Polonia Global Fund

KALAMAZOO — Two of Western Michigan University’s most popular and celebrated musicians, violinist Renata Artman Knific and pianist Lori Sims, will perform together in a Faculty Artist Series recital Friday, Jan. 24, beginning at 8:15 p.m. in the Dalton Center Recital Hall.

Tickets for the Knific-Sims duet recital, which will include sonatas by William Bolcom, Karol Szymanowski, and Maurice Ravel, are available through the Miller Auditorium Box Office and may be ordered by calling 269 387-2300 or toll free 800 228-9858.

Knific is a professor of music and chair of the string area in the WMU School of Music, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1987. She holds degrees from Szymanowski Liceum in her native Poland, from the Royal College of Music in England and from the Cleveland Institute.

A member of WMU’s acclaimed Merling Trio, Knific has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, as well as with orchestras in the United States and Great Britain including the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, and the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia. While with the English Chamber Orchestra she recorded on several record labels and toured in Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. A former faculty member at the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Cleveland Institute, she is a charter faculty member of the Encore School for Strings.

A member of the WMU faculty since 1997, Sims is a professor of piano and chairs the School of Music’s keyboard area. The first local artist to be featured at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, in 2000, Sims’ debut at New York City’s Alice Tully Hall, also in 2000, met with critical acclaim from the New York Times. She holds degrees in music from Peabody and Yale universities, and earned an artist diploma in Germany.

Sims received the First Prize Gold Medal at the 1998 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. Other prizes include first place co-winner of the 1994 Felix Bartholdy-Mendelssohn Competition in Berlin, winner of the 1993 American Pianists Association Competition with outstanding distinction from the jury. She has performed throughout America, Europe and China, including performances with the Israel Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Spokane Chamber Orchestra, the Kalamazoo Symphony and the NordDeutsche-Rundfunks Orchestra.

Prior to her appointment at WMU, Sims was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois. During the summer, she is an artist-teacher at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina and the Internationale Konzertarbeitswochen in Goslar, Germany.

As a kid, Mariusz Kwiecien says, he hated opera.

Not anymore.

The 30-year-old Polish baritone is one of the hottest young singers on the international opera scene, performing in the major opera houses of the world – The Metropolitan in New York, La Scala in Milan, Paris, Vienna, Sao Paulo, San Francisco. Throw a dart at the globe and he’s probably performed there or will soon.

Saturday he makes his debut with Seattle Opera, singing the role of Dr. Malatesta in “Don Pasquale.” He’s sung 300 performances since taking the stage at 23 and is booked for the next four years.

“I have a good start on a successful career,” he said. Talk about your understatement.

Kwiecien takes pride in his accomplishments. At 22, he says his dream was to sing in the biggest opera houses of the world, and at 30 he’s just about there.

There’s pride, but he’s not boastful. The young singer, who looks like a rock star with his handsome dark features and engaging smile, recounts his rise to fame in a manner that is disarming.

He could sing perfect pitch at 14 months. “My mom said I was a golden child.”

“I wanted to be a pop singer,” he continued. “I hated opera. That vibrato singing, it was the most disgusting thing in the whole world.”

But then he was “discovered” by a teacher who heard him singing. He began formal lessons at 18, won prizes and joined The Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist Development program. Kwiecien made his debut in his native Poland at Krakow Opera. At 24, he sang at La Scala.

As a youngster, the artist enjoyed rock music. These days, he listens to jazz. He likes music “with soul” he said, but prefers listening to opera live.

In a CD you hear perfection, but that’s not the way it is in performance, he says. On stage, singers and musicians make mistakes, and that’s what makes opera immediate and exciting.

Kwiecien gives off a kind of kinetic energy in person. His compact frame bristles with excitement as he talks about the energy in his body and his voice. He snaps his fingers in rapid-fire succession.

His English is solid – he has a huge vocabulary – and his speaking voice is thrilling in its richness and volume, giving tantalizing glimpses of what’s to come.

He speaks several languages including Italian, a great help when it comes to performing Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale.”

“When I sing in Italian, they say, ‘You sing like an Italian,’ ” Kwiecien said with obvious pride.

He loves opera, loves to perform.

“If you give on the stage your whole energy, your passion and love, you are successful,” he said.

And when he performs, “I’m giving you everything I have.”

By Mike Murray, Herald Writer

NEW BRITAIN — When Adam Niklewicz was making a flute out of a piece of sausage, he purchased many pounds of meat at a local butchery over a period of several weeks. Each time, as he pulled out a measuring tape to check the size of the sausage, the store clerk gave him a strange look.

As he reflected on the shocking aspect of art, Niklewicz debated whether to tell the clerk about the purpose of his purchases. He decided it didn’t really matter either way. His artwork, on display at the New Britain Museum of American Art, invites similar stares and questions.

Niklewicz emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1983, and quickly became a well-respected illustrator, doing covers for Newsweek, Time, and Financial Times. The Newtown resident is a lecturer at Central Connecticut State University, where he teaches “Illustration 1″ using his real-life experience. But the Pole’s main interest, which devours most of his time and creative energy, is making installations that defy artistic tradition and human intellect.

His artwork is very physical and earthy. It takes up space. His signature piece, a wall made up of 16,000 yellow vinyl earplugs, installed in one of the doorways of the museum gallery, is a tribute to world-famous installation artist Christo. Three years ago, Niklewicz attended a lecture by Christo, which inspired him to turn the basement of his home into a large studio and begin playing with objects and ideas. It took the artist two months to make the wall of earplugs.

“It was a very Zen-like experience,” Niklewicz recalled. “Earplugs are a sign of our time, a relevant symbol. I use them every night. We’re bombarded with information. It’s too much of a good thing. At a recent museum event someone asked why the museum was blocking my gallery. They were shocked to find the obstruction was the art. But that’s exactly the point of my earplug wall!”

While many visitors report being baffled by such installations, Niklewicz said his work thrives on misunderstanding.

“Art should throw people off, it should confront their customary way of thinking and uproot the perception strengthened by their life routine,” he said. “This confrontation opens people up to the never-ending depth of reality. Art should push us out of the comfortable. The role of the artist is to annoy people in a creative way, to force them to open their eyes.”

True to this philosophy, the giant door outline, which mirrors the gallery doorway, is directly painted onto the New Britain museum’s wall. Appropriately dubbed “Blood Ties,” the evenly red painting was created using juice from wild raspberries gathered by the artist’s mother in Newtown. The painting has a distinctive, sanguine feel, and it emits a mild raspberry scent.

“The piece has a sort of Freudian connotation,” Niklewicz said. “It signifies the complicated relationship between an adult son and his mother. The fact that it’s the shape of a doorway may signify an exit, a desire to become independent of the mother’s control. The bloody accent may also be a reference tobloody Polish history, and to the fact that Poles eat a lot of red meat. Everyone brings their own interpretation to the piece.”

Niklewicz reported that his mother did not want to offer her own impressions about “Blood Ties.” She was, however, upset at the amount of wasted raspberry juice, which she thought was being used to sweeten tea.

According to Niklewicz, works such as “Blood Ties” are justified, because his art is a form of compulsion, a sort of uncontrollable sickness.

“It’s about a gut feeling, it’s about being honest with yourself,” the artist said of his process of creation. “The magic comes from nowhere, and it just feels right at the beginning. Then someone else helps me to explain why it works. I don’t do anything to shock on purpose. I do it because it’s the best material and the best way to say something visually. Making installations is like sailing into the unknown, it gives such space. You can do anything you want, as long as you make art that’s genuine.”

Niklewicz’s exhibition will be on display at the New Britain Museum of American Art through Jan. 19. His work is also featured through Feb. 15 in an exhibit at Real Art Ways in Hartford.

The Herald 2003 By MARGARET WOZNIACKI, Staff Writer