Imagine getting the chance to work with a legendary Shakespearean master? This was the opportunity offered to more than a dozen talented actors, designers and aspiring directors at the Department of Theatre when the illustrious playwright, director and critic Charles Marowitz came to UVic this spring to direct his reinterpreted version of Hamlet that will be performed at the Phoenix Theatre, running March 15–24.

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While the lyric, “Play us a song, you’re the interactive computer-art piano manipulator,” may not strike the same sweet chord as Billy Joel’s original, it is an apt description of the current project by internationally celebrated sound sculptor Trimpin. In a collaborative venture involving graduate and undergraduate students from the School of Music and the combined Music and Computer Science degree program, for the past two months Trimpin’s team has been recomposing five “rescued” pianos into a complex MIDI-controlled art installation that promises a distinctly 21st-century sound.

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Over the next three months, internationally celebrated composer, inventor and sound sculptor Trimpin will be collaborating with a UVic team of emerging sound engineers, musicians and visual artists on his latest project, titled (CanonX+4:33=100). With the team's assistance, Trimpin will transform a group of abandoned pianos into an array of visually dynamic and aurally stunning acoustic and electroacoustic sculptures and automatons, by way of celebrating the 2012 centennial of influential experimental composers John Cage and Conlon Nancarrow.

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Never underestimate the power of interdisciplinary chit-chat. When assistant theatre professor Conrad Alexandrowicz met famed poet and writing professor Lorna Crozier at the annual Faculty of Fine Arts  retreat last year, he had no idea their discussion would soon translate into nearly $175,000 in grant funding.

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The euphonious tones of dozens of massed low-brass instruments playing holiday favourites entranced the audience Dec. 3 in Market Square as UVic music prof Eugene Dowling led the Victoria Tuba Christmas Ensemble in its 33rd annual holiday fundraising concert. The event raises hundreds of dollars each year for the Times Colonist Christmas Fund to help those most in need in our community.

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In 1999, Dr. Henry Shimizu created a series of oil paintings based on his life as a teenager in the New Denver, BC, Japanese Internment Camp, from 1942 to 1946. They are now featured in the current exhibition “Images of Internment” at the Maltwood Prints and Drawings Gallery on the lower level of the McPherson Library.

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Now that the hoopla of the fall writing award season has passed, it’s easy to tell where Esi Edugyan’s priorities lie. “The baby is sleeping now, so I’m hoping we can talk before she wakes up,” says the soft-spoken Giller Prize-winning author in a hushed voice.

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How do you stage manage a play in a language you don’t speak? This was the challenge I faced with Woyzeck: The Choreography of a Murder, a play that was performed at the Phoenix Theatre in the original German last month.

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An inspired collaboration between Pacific Opera Victoria and the University of Victoria Libraries has resulted in the creation of exhibits and displays that draw us into “The World of Mary’s Wedding.” The opera Mary’s Wedding about to make its world premiere by Pacific Opera Victoria on Nov. 10, is based on one of Canada’s best loved plays written by Stephen Massicotte. The story shifts from the Canadian prairies to the battlefields of Europe.

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Last year, an inspiring talk about the power of stories drew a standing ovation; this year, a passionate diatribe about Afghanistan saw people walking out. Such is the constantly shifting nature of the Department of Writing’s Harvey S. Southam Lecture in Journalism and Nonfiction, a position that always reflects the person who holds it.

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