Friday, September 26, 2008

MacArthur Fellows in our midst

For the slightly geeky, the announcement of the annual list of MacArthur Fellows (aka the Genuis Grant Recipients) is right up there with the annual list of college commencement speakers. Both groups are, generally speaking, and in my opinion, people who get a moment of fame that are truly deserving of the recognition (not that, say, Justin Timberlake, for example, isn't a genius in his own right. I'm sure he is :-)).

In any case,we at the Celebrity Series love nothing better than to bask in any sort of reflected glow. To that end, I feel I must reveal which of the recipients have had a presence of one kind or another on the Series (sorry, Geomorphologist David Montgomery is not one of them).

Lighting Designer Jennifer Tipton designed lighting as part of numerous Celebrity Series engagements, including 13 Paul Taylor Dance Company tours between 1969 and 2007, 4 tours by choreographer Twyla Tharp (one with Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov) and 1 tour with Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project (and those are just the one's I could verify). Her lighting has been featured on at least 18 separate engagements, usually as the sole lighting designer for every work performed on every performance. Whether they knew it or not, Celebrity Series audiences have seen quite a lot of Tipton's work over the years.

Violinist Leila Josefowicz has appeared twice on the Celebrity Series of Boston with Jaime Laredo and The Brandenburg Ensemble (1997 & 2000).

Saxophonist Miguel Zenon's Celebrity Series appearance came in 1998 during Rob Kapilow's What Makes It Great? series, when he performed with Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder and Timon of Athens with Boston's Either/Orchestra.

I know, I know. We keep good company.

Here's the complete list.



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