The Arts

Four fashion design seniors sat at a long table in 211 McGuffey Hall.

For 48 hours beginning on Feb. 26, they worked in this space completing the department of design’s annual charrette.

Dictionary.com describes the term charrette as an intensive final effort to finish a design project before a deadline. The challenge was for each to create a finished design in 48 hours for the Senior Exhibition at the Radford University Art Museum.

“Over the years, the charrette has evolved more toward a creative expression using the body as a ‘prop’ for an artistic creation and away from using an assigned inspiration to design traditionally wearable garments,” said Associate Professor of Design John Jacob about the fifth year of these projects.

To start the challenge, he presented the students with palm fronds. Then the students drew numbers from a hat to see who would get first choice.

Breege Addo-Collins, EmilyAnne Charest, Destiny Howard and Dakota Wells selected their numbers without hesitation. Wells received first pick.

Jacob said the fronds were Professor of Design Kathy Mitchell’s contribution. Last summer during a professional meeting, she found the fronds falling onto the sidewalk around her hotel. She thought they provided interesting shapes. She carefully collected them and brought them back to Radford.

Before heading into the official charrette, Mitchell showed her finds to the seniors.

“They can work out their inspiration and gather other items that they may want to use, but they don’t start working on it until the established time,” she said.

In preparation with this information, Howard put together an inspiration board with pictures of whimsical forests and other images.

“My goal was to create something that exemplified the beauty of nature and represented a queen or goddess of nature,” she said.

Charest also incorporated the theme of a goddess into her work. An island deity was her inspiration.

Wells’ vision integrated her inspiration of armor into an island warrior theme.

When Jacob announced the project was underway, the four immediately started on their projects. They pulled out sketches, fabric and pizza (for sustenance, of course). They bantered, laughed and supported each other throughout the entirety of the challenge.

Charest said the four seniors are no strangers to long hours spent on projects and working side by side. They have bonded and are close friends. During the charrette, however, they did go home to sleep.

The end results of their 48 hours were on display during the Department of Design’s Senior Exhibition. This year the show started in mid-March at the Radford University Art Museum in the Covington Center, where their reception also took place. Then, the work was moved to the museum’s downtown gallery space for two more weeks.

And though they had much to do during their final semester at the university, this project provided a change of pace.

“I think it helps to get assignments like this to help us expand our mind outside the normal assignments of designing for a customer range and being able to explore our creativity,” Charest said

They played at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, St. Mary’s Cathedral in Killarney, Trinity College in Dublin and the Dublin Airport. These were concert stops for the Radford University Wind Ensemble’s March 2016 trip to Ireland.

This unprecedented tour for the Department of Music was the largest performance ensemble the University has sent overseas. It included 42 students and four faculty members. And 20 years have passed since the ensemble last traveled.

Director of Bands and Instrumental Music Education Wayne Gallops led this effort. The planning for this trip began three years ago when he polled band members about what country interested them most and was affordable. Ireland topped the list.

“Because our university had such little experience touring large, intact ensembles overseas, I felt such an extended endeavor/process would reap lasting benefit for our students, college and university,” he said.

For the students who auditioned for their seats in the Wind Ensemble, there are many benefits to touring overseas with the group. They received Scholar-Citizen Initiative course credits and global life lessons.

“The opportunity to perform internationally opens up one’s perspective on how universal music is,” said Jeremy Marks, a senior percussion student. “Playing with other students in Dublin was especially rewarding. Growing up thousands of miles apart, we were still able to just sit down and make music together.”

Their largest audience was in Dublin at the airport. Gallops said thousands witnessed this two-hour charity concert, which raised funds for cancer survivors. A local concert band that regularly performs there hosted them. Ireland’s SKY Network Television interviewed members of the Wind Ensemble and played clips of the performance.

Gallops said this was a great networking opportunity for the University, and they may have recruited a new oboist from Virginia who was also visiting at the same time.

During their day at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Radford faculty held master classes and several of the ensemble’s principal musicians played side by side with Irish students. Later, the groups switched and the academy’s conductor, Fergus O’Carroll, worked with the Radford students.

O’Carroll is the head of the Wind, Brass and Percussion faculty and is the principal horn player with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. He is also a composer. Upon the Wind Ensemble’s first concert back in the U.S., they played the American premier of O’Carroll’s “Song Without Words.”

A McGlothlin travel grant, the Scholar-Citizen Initiative, the College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA), the Department of Music, patrons and students provided funding for this trip.

“This tour represents a larger CVPA initiative for the coming years,” said Margaret Devaney, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. “In representing the college internationally for the first time with such a large ensemble, we hope to increase the number of international travel performance opportunities for each department represented by the college. This tour paves the way for our global interactions at international venues for the foreseeable future.”