Performance to honor area jazz musicians Jan. 21

Ebony Rose

Media Coverage
Jan. 14, 2013: Penn State Harrisburg kicks off Martin Luther King Jr. series with jazz (The Patriot-News)
Jan. 15, 2013: Jazz musicians to be honored at 2013 Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration Lecture Series (The Patriot-News)

Penn State Harrisburg’s 2013 Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration Lecture Series kicks off the New Year on Monday, Jan. 21 with a tribute to renowned Central Pennsylvania jazz musicians by the duo Ebony Rose. Beginning at 6:00 p.m. in the Olmsted Building’s Kunkle Auditorium, the performance is free and open to the public.

The musicians to be recognized, most of whom are inductees in the Central PA Friends of Jazz Hall of Fame, include Steve Rudolph, Sam Banks, Reuel Ryman, Byron Jim Wood, Jim Miller, Tom Strohman, Ronald Waters, Tim Warfield, and Diane Wilson-Bedford.

Ebony Rose, the Washington D.C.-based jazz group consisting of Kayla Waters and Shacara Rogers, tours the country performing contemporary and traditional jazz. The group has performed with internationally known artists including Dianne Reeves, Al Jarreau, and Esperanza Spalding.

The event is sponsored by Central Pennsylvania Friends of Jazz and the college’s Student Government Association, Multicultural Academic Excellence Program, and Chancellor’s Leadership Access Student Program.

Future presenters of the lecture series, “Creative Interaction: A Move Towards Cultural Synergy,” include:

• Stefan Sagmeister, internationally known graphic designer and typographer
  • Thursday, Feb. 7
  • 6:30 p.m.
  • Student Center, Capital Union Building
  • Sagmeister formed the New York-based Sagmeister Inc., now known as Sagmeister & Walsh. He has designed for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stones, HBO, and the Guggenheim Museum. Sagmeister has won two Grammies and numerous international design awards. He teaches in the graduate department of the School of Visual Art in New York and has lectured internationally.
• Suzan Shown Harjo
  • Wednesday, March 20
  • 6:30 p.m.
  • Gallery Lounge, Olmsted Building
  • Harjo is a Native American activist, lobbyist, and writer. She has raised public awareness about issues concerning Native Americans, working on legislation to protect their rights. She serves as president and director of the Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C., the nation’s oldest and largest Native American advocacy group, which she also founded; and is a founding trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian.
• Dr. Elijah Anderson
  • Wednesday, April 3
  • 6:30 p.m.
  • Gallery Lounge, Olmsted Building
  • One of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers and cultural theorists, Anderson is Yale University’s William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Sociology. Anderson has been a consultant to the White House, the United States Congress, the National Academy of Science, and the National Science Foundation. He has served on the board of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, as vice-president of the American Sociological Association, and as a member of the National Research Council’s Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior. His publications have won the Komarovsky Award from the Eastern Sociological Society and the American Sociological Association’s Robert E. Park Award for the best published book in the area of urban sociology.