larger-than-life lion puppetry operated by Cougarettes for a Vocal Point cover of “Circle of Life,” and stilts and a Segway for a dreamlike Greatest Showman number by the Young Ambassadors. When technical director Travis L. Coyne arrived in Beijing five days before the first performance in May, he expected his 20 pallets of lights, sound equipment, scenery, staging, projectors, puppets, and trampolines to already be in country and working their way through customs. However, the shipping company told him there had been a delay, but—not to fear—it would all arrive shortly. Two days later, the equipment still not in China, the company admitted that the load had been bumped from its flight and sent instead to Newark. New Jersey. USA. There was no way it could arrive and pass customs in time for the Beijing performances. “We were praying for a miracle,' said Christensen. Read more at magazine.byu.edu
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Seeing with the Eyes of an Artist

November 12, 2019 12:00 AM
Greg S. (BFA ’17) and Jean Mcfarland Bean (BA ’17) were BYU dropouts. After a baby and an illness derailed their studies in the 1980s, they decided to leave BYU and head to Washington state. Greg, who had been working nights in Utah with the Springville Police Department, got a job as an officer in Bellevue, Washington, and was eventually promoted to detective. One day his lieutenant ordered him to a weeklong forensic-art class. Then a self-described “art imbecile,” Greg hadn’t put pencil to paper since middle school; this class began a lifelong journey into art. The teacher began by saying that art isn’t about the pencil in your hand, but about what you can see. Those words “literally changed my life and changed the way I saw people,” says Greg. By the end of the week, he could draw “a decent-looking human head,” and by the end of his career on the force, he had become the foremost forensic artist in the Seattle area, helping apprehend scores of criminals with his composite sketches. Meanwhile, Jean developed her own native interest in art. Thirty years after leaving Provo, the Beans received a clear prompting that, even though it was early, it was time for Greg to retire from the police force, and even though it was late, they needed to return to BYU. Read more at magazine.byu.edu More About the Beans “We work on commissions in our home studio together, we go out and paint together, we go to museums together,” says Greg about spending time with his wife, Jean. Their mutual love of art has provided a way for the Beans to grow together, including getting their art degrees at BYU as older students after early retirement. They’ve traveled to galleries all over and spent countless hours discussing artists and paintings. View some of their work at magazine.byu.edu
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A Vanishing Voice at the Smithsonian

November 11, 2019 12:00 AM
Florence Pestrikoff flew from her remote home in Akhiok on Alaska’s Kodiak Island to have her picture taken. Her BYU photographers came even farther—driving more than 40 hours and riding a ferry for 10. And now her image is on display 3,500 miles away in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Pestrikoff is one of the last speakers of Alutiiq, an endangered language in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and one of 16 people photographed so far by recent BYU photography grad Jordan K. Layton (BFA ’17) and professor Paul S. Adams (BFA ’94) for their ongoing project, Vanishing Voices. Vanishing Voices began as Layton’s capstone project, inspired by his realization that hundreds of languages are disappearing in North America alone. Read more at magazine.byu.edu http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=_1tll0J8GCY&feature=emb_logo
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BYU Barlow Endowment for Music Composition announces 2019 award recipients

November 11, 2019 12:00 AM
Nearly $100,000 was granted by the endowment to more than a dozen composers
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Behind the Scenes of BYU Spectacular! An Inside Look of the 2019 Performance

November 07, 2019 12:00 AM
A member of BYU’s Men's Chorus shares his experiences preparing for a dynamic performance This year’s BYU Spectacular! lived up to its name with energetic performances by campus ensembles and guest artists Ben Rector and Hilary Weeks — the product of hard work behind the scenes during an expedited rehearsal process. Brian Merrill — a member of BYU’s Men's Chorus — shared his experiences preparing for the event. “Something a lot of people don’t know about Spectacular! is how last-minute a lot of the preparations are,” Merrill said. “We started learning our songs a week before the performance and sang with Ben Rector a day or so before we performed together. It’s amazing that all of the coordination for Spectacular! can come together so fast.” Due to the collaborative efforts and diligence from each BYU performing group — Men’s Chorus, Young Ambassadors, Ballroom Dance Company, International Folk Dance Ensemble, Vocal Point, BYU Cougarettes and the Dunk Team — BYU Spectacular! showcased a refined performance that could have easily been rehearsed for months. “I love all of the collaboration between the performing groups,” said Merrill. “It’s really cool that we have this community of performers and we can come together at events like this. It makes it better than just one or the other performing.” This year’s Spectacular! performance was also an emotional time for BYU’s Men Chorus as conductor Rosalind Hall announced her final year as director of the choir. “I wasn’t going to do Men’s Chorus until I found out that it was going to be her last year, so I rearranged my whole class schedule,” Merrill said. “It was really special that we sang a Welsh folk song medley because she’s from Wales. The fact that we got to do something native to her is pretty meaningful for most of us.”
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Ballet Showcase Presents Faculty Choreography in Fall Concert

November 07, 2019 12:00 AM
Ballet Showcase Company will present a broad range of styles in their fall concert Nov. 15-16 BYU’s Ballet Showcase Company — an auditioned performing group in the Department of Dance — will present their fall semester concert Nov. 15-16. The concert will feature a diverse collection of faculty works performed by the company, ranging from classical variations to comedic satire. “It’s not boring for a moment,” said company member Cassidy Wixom. “There’s such variety in it, and each piece makes you feel a different way. At one moment it’s exciting and happy, the next it’s more soft and subtle. There’s so much diversity, I feel like everyone can find something they like in it.” More than anything, the students enjoy the camaraderie and growth that comes from working hard and creating art alongside their peers. “One of my favorite things is seeing the growth and the process,” said student Chelsie Sherwood. “You can see in just the six to seven weeks we’ve been rehearsing how much we’ve grown together, and how much we’ve grown as individuals.” Read more at dance.byu.edu
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Student Choreography on Display in DancEnsemble Fall Concert

November 01, 2019 12:00 AM
DancEnsemble 2019Students perform original works Nov. 8-9
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BYU Dance Professor’s Work Recognized by National Leadership Organization

October 31, 2019 12:00 AM
BYU Dance Professor Shayla Bott Shayla Bott, a professor in the Department of Dance and artistic director of BYU’s Theatre Ballet, was selected to present at the Women in Dance Leadership Conference, held this year in Philadelphia. Bott’s choreography, “Weaker,” was chosen from over 400 entries from 21 countries, a record number for the organization. Dancers from BYU’s Theatre Ballet performed the piece at Drexel University’s Mandell Theatre. The Women in Dance Leadership Conference promotes the work of female choreographers, researchers and artistic directors in a field where leadership positions are disproportionately held by men. The conference provides opportunities for female dance artists to perform and present, and fosters discussion on the empowerment of women in dance. “I think that in the field, men get a little more mentoring and resources than women, and that’s why they are where they are,” said Bott. “I’m glad to see a lot of organizations starting to put more resources behind women. But so often women don’t seek the resources, and they don’t invest the time into making good on those opportunities.” Read more at dance.byu.edu
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Punchcut Creative Director Jared Benson Encourages Students to Embrace, Shape the Future

October 30, 2019 12:00 AM
The BYU graphic design alum and Punchcut cofounder shared advice for an innovative career with students in the College of Fine Arts and Communications
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New Smithsonian exhibit features BYU professor and student duo’s portrait

By Sara Jane Aubrey
October 29, 2019 09:28 AM
This fall a new exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum features 46 portraits taken from photographers all across the country. But only one of the 46 pieces of art displays not one, but two artist names: Paul Adams, a BYU professor, and Jordan Layton, a former photography student.
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College Construction

Updates on the Arts and Music Buildings

Upcoming Events

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Arts & Entertainment

Utah Chamber Music Festival

7:30 PM
Wednesday, October 01
Come enjoy an evening of scintillating chamber music masterworks with internationally renowned violinist William Hagen, top-level European soloists Georgy Kovalev (viola) and Andrei Ioniță (cello), and revered American pianist Orion Weiss.
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Arts & Entertainment

Final Cut

7:00 PM
Thursday, October 02
Join us for an exclusive screening event of advanced student films.
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Arts & Entertainment

Hong-Park Studio's Dance and Composition Collaboration

7:30 PM
Thursday, October 02
Join us for an unforgettable evening of collaboration as BYU professor Jihea Hong-Park's piano studio teams up with the talented dancers and choreographers from the renowned BYU Department of Dance.
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Final Cut

7:00 PM
Friday, October 03
Join us for an exclusive screening event of advanced student films.
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Arts & Entertainment

Fall Choral Showcase

7:30 PM
Friday, October 03
Known for their polished performances and versatility of genre and style, the university’s four auditioned choirs—Men’s Chorus, Women’s Chorus, Concert Choir, and BYU Singers—present a varied program of classical and modern choral works.
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General Conference Closure

Saturday, October 04
The Museum will be closed on Saturday, October 4 due to General Conference.
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Arts & Entertainment

Jazz Showcase

7:30 PM
Tuesday, October 07
Join us for a fun evening of jazz featuring Synthesis, Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Lab Band, Jazz Voices, and Jazz Legacy Band!
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Arts & Entertainment

BYU Wind Symphony: War and Peace

7:30 PM
Friday, October 10
The BYU Wind Symphony performs powerful music centered on themes of war and peace.
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Family Concert Series: Musical Playground!

11:00 AM
Saturday, October 11
The whole family will love the sounds of brilliant brass, wondrous woodwinds, powerful percussion, and more!
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BYU Philharmonic: Great Beginnings

7:30 PM
Saturday, October 11
Join the BYU Philharmonic for the opening concert of a landmark season, celebrating 150 years since BYU’s founding.
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BYU Symphonic Band: Of Winds and Fall

7:30 PM
Tuesday, October 14
Join the BYU Symphonic Band as they perform some of the pillars of the wind band repertoire, including Gustav Holst's First Suite in E-flat and other favorites.
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BYU Symphony Orchestra

7:30 PM
Thursday, October 16
BYU's Symphony Orchestra performs time-tested classics from the orchestral repertoire as well as more contemporary art music.
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Academic Areas

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