Features Editor:
LisaToth
lisatoth@dailyemeraId.com
Thursday, November 15,2001
Jacko, Radiohead & R.E.M.
Emerald webmaster Dave Depper shares
R.E.M. ’s latest yogurt-friendly antics. Page 6
uounesy Knot
Van Cliburn silver co-medalist Antonio Pompa-Baldi will join the Eugene Symphony at 8 p.m. today at the Hult Center.
tickling the
Antonio Pompa-Baldi
brings his 22 years
of piano experience
to the Eugene Symphony
ivones
By Sue Ryan
Oregon Daily Emerald
Pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi has
been in love with classical music
for most of his life.
“I started when I was four,” Pom
pa-Baldi said. “I saw a pianist play some
where and after that came home and
banged out music on the table, then a toy
piano, until my parents decided to take
me to a teacher to study it formally. ”
The 26-year-old Van Clibum silver co
medalist joins the Eugene Symphony to
day for an 8 p.m. performance featuring
Prokokiev’s Third Concerto at the Hult
Center. He said he chose the concerto for
its density and passion, both character
istics of his performance style through
22 years of playing the piano.
His endeavors led him to formal com
petitions, including the Van Clibum con
test in June 2001 in Fort Worth, Texas. Per
formers tied for both the gold and the
silver medals for the first time in the histo
ry of the competition. Pompa-Baldi came
away with one of the silver medals and a
concert tour for two years, which brings
him to the Willamette Valley this week.
On Monday night at the LaSells Stew
art Center in Corvallis, he caressed the
piano while playing and leaned forward
to peer into its interior as if drawing the
music out toward him during the 90
minute recital. He said he chose Mozart,
Chopin, Liebermann, Poulenc and
Rachmaninoff for his Monday perform
ance for the variety of styles.
“They are completely different from
each other,” Pompa-Baldi said. “I like to
5 have music I can plunge into.”
He also plunged into life in a new
country by moving to the United States
in 2000. The move was precipitated bv
his tour as the winner of the 1999 Cleve
land Competition.
“In six months. 1 crossed the Atlanta
Ocean 18 times. That's when I decided !
was time to make the move, ” he said.
Pompa-Baldi relocated to Cleveland.
Ohio, from his native citv of Naples, Italy
He learned to speak English began teach
ing at Cuyahoga Comma n it v College and
took a position on the board oi the Oberlin
Conservatory. He said the adjustment to a
different culture has not been a problem.
“I like it here. I don’t miss Italy as a
country, but I do miss my family who are
still located there,” he said.
The Van Clibum competition will be
his last one as Pompa-Baldi has decid
ed to pursue his career as a concert pi
anist at a professional level.
“I don’t want to compete anymore,”
he said. “It’s mainly to get your career
started and this has done that for me.”
Pompa-Baldi said even though he has
done well in such events, he dislikes
that musicians end up rated by such
competitions.
“I don’t feel artists should be ranked,”
he said. “We all love music, and it
should be reflected individually, not
through being compared to others. ”
At tonight’s Eugene concert, Pompa
Baldi will pair with Conductor Marc
Taddei and New Zealand composer
Gareth Farr. Tickets for University stu
dents cost $10.
Sue Ryan is a community reporter for the
Oregon Daily Emerald. She can be reached
at sueryan@dailyemerald.com.
University Theatre performance series highlights ‘New Voices’
■Student-written plays ‘Leaving
Shallot’ and ‘Peephole’ will debut
this week at Arena Theatre
By Lisa Toth
Oregon Daily Emerald
In early February of this year, University
student Alexander Pawlowski spent two
school nights in a row wide awake. Dur
ing this time, the theater arts major from
Eugene was writing and revising a play.
Pawlowski said his “Leaving Shallot”
is a modem romantic tale of two lost
souls coming together for one night.
And it’s one of two plays presented in
the University Theatre’s second annual
“New Voices” playwriting series.
The pair of new student-written plays
begins Nov. 15 and runs Nov. 16 and 17.
Performances of “Leaving Shallot” and
the other play, “Peephole,” will be held in
the Arena Theatre in Villard Hall, 1109
Old Campus Ln., starting at 8 p.m. Both
plays have been selected for submission
to the Kennedy Center/ American College
Theatre Festival new play competition.
“Peephole” was composed by theater
arts alumnus Ian Appel, who graduated
in 2001 and currently teaches English at
Oregon State University.
“Both plays are exceptional works for
young writers,” said director Craig Willis,
a doctoral candidate in the theater arts de
partment. “Playwriting is perhaps the
most difficult task in theater, and I think
it’s incredibly exciting to hear the voices
of our own students on the stage. ”
Appel said he considers “Peephole”
to be die first full-length one-act play he
has written, and part of his path to find
ing his “sea legs” in playwriting. He en
couraged people to attend because he
said the script is relevant to how the me
dia today fabricates images. The play,
which he described as short and chaotic,
is a serio-comic consideration of soci
ety’s ability to be driven to insane acts
by overactive media, and also questions
contemporary spiritual fulfillment.
He said the play focuses on an end-of
the-world scenario, where the “media
rules the roost, and everyone feeds off
television.”
“It’s been fun getting into these char
acters’ minds and figuring out how
they’d react to each other,” Appel said.
He added that he would like his play
to make a lasting impression on the au
dience.
“What I’d hope resonates is a sense of
both the comic absurdity and human
tragedy of our media-saturated pop cul
ture, how that affects our relationships
with other people and how our relation
Turn to ‘New Voices’, page 8
Courtesy Photo
Emily Howell, a first-year journalism major from Portland, plays Rhiannon, and Ian Hanley, a senior theater arts major also from
Portland, takes on the role of Tony in ‘Leaving Shallot,’ showing at Arena Theatre as part of ‘New Voices’ Nov. 15-17.