Warren Weberg explores ambiguity in music
Warren Weberg is the 'little black dress' of classical composers; his style has been around forever, but it looks - or rather, sounds - refreshingly original every time you encounter it.
Described by the composer as an "exploration into ambiguity and indeterminacy," Weberg will begin the Tufts Composers Concert Series tomorrow night with five innovative pieces, one of which will be repeated throughout the performance but interpreted with a different musical spin each time.
Of this unorthodox style, Weberg modestly says, "It seems revolutionary, but it's actually been around since Mozart."
Weberg's musical background is almost as diverse as his performance pieces. After obtaining his undergraduate degree from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Weberg then immersed himself in a 15-year career as a recording engineer, dabbling in a wide range of musical genres before finally deciding to search for his own unique sound at Tufts under the guidance of music chair John McDonald.
"This," Weberg says of his graduate studies and upcoming concert, "is more direct work expressing my own thoughts as opposed to helping other people express theirs."
When asked what he hopes for the Tufts Composers series, Weberg simply replies, "I hope we get a good turnout. It's important to have support from the community for music like this, and I think we'll be able to find that here at Tufts." Weberg's concert is the first in a series of four such performances scheduled over the next three weeks, featuring Nathan Curtis on February 24th, Marco Visconti-Prasca on March 2nd, and Felipe Lara on March 9th. Weberg's concert will be held tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. in Alumnae Hall, and admission to the concert is free.
SOAR-ing above the pain
The slow, painful process of recovering from sexual trauma is never easy, but it is even less so when every agonizing moment is caught on film. Nevertheless, for one woman, documenting her experience through photography was a welcome therapy to help her cope with her experience as a rape victim, and this Thursday, she will bring that experience to the Tufts campus.
In 1997, Salamishah Tillet admitted to her younger sister Scheherazade that she had been the victim of a brutal rape. Scheherazade, then a sophomore at Rutgers University in New Jersey, enrolled in a social documentary photography class and learned there that she could use her passion for art to document her sister's struggle and allow Salamishah to keep a record of her personal growth during her recovery.
The sisters found their project to be so helpful to Salamishah's healing process that they wondered if they might use the same method to help other victims of sexual violence. In 2000, they turned their 90-piece photo collection into a slideshow presentation entitled, "A Long Walk Home: A Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS)," and began touring the country to promote social awareness and public dialogue on the subject of violence against women.
Since then the SOARS performance has blossomed into a multimedia presentation that incorporates song, poetry, and dance into the photographic display. This Thursday, the Tufts Africana Center, Black Women's Collective, and other campus groups established for the prevention of violence and the celebration of civil rights will host a special performance of SOARS in Barnum 008 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Thursday. Admission to the program and follow-up discussion is free.
--compiled by Kelly Rizzetta
