A number of programs have been scheduled for the months of April and May on the Verde Campus. They are included in the flyer reproduced below. The ticket prices are noted beside the event.
The Ahn Trio performed live in at a shortened classical music concert on the Verde Campus in room M-137 Friday evening (tickets $15 & $20). The tiny audience thoroughly enjoyed the concert, which was lively and “fun.” They were invited to attend the full concert in Prescott scheduled for Saturday.
This was the fourth college cultural event held in the last two months where there was little or no adequate notice about it. The result has been a turnout of an audience of 2, 2, 7 and now 19 respectively for the four shows.
The drawbacks to how the College is trying to provide these events to the community is obvious. The setting for them is dreadful. There is, for example, neither a stage nor tiered seating. This makes it impossible for most of an audience to see the performers. If there had been a large turnout for the Ahn concert, the view of the players would have been blocked by persons sitting in front of them.
Ahn Trio
Acoustics are poor as the music must be amplified. M—137 is clearly not suitable for serious indoor concerts.
On the Prescott side of the mountain, the College prints, distributes, and mails a 20 page 4-color professionally designed booklet that contains the entire 2014-15 concert season. This information goes out well before the season begins. No similar effort is made in the Verde Valley. The Verde events are held with minimal notice and appear to be selected on an ad hoc basis.
Millions of dollars have been spent on the College theatre on the Prescott campus, which now rivals a New York theatre. Recently, the seating was replaced and the inside renovated at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars to improve site lines. The total renovation cost to the Prescott dinner theatre is at least $5 million dollars. There is nothing remotely like the Prescott theatre on the Verde campus and no effort is being made by the College to provide one for the Verde Valley.
All in all, the College is presenting a series of cultural programs on an ad hoc basis in a setting that discourages most residents from attending; even if they knew about them.
The Bolshoi Ballet Swan Lake was shown at the Verde Campus, Building “M” on Sunday March 1. Only two persons showed up to see the production on the movie screen in room 137. (One of whom was the Blog.) There were three staff members on hand.
The advertising for the event apparently began two days before the showing with a story in the Verde Independent newspaper. (Click here to go to the story in the Independent.) This is hardly adequate to allow persons to rearrange their schedules to attend.
The Community College says in its advertising the ballot was being “streamed live on the big screen.” In fact, the ballot was shown in Prescott on Sunday, January 25. The production was on the College’s hard drive, which made it possible to fast forward through the 25 minute intermission.
The College is advertising two other productions in late March as “streamed live on the big screen” when it is clear they are tape delayed presentations. Two of them found in the College flyer are the National Theatre Live: Skylight shown February 8 in Prescott and Bolshoi Ballet: Romeo and Juliet), which was shown March 1 in Prescott. These productions will be shown on March 28 and 29.
The Yavapai College Verde Art Gallery has partnered with the Verde Osher Lifelong Learning Institute to present the work of OLLI member photographers at the Verde Art Gallery. The exhibit will run from January 20 to February 5, 2015. The opening reception will be held Thursday, January 22 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Verde Campus Art Gallery.
This exhibition is held in conjunction with the OLLI Arizona Humanities program: “Silver Images on Glass Plates: Early Photography in Arizona 1865-1930” to be held on the Verde Campus in January. For more information, call (928) 649-5479 or visit the Gallery on the web at www.yc.edu/artgallery.
There will be a holiday ceramics sale on the Verde campus on Thursday and Friday, December 4th and 5th. The sale will take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day in room 106. The Verde campus is located at 601 Black Hills Drive, Clarkdale.
Two of the six Yavapai Community College choral groups performed Thursday evening, October 30 at M-137 on the Verde campus. The Camerata Singers, directed by Dennis L. Houser, were followed by the YC Gospel choir, directed by Christoper Eubank, in the 80 minute program. It was an enjoyable evening with the singers and songs enthusiastically and appreciatively received by the audience. (The lighting should have followed the same scheme used at the Performing Arts Center for similar concerts; it did not.)
Unfortunately, the audience numbered only about two dozen, which didn’t quite equal the sum of the membership of the two choral groups. The reasons for the disappointing turn-out are fairly obvious. First, the concert was not widely advertised—few who did not pick up a flyer on the Verde campus were aware of it. Second, the concert was not a part of an announced fall program, which would have allowed persons to plan their schedules in advance so they could attend the event. The concert announcement also sort of “just appeared” only a week or ten days before it was to be held.
Third, most, if not all members of the groups, are from the Prescott area. That meant that local word of mouth from friends and families in the Verde Valley about the event was absent, which made it even harder to draw a first-time audience to a first-time event. Finally, it drew no one outside the Verde Valley such as from Prescott. It’s too far to drive at night.
The College is to be commended for trying to revive the Verde campus and open itself to the community with concerts and small shows after a decade of doing little. However, that revival will not come overnight. It will take time to get the word out to the community about the outstanding programs and renewed interest of the college in the communities it serves in the Verde Valley. To be successful, these events will require much better planning and far better advertising.
The Yavapai College Sedona Center (4215 Arts Village Dr., Sedona) will host a production of the 90-minute, one-act play, “Sky…Diamonds,” on Saturday November 1 and Sunday November 2. Tickets are $15 for students and $12 for seniors in advance, or $20 at the door.
Show times are at 7:30 p.m. on November 1 and 2 p.m. on November 2. Tickets can be purchased at Crystal Magic, Webers IGA, Mt. Hope Foods and OLLI at the Yavapai College Sedona Center. For more information, please click here.
The show will be presented in Sedona by the Red Earth Theatre in Association with Yavapai College Sedona center.
A series of interdisciplinary lectures will be presented by the Yavapai Community College faculty on the Prescott and Verde campuses from November 6 thru the 8th. The lectures are free to the public. The lectures will be held in Building M, room 137 on the Verde campus. The schedule on the Verde campus looks like this:
Thursday, November 6: 3:00 PM: Causes, Course, and Consequences. Amy Ilona Stein, PhD
Thursday, 4:15 PM: All Quiet on the Eastern Front: the Untold History of Russia and World War I, Paul Ewing.
Thursday, 7:00 PM: Free Film: All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930 Film Introduction: Helen Stephenson.
Friday, November 7, 3:00 PM: Tanks, Poppies, and the Old Lie: The Evolution of World War I Poetry, Jason Whitesitt.
Friday, 4:15 PM: Gas Warfare in World War I, Gino Romeo, PhD.
Friday, 7:00 PM: Free Film Johnny Got His Gun, 1970 Film Introduction: Helen Stephenson.
Saturday, November 8, 10:00 AM: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, Matthew Pearcy, PhD.
Saturday, 11:15 AM: The Trauma of War, Sal Buffo.
Saturday, 1:00 P.M: Dona Nobis pacem. This concert by the Master Chorale concludes the history symposium on World War I.The schedule for both the Verde and Prescott campuses can be found by clicking here.
The 4th Annual Community College Honors Gala is tonight, October 24, at the Hassayampa Inn beginning at 6 p.m. There are cocktails, dinner, a silent auction, live music, and performances by Honors Students. This year’s proceeds will benefit the College Honors Program spring enrichment trip to Rome and Greece. Tickets are $60 per person and $460 for a table of eight.
For more information and tickets, please click here.
Lori Hines, paranormal mystery author and “Under the Surface” radio host, will discuss The Ancient Ones series, a fiction series inspired by experiences as a paranormal investigator and archaeology enthusiast on Friday, October 24th at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Yavapai College – Verde Campus in Clarkdale. The discussion will be held in Room M-137 on from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. this Friday. It is free and open to the general public. Read More→