The Finger Lakes Guitar Quartet (Joel Brown, Brett Grigsby, Sten Isachsen, Paul Quigley) played a sonorous series of compositions to a home crowd in the beautiful Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall on Thursday, October 23rd 2014. The concert began with “Guitar Quartet”, a delightful original piece by Joel Brown, Distinguished Artist in Residence at Skidmore College. A three movement suite in the style of bossa nova (Suite Amazonas by Celso Machado, b. 1953) brought the feeling of autumn into the warmly lit hall and lead gracefully into “Pavane op. 50” (Gabriel Faure, 1845-1924), the lilting notes of which resounded from a joyous, confident rendition. The quartet proceeded to lead the captivated audience to an emotional plateau with the harrowing, haunting movements of the Five Miniatures for Guitar Quartet, composed by Anthony Holland. One of the pieces entitled “The Devil’s Throat” was inspired by “a labyrinth of underwater tunnels off the Island of Cozumel, Mexico”, one of the most dangerous scuba diving destinations in the world.
After the intermission, the quartet resumed with the vibrant “Ponticello Tango”, composed by Patrick Roux (b. 1962). The modern composer Leo Brouwer (b. 1939) and his visions of an ever-changing Cuba were honored by the group’s performance of “Cuban Landscape with Rumba”. Flowing into a series of works originally composed for the piano by Enrique Granados (1867-1915), the Finger Lakes Guitar Quartet truly brought new life into the long-aged “Minueto”, “Villanesca”, and “Rondalla Aragonesa”. The crowd went wild, and the group returned to play a snazzy, jazzy encore - “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck. Brown initially founded the musical group over a decade ago with fellow player Isachsen when they were both located in Ithaca, New York. The bounty of this region’s natural waterscapes inspired Brown and Isachsen to name their group after the Finger Lakes. About two years ago, the quartet was completed with the joining of two more talented members, Quigley and Grigsby. In addition to holding several teaching positions at colleges and universities across the state, Brown, Isachsen, Quigley, and Grigsby have been busily touring the eastern and central United States since the formation of the quartet. In recent times they have performed for Keuka College, the Great Lakes Guitar Society, and the Cleveland Guitar Society. Such rigorous schedules require a strong bond between group members, a key quality that Brown confirmed is the most important component and reward of being involved in the Finger Lakes Guitar Quartet. Brown commented that “the dynamic between us, first of all, is that we’re all really good friends.” This talented group of musicians, composers, and friends is in the process of recording an album, which is tentatively set to be released next year.
The Skidmore College Student-Athlete Advisory Committee is sponsoring tailgates for Friday's home field hockey game and Saturday's home volleyball match.
On Friday, SAAC will be offering free hot dogs and hamburgers for free with a student ID during field hockey's 4 p.m. game against Union. On Saturday, students will be able to get free popcorn and drinks during volleyball's 12 p.m. match against RIT.
The 13th-ranked Skidmore College field team will look to clinch its spot in the postseason this weekend when it hosts Union and Vassar. Skidmore will host the match against Union on Friday, October 24th at 4 p.m. If you can't make it in person, check out the 
By the Editorial Board
Pony Club—the mysterious Facebook profile that boasts 1,725 friends—works with locations in downtown Saratoga Springs to provide Skidmore students with discounts and drink specials. Scrolling back through Pony Club’s past posts, one may notice a distinct shift in Pony Club’s attitude and language, and in its reception among students. The Editorial Board believes that recently, Pony Club has lost its relevance among the Skidmore student body and lost sight of the purpose that it once served.
Greenwich, New York artist David Greenberger explores the individuality, integrity and humanity of the elderly. For over thirty years Greenberger has combined fragments of their conversations with music created in collaboration with professional musicians, to transform the “rich language of personal poetics” into short sound pieces that give listeners a window into the minds of older people. Instead of focusing on who they were, Greenberger’s conversations, and the resultant compositions, tease out who his subjects are now. Earlier this year, he performed over five nights in a one-seat theater at the Tang Teaching Museum.
The exhibit, I was a Double, began when a composer and a curator had a conversation about how composers work. Western classical music traditionally splits music making into two distinctly separate jobs: the composer and the performer. The composer invents the ideas behind the music and the performer realizes them. Sometimes the composer and performer are the same person; sometimes they are separated by hundreds of years. Yet even across great distances of time and space, the composer and performer can communicate with each other through a series of written instructions: the score. Like a rulebook, a score is a description of actions the composer proposes to the performer. We value composers by noticing what qualities of rules they invent; we value performers by noticing what they add to, change, emphasize, or ignore in the following of those rules.
The multilayered exhibition I was a double opened July 5 and runs through January 4, 2015, at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. David Lang’s collaboration with the Tang’s Dayton Director Ian Berry marks the acclaimed composer’s first curated museum exhibition.
