OLLI OUTLOOK
October 2009
OLLI @Berkeley's monthly newsletter



Table of Contents
Updates
Faculty Profile: Lauren Carley
Save the Date: Midterm Feedback Session
The Lunch Bunch
News from OLLI Members
Discounts
Give to OLLI Annual Fund
Staff
OLLI Calendar
Click here to see the OLLI Calendar of Events

Updates
We are happy to announce that we have over 450 members this fall. The largest fall enrollment and the second largest enrollment since we started. Almost half of you signed up to be with OLLI for the year. Thank you!

Don't miss Arlene Goldbard's talk on Wednesday, October 7, kicking off the Fall Lecture Series at the David Brower Center. Goldbard is a national leader in cultural policy and coined the phrase "cultural democracy." She often lays the foundation for arts activists and advocates on what's at stake for the arts. Check out her blog: http://arlenegoldbard.com.
 
Dan Kammen's course on energy resources and policies will be a smashing class, with it possibly becoming a book through UC Press. We are still working on developing it into an online course this spring with The New York Times.

A reminder that Tony Platt's "Grave Matters: Legacies of Genocide in California" (Thursday, October 8 and 15) and the Fall Lecture Series (Wednesday, Oct 7, 14, 21, 28) are free to OLLI members. "Tell One Friend" about the lectures, too! (You can forward this email to a friend by clicking on "Forward email" at the bottom of this newsletter.)

Wendy Willrich, our annual fund co-chair, and Aileen Kim, program coordinator, will be representing OLLI at the national OLLI conference in Utah this month.
 
Faculty Profile:  Lauren Carley
by Bonnie Mager
The Joy of Singing
Mondays, Noon-1:30 pm
October 5-November 9
Room 150 University Hall (new location)
 
With a smile and lilting voice, Lauren Carley and her little dog, Harry, welcome me into her sunny North Oakland bungalow. A grand piano holds pride of place in the airy front room, and an enormous painted canvas with a Lotte Lenya-like figure fills one wall-a back drop for her Kurt Weill performances.
 
Lauren has been immersed in music since before she was born, as she tells me while making us a cup of tea. Her mother was very involved in the music world in Madison, Wisconsin, and encouraged Lauren in musical pursuits. She played the cello, sang in choruses, and by the time she was fifteen was included in a concert production of Bach's B minor Mass. It was a life-altering experience for the teenager, and she knew then she wanted to sing.
 
Her education includes a degree in music from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and two years of study at the Westminster Choir College at Princeton. While there she studied with some of the world's leading composers and conductors and gained depth of experience both in performing and teaching.
 
Guided by her ambition to become an opera singer, she moved to New York, living first in Brooklyn, then in the Village in Manhattan. That aspiration for a career in opera gave way to the realities of the sacrifices and "steely resolve" required of that life. She turned away from the "cloistered nun life" of the operatic voice to a satisfying mixture of choral, solo, and theater work. She earned an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts Studies from NYU and worked with Merce Cunningham and John Cage, among many others. .Always studying, always teaching, always performing in what she describes as a "revolving platform," she gained experience that she could pass on to her students  One of the highlights of her career has been her one-woman show of Kurt Weill music which she wrote and performed.
 
After years of this whirl-wind life in New York, she fled the canyons of Manhattan for the somewhat less hectic pace of the East Bay. The revolving platform of her career continues, however, with involvement in many aspects of performing and teaching. Recently she served as vocal/choral director for the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, Director of Middle School Choirs for the Oakland Youth Chorus, music director for the female Shakespeare company Woman's Will, and director of the community chorus Variety Pack. She has private classes in her home studio, including sight singing for beginners.
 
Her generous, light-hearted spirit is expressed in her philosophy of teaching: "My work is to teach you to sing through your body with ease and power. We will engage your whole self as a singing, breathing mechanism....We will train your inner eye to spot tension and release flow, your inner ear to feel pitch. You will learn the singer's breath and simultaneous inner/outer focus....The result is that you will sing freely with your whole body." About singing in a group: "Singing together sets up that good energy, endorphins that counteract stress and strain. The vibrations created in the body truly do heal us on a cellular level, and counteract age and illness-related depression while giving us a chance to learn skills, connect with others, laugh, and make something beautiful."
What a very good reason to sign up for Lauren's OLLI @Berkeley class.
 
More information about Lauren Carley's classes and performing schedule is available on her web site at www.lcarley.com.

LAUREN'S CLASS STARTS THIS COMING MONDAY!

Field Trips
OLLI is working on several field trips for the Fall 2009 term.

Our first trip is scheduled for Saturday, October 24, to the di Rosa Preserve in Napa. A bus will leave in the morning around 9:00 am and return by 4:00 pm. The cost of the trip is $65 for admission and transportation only.

Described as the most significant collection of Bay Area art in the world, the di Rosa Preserve provides opportunities for creative enrichment and enjoyment of art and the environment year-round. The Preserve houses approximately 2,000 works of art by more than 800 artists.

If you are interested, contact the OLLI office right away for details. The deadline is Wednesday, October 7.

Future trips are planned as follows:
- California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento
- San Juan Bautista to see "La Pastorela"

Let us know if you are interested.

Save the Date: Mid-term Feedback Session
Members are invited to a mid-term feedback session on Thursday, October 15, from 4:15 - 5:15 pm, in Room 41B University Hall (2199 Addison Street, Level G). We would like to hear how your OLLI experience has been so far and also what Interest Circles you would like to see happen between the Fall and Winter terms.
 
The Lunch Bunch
by Lucille Poskanzer

Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food
2122 Shattuck Avenue (between Center and Addison)
Berkeley, CA 94705
510-548-2122
www.amandas.com
 
Looking for a quick, healthy, and inexpensive bite as you rush between OLLI classes?
Amanda's is a bright, very clean place, with a few outdoor tables, located next door to the Wells Fargo bank. The menu offers salads, burgers, sandwiches and healthy fries, mostly organic, always fresh and tasty. All of the packaging is biodegradable. You order at the counter, and the service is very quick. The portions are normal size, enough to satisfy, but there are no Big Macs here!

Learning Through Art: Call for Participants
Would you like to participate in OLLI's first research project on learning? Sprung from the Learning to Learn Interest Circle, we asked the Berkeley Art Museum (BAM) to partner with us in a study we are calling Learning through Art. The project is simple: Complete a survey before and after visiting BAM's fall exhibitions--Fernando Botero's paintings inspired by Abu Ghraib and Ari Marcopoulos's photography. The surveys will take 5-8 minutes each. Let us know if you are interested by clicking here to sign up.

Discounts
Berkeley Arts and Letters Lectures
Hear from writers and thinkers who interact with you--the readers--for inspiration, provocation, education, and sharing conversations. OLLI members receive 50% off admission at the door with ID. Lectures are held at First Congregational Church or The Hillside Club, both located in Berkeley.

See their website for more information:
http://www.berkeleyarts.org/

Discount for King Tut at the de Young Museum

Senior discounts are available for groups of 10 or more ($20). Exhibition tickets are sold by the half hour and the exhibition visits are approximately 60-90 minutes.

Go to
http://www.kingtut.org or call 213.763.2117 for more information.
 
Give to the OLLI Annual Fund
OLLI @Berkeley is a self-sustaining program within the University. Member donations help fill the gap between what is raised from dues and fees and our $100,000 grant from the Osher Foundation. Help sustain OLLI--the courses, lectures, special events, interest circles, and the growing community of learners--by making OLLI a top priority.

You can give online by going to: OLLI Annual Fund or call the OLLI office at 510.642.9934.
 
OLLI @Berkeley Staff
Director: Susan Hoffman
Program Coordinator: Aileen Kim
Program Assistants: Gerard Alcantara, Joan Moriyama

OLLI @Berkeley
University of California
1925 Walnut St #1570
Berkeley, CA 94720-1570
tel. 510.642.9934
fax 510.642.2202
[email protected]
http://olli.berkeley.edu