A&I Continues Season With Talented Singer Zucchero

Edwardsville, IL (Top40 Charts/ Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) Adelmo Fornaciari, a talented singer and musician from Italy who performs under the name Zucchero (sugar), will appear at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, in SIUE's Meridian Ballroom as part of the University's Arts & Issues series.

His music encompasses a wide range of styles from beautiful ballads to pop, rock, blues and gospel. A European sensation since the mid-1980s, Zucchero has sold 50 million albums worldwide during a career that spans four decades. The Oct. 20 SIUE appearance will be his first performance in the St. Louis area.

For more than 25 years, SIUE's Arts & Issues series has brought great performers and distinguished speakers to Southwestern Illinois. The official media sponsors for A&I are the Edwardsville Intelligencer and KWMU-FM, while the series official hotel sponsor is Hampton Inn and Suites. The 2011-12 Arts & Issues season is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Grant Andree, director of the series says Zucchero's appearance at SIUE on the Arts & Issues stage will appeal to a wide audience. "The richness of Zucchero's vocal stylings and his wide ranging repertoire has made this singer a very popular entertainer and an international star. We are very excited because this is his first performance in front of a St. Louis area audience and he is going to be pleasantly surprised at the warm welcome."

Zucchero has earned a number of famous fans, many with whom he has recorded, including Clarence Clemons, Sheryl Crow, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Pavarotti, Bono and Sting. He's currently crossing all of Europe and North America to tout his latest album, Chocabeck.

The 11 songs of Chocabeck loosely follow the cycle of life in an imaginary countryside location not dissimilar to the village where Zucchero was raised. "This album is all about my roots," he says. "Fragments of life and emotions on a typical Sunday from dawn to dusk in the village where I grew up."

Other Arts & Issues events for 2011-12 series season include:
Neil deGrasse Tyson—Wednesday, Dec. 7, 7:30 p.m., SIUE's Meridian Ballroom
Sponsored by the Shaw Memorial Fund, the SIUE Graduate School, the SIUE Physics Club and the SIUE Math Club. This event also is funded wholly or in part through Student Activity fees; therefore, all SIUE students will be admitted free.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was at the center of the controversy over Pluto's status as a planet, could be considered America's current best known astrophysicist. His expertise is broad, including star formation and explosions, galactic structures and dwarf galaxies, which he studies through images provided by the Hubble Space Telescope and observatories located throughout North and South America. He is The Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, and has received the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest award given by NASA to a non-government citizen.

Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time with speaker Curt Meine—Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2012, 7:30 p.m., SIUE's Meridian Ballroom

Sponsored by the Madison County Regional Office of Education
The first full-length, high-definition documentary film ever made about legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold, Green Fire highlights Leopold's extraordinary career, tracing how he shaped and influenced the modern environmental movement. An early leader with the U.S. Forest Service, Leopold pioneered wildlife conservation and wilderness management techniques. Curt Meine is a conservation biologist and writer based in Prairie du Sac, Wis., and is a senior fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation, director of conservation biology and history for the Center for Humans and Nature, and a research associate with the International Crane Foundation.

Ken Waldman and the Secret Visitors: From Madison County to Moose Pass—Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012, 7:30 p.m., SIUE's Meridian Ballroom

Ken Waldman, "Alaska's Fiddling Poet," comes to SIUE with an all-star cast. Waldman will transport the audience to the grandeur of Alaska through poetry, storytelling, traditional music and dance. This one-time only event will include the North Carolina duo Appalachian Roots featuring Ira Bernstein and Riley Baugus. They will be joined by Arkansas native banjo player and singer Allison Williams, Memphis bluesman and multi-instrumentalist Andy Cohen, Austin banjo player and fiddler Jerry Hagins, as well as Chicago fiddler, guitarist and banjo player Jordan Wankoff and West Virginia native fiddler Rachel Eddy.

Nrityagram Dance Ensemble of India Presents Sambhavya—Friday, March 16, 2012, 7:30 p.m., The Wildey Theatre in downtown Edwardsville

The beauty and tradition of classical Indian dance honed to near perfection will be on display when the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble performs for the Arts & Issues series at the newly renovated, historic Wildey Theatre in downtown Edwardsville. Nrityagram was founded in 1990 near Bangalore as a total immersion dance community, and is considered one of the foremost dance companies in India.

The Combined Orchestras of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and SIU Carbondale, featuring violinist David Kim, concertmaster for the Philadelphia Orchestra—Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 7:30 p.m., at the theater in SIUE's Dunham Hall.

Sponsored by Commerce Bank
The orchestras of both Southern Illinois University main campuses will be combined for one exciting evening, featuring David Kim, a native of Carbondale who has been concertmaster for the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1999. Kim's numerous solo engagements around the world have included the orchestras of Dallas, Pittsburgh, Capetown, KBS (Korea) and Moscow, as well as the Buffalo and Seoul philharmonics, the Polish National Radio Orchestra, the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and numerous orchestras across North, Central and South America.

Arts & Issues and the SIUe Xfest welcome
The Squonk Opera presenting Edwardsville: The Opera—Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 7:30 p.m., the theater in SIUE's Dunham Hall

Sponsored by the SIUE Credit Union
Squonk Opera is a multimedia performance troupe from Pennsylvania, "Edwardsville: The Opera" is part of its "hometown opera" series. Squonk will weave hometown documentation and video with its original musical score, providing a heartfelt toast and punk-vaudevillian roast to our city at the same time. While highlighting the distinct characteristics of each community, This avant-garde group's unique performances combine music, sound and image with innovative video, slapstick comedy and unexpected surprises. Squonk Opera has performed on Broadway, in Europe and South Korea, across the United States, and in a Pittsburgh junkyard with earthmovers and choreographed cranes.

For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of the new Arts & Issues season brochure available now to the public at several locations throughout the Edwardsville-Glen Carbon area or by calling (618) 650-5194. The brochure contains information about the events and subscription sales for the 2011-12 season. For additional information about the series, call (618) 650-5774.

More information and tickets are available through the Web site: artsandissues.com.
Editors: The 2011-12 Arts & Issues photos suitable for print are available at https://www.siue.edu/artsandissues/PhotoIndex.shtml.

Arts & Issues is a series of distinguished speakers and performers that supports the academic mission of the University. Students meet and discuss issues with renowned speakers in workshops, dinners, receptions and classes. Students in music, theater and dance work directly with visiting artists in master classes. Arts & Issues also gives students opportunities to gain experience in special events production, administration, fundraising and development.

SIUE offers the advantages of a small, liberal arts college with the low tuition rates of a state university. Our emphasis on undergraduate education, complemented by faculty research, creates practical applications for student learning. Located in the second most populated area of the state, this Illinois university draws students from all 102 Illinois counties, 42 states and 50 nations.

The SIUE College of Arts and Sciences combines foundational education with diverse and highly-specialized coursework. Faculty help students explore diversity of ideas, experiences and people while learning to think and live as fulfilled, productive members of a global society. The College offers 44 degree programs in the arts, humanities and social and natural sciences.