Mishi-maya-gat
Spoken Word & Music Series
Now in its 4th Season
- Featured musicians, poets and writers
- Monthly events during the school year, September through May (with the exception of December) on the 2nd Thursday from 7-9 p.m.
- All events are held in the new Community Commons, Great Path Academy (attached to the Lowe Building). Access from Parking Lot B. Click here for directions to MCC, including a campus map and driving directions.
- Free and open to the public
- Sponsored by the MCC Foundation
- Hosted by Stephen Campiglio
Mishi-maya-gat is the Algonquian term for “Great Trail System,” a network of foot paths created by the native tribes of Connecticut. Within this system of trails, a “Great Path” connected one region with another. The site of the MCC campus is along one of these great paths and, thus, the naming of Great Path as the street leading to campus. It is in this spirit of historical and cultural significance that the arts series takes its name.
February 11, 2010
7:00 PM–Featured Musician: Daniel Hartington, classical guitarist
Daniel Hartington, classical guitarist, performs regularly as both a soloist and as part of a number of chamber ensembles. He earned a master’s degree from the Hartt School of Music, where he studied with Richard Provost, and serves on the faculty of the Community Division of The Hartt School and at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington. Hartington is also director of the Connecticut Guitar Society’s Classical Guitar Ensemble. He has performed in many master classes, including those of world-renowned guitarists William Kanengiser, David Russell, David Tannenbaum, and Oscar Ghiglia.
In 2009 he performed with flutist Gonzalo Cortes and violist Jessica Heller at the opening night of the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival at the Hillstead Museum in Farmington. With guitarist Nick Cutroneo, he has performed recitals at the University of Connecticut, Atria Hamilton Heights, and Yale University. Also with Cutroneo, Hartington is a member of a guitar quartet that includes Christopher Ladd and Thomas Schuttenhelm, and they have performances scheduled for the 2010 concert season. In addition, Hartington is a member of Blackledge Music Inc., and as part of this non-profit organization, has performed at events such as the Ted Hershey Dance Marathon at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford and the Connecticut Dance Alliance performance showcase.
Other Hartington performances include a 2008 ensemble that premiered “A Coney Island of the Mind,” a song cycle by Anthony Cornicello, at Eastern Connecticut State University, New England Guitar Society’s annual concert in Milford in 2007, and Yale’s Guitar Extravaganza in 2006.
For his Mishi-maya-gat performance, Hartington will perform classical works by Fernando Sor, Joaquin Rodrigo, Leo Brouwer, Mauro Giuliani, Andrew York, and Roland Dyens. More information on the artist can be found at: www.myspace.com/danielhartington.
8:00 PM–Featured Poets: Leslie McGrath and Ravi Shankar
Leslie McGrath is the managing editor and nonfiction editor of Drunken Boat, an online journal of the arts, located at: www.drunkenboat.com. Her poems have appeared in Agni online, Alimentum, Beloit Poetry Journal, DIAGRAM, Poetry Ireland, and elsewhere, as well as in anthologies in both the United States and India. Her literary interviews have appeared in the Writer’s Chronicle and on public radio. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage, was published by Main Street Rag Press in 2009. She is also the editor, along with Ravi Shankar, of Radha Says, the posthumous poetry collection of Reetika Vazirani, published by Drunken Boat Press.
She was the winner of Nimrod journal’s 2004 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and her chapbook, Toward Anguish, won the Philbrick Poetry Award and was published by the Providence Athenaeum in 2007. She was awarded a 2007 Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, and has served on judges’ panels for both the Connecticut Book Award in Poetry and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.
McGrath earned her M.F.A. in Literature and Poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars. More information on the poet can be accessed at the Drunken Boat web site. You can also hear the poet read sample work at the poetry audio archive, From the Fishhouse: www.fishousepoems.org/archives/leslie_mcgrath/.
Ravi Shankar is associate professor and poet-in-residence at Central Connecticut State University and the founding editor of the international online journal of the arts, Drunken Boat (www.drunkenboat.com ). He has published a book of poems, Instrumentality (Cherry Grove, 2004), was named a finalist for the 2005 Connecticut Book Awards, and has also published, with Reb Livingston, a collaborative chapbook, Wanton Textiles (No Tell Books, 2006). Shankar’s creative and critical work has appeared in such journals as The Paris Review, Brooklyn Rail, McSweeney’s, and the AWP Writer’s Chronicle. He will have two chapbooks of poetry forthcoming in 2010, including a collaboration with late American artist, Sol LeWitt, as well as a full-length manuscript, Deepening Groove, which won the 2009 National Poetry Review Prize.
He currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Connecticut Center for the Book, reviews poetry for the Contemporary Poetry Review, and along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, edited Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East and Beyond (W.W Norton & Co.). He is a 2009 recipient of a Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism Fellowship in Poetry, has received fellowships from Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, the MacDowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, and serves as a commentator on National Public Radio.
In addition to his position at CCSU, Shankar currently serves on the faculty of the Wesleyan Writers Conference, Stonecoast Writers Conference, and in the first international M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at City University of Hong Kong. He has also performed his work around the world, including at the Asia Society, PEN India, St. Mark's Poetry Project, and the National Arts Club.
Sample work by the poet can be heard on the poetry audio archive, From the Fishouse: http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/ravi_shankar/.
Upcoming Events
March 11, 2010
“A Celebration of Women’s History Month” with singer/guitarist/recording artist Lydia Fortune and poets Kate Rushin and Susan Allison. Fortune will present, “Black Women Singers: From Early Roots to Jazz,” a spoken word and musical travelogue, exploring performers from the past to the present. Rushin is the author of The Black Back-ups from Firebrand Books. More information on her work is available at: www.katerushin.com. Susan Allison, author of Down by the Riverside Ways from Antrim House Books, is the founder of The Buttonwood Tree in Middletown. More information on her book is available at: www.antrimhousebooks.com.
April 8, 2010
“Come Celebrate National Poetry Month” with James Haug, author of Legend of the Recent Past from National Poetry Review Press and Spring 2010 poet-in-residence at the University of Massachusetts M.F.A. Program, along with a special TBA guest. The featured music will be provided by the Norman Johnson Jazz Duo, with Johnson on guitar and Don Wallace, bass.
May 13, 2010
Don’t miss this very special appearance by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, James Tate, author of more than 15 books of poetry, including The Ghost Soldiers (2008), and 3 books of prose. Tate will read with Dara Wier, author of 10 books of poetry, including the recent Selected Poems. Both poets are professors in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts. A performance by the Tantasqua Regional High School Vocal Ensemble will open the evening.