World-renowned bassist Robert Black will perform and discuss his work in Westmont’s Deane Chapel on Saturday, April 26, at 2 p.m. The free concert, presented by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB in collaboration with Iridian Arts, is open to the public.
Westmont has created a new endowed faculty chair in the visual arts through the financial support of several friends of the college. The endowment, named the R. Anthony Askew chair, will support a new full-time professor who will also direct Reynolds Gallery.
More than 530 people came to hear former presidential candidate Steve Forbes speak at a breakfast at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort celebrating the inauguration of Westmont’s eighth president, Gayle Beebe. Forbes spoke about “America’s Economy and the Global Imperative,” declaring that the world is in the midst of a Golden Age. The breakfast kicked off a day of events.
“Never before in human history have so many advanced financially,” Forbes says. “Despite the recent hits on the stock market, it’s still 60 percent higher than it was five years ago.”
Westmont’s annual Fringe Festival, a week-long gala of contemporary theater and dance, returns to campus Tuesday, April 15 through Saturday, April 19. Seventeen original productions by students and faculty fill four performance bills. The public is invited to nightly performances in and around Porter Theatre Tuesday through Friday at 7 and 9 p.m., and a marathon performance Saturday beginning at 4 p.m.
Theater student Zak Landrum presents an interactive performance, “Redemption History III: Ecclesia,” for his senior production Sunday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Westmont’s Murchison Gym. With over a dozen student and faculty actors, the Westmont Gospel Choir, live orchestral music, and video projections, the play tells the story of the Christian church from Pentecost to the Apocalypse.
Three quartets of Westmont string students perform an Instrumental Chamber Concert Friday, April 11, at 8 p.m. in Deane Chapel on lower campus. The free concert features new and rarely heard gems alongside traditional repertoire pieces.