Friday, September 10, 1982
Daily Nebraskan
Arts ds EeteiiaHMiieiTit
Distinguished piano professor to present concert
Page 16
By Kris Saalfeld
Audun Ravnan, a professor of piano at
UNL, will present a concert of solo piano
music by renowned composer Edvard
Grieg Sunday at 3 p.m. in Sheldon Me
morial Art Gallery.
Ravnan's concert is the first of six to
be presented in the Lincoln area this year.
According to Bob Sheldon, assistant
director of university information, the
concerts are a celebration of Ravnan's
25 years of outstanding musical perfor
mance and instruction at UNL.
To Ravnan, a native of Norway, the
concerts celebrate more. "1982 also marks
35 years since I came to America and 75
years since Grieg died," he said. Grieg,
Norway's foremost composer, and Ravnan
are natives of the same city, Bergen.
As a young child, Ravnan began his
piano studies, as he described it, "sort
of by no choice.
"I was the first child born in a land
lady's house. She lived upstairs, was a
piano teacher and was positive I was a
pianist from birth. At the age of 7, 1 began
my lessons. We met every day. In addition,
I'd have to practice. She'd sit upstairs
and listen. If I didn't play my scales 35
times, she'd knock on the floor with a
cane."
In hiding
At the age of 10, Ravnan enrolled in
the Bergan Conservatory of Music. How
ever, during World War II, Ravn'an's studies
were interrupted while he spent a year
hiding in the mountains from the Germans.
"My father and brother went to Eng
land to join the Norwegian troops. The
Germans had occupied Norway and de
cided to take me as a hostage in retalia
tion, " he said. "A policeman called to
find out if I was home, which alerted me.
I left immediately for hiding and didn't
come back till the war ended."
Following World War II, many scholar
ships were available to help Norwegian
students get out of the country to study,
Ravnan said. He received the International
Institute of Education scholarship for
music study at Northwestern University.
"I arrived in the United States on Labor
Day, 1947. When I came, I didn't know
English," he said. Although Ravnan never
attended high school in Norway, he grad
uated from Northwestern summa cum
laude.
In addition to his Bachelor of Music
degree, Ravnan holds a Master of Music
in piano from Northwestern, and has
studied at the Berkshire Music Center,
Eastman School of Music and the Uni
versity of North Carolina.
Honors
In addition to his role as a piano pro
fessor at UNL, Ravnan has performed
many solos, has been featured with
numerous orchestras and has appeared
often on television. A recipient of the
university's "Distinguished ' Teaching
Award," Ravnan also holds the Governor's
Arts Award "for significant contributions
to the cultured life of Nebraska."
In his' performance Sunday, two original.
Grieg pieces will be presented - Sonata
in E Minor, Opus 7 and Ballade, Opus 24.
Ballade is a melancholy piece, written to
lament what Grieg saw as a lack of appreci
ation inherent in the Norwegians of his
day, Ravnan said.
Lyric Pieces, Opus 43, his third selec
tion, represents their descriptive titles:
Butterfly, Lonesome Wanderer, In The
Home, Little Birdling, Erotic and To
Spring.
His final selection, Norwegian Folk
Melodies, Opus 66, is an arrangement of
1 1 folk melodies that Grieg and a friend
collected while walking in the mountains
of Norway.
k
Photo courtesy of. University Information
Audun Ravnan
Smiling Joe
The music filled the room with long and short
gusty breaths that rose above and below the steady
roll of the dance crowd. Hanging above the varnished
bar, a wagon wheel decorated with lamps shivered
slightly with each slamming of the entrance door as
children rushed in from outside.
At one table, a grandma remarked to her daughter
how good the fish was this week. The accordion
breathed a sour note from its corner, and someone
said, Maybe Smiling Joe should be given a rest,
a red beer and lessons for another polka". With a
Original Work
smile, Joe agreed and walked over to the bar and sat
on a stool - his ageordion sighed slightly as it settled
on the bar in front of him.
After a taste of his beer, Smiling Joe turned, smiled
at me and asked "It's nice here, no?"
I replied, "Very nice, and added his music was
very good. "Do you play often?"
Y es, yes, often and very good, yes?"
I nodded..
Above the bar mirror, a baseball bat stained with
turpentine recorded with notches the wins and losses
of a rivalry between town teams baseball. Next to
the bat, a photograph capturing Bob Cervs World
Series swing rested on the wall with a short memo
in the corner telling the people of Weston heU never
forget them. Hanging below Cerv, a smaller picture
allowed the first graduating class of the town s only
Catholic school.
From his overalls, Joe pulled out a flat box and
asked if "maybe you'd like to play." fasked what
type of game it was, and he held up the box for me
to examine.
On the metal box, a wheel showed the name of a
state and its capital. By moving the wheel and changing
states, one guessed the name of the capital.
From the end of the counter , the bartender hurried
over to our stools.
"Joe, leave him alone. He just wants to drink in
peace,
'Wo, that's all right."
"He's not bothering you?"
"No, we're fine."
He wiped the oak grain of the table.
"Joe's kind of a simpleton, he said. "Once In
a while, he gets on your nerves
"It's all right, really; He's not bothering me
Joe smiled, took the box and, looking at it
intensely, asked me the capital of South Dakota.
After a pause, he turned Ue wheel and asked me
another state.
"Joe, have you forgotten about the dance? a
heavy woman said as she walked by us.
Excusing himself, Joe stood up and returned the
leather straps of the accordion to his shoulders. He
then thanked me, said wed finish the game another
time and drank the rest of his tomato beer. In a few
moments he was back fa the corner, and again the
heavy tones of the accordion filled the room. , .
Couples gathered to dance, and an old man poised
himself next to the music and began singing.
I drank the rest of my beer, glanced up at the
swinging figure of Bob Cerv and walked towards the
door. As I opened the door and turned, Joe tipped
his accordion towards me simultaneous with a
dip in the music and gave me a smile and anod as
the cool night air flowing through the doorway glazed
my face and neck, ,
John Korands
They Just Left
, itwasweUworthwalkingoverthe bumpy tractor tracks
and the stickers in the sickled grass.
Because yes, Mrs. Love agrees.
Certainly this one is a dinosaur egg
and this, part of a comet's interior - absolutely
what an interesting stone this Is
so friendly, '
How comfortably it sits in the palm of my hand '
Look here, next to my toe '
not just a plain rock tr. , -
but an ancient elephant's tooth
...todays first.
JohnKoranda
The prose and poetry of John Koranda is part of the
weekly feature Oriinai Work. UNL students Interested
in submjtto2 prose, poetry, art or photography should
con far rinviA VI . 1 n.n.. wit. T
- .1 vwt ins M&nf ticcras&an