Exhibits & Events

Annual Turkey Calling Event at The Arts Library!

The UCSD Arts Library presents their annual Turkey Calling Show at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 (yes, that is their official Short Attention Span Series offering for the day before Thanksgiving). Lower level, West Wing, Geisel Library, UCSD.

About the show: come to the exhibit case area of the UCSD Arts Library to see an artful turkey calling exhibit.  Hear UCSD undergraduate performance artist Lazaro Rabago recite an Aztec poem about our native turkey.  Perform a slapstick tone poem with old-time radio sound effects artist Scott Paulson and learn how to turkey call. Story lady Melanie Treco will read a new family-friendly turkey story. The Teeny-Tiny Pit Orchestra will perform some appropriate tunes. Free show.  Call (858) 822-5758 for info or visit http://artslib.ucsd.edu

What to expect: part performance art and part old-time radio show, hosted by Scott Paulson, outreach coordinator of the UCSD Arts Library.

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7th Annual Home Movie Day!

Join us Saturday, October 17th at Geisel Library in the Seuss Room at UCSD in La Jolla from 2:00 to 5:00pm. A FREE event!

For the seventh year in a row, film lovers and archivists around the world will get out of the vaults to help the public learn about, enjoy, and rescue films forgotten with the advent of home video. Home Movie Day shows how home movies offer a unique view of decades past, and are an essential part of personal, community, and cultural history.

Bring your Super-8, 8mm & 16mm reels (the ones gathering dust in your garage!) and we will put them on the screen for all to enjoy, along with fascinating home movies from the UCSD Film & Video collection.

San Diego Home Movie Day is free and open to the public. We will offer assessment of older films, information about how to care for family films, delicious snacks and continuous screenings of home movies brought by participants like you! Archivists will show examples of historic amateur films preserved in our collections, and preservation specialists will explain why transferring films to video or digital media does not mean these new copies will last forever.

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Serious Music For Toy Piano!

The first composer to write a “serious” piece for toy piano was American composer John Cage. His Suite for Toy Piano, written in 1948, uses nine consecutive white notes of a piano keyboard.  This is significant because some toy pianos only have white notes (the black notes are sometimes merely painted on as a reference point so that players will know where “C” and all the other notes are.)  Composer George Crumb used toy piano to great effect in his chamber music piece Ancient Voices of Children (1970).  The score of this piece even shows a diagram of where to place the toy piano on stage.

Here in San Diego, toy pianos are celebrated with great fanfare in the month of September (because John Cage’s birthday is September 5!!).  It is here that Scott Paulson and his colleagues host an annual toy piano festival.

This year, come join in on the fun! Saturday, September 5th at 2 pm in the Seuss Room in Geisel Library. Free and open to the public!

Composers visit Scott and pick a specific toy piano from his collection, and a piece is written specially for that instrument.  Some toy pianos only have nine notes, some three octaves—so each piece has its own special charm and special limitations.

The Toy Piano Collection at Geisel Library consists of actual instruments, recordings, extant literature and commissioned scores.  In 2001, because of the Toy Piano Collection’s activities, the Library of Congress issued a special call number and subject heading for Toy Piano Scores:  M 175 T69!

PROGRAM OF MUSIC

 Fanfare for Toy Piano              S. Paulson

 Bernd Wiesemann, 1938-

Selections from his Petite suite : (1987) : für Kinderspielklavier (Toy Piano) oder anderes Tasteninstrument     

 Piece for Bubble Wrap & Toy Piano     S. Paulson

 Mrs. Amy Beach: Gavotte & Waltz

 Phillip Glass Tribute

 Sonata for Toy Piano        Ryoko Amadee Goguen

 Happy Ragtime Tune        Ryoko Amadee Goguen

 John Cage: Selections from his Suite for Toy Piano

Also that day, a new toy piano piece written by Matt Swagler, a recent graduate of UCSD…and a survey of some of the favorite toy piano works we’ve premiered from UCSD students over the last several years…

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 Potential encore:  a song from The Cat in the Hat Songbook

Nancy Drew, Icon!!

First-edition books, memorabilia, and serious scholarship to be displayed during August 2009, with live events on August 15th & 17th

Arts Library, Geisel Library Building