The Cornell Savoyards open Cornell University's summer events series with a concert version of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, a comic opera in two acts. Tickets are free and will be available in the theater lobby starting at 6:15 p.m. on the day of the performance.

This delightful operetta brings the audience into the melodrama of a witch's curse, a hidden identity, a gallery of ghosts, and a bevy of professional bridesmaids. There is an evil baronet, a high-born hero in disguise, a virtuous heroine, a faithful servant, a true-blue, plain-spoken sailor, and a woman driven mad by love and jealousy. Gilbert turns these characters topsy-turvy, creating an exciting story with unexpected and very funny twists. Will the curse be broken? Will our hero get the girl, or will she wind up with his best friend? Come and find out!

Melissa Cox and her band, Mythica, open the summer concert series on the Arts Quad with their special blend of Celtic-flavored prog rock, newgrass, and Americana. A classically trained singer, Melissa possesses a voice that has been described by Sing Out! magazine as “a cross between Loreena McKennitt and Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick.” She’s also got impressive songwriting chops and was named best singer/songwriter by Spark Magazine, best Celtic fusion singer by Celtic MP3 Music Magazine, and best musical folk artist by the Delaware Division of Arts.

Melissa has shared the stage with the Spin Doctors, Sister Hazel, Smash Mouth, Three Dog Night, Cyril Neville, and Catie Curtis and has headlined at hundreds of major festivals and premier venues in the continental U.S., Hawaii, and New Zealand. Her two latest albums, Transient Resonance and Harmonious Maladies, showcase not only her musical and writing talents, but also her abilities as a producer and sound engineer.

http://www.MelissaCoxMusic.net

Acclaimed pianist Xak Bjerken and Boston symphony violist Michael Zaretsky have performed together for seventeen years and have recorded two CDs together. For this concert at the Schwartz Center, they will present a program that includes Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata, Kodaly's Adagio, Schumann's Fairy Tale Pictures, and Brahms' Sonata in F minor.

Guitarist Andrew Hardin and vocalist Jeannie Burns have teamed up as the acoustic duo known as Hardin Burns, featuring heartfelt vocals and fierce country blues guitar. They each bring decades of performing to the partnership: Andrew Hardin toured and recorded with Tom Russell for twenty-five years and performed with many other musicians, including Dave Alvin, Ian Tyson, Katy Moffatt, Nanci Griffith, Eliza Gilkyson, and Ray Wyle Hubbard. Jeannie Burns has performed with The Burns Sisters on eight albums, years of live performances, and two tours as backup vocalists for Arlo Guthrie.

In 2012 Hardin Burns recorded their debut CD, Lounge, which features nine new original songs and a cover of George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness.” The recording has gotten substantial airplay in the U.S. and abroad. They’ve performed in Texas, New York, Florida, and California, and in 2013 they will be touring internationally.

As part of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions' free summer events series, choreographer Lindsay Gilmour will present an evening of original work.

Based in contemporary dance, Gilmour continues to explore how the body and voice combust and collide in harmony and disharmony. Be prepared for delightful discoveries as the voice sings with the body and the body moves the voice.

Photo: Ian Douglas

From 1977 to 1994, author and Cornell alumna Kim Brown Bixler ’91 lived with her family in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Rochester, New York. Bixler will recount the joys and challenges of those years in "Growing Up in a Frank Lloyd Wright House"—the first of four lectures in the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions’ free summer events series, and the title of Bixler’s latest book. Through an engaging multi-media presentation of family photographs, historical documents, and personal anecdotes, she’ll tell tales of the house’s tumultuous history and of the memorable years she spent there.

Bixler’s first book, published the year after she graduated, was Get a Clue: Guide to Cornell University and Ithaca, NY. She has also written and/or edited 365 Great Things About Atlanta, The Cigar Book, Austin from Boston, and My Twin, My Friend. She lives with her husband and two teenage children in Manhattan Beach, California.

A regular on the club and festival circuit in the Finger Lakes region, GoGone plays original roots, rock, and blues, “capturing songs of love, far away places, and the always changing human condition.” Their music is both joyous and heartbreaking, moving from soulful ballads of betrayal to raucous stories of adventure. In 2012, GoGone was voted “best happy hour band” in the Ithaca Times’ “Best of Ithaca” contest.

Rockwood Ferry features the original music of songwriter Tenzin Chopak (vocals, acoustic guitar, piano) expressed through an ensemble of some of Ithaca’s finest musicians: banjo legend Richie Stearns, folk fiddler/singer Rosie Newton, gypsy jazz violin virtuoso Eric Aceto, and classically trained cross-over double bass phenomenon Ethan Jodziewicz.

“Rockwood Ferry speaks with a haunting language … descended from roots, jazz, and progressive folk…. Chopak's lyrics are a fluid collage of waking dreams painted in the colors of his East Tennessee upbringing and beyond. The result: passionate and beautiful music let loose with blazing energy.”

We have been using various media (including dispatches, diaries, and letters) for millennia to document our everyday lives and to share our thoughts with others. This talk will examine the “social media revolution” as part of this longer story, but with its own unique considerations. Whereas historically we might have presented ourselves differently to various audiences (e.g., boss, grandmother, friends from high school, spouse), we lose much of that flexibility with social media.

Drawing on research about social media use, Cornell communications professor Lee Humphreys will identify strategies for managing this phenomenon, explore ways for thinking about privacy on social media, and delve into the opportunities as well as risks presented by this platform.

Rising Sign (a.k.a. Signo Ascendenté) plays an irresistible mix of salsa, cha-cha, merengue, and samba. This nine-piece band has a sound that’s bright and hot, with blazing horns, soaring flute, rocking guitar, sparkling keyboards, funky solid bass, and a steamy percussion section of timbales, congas, guiro, and bongo. Get ready for a Caribbean dance party!

Tango de Cámara is a unique chamber ensemble whose music ranges from the Baroque to the contemporary. All members of the trio are on the faculty of the Ithaca College School of Music.

Hailed by critics for their versatility, artistry, and wit, Steven Mauk (saxophones), Pablo Cohen (guitar, cavaquinho, quarto), and Nicholas Walker (double bass, viola da gamba) share an eclectic, exciting repertoire that demonstrates their expertise in historical styles and inventiveness in more modern idioms. This diversity of repertoire, coupled with their skills as master teachers, gives the group both performance and pedagogical expertise rarely seen in other such ensembles.

Although he was one of the most important Americans of the nineteenth century, most Americans don’t know much about William Henry Seward other than that he purchased Alaska. Walter Stahr, author of the acclaimed new biography Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man, will share insights into this powerful and fascinating figure in a free lecture sponsored by the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions as part of its free summer events series.

Born and raised in upstate New York, Seward served four years as progressive governor of the state, twelve controversial years in the U.S. Senate, and eight years as Secretary of State. Seward was Lincoln's closest adviser and friend during the Civil War; indeed, some saw him as the "power behind the throne" who made decisions for the president.

Read more about Walter Stahr at http://walterstahr.com/.

The Evil City String Band delivers a high-octane mix of traditional and original tunes and songs. Their unique sound reflects a deep understanding of old-time and country music.

The group features five established artists: Steve Selin (fiddle) plays with the Hogwashers and Evil City Trio. Rosie Newton (fiddle) collaborates with Stephanie Jenkins in the Pearly Snaps and occasionally appears with the Mammals. Richie Stearns (banjo and lead singer) is a legendary founding member of the Horse Flies and tours and records with Natalie Merchant and Carrie Rodriguez. Pat Burke (guitar) performs with Gregor Sayet-Bone in the country blues duo Burke and Bone. Ethan Jodziewicz (bass) is currently studying double bass performance at Ithaca College.

Fiddle masters David Kaynor and George Wilson will present an evening of traditional music ranging from rollicking Celtic, French Canadian, and New England reels, jigs, hornpipes, and strathspeys to pensive slow airs, sweet waltzes, and scintillating Scandinavian tunes with rich harmonies.

The impresario of the Greenfield, Massachusetts, contra dance, Kaynor has an entertaining, eclectic style that brings joy to dancers and listeners alike. Wilson is a talented multi-instrumentalist and singer whose repertoire includes a wide variety of traditional and folk styles. Between them, Kaynor and Wilson count about eighty years of fiddling experience!

In this lecture, Cornell psychology professor Shimon Edelman will talk about happiness—its evolutionary basis, cognitive mechanisms, and social dynamics—and offer some thoughts about what can and should be done to promote it.

The author of The Happiness of Pursuit and Computing the Mind, Edelman was born in the USSR and emigrated to Israel, where he earned a bachelor’s degree at Technion and a master’s and Ph.D. at Weizmann Institute of Science. He is interested in all aspects of cognition and has written dozens of scholarly publications in theoretical neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence.

Edeman’s lecture is the last in the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions’ free summer events series.

Powerful songwriting, explosive improvisation, and deep dance grooves: that’s what the Andrew and Noah Band brings to festival stages, concert halls, living rooms, and dance floors all over North America. The band features fiddle, accordion, mandolin, saxophone, guitars, bass, drums, and three-part harmony vocals. Their core material, written by brothers Andrew and Noah VanNorstrand, might best be described as Americana groove: a mix of Appalachian, Celtic, classic country and bluegrass, jazz and swing, cajun and zydeco, alternative folk, and roots rock, with various world music influences. Photo: Angela Goldberg