George E. Lewis: A Winton Chair Cornerstone Event

GEORGE E. LEWIS will be the catalyst for a Series of Conversations that brings together faculty and collaborating musicians to discuss their perspectives on topics that include Music and Queer Aesthetics, Scholarship and Art Practice, Improvisation as a Way of Life, and Sonic Technologies. Lewis brings his facile intellect and insights as a composer, musician, and improviser to each Conversation, creating an open space to engage students in the process of live dialogue, active questioning, and perspective sharing. In conversation with Lewis are:
- Scott Currie (School of Music)
- Douglas Ewart (Composer & Improviser)
- Michael Gallope (Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature)
- Sumanth Gopinath (School of Music)
- Zenzele Isoke (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
- Diyah Larasati (Theatre Arts & Dance)
- Guerino Mazzola (School of Music)
- Mankwe Ndosi (Songmaker & Culture Weaver)
- Naimah Petigny (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
- Elliott Powell (American Studies)
- Diane Willow (Art)

All events are free and open to the public.
Please visit z.umn.edu/LewisCornerstone for lecture and Conversation abstracts and participate in this Cornerstone Event.

— WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5
MUSIC & QUEER AESTHETICS with
Zenzele Isoke, Elliott Powell & Naimah Petigny
1pm - 2:30pm, Upson Room of Walter Library

INTERFACING SCHOLARSHIP WITH (ART) PRACTICE with
Diyah Larasati & Scott Currie
3pm - 4:30pm, Upson Room of Walter Library

— THURSDAY, APRIL 6
BLACK LIVENESS MATTERS: Karel Čapek meets Blind Tom
An IAS Thursdays Presentation with the Institute for Advanced Study
3:30pm - 5pm
Crosby Seminar Room, Northrop Auditorium

PERFORMANCE & DISCUSSION with
Douglas Ewart & Mankwe Ndosi
8pm - 9pm
Room 225, Ferguson Hall

— FRIDAY, APRIL 7
IMPROVISATION AS A WAY OF LIFE with
Douglas Ewart, Michael Gallope, Guerino Mazzola & Mankwe Ndosi
1pm - 2:30pm, 710 Social Sciences Bldg.

SONIC TECHNOLOGIES with
Sumanth Gopinath & Diane Willow
3pm - 4:30pm, 710 Social Sciences Bldg.

GEORGE E. LEWIS is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, Lewis’s other honors include a MacArthur Fellowship (2002), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), a United States Artists Walker Fellowship (2011), an Alpert Award in the Arts (1999), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis's work in electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, and presented by Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Mivos Quartet, London Sinfonietta, Spektral Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wet Ink, International Contemporary Ensemble, and others. His book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award; Lewis was elected to Honorary Membership in the Society in 2016. Lewis is the co-editor of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016), and his opera Afterword (2015), commissioned by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago, has been performed in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic.