Author: Brynn Boyer

The Department of Music at the University of Mary Washington will host the second annual Electroacoustic Barn Dance from Thursday, Nov. 8 through Saturday, Nov. 10. The three-day electronic music festival will include the works of more than 70 artists and composers from across the country presented in 13 concerts. All concerts are free and open to the public.

Most of the performances will take place in UMW’s Pollard Hall and Monroe Hall, with additional performances at The Blarney Stone and 909 Saloon in historic downtown Fredericksburg. The festival will begin with Concert I at 8 p.m. on Thursday, and will continue throughout the weekend, concluding with Concert XIII at 10 p.m. on Saturday. The most up-to-date concert information, as well the specific times and locations for each performance, can be found at facebook.com/ElectroacousticBarnDance.

The festival has garnered attention at universities across the country, including Columbia University, the University of Alabama, the University of Florida and Chatham University.

Mark Snyder, assistant professor of music and the festival’s director and organizer, received submissions from approximately 180 composers and musicians to participate in this year’s festival. Prominent and innovative artists from all over the county will travel to UMW to perform and showcase their art. Snyder said the Barn Dance will be the place to hear and experience sound in different ways as well to see instruments being played in a way the audience might not have seen before.

“A lot of the people who will be here are in the cutting edge of making things that people haven’t been making before in terms of music, sound design and film,” said Snyder.

Several UMW professors will perform during the festival, including Snyder himself, as well as students from Snyder’s electronic music class.

“It makes me very proud [that] the students will be mixed in with all of these major established electroacoustic composers,” he said.

For more information, contact Mark Snyder at msnyder@umw.edu.

Deborah O’Dell, associate professor of biology and president-elect of the Virginia Academy of Science, presided over the Virginia Academy of Sciences Undergraduate Research Meeting on Saturday, Oct. 27 at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.  Deborah Zies, associate professor of biology, was the invited speaker and spoke on “Smith-Magenis Syndrome: An Investigation of a Human Genome Disorder.” Lynn Lewis and Kathryn Loesser, professors of biology, served as judges for the research grant recipients along with Deborah Zies, Deborah O’Dell and Carleitta Paige, adjunct faculty member of biology. Faculty sponsoring students in competition for a $500 undergraduate research grant were: Lynn Lewis who sponsored Kathleen Blevins and Ryan Green, Theresa Grana, assistant professor of biology, who sponsored Sarah Marzec and Daniel Browne, and Andrew Dolby, professor of biology, who sponsored Abbigal Kimmit and Michael Carlo.  Ryan Green was awarded a grant for his research project “A Study of Chloroquine’s Antiretroviral Characteristics.”

Chad Murphy, assistant professor of political science, was a featured guest on Voice of America on Thursday, Nov. 1. In the segment “Unemployment Remains Key Factor for U.S. Voters,” Murphy argued that U.S. voters would look at the overall unemployment trends during the election.

Murphy also provided live political analysis on election night for Al-Jazeera’s English television network.

Associate Professors of Psychology Miriam Liss and Holly Schiffrin’s research article “Maternal Guilt and Shame: The Role of Self-Discrepancy and Fear of Negative Evaluation” appears in the Journal of Child and Family Studies, published online on Oct. 19, 2012. Liss and Schiffrin co-wrote the article with Kathryn Rizzo ’12.  The study shows mothers who compare themselves to other mothers and fear that others are judging and evaluating them experience the emotions of both guilt and shame – emotions that have been shown to lead to negative mental health consequences.

An interview with Professor of Political Science Stephen Farnsworth appeared in a MacNeil/Lehrer Production documentary about American political advertising and the presidential election.

The documentary, “Making Democracy,” has aired during the past week in more than 20 countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Farnsworth also was a featured guest for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s election night coverage.