Note: This course may be cancelled due to low enrollment. Registration has been turned off while this decision is being made.

IN-PERSON

In this hands-on art course, artist Sandi Cirillo, along with Juliet Baker, will introduce you to some of the many fine African American artists from the Harlem Renaissance. By studying the works of several artists, you will incorporate some of their styles and themes into your own drawings and paintings. Together, Sandi and Juliet, will also shed light on other music, poetry, theatre, and literature from this period. The Harlem Renaissance had evolved during the Great Migration, a movement during the 20's and 30's, which brought thousands of Southern Blacks to work in the Northern factories. Extraordinary artists of all kinds had settled in northern cities, most famously in New York's Harlem. Here, finally, the wealth of Negro arts and literature could become public. At the same time Blacks began wrestling with questions about Black or Negro identity. We will consider these issues along with our review of the period’s arts. You will be painting and drawing. You also will see videos, hear music, and discuss other literary and musical contributions from the 1920’s. All materials will be provided.

Sandi Cirillo has been a teacher at Senior College for over 9 years, teaching various courses in drawing, art history and fiber. She is a fiber artist and has been teaching classes all over the Northeast for many years, working with various arts organizations and businesses and as well as artist in residence programs. She is currently represented at Local Color Gallery in Belfast and has her studio in Searsport.

Juliet Baker, focusing on literature, has taught at Senior College for many years as well, everything from "A Study of Gilgamesh" to "A Year with Charles Dickens" to a "Feminist Reading of Jane Eyre". Recently she taught a ZOOM course on Zora Neale Hurston and "Their Eyes were watching God", a course on Black American poetry, and in the Fall of 2022, a course on banned books, Critica

IN-PERSON

Listen to serious music as a small group at Hutchinson. We will discuss recordings, exploring performance technique and composition, such as syncopation, counterpoint, and variations and much more of music taken from periods pre-baroque through contemporary. To the extent time allows, we'll listen to selections from chamber, orchestral, choral and operatic works. The course will emphasize listening and limit discussion to time before breaks and the course's end that day. Many Senior College students have shown both interest in and extensive knowledge of music therefore what is covered will be influenced by participants. The seminar format will allow sharing.

Brian Richardson, while not a musicologist, has been a life-long listener to classical music. His library of classical records, CD's, and tapes exceeds 1000. He has been a singer with a number of choral groups in Maine and studied violin and viola as an adult for ten years.

IN-PERSON & REMOTE VIA ZOOM

This course is actually a compilation of two previously taught courses, War, Protest and Music which was taught only on zoom and Bob Dylan and The Path to The Nobel Prize for Literature - taught on Zoom and In-Person. Today with so much happening with respect to actual war and talk of war throughout the world, we thought the timing might be very appropriate to revisit these topics. And of course the recent passing of David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young reminds us of the tremendous music and talent that the middle of the 20th century produced. We will look at some of the events and divisions of the 1950s, 60s and 70s (Vietnam, Civil Rights, social injustice) and how those events inspired a generation. So this course will have plenty of music! The first three classes will concentrate on protest events and protest music in general. The last three classes will examine the person who many feel was the number one writer and performer of protest music in the 1960s - Bob Dylan. A complex person with incredible talent, who intrigues us not only with his music, but the fact that he claims none of his songs are protest songs. Lastly we can not study Bob Dylan without thoroughly dissecting whether he deserved a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Pete Reilly holds BS & MBA degrees from Monmouth University. He has taught at Senior College for over 10 years.