An essay about measles–syndicated for “The Conversation” and written by Eyal Amiel, assistant professor of Biomedicine and Health Sciences at UVM–was carried CBS News and Fast Company.
Source: UVM News
Scientists record conversations of mysterious, ‘solitary’ river dolphin from Brazil
UVM biology professor Laura Collado was part of a team that captured and analyzed a surprisingly diverse collections sounds made by the elusive Araguaian river dolphin of Brazil. The research, which included rare underwater video of dolphins, was published in the open access journal PeerJ and drew wide media coverage including from Newsweek, Smithsonian, Fox News, New York Post, UPI, and MSN. Scientific American produced this podcast.
Source: UVM News
Mysterious river dolphin helps crack the code of marine mammal communication
The Araguaian river dolphin of Brazil is something of a mystery. It was thought to be quite solitary, with little social structure that would require communication. But Laura May Collado, a biologist at the University of Vermont, and her colleagues have discovered that the dolphins can actually make hundreds of different sounds to communicate, a finding that could help uncover how communication evolved in marine mammals.
“We found that they do interact socially, and are making more sounds than previously thought,” she says. “Their vocal repertoire is very diverse.”
The findings of May Collado are her colleagues were published in the journal PeerJ on April 18.
The Araguaian dolphins, also called botos, are a difficult animal to study. They are hard to find in the first place, and while the waters the Araguaia and Tocatins rivers are clear, it is challenging to identify individuals because the dolphins are skittish and hard to approach.
Luckily, Gabriel Melo-Santos, a biologist from the University of St Andrews in Scotland and leader of the project, found a fish market in the Brazilian town of Mocajuba where the botos regularly visit to be fed by people shopping there. The clear water and regular dolphin visitors there provided a unique opportunity to get a close look at how the animals behave and interact, and to identify and keep track of various individuals.
The team used underwater cameras and microphones to record sounds and interactions between the dolphins at the market, and took some genetic samples. They identified 237 different types of sounds the dolphins make, but even with 20 hours of recordings the researchers don’t believe they captured the animals’ entire acoustic repertoire. The most common sounds were short, two-part calls that baby dolphins made when they were approaching their mothers.
Same sounds, different functions
“It’s exciting; marine dolphins like the bottlenose use signature whistles for contact, and here we have a different sound used by river dolphins for the same purpose,” says May Collado. The river dolphins also made longer calls and whistles, but these were much rarer, and the reasons for them are not yet clear. But there is some indication that whistles serve the opposite purpose than in bottlenose dolphins, with the botos using them to maintain distance rather than for group cohesion.
The acoustic characteristics of the calls are also interesting; they fall somewhere between the low-frequency calls used by baleen whales to communicate over long distances, and the high-frequency ones used by marine dolphins for short distances. May Collado speculates that the river environment may have shaped those characteristics.
“There are a lot of obstacles like flooded forests and vegetation in their habitat, so this signal could have evolved to avoid echoes from vegetation and improve the communication range of mothers and their calves,” she says.
May Collado and her colleagues next want to study whether the same diversity of communication is seen in other populations of Araguaian river dolphins that are less accustomed to humans, and compare them to their relatives elsewhere in South America. The Araguaian dolphins are closely related to two other species, the Bolivian river dolphin and Amazon river dolphin – the Araguaian dolphins were only described as a separate species in 2014, and that classification is still under debate. But there seems to be a large amount of variation in the repertoire of sounds each species makes.
The Amazon dolphins in Ecuador, studied by May Collado in 2005, are generally very quiet. “We need more information on these other species and more populations,” she says. “Why is one population chattier than others and how do these differences shape their social structure?”
May Collado says the work could help researchers gain clearer understanding of how communication evolved in marine mammals. Similar calls have been reported in pilot whales and killer whales, for example, and the similarities and differences between different species could help tease out which signals evolved first, and why.
Evolutionary relic
The river dolphins are evolutionary relics, represented by just a few species around the world, and they diverged from other cetaceans much earlier than other dolphins. So these calls may have arisen first in river dolphins, then later evolved in marine dolphins into whistles and calls but in a different social context. Or was there a change in the function of the calls, with this kind of sound being used for group identity in killer whales, and individual identity in river dolphins? The calls may also have other functions in addition to identity, perhaps indicating group identity, or providing information on emotional state.
“We can’t say what the evolutionary story is yet until we get to know what sounds are produced by other river dolphins in the Amazon area, and how that relates to what we found,” she says. “We now have all these new questions to explore.”
Source: UVM News
Discovery Abounds
From shaping our understanding of cancer to tracking the effects of climate change, we take a look at some of this year’s most exciting student research.
Curious to see more? Explore projects across the disciplines, and meet the Catamounts behind them, at the UVM Student Research Conference, happening Wednesday, April 17 in the Davis Center.
Wanting to test the waters of biomedical research, biology major Daron Forohar ’19 has been humbled by the many layers of the scientific process he’s experienced working in the Larner College of Medicine’s Whitaker Lab in the anesthesiology department, examining the effects of major surgical stress on the developing brain. The project, which complements longtime clinical research on anesthesia’s impact on infants, is a perfect match for Forohar, who’s considering medical school in the future. “There’s so much that goes on that I didn’t realize,” he says, like the lab’s new research area—perinatal arterial ischemic stroke. “I’m blown away by this condition, which I never knew was a problem, but effects 1 in 4,000 babies.”
In just one semester, he’s become a valued member of the team, reviewing medical literature, staining histology slides and using the microtome—a delicate process of creating 7-micrometer-thin slices of tissue. And each day’s discovery yields more questions to consider. “These processes take time,” and patience, he says. “I’d like to play an important role in this lab, to really be part of these discoveries.”
Spring semester, as the national debate over immigration, crime, and border security raged at fever pitch, Hayley Barriere quietly drilled down on the work of her senior honor’s thesis. Examining perceptions of immigrants as criminals in the United States, the focus of her writing and research could scarcely have been more timely. Analyzing both mainstream media coverage and White House executive summaries around the issue, the global studies major has been focused on the topic since taking a sociology course last year on gender, race, and crime in the U.S. with Professor Eleanor Miller.
An internship with the Refugee Resettlement agency in Chittenden County was another important part of Barriere’s experience at UVM, shaping her thoughts on directions her career might take after graduation. “I had the chance to meet people from all over the world and see what it is like for people to actually go through the whole immigration application process,” she says. “The number of people who apply to come to the United States versus the number who are actually able to resettle here is astonishing.”
At age 7, Emma Golden ’20 lost her childhood best friend to leukemia. “Ever since that moment, I knew I wanted to be a doctor,” she says, remembering the pediatric oncologist who took time to help her understand with simple pictures and clear words what was happening in her friend’s body. “I thought, I want to be like her. I want to be there not only for the patient but for the friends and family.” At UVM, Golden is on that path as a pre-med student majoring in philosophy. She’s taking lots of science classes, but also classes that explore the ethics of medicine and that ask questions about what science is and how we know it’s trustworthy.
She’s also found a new pediatric oncologist to look up to: Dr. Jessica Heath (above left), an assistant professor in UVM’s Larner College of Medicine. Golden is working as an undergraduate researcher in Heath’s lab, studying the responsiveness of hormone receptors in chemotherapy. “There’s a trend where pediatric leukemia patients going through puberty have a worse prognosis than those younger or older,” she says. While past research has found correlation between cell proliferation and hormone stimulation, no studies have yet tied those findings to poor prognoses in pubescent leukemia patients. It’s an opening for Golden to come full circle — this time, she’s the one helping shape a clearer understanding of the disease.
Straddling the Himalayas south of the Tibetan Plateau, the remote region of Mustang in Nepal is viewed by many tourists as other worldly and as one of the last places to find preserved Tibetan culture. Abra Clawson, an anthropology and religion double major and theater minor, spent a month in Kagbeni, Mustang, teaching English to Buddhist monks while conducting research for her senior thesis about the impact and foundation of this mindset.
Equipped with a digital recorder, Clawson recorded sounds nearly every day of things she observed as authentic and important to the region and its people. “Sometimes it was the sound of the river that runs through the middle of town, the sound of prayer flags flapping in the wind, the sound of wheels spinning on a prayer wall,” she says.
Her research, titled Sounds from a Dream Place: Politics, Religion, and Tourism in Kagbeni, Nepal, addresses the unique political, geographical, tourism, and religious issues that contribute to and perpetuate a false perception of Mustang, and incorporates four composed soundscapes that represent Kagbeni.
When you want to know the temperature inside your refrigerator, you can just open the door and stick in a thermometer. Physicists who study tiny collections of ultra-cold atoms don’t have it so easy. Undergrad Jiangyong Yu ‘19 has helped invent a new tool—“it’s an algorithm,” he says—that promises to give experimental scientists a better measure of what’s happening inside some of the most interesting and strange collections of matter known to science—atoms near absolute zero.
For example, researchers might have a known number of lithium atoms trapped in a microscopic box that’s so cold that none of the atoms can get out. Really crazy (um, cool?) realities of physics have been discovered studying these kinds of systems. But measuring the thermodynamics inside the box—including, critically, the temperature—has been “very difficult,” says professor Adrian Del Maestro. He and UVM post-doctoral researcher Hatem Barghathi worked side-by-side with Yu on a new approach to what are called “canonical partition functions.” By combining ideas from pure mathematics with well-established formulas used to study real-world quantum gases, the team was able to tame a long-standing mathematical problem in physics.
Jiangyong Yu’s theoretical research was so original and useful that he was invited to give a talk last month at the most prestigious physics meeting in the country. Being a college student speaking to a roomful of professors at the American Physical Society was daunting. “There’s 60 experts in the room and we thought someone might stand up and say, ‘you know, actually this was known in 1972,’ but nobody did,” said Del Maestro. “People liked it,” said Yu, a physics major with a double minor in computer science and music. The UVM team, using the university’s VACC supercomputer and with support from the National Science Foundation, seems to have discovered a new way to build a more accurate thermometer for a quantum-scale icebox. “Who knows what we’ll find,” says Del Maestro. “Maybe some entirely new physics.”
The human body contains millions of genes, many of which have yet to be explored and fully understood. Medical Laboratory Science senior Alison Chivers spent a summer in Spain at the University of León’s Biomedical Institute, investigating how a single gene, p73, might function as a tumor suppressor in healthy cells.
In the event that an abnormality arises in the DNA sequence of a cell, tumor suppressors halt cell growth and development to prevent mutated cells from dividing. “Often when tumor suppressor genes are mutated, cells lose their ability to control their own progression through the cell cycle and, consequently, grow and divide uncontrollably. That’s what defines cancer, rapid and uncontrollable cell proliferation,” Chivers says.
To study the gene’s ability to suppress tumor initiation, Chivers repressed the p73 gene in cells, known as knocking it out, and compared the growth of cells with active p73 and cells lacking p73. Ultimately, knowing more about the tumor suppressor could provide better prognosis and treatment options to combat cancer. “We’re trying to move towards a more molecular, research-based approach to targeting and treating cancer,” she says.
Sometimes, solving problems requires a new perspective. That’s exactly the approach that senior Maddie Hayes and the UVM Spatial Analysis Laboratory took to map and monitor water chestnut, an invasive species. Using drones, Hayes and the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Team collect data on the dense mats water chestnuts form on area waterways, which have detrimental impacts on the ecosystem. It’s an expensive, tedious process on the ground; from the air, Hayes can pinpoint plants for future removal. “I’m really interested in the intersection of new technologies and environmental analysis,” says Hayes, an environmental science major and geospatial technologies minor. “It was exciting to work on a project with this innovative technology in the Lake Champlain Basin because I got to see first-hand the impact I could have on my community.”
For Hayes, the project brought her UVM experience full circle. “I’ve been learning about pollution and invasive species in the Lake Champlain Basin since my first year.” After graduation, she’s staying on to work in the lab with director Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne and drone team lead Emma Estabrook.
Originally from neighboring South Burlington, Mehul Shah spent time growing up on the UVM campus. “I fell in love with the area and the opportunities,” says Shah. Today, he’s a sophomore molecular genetics major, conducting research on Toxoplasma gondii, one of the most widespread parasites on the planet.
The study of T. gondii, explains Shah, is important because of its ability to infect humans. But it could also have implications on understanding other parasites, such as the parasite that causes malaria. It’s the reason he had a strong interest in working in the Larner College of Medicine’s Ward Lab. The parasites that cause toxoplasmosis must move from cell to cell in order to invade, replicate and exit, movement that requires a complex made up of a number of proteins. Shah is now working to characterize one component of that complex; eventually, the goal is to better understand how these parasites are able to move, causing infection as they go.
Although he’s only in his second year of undergrad, Shah understands the importance of resiliency. “One unexpected lesson I have learned from my research is to be pleasantly surprised when your experiment works out, and to keep working even if the experiment doesn’t work on the first try.”
By the time he was 12 years old, Chris Lampart could identify most trees, birds, and animal tracks in the woods around his hometown of Starksboro, Vermont. At UVM, Lampart, a wildlife and fisheries biology senior, is forging his dream career. He landed a coveted spot as an undergraduate research technician with a team monitoring Vermont moose health, which is under stress from rapid climate change and increasing tick numbers.
The team of graduate students, UVM researchers and state wildlife biologists tracks up to 130 radio-collared female moose and young males in the wetlands and forests of northern Vermont. “I can close in on an animal’s location using radio-telemetry and then observe and note behavior, activities, and habitat,” says Lampart. “Even on the worst day of black flies when you don’t want to breathe through your mouth unless you’re wearing a head net, I feel as though I am living a dream.”
Lampart has pulled elements of this research into his courses; he’s conducted an independent study of moose calf dispersal, mentored by state project leader Cedric Alexander ’78, and in a senior capstone course, he’s mapping corridors connecting the herd’s habitats. Says the first-generation, non-traditional college student, “My participation on the moose project has been life-changing for me.” He’ll stay on the team after graduation through the fall, helping to understand how these giants can survive and thrive.
Henry Mitchell’s work is full of networks. The math and physics major has done research with five different professors in three different departments (one of which resulted in a published paper). How? “Just knock on doors. Go places and introduce yourself,” says Mitchell. His curiosity in an area of math called nonlinear dynamics led him to read about intriguing patterns called chimera states. “If you have a bunch of pendulums that are tied together, you can end up, under certain conditions, with some of them swinging in sync, and some out of sync. It’s a stable state, and stays for a very long time. That’s weird.” Why does this happen? “Math,” laughs Mitchell.
Serendipitously, at a Complex Systems event, Mitchell met Larner College of Medicine faculty member Matt Mahoney, whose work on epilepsy focuses on statistical analysis of neural activity. Now, Mitchell’s honor’s thesis is investigating a link between those odd chimera states and patterns observed in neural models. And someday, the research could be used to better understand how seizures arise and spread in the brain. Reflecting back on the research and exploration he’s done in his four years here, “knowing that those opportunities were available was a huge part of why I ended up coming to UVM.”
Writing for this piece contributed by Josh Brown, Kaitie Catania, Andrea Estey, Shari Halik, Jen Nachbur, Amanda Waite, and Tom Weaver. Photos by Josh Blouin ’15 G’20, Josh Brown, Abra Clawson ’19, Maddie Hayes ’19, and Sally McCay. Videos by Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist.
Source: UVM News
A happy ending for ‘Game of Thrones’? No thanks
A provocative essay by Anthony “Jack” Gierzynski, chair of UVM Political Science Department, grabbed the attention of “Game of Thrones” fans ahead of the long-awaited premiere of the show’s final season. Gierzynski’s essay, which made the case for an unhappy ending to the hit show “because, sadly, unhappy endings mimic reality,” appeared on Salon, Quartzy, The Hill, The Week, and Business Standard, among other media outlets. The essay first appeared in The Conversation.
A May 27 article in Foreign Affairs about what real-world lessons “Game of Thrones” offers foreign-policy makers and foreign-policy analysts also referenced Gierzynski’s research with students about the politics depicted in the show.
Source: UVM News
A Happy Ending for ‘Game of Thrones’? No Thanks, Says Prof. Gierzynski
For students in Professor Anthony “Jack” Gierzynski‘s class, “Game of Thrones” offers more than just entertainment — it offers insight into how political entertainment impacts our belief in a fair and just world. Ahead of the premiere of the final season, Gierzynski, chair of political science, shares their research and thoughts on how “Game of Thrones” should end.
With the final season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” commencing, I imagine most fans are harboring hopes that things will turn out well for the remaining heroes in Westeros.
A large part of me hopes for the same. But a different part of me – the part that researches the political effects of entertainment – is pulling for a final season that is as brutally unjust as the first five seasons of the series. It wants the White Walkers to overrun the North and kill Jon Snow and Daenerys, or Cersei to betray the heroes after they battle the army of the dead, leaving no opposition to her claim to the Iron Throne.
A study I recently conducted with some students on “Game of Thrones” colored my views on unhappy endings, revealing that perhaps television series and movies need more of them.
Do good things happen to good people?
People prefer stories with happy endings. For this reason, most stories developed for mass audiences – whether they’re books, films or TV shows – will conclude with the protagonist rewarded for doing the right thing.
All those happy endings, however, have political consequences – at least according to one researcher.
In a 2007 study, communication psychologist Markus Appel showed that the more fictional narratives people see, the more likely they are to believe in a just world.
What does this belief have to do with politics? Well, when you believe in a just world, you tend to think that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
This worldview then influences support for certain policies. For example, if you believe in a just world, you would probably believe that poor people deserve to be poor. Not surprisingly, the worldview has been associated with lower support for antipoverty programs and affirmative action. It’s also been associated with negative feelings about the poor and support for authoritarianism.
The belief in a just world seems to be activated as a psychological response to experiencing the discomfort of witnessing victims of abuse, crime, economic catastrophe and war. Rather than force someone to grapple with the complex emotions evoked by these victims, this worldview operates like a shield – why devote emotional energy and resources to these people if they deserve what they got?
Can ‘Game of Thrones’ color your worldview?
When it debuted in 2011, “Game of Thrones” wasn’t like most other shows.
It didn’t just abandon the typical plot in which protagonists are rewarded for doing the right thing. It went as far as possible in the opposite direction, feeding viewers a relentless diet of cruel and brutal injustices.
Plot developments included a sadistic young king ordering the beheading of the lead character; a slaughter of unarmed guests at a wedding; physical and psychological torture; and marriages forced on young girls, who are then raped and sexually assaulted. The show taught audiences to never get too attached to any one character because that character, in all likelihood, would meet a cruel and unjust fate.
I wondered: If Appel found that fictional narratives with happy endings increased belief in a just world, could exposure to the repeated injustices of “Game of Thrones” do the opposite and reduce audiences’ tendency to believe in a just world?
My students and I set about devising ways to test for such an effect. Over two semesters we carried out a survey and an experiment, and I followed that work up with a second experiment.
For the survey and experiment we recruited participants through social media. I randomly assigned those volunteers to three groups, asking subjects in one group to watch six episodes of “Game of Thrones,” subjects in the second group to watch six episodes of “True Blood” – a show that depicts a more just world – and subjects in the third group to just fill out the survey. For the second experiment I randomly assigned students in a large class to watch either five episodes of “Game of Thrones” or the movie “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.”
In the studies, we found that exposure to “Game of Thrones” was associated with or resulted in lower levels of just world beliefs. These findings held true even while taking into consideration other characteristics of the respondents.
In other words, exposure to “Game of Thrones” seemed to have an effect on viewers that was more akin to consuming the news than to exposure to other fictional stories.
I’m hoping “Game of Thrones” has an unhappy ending because, sadly, unhappy endings mimic reality. I recognize the need to occasionally escape from the ugliness of the real world into fictional ones with happy endings. But in a media environment dominated by entertainment, it’s also important to be periodically shocked into remembering that things don’t always work out so nicely.
That was the value I saw in the first five seasons of “Game of Thrones” – and that’s why I want to see it end badly.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Source: UVM News
Students Raise $122,000 for UVM Children’s Hospital
More than 40 teams and 700 participants helped the University of Vermont’s annual student-led fundraising event RALLYTHON raise a record-breaking $122,330.29 for the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital.
RALLYTHON is a student-led yearlong fundraiser, which culminates in a 12-hour dance marathon, signifying the average length of a nurse’s shift at Vermont’s local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital.
During RALLYTHON, which took place on Saturday, March 2nd, students heard stories from patient families treated at the UVM Children’s Hospital and engaged with champions (current and past patients of the hospital) while fundraising, participating in games, and dancing.
After the conclusion of the dance marathon, RALLYTHON continued to raise funds, allowing them to present a check of $120,210.10 to Dr. Lewis First, Chief of Pediatrics at the UVM Children’s Hospital and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Larner College of Medicine. Donations have continued to roll in; today, the fundraising total sits at $122,330.29 and counting.
RALLYTHON is organized by UVM’s Department of Student Life in collaboration with the UVM Medical Center. Through its five years in existence, participant students have raised more than $378,000, 100% of which supports pediatric patients at the on-campus medical center. According to staff, these funds go toward the purchase of everything from life-saving equipment and medicine to supplies meant to enhance the experience for patients and their families during their treatment.
The University of Vermont Department of Student Life provides students with extracurricular experiential learning, involvement, and leadership opportunities. With a variety of program areas spanning Outdoor Programs, Student Media, Leadership & Civic Engagement, Fraternity & Sorority Life, and Campus Programs, Student Life aims to connect students with communities and experiences that will supplement their academic career.
Source: UVM News
UVM Junior Scannell Named Truman Scholar
Junior Environmental Studies major Jillian Scannell has been named a 2019 Harry S. Truman Scholar, one of only 62 college junior-year students in the country to win the highly competitive national award. The Truman Scholarship recognizes students who want to make a difference in public service and provides them with financial support for graduate study, leadership training and fellowship with likeminded students.
Scannell was selected for her environmental commitment and campus leadership.
“We congratulate Jillian on this recognition for her combination of political and leadership experiences and her deep commitment to climate change policy,” said Honors College interim dean David Jenemann. “Jillian’s contributions on campus speak to her ability to make things happen, while courageously facing systemic problems and facilitating solutions.” The Fellowships, Opportunities, and Undergraduate Research Office, overseen the university’s Honors College, coordinates the application process for the Truman Scholarship and other nationally competitive fellowships.
A native of Rutland, Mass., Scannell is deeply committed to addressing climate change, a cause she became passionate about after attending Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training in 2017. She plans to devote her career to the issue, through environmental policy and by running for elected office.
Scannell has been active in environmental and related issues throughout her years at UVM. She has served as an Eco-Rep Change Agent, an Environmental Studies Peer Mentor and a Steering Committee Member for UVM Stands in 2016, which organized an environmentally-focused rally on Inauguration Day and chartered a bus for students to attend the People’s Climate March in D.C. in April 2017.
One of her most impressive accomplishments was organizing UVM’s Rally for Climate Action in the fall of 2018. Thanks to her outreach, over 300 members of the UVM community, including many students, gathered to hear addresses on raising awareness of climate change and developing plans to combat it from a group of speakers that included Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Peter Welch.
Scannell is also an active student leader. She currently serves as the speaker of the Student Government Association and is a member of the SGA Committee on the Environment, the UVM Food Insecurity Working Group and the President’s Commission on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Jillian has volunteered during the UVM SGA Community Clean-Up and assisted in planning the 2017 UVM SGA Women in Leadership Summit. Jillian has been elected to serve next year as the president of the Student Government Association.
Candidates for the Truman Scholarship go through a rigorous, multi-stage selection process. In 2019, 840 candidates were nominated by 346 colleges and universities, a record number of both applications and institutions. The 199 finalists for the award were interviewed in March and early April by one of sixteen regional selection panels.
The new Truman Scholars will receive their awards in a ceremony at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri on May 26, 2019. Scannell hopes to use the corresponding award of $30,000 for graduate studies in pursuing a Masters of Public Administration at the University of Vermont.
The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation was created by Congress in 1975 to be the nation’s living memorial to President Harry S. Truman. The Foundation has a mission to select and support the next generation of public service leaders. The Truman award has become one of the most prestigious national scholarships in the United States.
Source: UVM News
If you can’t beat them, eat them: dangerous invasive species on the menu
Conservation biologist, Gund Institute fellow and ‘editor ’n’ chef’ of Eat the Invaders Joe Roman makes the case to expand our palates (and the menu) to include invasive species. Roman advocates to consume these harmful creatures as way to control their spread. “They taste good, they’re pretty easy to sell, and now most people have heard of it’ through derbies and other outreach efforts,” he tells the Christian Science Monitor in an article about eating the invasive lionfish.
Source: UVM News
“Zappafest” Coming to UVM April 19, 20
What do you call a two-day exploration of the life and music of legendary composer, rock guitarist, songwriter and band leader Frank Zappa?
A Zappafest, of course.
UVM will be hosting its very own Zappafest on April 19 and 20.
Highlighting the event, the UVM Jazz Ensemble will perform a program of Zappa’s music, including such classic songs as “Grand Wazoo,” “King Kong” and “Montana,” arranged for big band by the renowned New York-based arranger and alto saxophonist Ed Palermo, who will be on hand to perform with the student musicians.
Palermo wrote the arrangements for his own big band, which has performed and recorded them to wide critical acclaim.
The concert will take place on April 20 from 7:30 to 9 in the Grand Maple Ballroom in the UVM Davis Center. Tickets are required and available here. Tickets are free for UVM students, faculty and staff with a UVM ID. General admission tickets are $15.00.
“This is a must event, not only for Zappa fans, but for anyone interested in music that is inventive, intellectually and artistically stimulating and a lot of fun,” said Alex Stewart, director of UVM’s Jazz Studies Program.
Palermo was recently listed as one of the top 40 “intriguing musicians to watch out for” by the Daily Beast. His recent album, “The Great Un-American Songbook,” was listed as one of the best albums of 2017 by Downbeat Magazine. His current release, “The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren-the Music of Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren,” is garnering rave reviews.
Zappa Lead Singer Brock Will Also Perform
Joining Palermo and the UVM Jazz Ensemble in the performance will be Napoleon Murphy Brock, who served as the lead singer and sax player in the Zappa band during the 1970s, notably on the albums “Apostrophe,” “Roxy & Elsewhere,” “One Size Fits All” and “Bongo Fury.” Brock won a Grammy for his performance of the song “Peaches en Regalia” with the band Zappa Plays Zappa. A master of on-stage theatrics, with a phenomenal vocal range that exceeds three octaves, Brock is equally at home singing opera, rock, jazz, and blues.
The concert promises to be a memorable musical experience, Stewart said.
“Zappa wove together rock, classical, jazz, gospel, and funk music in a unique way so that each of these musical strands, rather than disappearing into a homogenous blend, remains distinctly audible,” he said. “Palermo is a gifted arranger and orchestrator and takes full advantage of the big band’s expanded instrumentation to bring this music to life.
Zappa’s politics give his music a contemporary sensibility, Stewart said. “Songs like ‘Trouble Comin’ Every Day’ seem just as politically relevant today as they were when they first appeared more than 50 years ago.”
Symposium will feature author of everything-to-know-about Zappa book
Zappafest will open with a Zappa symposium on April 19 from 3 to 4:30 in the UVM Recital Hall. The symposium will feature John Corcelli, author of Frank Zappa FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Father of Invention.
UVM Jazz Studies director Alex Stewart will interview Corcelli, who will draw on a font of Zappa knowledge that he gleaned over the years and synthesized in his book. Palermo and Brock will offer insights and audience participation is encouraged.
Source: UVM News