English department faculty members help bring the Festival of the Creative Arts to a close with their participation in three events

By Molly DeKraai

Three Florida State University Department of English faculty members are participating in the concluding weekend of the university-wide Festival of the Creative Arts. This month-long celebration of the talents, research, and artistic efforts of campus contributors began Feb. 2 and ends Feb. 28.

English Professor Barry Faulk, Distinguished University Scholar Barbara Hamby, and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English David Kirby add their scholarly and creative perspectives as English scholars to the weekend of events.

Faulk joins the Friday, Feb. 23 panel “Public Influence - Eleanor Roosevelt, Dante, The Beatles,” which is focused on the way those seminal figures continue to influence society and public perception of critical issues. Faulk has authored British Rock Modernism, 1967-1977: The Story of Music Hall in Rock and has previously published research centered on the Beatles. He will offer his insights as a scholar of music and literature, and his presentation comprises two distinct sections.

“The first part of the talk will be a brief historical account of the Beatles’ academic reception since their breakup in 1970 that will explain how the group attained enough academic credibility that they could be the subject of a FSU panel alongside such political and literary luminaries as Dante Alighieri and Eleanor Roosevelt,” Faulk says. “In the second part of my talk, I’ll argue that 60 years later, the band’s example of collective creativity is newly relevant in our current musical ecosystem, where the recording industry—what’s left of it—and social media platforms overwhelmingly privilege mega-star solo artists over musical groups.”

Combining his literary background and depth of Beatles knowledge with the context of societal perception of issues offers a unique point of view for this event. The extensive interests and subjects represented by the other panelists will offer opportunities for an interdisciplinary collaboration and conversation regarding three public figures who seem dissimilar but who all shared an innate ability to influence their time periods.

On Saturday, Feb. 24, “Sing with the Symphony” takes place in Ruby Diamond Concert Hall. (Read more from FSU News at the link.) The University Symphony Orchestra and University Choirs will help premiere Kirby’s poem Happy Chemicals, which he will read accompanied by Composition Professor Liliya Ugay’s music.

Festival director Iain Quinn, a College of Music associate professor of Organ and Coordinator of Sacred Music, contacted Kirby and asked him to merge his work with a chemistry theme.

“I have a great working relationship with Iain, and it started out as these things often do – he was trying to get in touch with someone else and got me instead,” Kirby says. “First I talked with Professor Ed Hilinski in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and then interviewed President Rick McCullough, who is also a chemist,” says Kirby, explaining that the interviews gave him a starting point for Happy Chemicals.

The addition of music during this performance will create a rich blend across arts; and the audience participation will add a unique collaborative element to the piece.

“Poetry comes easily to me, and I love to write it, so I knocked out the text in a very short time,” Kirby says. “Liliya had the hard part: she had to write the score, rehearse the musicians, and so on. I’m glad I’m a poet; we travel light.”

The Sunday, Feb. 25 “Art and Nature” performance, which rounds out the weekend of events, is described as an evening that will explore the relationship between art and nature featuring poetry readings, musical performances, and presentations related to artists and the environment.

Hamby is reading her poetry at this event, using her talents as an author to illustrate the intersection of writing and nature. Although Hamby does not necessarily consider herself a nature poet, she says, “I do have a lot of poems that use birds as metaphors, so I’m going to read one of them and an ode I wrote on insects.”

Hamby also has praise for an earlier festival event, “Odes to Dance,” which highlighted several of her graduate students in a performance of poetry, music, and dance.

“They wrote original odes on dance, which Iain sent to the composers, and then sent the music to the dancers to choreograph dances,” Hamby says. “It was such a sublime evening. This is the most transcendent project. Everyone was high on the beauty of the evening."

As the Festival of the Creative Arts comes to a close, the English department participants involved are grateful to Quinn for his dedication to bringing together FSU’s students and faculty under the arts.

“Iain Quinn is a master magician who makes it all come together,” Hamby says.

This month gave a voice to creatives across campus, finding parallels and points of collaboration between subjects that on paper seem too different to achieve harmony. The Festival of the Creative Arts serves as a reminder that artistic expression can unify diverse voices.

“Iain’s got a terrific sense of how people connect across disciplines,” Kirby says. “He used me once in last year’s festival, and he signed me up for two gigs this time. I only hope he asks me to do three events next time.”

The Department of English echoes Kirby’s appreciation to have been involved in this festival.

Molly DeKraai is a senior double majoring in English-Editing, Writing, and Media and in Media Communication Studies.

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