Award-winning writer and broadcaster Jay Ingram is UBC Okanagan’s next distinguished speaker. He will discuss the science of Alzheimer’s on Wednesday, February 25 at the Kelowna Community Theatre.

UBC Okanagan’s Distinguished Speaker Series tackles mystery of the tragic illness

Jay Ingram describes Alzheimer’s as a wicked disease that society has ignored for too long. While much research has been done on memory loss, the cruelty of Alzheimer’s is the tragic effect it has on the life of the patient, and how it devastates those left to care for a person who no longer knows who they are.

In his latest book, The End of Memory, the award-winning science author explores the mystery of Alzheimer’s and how it attacks the brain. And he raises valid questions: where did it come from? Why weren’t we talking about it 50 years ago? Do we understand what is really going on in a patient’s afflicted brain?

German neurologist Alois Alzheimer first diagnosed the disease in 1906. While it’s been recognized for decades, Ingram argues research money set aside for Alzheimer’s still trails far behind funding for other deadly illnesses such as cancer and lung disease. And as society continues to live longer than previous generations, more and more people will be diagnosed and begin the long, lonely demise of Alzheimer’s.

Ingram says it’s time for a rethink on how we deal with Alzheimer’s. Being informed, he says, is a good thing and his goal with his new book is to help people understand the disease. Ingram will unravel some of the mystery of Alzheimer’s at UBC Okanagan’s Distinguished Speaker Series in Kelowna on Wednesday, February 25.

Ingram is an iconic Canadian writer and broadcaster, hosting several shows including CBC’s Quirks and Quarks and Discovery Channel Canada’s Daily Planet. His book The End of Memory: A Natural history of Alzheimer’s disease will be available for sale and signing at the Distinguished Speaker Series event.

The Science of Alzheimer’s is presented by UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, and takes place at the Kelowna Community Theatre, 1375 Water St. The event is free and begins at 7 p.m.

Registration is required: dss-ingram.eventbrite.ca

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Award-winning photographer Edward Burtynsky collects images from an oilfield. His October 22 presentation, Landscape of Human Systems, is part of UBC Okanagan’s Distinguished Speaker Series.
(Photo credit: Noah Weinzweig)

Award-winning artist is UBC Okanagan’s next distinguished speaker

World-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky is returning to UBC Okanagan.

Burtynsky, who was presented with an honorary doctoral degree from UBC Okanagan in June 2013, is the first guest of this year’s Distinguished Speaker Series. In his Landscape of Human Systems presentation, Burtynsky presents a collection of his work, including large-scale colour photographs and recent film footage. While his large photographs will be displayed behind him, he will discuss the technique behind his image-making as he explores society’s troubling relationship with nature.

Born in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, a town dependent on auto assembly plants, he grew up in a heavily industrial yet picturesque part of the country. He started taking pictures at age 11, shortly after his father purchased a used camera and some darkroom equipment. He earned his degree in photography from Ryerson University, and studied graphic art at Niagara College.

Burtynsky’s imagery explores the link between industry and nature, and the damage society has done to the planet through mining, quarrying, manufacturing, shipping, and oil production. His remarkable large-format photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of more than 50 major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

In 2006, Burtynsky became an Officer of the Order of Canada. His other distinctions include the TED Prize, the Outreach award at the Rencontres d’Arles, the Roloff Beny Book award, the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, and the Award in Contemporary Art from Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Burtynsky’s The Landscape of Human Systems takes place at the Kelowna Community Theatre, 1375 Water St, on Wednesday, October 22, at 7 p.m. His visit is presented by the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, as part of UBC's Distinguished Speaker Series.

This event is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. To register, visit: speakers.ok.ubc.ca/2014/burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky has spent decades photographing modern society's troubling relationship with nature. His Landscape of Human Systems presentation on October 22 is a combination of new photographs and film production that document his findings.

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Canadian pianist Ian Parker has performances in Kelowna on Monday, February 3 and Tuesday, February 4.

Vancouver-born pianist provides an interactive Q and A session at Kelowna events

What: Interactive classical music event
Who: Ian Parker, world-renowned pianist and teacher
When: Monday, February 3, 7 p.m.
Where: Rotary Centre for the Arts' Mary Irwin Theatre, 421 Cawston Ave., Kelowna, BC
When: Tuesday, February 4, 12:30 p.m.
Where: University Centre ballroom, 3272 University Way, UBC’s Okanagan campus, Kelowna
Admission: Tickets for the Monday show are $17.50, available through the Rotary Centre box office.

One of Canada’s favorite, and most engaging pianists, Ian Parker, is hosting two events where he will perform a number of classical music arrangements, and then open the floor for questions from the audience.

Parker, born in Vancouver to a musical family, has been playing piano since he was a toddler and has earned bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, the Canada Council for the Arts awarded him the Sylva Gelber Career Grant, which is given annually to the most talented Canadian artist. His career has since skyrocketed and he now plays to international audiences around the world.

The engaging musician will be in Kelowna the first week of February for two performances. His first event, Fantasies of High (-tech) Culture and…the Piano, takes place on Monday, February 3 at the Rotary Centre for the Arts' Mary Irwin Theatre. At this event, Parker will perform Beethoven's Sonata quasi una Fantasia op.27 no.1, Liszt's Sonata in B minor, Ravel's Ondine and his own transcription for the piano of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Tickets for the Monday show are $17.50 each and available through the Rotary Centre box office.

On Tuesday, February 4, at 12:30 p.m. Parker will present a similar performance called High (-tech) Culture, Philosophy and…the Piano at UBC’s Okanagan campus University Centre ballroom.

At this event, the pianist will perform Beethoven's Sonata quasi una Fantasia op.27 no.2 -- Moonlight, Schubert /Liszt Auf dem Wasser zu singen, Ravel’s Ondine, and Gershwin/Parker Rhapsody in Blue. While this event is free and open to the public, pay parking is in effect, and donations will be accepted at the door.

Both performances include an interactive period where he will answer questions. At the UBC event, professors David Boutillier and Manuela Ungureanu, and their students will facilitate the questions. The public is encouraged to email questions concerning Parker’s selected repertoire ahead of time and he will answer as many as time permits. To submit a question to either show, please send them in advance to manuela.ungureanu@ubc.ca with the subject line: QUESTION FOR IAN.

Parker’s appearance at UBC’s Okanagan campus is part of the Minds and Music concert series which is made possible through the Irving K. Barber Endowment fund.

More information about Parker’s visit to UBC can be found at: www.ubc.ca/okanagan/mindsandmusic/2014/parker

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Col. Chris Hadfield plays the song, Is Somebody Singing, with students at École KLO Middle School.

Canada’s most famous astronaut recounts times in space and on earth

How do you tune your guitar in space? Or sleep? Even breathe?

Col. Chris Hadfield makes a point during his talk to students at École KLO Middle School.

The questions came fast and furious for Chris Hadfield, “Canada’s spaceman,” during two appearances in the Okanagan Monday as part of UBC’s Distinguished Speaker Series. He was greeted like a rock star, first at École KLO Middle School, where more than 600 students thundered their approval. The adulation continued again later, when Hadfield delivered his story of life in space, electrifying 800 people packed into the Kelowna Community Theatre and sparking a standing ovation.

Hadfield, who commanded the International Space Station (ISS) for five months earlier this year, became a global sensation for his videos, tweets and music from space. Audiences estimated in the millions worldwide followed Hadfield’s exploits as he displayed breathtaking photos of Earth and demonstrated vignettes of life in space, such as what happens when you wring out a washcloth in a weightless environment.

Hadfield is a master story teller. From describing some of the 200-plus experiments performed aboard the ISS during his command, to tales about his personal life – ambitions to be an astronaut from age nine – Hadfield engaged his audience with a spell-binding narrative and video presentation.

Asked about his music from space, where Hadfield co-wrote and recorded the song Is Somebody Singing with Ed Robertson of the Bare Naked Ladies, the retired astronaut said he found music relaxing and therapeutic. It also added a dimension to space exploration that Hadfield treasured.

“To bring the arts into space was really something special,” Hadfield said. “We need to remind ourselves of our own humanity, whether it’s on earth or in space.”

His most fascinating time in space? Going on spacewalks Hadfield said, is an incomparable experience.

The astronaut told a heart-felt story about his wife Helene and three children and the struggle to make ends meet early in his space career, starting in the 1980s when he joined the Canadian space program. Hadfield, an engineer and accomplished test pilot, decided he would abandon his pursuit of space for the relative comfort and lucrative pay as a commercial airline pilot.

Helene told him to forgo any such notion. Not pursuing his lifelong dream, the regrets would make him miserable – and in turn make his family miserable, the astronaut’s wife said. So pursue the dream and we will find a way to get by, she advised him. Without his family’s support, Hadfield said he would never have accomplished everything he did.

Hadfield’s appearance in the Okanagan in the Distinguished Speaker Series was sponsored by an endowment from the late Irving K. Barber, after whom UBC’s Okanagan campus School of Arts and Sciences is named.

Col. Chris Hadfield describes the Australian outback as seen from outer space – and captured in his photo from the International Space Station, during his Distinguished Speaker Series talk.

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In response to overwhelming demand for the UBC Distinguished Speaker Series talk with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield this Monday, the university has opened a lecture theatre to simulcast the live event.

Approximately 150 seats remain open for the simulcast event. Ticket registration is free online at: http://dss-hadfieldsimulcast.eventbrite.ca

The simulcast takes place at 7 p.m. Monday October 7 in the Charles E. Fipke Centre for Innovative Research, 3247 University Way, UBC’s Okanagan campus, Kelowna. Check-in for the event starts at 6 p.m.

Paid parking is available for $3 in campus parking lots E, F and G. Ticket dispensers accept coins, Visa and MasterCard.

A campus map can be viewed at: http://universityrelations.ok.ubc.ca/hadfieldparking.pdf

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Appearing in Gold Mountain Dream, (from left) Yu-Chen Wang, media artists Kenneth Newby and Aleksandra Dulic of the Flicker Arts Collaboratory, and Orchid Ensemble members Jonathan Bernard and Lan Tung.

Staging of Gold Mountain Dream takes place in Kelowna 

What: Gold Mountain Dream
Admission: Free
When: Tuesday, Nov. 29, 8 p.m.
Where: Kelowna Community Theatre, 1375 Water St., Kelowna

A musical collaboration two years in the making, Gold Mountain Dream has its world premiere in a free presentation in Kelowna Nov. 29. Gold Mountain Dream combines interactive media arts, live music and spoken word exploring the themes of Chinese Diaspora and culture.

The production is backed by numerous insightful interviews collected from life stories among generations of Chinese Canadians, starting with BC’s Chinese community and blending the shared experience of immigrants from different cultures.

A collaboration between the Flicker Arts Collaboratory and Orchid Ensemble, the evening of live entertainment is co-presented by UBC’s Okanagan campus Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences’ Minds and Music series.

Gold Mountain Dream embodies many of the hopes and dreams of the Chinese pioneers who came to Canada to build the settlements and cities that emerged from the Western frontier, says media artist Aleksandra Dulic, an assistant professor of visual arts at UBC and member of the Flicker Arts Collaboratory. Just like most Canadians, the artists are themselves different generations of immigrants from different lands. In this project, they examine the search for cultural identity and social acceptance in the four themes of water, fire, travel, and dream. Audiences should find Gold Mountain Dream to be moving and evocative.

The performance is a cross-cultural collaboration by students and faculty from UBC’s Okanagan campus, the Orchid Ensemble and the Flicker Arts Collaboratory.

Dulic and Kenneth Newby of Flicker Arts Collaboratory punctuate the theatre space with live and interactive media projections: images from Chinese calligraphy, landscape brush painting, dance, opera, and videos and photos from museum collections and historical archives. They lead an animation team of Creative Studies students to create and extend the pictorial and narrative representation of Chinese brush painting. The Creative Studies visual arts students involved in the project include Rankine Suen, Oliver Szeleczky, Michelle Wilmot, Nadine Bradshaw and Laura Gourley.

The Orchid Ensemble’s music combines Chinese and western musical languages for the cross-cultural instrumentation of erhu (Chinese violin) performed by Lan Tung; zheng (Chinese zither) performed by Yu-Chen Wang; marimba and percussion performed by Jonathan Bernard, while the Flicker Arts Collaboratory visuals extend the pictorial representation of Chinese expression in new media.

The production incorporates Asian traditions and contemporary expression with original scores by Canadian composers Jin Zhang, Ya-wen Wang, Dorothy Cheng, Mark Armanini, Michael Vincent and Lan Tung. The root of this project started with a collaboration with composer Ya-wen Wang in a CBC/BBC commissioned radio play on Chinese Diaspora in 2003.

While Gold Mountain Dream debuts in Kelowna, it will also be staged in Vancouver on Dec. 1. There are plans to tour the production globally.

Sponsors include UBC’s Okanagan campus Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies; UBC’s Okanagan campus Internal Research Grant; The UBC Minds and Music series; the Canada Council for the Arts; the BC Arts Council; SOCAN Foundation.

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