Barn Dance (June 27)

Kick up your heels and benefit CIAS research and instruction with a celebratory barn dance, Friday, June 27, 2014. As part of its 25th Anniversary celebration, CIAS (Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems) will welcome students, staff, alumni and friends to Schuster’s Farm in Deerfield for an evening that will feature, in addition to dancing, the music of Thirsty Roots (aka Graminy), a silent auction and refreshments.

The event runs from 7:00-10:30 PM.  Tickets ($10 in advance; $15 at the door) can be purchased from Brown Paper Tickets or at the CIAS office (phone 608-262-8018 or email for hours). Do note that there will not be a credit-card option at the event.  Ticket prices for children ages 5-12 will be $5.00; those younger than 5 attend for free.

Loving of the Land (April 26)

Save the date for the third annual "Loving of the Land" benefit concert!

CIAS, the Nelson Institute and the Agroecology Department welcome you to this third annual night of music. The concert will feature the bluegrass and classical music styling of Graminy with their special guests, Chromatic and Ten, choirs from West High (Madison). 

The concert enjoys additional sponsorship from Wisconsin Public Radio and F.H.King Students for Sustainable Agriculture.

Proceeds from the concert benefit student research in sustainable agriculture and food systems.

Concert-goers will also be welcomed to the event by Master-of-Ceremonies, Stephanie Elkins, host of Simply Folk, Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).

Date: Saturday, April 26
Time: 8:00 PM
Place: Music Hall, (925 Bascom Mall)
Ticket prices: $10.00 ($5.00 student) in advance; $15.00 ($10.00 student) at the door

Tickets can be purchased from Brown Paper Tickets, the CIAS office (phone 262-8018) or from students in Agroecology.

Barn Dance (Oct 19)

Celebrate the fall with live music, cider, a pie-raffle and more when the Cates Family Farm hosts its Barn Dance, Saturday, October 19.  The Barn Dance will, of course, feature dancing in tune with music from the Kettle Creek String Band with proceeds from the occasion benefiting student research in the Agroecology program. 

The event runs from 7:00-10:00 PM with doors opening at 6:00 PM.  Tickets ($10 for students and $15 for general public) can be purchased from Brown Paper Tickets.

There will be free camping on-site for those who wish to "make a night of it".  Find the Cates Family Farm at 5992 County Road T, Spring Green.

Join the event on Facebook.

Loving of the Land, 2nd Annual

Save the date for a benefit concert! CIAS, the Nelson Institute and UW-Madison’s Agroecology Department welcome you to the second annual "Loving of the Land" night of music. This concert will feature the bluegrass and classical music styling of Graminy and the rousing percussion of the Handphibians. 

Proceeds from the concert will benefit graduate student research in sustainable agriculture and food systems.

Concert-goers will be welcomed to the event by Stephanie Elkins, host of Simply Folk on Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).

Date: Saturday, April 13
Time: 8:00 PM
Place: Music Hall, (925 Bascom Mall)
Ticket prices: $9.00 ($7.00 students) in advance; $12.00 ($10.00 student) at the door

Tickets can be purchased from Brown Paper Tickets, the CIAS office or from students in Agroecology and the Nelson Institute.

Madison Reads Leopold (March 2)

Visit the UW Arboretum for a special public reading from Aldo Leopold’s seminal treatise on life in the natural world and conservation ethos, A Sand County Almanac, among other essays, Saturday, March 2 (beginning at 9:30 AM).

Scheduled readers include Madelyn Leopold, Scott Craven, Ron Seeley, Marie McCabe, and Stuart Levitan, among other students, naturalists and leaders from community organizations.

The "Madison Reads Leopold" events are free and open to the public.  Beginning at 1:00 PM, singer-songwriter, Tim Southwick Johnson will perform a special musical interlude of compositions inspired by Leopold.

The Arboretum Visitor Center is located at 1207 Seminole Highway.

For more information about these events, phone the UW-Arboretum Visitor Information Desk (608-263-7888) or visit the Website.

View the campus press release.

For related interest and inspiration, do review photos and text from the digitized Aldo Leopold Archives!

Celebrate Agriculture with a "Class-Grass" Concert!

Hey music lovers!  Here's an opportunity to experience a unique new spin on classical and bluegrass music with an agricultural flavor! 

The CALS Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems is co-sponsoring a pair of concerts on Saturday, October 13th at and Sunday October 20th that celebrate the culture of agriculture.  The first concert will be at 3:30 p.m. in St. Boniface Catholic Church at 105 Church Street in Lime Ridge (near Reedsburg), and admission will be $8 regular and $5 for students at the door.  The second concert will be at Mills Hall on the UW-Madison campus and tickets will be $10 regular and $8 for students at the door.

The concerts will feature the Graminy class-grass quintet.  CALS professor Michael Bell plays the mandolin, joined by Shauncey Ali with the fiddle and viola, Chris Powers with the guitar, Chris Wagoner with the fiddle, and Mary Gaines with the cello.  At these performances, Graminy will debut a new bluegrass piece entitled Germinations: A Bluegrass Symphony in D. 

For more information, check out the eCALS News post and the CIAS web page about the upcoming Graminy concerts. Co-sponsors include: the Wormfarm Institute, the Aldo Leopold Foundation, Wisconsin Farmer's Union and the Milk Marketing Board.

Print an event poster!

The Loving of the Land (April 13)

Save the date for a benefit concert! UW-Madison’s Agroecology Master’s Program will present a "rousing night of class-grass music". What is "class-grass" you might ask? This concert fusion of bluegrass and classical music traditions will feature Graminy and The Blue Dog Consort (aka: faculty, staff and students in performance with band-mates). Proceeds from the concert will benefit graduate student research in sustainable agriculture and food systems.

Concert-goers will be welcomed to the event by Stephanie Elkins, Host of Simply Folk on Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).

Date: Friday, April 13
Time: Doors open at 7:00 PM; Show begins at 8:00 PM
Place: Mills Hall, (445 N. Park Street)

Ticket prices: $9.00 ($6.00 students) in advance; $12.00 ($9.00 student) at the door

For more information, visit the Agroecology Department Website.

Print a flyer.

Wisconsin Welcome

Welcome to UW-Madison! There is a lot happening on and near campus this weekend and throughout the month of September. Check out the schedule of campus events, tours and meet-ups.

Should you be in Madison during the Labor Day weekend, you may wish to take in the Dane County Farmers’ Market at the capitol square on Saturday morning then hang around for the annual Taste of Madison (which will start at 2:00PM, Saturday, and run through Sunday).

Lots of food and live entertainment--what more can you ask?!

C Helen Party (Sept 10)

Campus libraries are the place to be--not only as spaces for serious study, but as interesting social spaces for group work and the occasional party.

Check out the fun when College Library (Helen C White) hosts its house party, September 10 (7:00-11:00PM).

The schedule of events includes a courtyard carnival, poker tournament, dance party, Ninja Tag and more--with plenty of free snacks on the side.

Enjoy!

Ride the Drive (Sunday, August 30)

Grab your bike (walking shoes or rollerblades, too) and explore a bit of downtown Madison with this Sunday’s Ride the Drive event!

Ride the Drive will feature a car-free, six-mile loop (8:00am-2:00pm) from John Nolen Drive to East Washington, around the Capitol Square to State Street and back. As there will not be any particular start or stop, you will be able to join the fun at any location.

Live music, “comfort stations”, food venues and more will line the route.

Enjoy!

Concert at Chemistry

The Science, Arts, and Humanities Program of the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy presents a Concert at Chemistry. This musical performance will feature UW-Madison faculty, students and colleagues, including the following with their respective instruments:

• Chemistry professor John Berry (viola)

• Chemical engineering professor John Yin (cello)

• Pre-med undergraduate Krista Stewart (violin)

• Graduate students Stephanie Frye and Kirstin Ihde (tuba and piano)

• Music professor Marc Fink (oboe)

• Music professor Christopher Taylor (piano)

The concert will be held, Thursday, March 12, (1:15 - 2:10 PM) in Seminar Hall (Room 1315) of Daniels Chemistry Building.

For more information about the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy and its programs, visit its site at: www.scifun.org.

Pandora Internet Radio

As a research librarian, I must confess that I am charmed by search engines—particularly ones that can be customized or that can run nifty algorithms to tease-out related records or files to the query I have entered, often prefaced by such phrases as “find more like this one” or ‘find similar or related’ records. While a hallmark of such products as Amazon and other commercial sites, this feature is making its way into many of the libraries’ subscription databases, including Academic Search and Web of Science, among others.

Music fans, though, may be interested in the fun and free, Pandora Internet Radio site, where the site user can enter an artist or song in order to discover similar music as codified by the Music Genome Project. Essentially, each song in the Music Genome Project has been analyzed and assigned a set of attributes, fleshing out a particular identity for that song, be it by such attributes as genre, recording artist, instrumentation, vocals, lyrics, etc. Searches by a favorite song or artist/album will produce a list of attributes and similar music that you may also enjoy and can listen to instantly. By choosing “create a station” you can listen to selections of that similar music, as you would a radio station, thereby identifying other artists/music of interest.

Signing on to a free account enables the user to save and to customize his/her “station” of suggested music. See Pandora's FAQ for more information.