 

4» Composer Chihara Visits

.‘ by Phil Broun
The creative talents of ac
complished composer Paul
Chihara were on display Saturday
night as Terry King and Kenneth
Goldsmith ol the Mirecourt Trio
premiered “Duo: Zigeunerr
\veisen,” a piece commissioned
expressly by the college. The
piece, for violin and cello, is but a
Small sample of Chihara’s vast
musical knowledge and ability.
Born in 1938 in Seattle,
Washington oi Japanese parents,
. ul’s dream of becoming in
Wolved in music began with violin
and piano lessons at age 8, and
composmon at age 12. He holds
\ U1 an MA. and a PhD. in
nglish literature, and has studied
composition with Nadia Boulanger
in Paris and at the West Berlin
Academy of Music. He currently
resides in Los Angeles, where he
has taught composition at UCLA
ior 8 years, A small, soft-spoken
man, his pastimes include karate
and movie-watching, a childhood
love.

It is, in iact, movies which'

consume much oi Chihara's time.
Writing scores ior several recent
films and TV shows. Chihara
exhibits a wide range of musical
ﬂowledge, taste and ability. His

main compositional style is
classical, however.

Classical music today, says
Paul. is becoming less reliant on
good musical ideas, more
dissonant. andlonger- “a sound for
its own sake.” Pop music today,
according to Paul, relies more on
entertaining the listener rather
than enlightening him. “There was
an early Roman critic-poet named
Horace who said that art should
educate and delight , , . and for a
long time that is what artists
thought thattheii‘ work did. . . now
a greatgulfexists between the two.
We‘ve never had such alienation
between the serious artist and the
pop artist,” Chihara blames
commercialism for producing this
guli. He expresses concern over
today’s need ior a song to sell
rather than enlighten.

l-le ieels popular music caters to
the public's tastes too much.
“Classical music is classical
because it survivedinot because it
sold , , If a philosopher shaped his
philosophy in terms of what the
people wanted he wouldn't be
much ofa philosopher. He might be
a good businessman, though,” said
Paul, reierring to pop music
writers.

However, Paul’s

some of

Development office reorganized—

favorite muSicianS are on the
popular side. Joni Mitchell, Bob
Dylan. reggae music, and
especially folk music entertain and
enlighten him. He prefers simple,
sincere music Electronic music,
which he sometimes uses in film
scores. has also been one of his
interests. Yet this is merely a
sidelizht because electronic music
is “limited , . with a synthesizer,
everything sounds more or less the
same. . human sounds are varied,
more rich,”

Chihara said he has noticed that
artists seem to produce best in
times of insecurity and instability
He Said that when artists feel
themselves becoming complacent,
they can create instability in their
lives. "In the course of two years,
Beethoven had 25 different
apartments in Vienna,” he com,
merited.

Paul feels that a place like
Grinnell is more conducive for the
insight and creativity needed to be
a composer than a conservatory.
He ieels a knowledge oi academic
subjects must be gained (not
iorgetting technical musical
knowledge, of course) to be a good
composer. As a matter or fact,
Paul was oilered a spot on the
Grinnell iaculty in 1966, but turned

it down to work on writing iilm
scores.

Paul’s creativity seems to be in
lull swing and he is enjoying life.
His plans ior the iuture include

some larger orchestral works as
well as a major opera and more
TV. and motion picture scores.
“I'll just keep on writing. Iguess."

Ackerman departs. for Transylvania

by Dave Green

As has been evident over the last

s months, Grinnell College is

ainlv not immune to the winds
of change. The college‘s Office of
D velopment is no exception. In
iﬁ; Tom Ackerman came to
Grinnell to work in Development
under then Vice President for
Internal Development Jim Avison.
Now five years later, Tom is
leavtng his position as associate
director of Development to become
vice president for Development at
Transylvania University in
Lexington, Kentucky.

The entire Development office is
currently undergoing a major
reorganization, headed by Avison’s
replacement David Murphy.
. hy's title is vice president for

ources and External Affairs.

Eyes Examined
Phone 236-7502

JENSEN
OPTOMETRISTS

Earl J. Jensen, 0.0.
Clark J. Jensen, 0.D.

Across from Post Office
Closed Thursday p.m.
and Sat. p.m.

‘ Development at Grinnell

With the change in leadership
and because oi his new job offer,
Torn feels confident that he has
done what he can for Grinnell and
that his horizons can only be
broadened by his move. As he says,
"It became obvious that I had
reached the point where I needed
the opportunity to do the things
that I think are effectivtkand that
opportunity wasn't here,” After
five years here, Ackerman
believes the time is right for him to
experiment with his own ideas on
fund raising.

Fund raising is in effect what a
“Development Officer" does. Two
thirds oi the college’s budget is
provided by tuition and fees. The
other one third must be provided
through the school's endowment
and Development program.
is not
public relations. The Develop»
ment Office defines Grinnell‘s long
range iinancial planning, needs
and resources. The office then
decides where the money for
educational programs will come
from

Ackermaii’s work involves the
acquisition of funds on a fairly
immediate basis from local
sources His “resources" are small
in proportion to those garnered by
Richard Jenkins, ’39, College
director of Estate Planning, who
deals primarily with long range
donations or $10,000 and up Sur-
prisingly enough, Tom has lound
that college ”friends” who are not
directly related to the college (Le
alumni or family connections)
have made better donors than

’rect friends,” He has also found
that lowa has recently become

quite responsive to donation
requests, certainly more so than
ten years ago when Grinnell was in
some ways “outside of the minds”
oi many Iowans. All in all,
Ackel'man believes that Grinnell’s
iinancial situation is better than
that oi most comparable in»
stitutions though still not what it
should be

Tom believes that the iruits to a
Development unit-as labors are
relatively long in coming. He
believes that the “happy zoo”
atmosphere which Avison
cultivated was a bit chaotic and
hard to administer but was very
successiul because it maximized
the output oi each individual in
volved,

Ackcrman describes the recent
Development Diiice
reorganization which combined the
Alumni and Development oriices
into a more cohesive unit as a

Start Thinking About

1 SPRING BREAK
March I9-Aprll 4 .
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GRINNELI. TRAVEL, .

move which will improve ad
ministration and organization
within the office. personally, he
believes that he would iind it hard
to adjust his style to that oi Mur-
phy's and would therefore not be
able to do his job as well as he
would like, But, as he says, his is a
“highly mobile profession” where

a person can always find it job if
hershe is willing to do the work

Ackcrman is excited about being
offered the opportunity to do what
he wants in a Development Office.
He is not anxious, however, to
leave the people of Grinnell
College Ackerman enjoys his
Contact with the students. “They
are unique." he said. "They almost
always have a little twist of lemon
to their personality,”

In his five years at Grlnnell,
Ackerman has found a tremendous
sense of identilivntion with the
college among oast graduates.
Grinnell he feels, leaves most of its
students with a terrific loyalty to
both the school and other alumni.

Tom's experience with Grinnell
has reaffirmed his desire to con-
tinue to work with small, private
institutions. and he hopes to con
tinue to play his part in ensuring
that students will be able to keep
walking across commencement
stages in the spring, “what I'm
selling is terribly importanti
education beats the hell out of
shoes." ~

DANNON
YOGURT

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