What is creativity? Can it be harnessed? Can it be taught? Conversations on Creativity seeks answers to these questions in engaging discussions with UW-Madison faculty from the humanities, arts, and sciences. The series is presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy and the UW-Madison Arts Institute.
Ronald L. Numbers
Hilldale & William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, UW-Madison
Creation and Creativity, or, How We Got Here in the First Place
September 28, 2004 @ 7:00 pm
Gates of Heaven Synagogue
This event is one of the Conversations On Creativity events.
In the context of one of the oldest synagogues in North America, Ron Numbers will discuss the role of creativity in the formation of a science independent of religion. Professor Numbers teaches and writes about the history of science, medicine, and religion in America. He is currently writing a one-volume history of science in America since European settlement, and with colleague David Lindberg, he recently completed editorial work on the eight-volume Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge University Press, 2003). His numerous additional works include The Creationists (Knopf, 1992), Darwinism Comes to America (Harvard University Press, 1998), and Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
William Farlow
Associate Professor of Music and Opera Director, UW-Madison
The Process of Interpretation
October 19, 2004 @ 7:00 pm
Unitarian Meeting House
This event is one of the Conversations On Creativity events.
Creativity is transformed and generates new dynamics in group settings such as theatre, dance, ensemble and orchestral music, and opera. William Farlow's discussion will explore several questions that are unique to the operatic art. What are the challenges in harnessing creativity when stage directing opera? What are the inherent problems that occur with music theatre that are absent from spoken drama? How can creativity play a role in interpreting a text that has already been interpreted by a composer? In this complicated setting, how does the director make the whole thing appear extempore?
William Farlow is Associate Professor of Music and Opera Director for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has over two hundred productions to his credit as director, and his work has taken him throughout the United States, as well as to Scotland, Mexico, Canada. He has directed productions for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, and the Canadian Opera, and has worked with such artists as Placido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Carlo Maria Giulini, and David Hockney. As a singer Mr. Farlow has performed major roles in La Cenerentola, La belle Hélène, and Cosi fan tutte, as well as principal roles in nine Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He has choreographed national touring productions of The Merry Widow and Naughty Marietta for the Eastern Opera Company. His credits as director include productions of Tristan und Isolde for the Pittsburgh Opera, Turandot for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Salome for the Los Angeles Opera, the Florentine Opera's Barber of Seville and The Mikado for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, among many others. Mr. Farlow has a Bachelor of Music in Theory and Composition from the University of Texas at El Paso and a Master of Music in Opera from the University of Texas at Austin.
