Campus and community briefs
Students honored at Japanese contest
Four Utah State University students who study in the Japanese program in the department of languages, philosophy and speech communication competed at the 23rd annual Japanese Speech Contest, bringing home first and second place honors in several categories.
Participating students included Cleveland Karren, Tom Kjar, Jake Geddes and Kelvin Wursten. The students took first place in the beginning level at the competition and second place in the advanced level. The students are enrolled in Japanese courses at USU with Neely and Mitsuko Hirata.
Contestants at the advanced level must deliver an original five-minute speech in Japanese on a topic of their choice. Beginning-level students recite a favorite story.
Beginning-level first-place winner Tom Kjar chose to tell a Japanese folk tale titled “Horimono no Nezumi-Carved Mise” and received the highest marks, Neely said. The advanced-level second-place winner Jake Geddes presented a personal account of becoming an official referee for ice hockey games.
Support for this year’s event came from the Japan Foundation, Consulate-General of Japan at Denver, University of Utah’s department of languages and communication and a number of Salt Lake City restaurants, including Mikado, Shogun and Kyoto.
Poetry performance artist to visit USU
SLAM poetry performance artist Stacy Miller will give public lectures and performances at Utah State University on Friday and Saturday, April 2 and 3, as part of two USU conferences.
Miller will present the Utah State Concurrent Enrollment Conference keynote address, “Identities: Friends or Foes? – It’s All in the Lens,” Friday, April 2, in the Eccles Conference Center, Room 309 at noon. Saturday, April 3, Miller will lecture on SLAM poetry and perform two of her recent pieces. This event begins at 10 a.m. in Room 214 of Utah State’s Ray B. West Building in conjunction with meetings of The National Council of Teachers of English student chapter. Both events are free and open to the public.
USU opera to bring fantasy and comedy
Lynn Jemison-Keisker, director of opera theater in the department of music at Utah State University, invites audiences to enjoy fantasy and comedy as Utah State University undergraduate students are joined by the Cache Children’s Choir in two one-act operas. The two operas, “L’Enfant et les Sortileges” (The Child and the Magic Spells) and “Old Maid and the Thief,” will be presented April 1, 2 and 3 under the guidance of guest director Colin Baldy of London.
Performances are at the Caine Lyric Theatre (28 W. Center, Logan) with curtain nightly at 7:30 p.m. and a 1 p.m. matinee Saturday, April 3, as well. Tickets are available at the door one hour prior to performance. General admission adult seating is $5, USU students with current ID are admitted free. Senior citizen and all other student tickets are $3.
Festival offers pianists of international fame
The final two solo recitals March 26 and 27 at Utah State University’s Wassermann Festival feature pianists of international fame, Olga Kern and Misha Dichter.
“‘The Dallas Morning News’ is a player of enormous brilliance and passion, and one who whips audiences into frenzies,” Kern said, while the “Tennessean,” said Dichter, is “a poet at the keyboard, a truly Byronic figure who demonstrated the reasons for his membership among the world’s elite.”
Kern performs Friday, March 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Kent Concert Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center. Dichter’s recital is Saturday, March 27, and also begins at 7:30 p.m. in Kent Concert Hall. Tickets are available at the door. Adult admission is $10 and students are admitted free, but in deference to performers and audience members, children under the age of 6 are not admitted.