CONWAY, Ark. (January 10, 2013) - Visiting librettist Dan Welcher will describe his process of creating opera from literature, specifically the short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 7:30 p.m., in Reves Recital Hall at Hendrix College.
The lecture is part of this year's Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language series exploring the theme of "Literature and Medicine." The event is free and open to the public. A reception in Trieschmann Gallery will follow. For more information, contact Henryetta Vanaman at 501-450-4597 or vanaman@hendrix.edu.
In conjunction with his visit, the Olin C. Bailey Library at Hendrix will host a traveling exhibit from the National Library of Medicine, The Literature of Prescription. This exhibit explores the role that gender has played in the treatment of mental illness and the development of medicine by using Gilman's work, as well as primary source material, to examine "The Yellow Wall-Paper." The Literature of Prescription will be available to the public through January 26 in Bailey Library during regular library hours.
Best known as a composer, but also a highly respected conductor and an accomplished poet, Welcher has nearly 100 works to his credit and has written in virtually every medium, including opera, concerto, symphony, wind ensemble, vocal literature, piano solos, and assorted kinds of chamber music.
Welcher has been on faculty at the University of Texas at Austin for more than 30 years. He has won awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and numerous others.
Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the fifth consecutive year, Hendrix was named one of the country's "Up and Coming" liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report. Hendrix is featured in the 2012 edition of the Princeton Review as one of the country's best 377 colleges, the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges, Forbes magazine's annual list of America's Top 650 Colleges, and the 2013 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.