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KU News: KU opera professor named finalist for the 2024 American Prize

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Guest Columnist
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From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Contact: Fally Afani, School of Music, [email protected], @MusicKU

KU opera professor named finalist for the 2024 American Prize

 

LAWRENCE — Stella Markou, soprano, opera director and Voice area coordinator for the University of Kansas School of Music, has been selected as a finalist for The American Prize in Directing — The Charles Nelson Reilly Prize (college/university opera division).

Markou has been nominated for two shows she directed at the School of Music during the 2023-24 season, “The Turn of the Screw” and “L’incoronazione di Poppea.” She is the only finalist to appear twice on the list.

About The American Prize

Unique in its scope and structure, The American Prize is the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the performing arts. Now in its 14th year, the American Prize is awarded annually in many areas of the performing arts. For more information, please visit The American Prize website.

About Stella Markou

Hailed as “exquisite” by Gramophone, Greek-American soprano Stella Markou performs internationally as a soloist in oratorio, opera and on the concert stage. She has been a featured guest artist with the Edinburgh Contemporary Musical Ensemble, the Consulate General of Greece, Union Avenue Opera, Masterworks Chorale, Nassau Music Society, Paros Festival, Dance New Amsterdam Company, American Chamber Chorale, University of Nevada Las Vegas Concert Series, Ambassadors of Harmony and the Nashville Ballet. She is a nationally recognized director of opera and musical theater and serves on the faculty of the Festival of International Opera.

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Lawrence KS 66045

Phone: 785-864-3256

Fax: 785-864-3339

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

 

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

 

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

 

Key Lime Pie

By
Debbie Dance Uhrig
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Good morning, well I’m up early writing, so it seemed like an appropriate greeting on this day! I’d like to start the column out with a ‘tip’ which makes my mornings feel a little above the norm. Throughout the year I purchase paper napkins that are a step above a paper towel. Place them at the coffee station and when the first cup is done brewing, they go under the cup. I started doing this about a year or so ago, and I’ve observed it can get my day off to a great start. This approach is a bit like making your bed as soon as you get up!

Another thing I did after Christmas was to purchase new coffee mugs. Who needs to do that, there’s a whole cabinet full of cups! Here’s the outcome of that purchase, they’re the first ones used every morning. Why, it makes them feel good! Some of you are now wondering just what mugs I purchased? I enjoy the Susan Winget mugs, sold under the ‘International’ label. They are on line and in most large retailers. The ones I purchased are animals racoons, owls, foxes etc. General speaking Winget coffee mugs are beautiful.

This is a little bit of psychology 101, but it works! That’s why I always say it’s the little things that make all the difference. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich may sound boring if you make it for lunch, however if someone else makes it for you, it becomes special! At our office there are mornings when one of us will get coffee for the other, that small action can make someone’s day.

Now, about Key Lime Pie! Probably one of my favorite summer pies. It’s refreshing because it’s cool in the hot summer and the flavors are brilliant on the palate. The great thing about this pie is also the simplicity of preparations. Let’s hit upon a few things that can make your pie ‘special’.

Crust, typically most people do a graham cracker crust under a key lime pie. For goodness sakes, do not use a pre-made crust from the store! There’s just no comparison to making it yourself. Sometimes in the summer months I will get out the food processor and make 4-6 cups of ground grahams, placing them in the freezer. This way you can whip up all kinds of desserts without much ado.

There are a zillion and one thoughts of where key lime pie originated. Most of you know it’s indigenous to the Florida Keys. I’ll let you do your own research on the history and pick an outcome. One thing that is standard is the use of sweet condensed milk. Lime juice, if you can cannot get key limes, (most of the time I cannot) purchase key lime juice. Then get 1 or two fresh limes so you have zest for the dessert.

I recently did new research on this pie and found some cooks swear by putting sour cream inside the main body of the pie. As you look over my recipe you will see I use sour cream, but not in the main body.

For entertaining purposes, the pie can be made the night before, so there’s no prep the day you are entertaining. That’s my kind of dessert!

My thoughts for you this week are to be safe, find joy in the little things, and make stewardship a goal. Pray with me for our great nation. Simply yours, The Covered Dish.

Key Lime Pie

Graham Cracker Crust for 9-inch pie

Filling

2 whole eggs, slightly beaten, (eggs differ in many recipes)

2 cans sweet condensed milk

1 cup lime juice. If you use regular limes, it will take about 8

There is nothing wrong with using bottled ‘key’ lime juice from Florida.

Topping

1 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Lime Zest to garnish

Set oven at 350 degrees. Beat the eggs and stir together with the milk and lime juice. Pour into the pre-baked graham cracker crust, baking for 15 minutes. Remove and cool at least 2 hours. Spread the topping thinly over the filling. Add the lime zest just at serving time for the best color and presentation. Refrigerate.

The pie could also be made into mini muffin tins, or full-size muffin tins.

*If I were to re-write this recipe, I might introduce the sour cream into the interior and top the pie with ‘fresh’ whipped cream, NOT a squirt can!

Fishing Memories

By
Steve Gilliland
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For as poor a fisherman as I have become in adulthood, I have a whole library of fishing memories from childhood; from fishing in the overgrown lake at the city park near my grandparent’s house with doughballs from the town bakery, to annual fishing trips to Canada with my high school FFA chapter.

The first week after school was out each spring, our FFA chapter loaded a couple dozen of us farm boys onto an old, tired FFA bus and headed from northcentral Ohio to Canada where we rented a small group of cabins on a lake. The prerequisite for going on the trip was collecting fallen apples and helping sell apple cider in the fall, selling oranges and grapefruit all winter, and not burning the FFA shop to the ground during the school year. As I remember it, the lake sporting the cabins was as tired and worn-out as the FFA bus, and very few fish were ever caught. We found out over the years that a short boat trip across the lake and through a tiny, narrow creek took us into another lake that teemed with bullheads about the length of hotdogs. The road leading to the cabins crossed a wide waterway that connected two lakes. One morning, in an attempt to catch anything resembling a fish, a few of us got up early and walked to that bridge to fish. An hour or so later a boat came up the stream heading for the second lake. As the boat neared the bridge, one of the passengers held up a stringer full of 12 or 14-inch northern pike and asked if we wanted them. When we got back to camp, the cabins literally emptied as the rest of the group headed for our “honey-hole” at the bridge.

Though I was not involved, another favorite fishing story involves the salvage of fish from Inman Lake in the mid 1950’s when it went dry for the first time ever. Although not a fishing hotspot in recent times, Inman Lake once held a decent population of both channel and flathead catfish. The bottom of the lake is black, oozy, sticky mire that remains nearly unnavigable for days and possibly weeks, even after being fully exposed to the sun. As the lake dried-up back then, all fish were forced into a few remaining pools of water in the middle of the lake. Norman Schmidt remembers helping his dad and several other guys harvest many of those remaining fish. They collected enough planks to make a plank sidewalk across the oozy mire by placing planks in front of them and slowly working their way to the remaining pool of water that teemed with fish. Norman says one poor fellow fell off the planks into the muck and became nearly hysterical before being rescued. Two flat bottom boats were also pulled along with them, and once they reached the middle, just enough water was poured into each boat to keep fish alive. “Gunny sacks” were filled with fish caught from the puddle and dumped into the boats, then the loaded boats were arduously dragged back toward the lakes edge and the plank sidewalk collected on the way. Norman remembers 75 or so people showing up to get some of the rescued fish.

Despite all the political nonsense and hysteria seemingly overtaking our world right now, the Kansas Outdoors and specifically fishing remain as uncomplicated as ever. So, gather the grandkids, the neighbor kids, the guy or gal living on the corner that you’ve never met, and heck, anybody that will fit in your pick up and take them fishing. Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected].

Scamming pseudo-grandson

By
Milo Yield
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Thayne Cozart
Milo Yield

A telephone scam trying to coax money from gullible grandparents just won’t go away. The scammers have hit ol’ Nevah and me three times in recent years and the most recent wuz just yesterday. I call it the “pseudo-grandson” scam. Just for everyones’ information and warning, here’s how the scam works.

Each time our cell phone rang and a “pseudo-grandson” begins a sad tale of woe and he desperately needs good ol’ grandpa and grandma to send him money to get him out of his jam. He’s pretty convincing and an accomplished telephone phony.

The first scam 3-4 years ago wuz supposedly from a grandson — and the scammers knew his name — who told me he had gone to a stag party before a friend’s wedding in Oklahoma City. The grandson lived in Tennessee, which raised the first red flag for us.

The scammer bemoaned that he’d drank too much and hit a car and wuz now in jail for DUI. And he needed bail money. The only way to get the money to him fast enuf wuz to wire it to him. It wuz about this time in the story that we decided to end the scam and we hung up on the scammer and told the sheriff about it. Of course, nuthin’ happened.

The second scam wuz supposedly from a grandson in Denver who had a similar sad story and earnestly pleaded for money immediately. Again, we hung up on the scammer.

Well, yesterday the pseudo-grandson allegedly had a car accident, cracked his jaw, and had stitches in his lip. That’s why he mumbled and sounded so much different. He continued with his tale of woe until I decided to end the scam in a different manner.

I broke into his fake-tale-of-woe and said something like this: “Hey, buddy. you’re an immature, careless, irresponsible little punk. Your dear old grandpa isn’t your automatic ATM. I’m tired of your too-regular begging for cash to get you out of jams you got yourself into. It’s time you grow up. This time you can pay the price for your carelessness and get out of this jam yourself. Don’t call again!”

I didn’t need to hang up yesterday. My scamming psuedo-grandson did. I hope the scammer got the message this time — but I doubt he did.

***

Let’s change the subject to something funny that happened to me real life back when I wuz an elementary school kid. My maternal grandma, Anna, wuz among the most happy-go-lucky folks on planet Earth. I eagerly looked forward to her annual summer visit for a couple of weeks.

During her visit, we played card games, went fishing for both fish and crawdads, and in general had a great time together. Grandma wuz such an out-going, happy person that she could make even the most onerous, miserable work fun. And, that’s what she did on the day set aside to butcher the White Leghorn cockerels that my pappy, ol’ Czar E. Yield, bought every spring. As I recall, he bought 100 straight-run chicks, which meant we had to butcher around 50 chickens.

Grandma and mom sat up a chicken butchering “disassembly” line in the shade of a big elm tree. The line began with the cockerels in a chicken cage near a stump and a wooden box. An axe leaned against the stump. A pot of scalding water sat next to the box. Tables were lined out for plucking the chickens and eviscerating them. A big container of cold water waited to cool down the carcasses.

We each had a job to do. Grandma chopped off the heads and dropped the headless chickens into the wooden box to bleed. I wuz the cotton-picking chicken plucker. I yanked the chicken carcasses out of the bleeding box, stuffed them into the scalding water, and then plucked the feathers. Mom gutted the chickens, singed off the pin-feathers, and plopped the carcasses into the cold water.

It wuz a perfect set-up — until it wuzn’t. Here’s what happened. Grandma became too casual about lopping off heads. I know this is the truth because after I withdrew one chicken carcass out of the bleeding box, and scalded the carcass, and had the chicken about half plucked, I happened to look down and saw the chicken’s eye blinking at me. And its head wuz beakless. Grandma had missed the mark and chopped off the poor chicken’s beak, but not the whole head.

Of course, I screamed. Then grandma screamed and grabbed the chicken from me and finished the beheading job she’s blotched the first go around.

That little episode changed the atmosphere around the chicken assembly line. From that moment on, it wuz just another disgusting summer job.

***

My son-on-law works in the sun, so he’s no fan of high temperatures. However, last week he showed me a map of the U.S. showing the all-time, one-day high temperature in July all 50 states. Here are the single July day record temps and the year for the states where my column is read: Kansas, 121 degrees, 1936; Missouri, 118, 1936; Oklahoma, 120, 1936; Arkansas, 116, 1901; Colorado, 115, 2019; Wyoming, 115, 1988 and Nebraska, 118, 1934.

Note that not one of the all-time July high temps have occurred during the current global warming discussion. Know one knows for sure, but perhaps Mother Earth is just going through another of her perpetual climate changes and it’s nuthin’ new. I looked at the upcoming weather map and saw the next five days are predicted at more than 100 degrees. I will admit that’s hot and I’m not looking forward that string of hot days.

***

I met for the first time a faithful reader who happened to drop by our morning old Geezer GabFest at the Short Stop. He’s Wynn D. Bidd, a retired cattle buyer from Green, Kan. He said he wuz glad to join the “Riley CAVE Men” group for the day. He said CAVE men stands for “Citizens Against Virtually Everything.” That pretty well describes our group. And his comment will stand for my wise words for the week. Have a good ‘un.

 

Dressage Rider Borrows Horse For Seventh Olympics Competition

By
Frank Buchman
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British dressage great Carl Hester is set to ride in his seventh, and possibly last, Olympics with a seventh different horse and a film of his life story waiting to be made once the Paris Games are out of the way.

Winner of team gold (2012), silver (2016), and bronze (2020) in an Olympic run that started in Barcelona in 1992, the 57-year-old will partner Fame, a 14-year-old stallion lent by 2016 silver medalist Fiona Bigwood.

If all goes well, Hester could go out at the top. “He’s certainly one of the best horses that I’ve had in my career,” Hester said. “He has a lot of quality, a lot of personality. He is a horse I can describe as loving his job. “I know that sounds a bit cliche but literally every day that I have ridden that horse he comes out with a work ethic of 100 percent every single time, and he’s just an absolute pleasure to ride.

“If it is my last Olympics Games, I couldn’t be happier to finish it on a horse like that. I don’t think, well, I say this every time, probably wouldn’t find another one like that. He is very special.”

Whether or not the oldest member of the British team in Paris calls time on his Olympic career, after equaling show jumping compatriot Nick Skelton’s British record seven Games, remains to be seen.

He will be in his 60s by the time Los Angeles 2028 comes around but still younger than Australian eventer Andrew Hoy was when he took silver in 2021 at the age of 62 and way off Canadian show jumper Ian Millar’s 10 Games ending in 2012.

“I would like this to be my last Olympic Games if it goes well but of course you can’t say that,” said Hester, who won his gold with Uthopia, silver with Nip Tuck, and bronze with En Vogue.

In 1992, he competed with Giorgione, in 2000 on Argentille Gullit, and in 2004 on Exquis Escapado.

“I try to say nothing because I just think what happens if something goes wrong between now and then? I wouldn’t want my career to end like that.”

“I know that Fame will go back to Fiona after the Games anyway so although he might have another Olympics in him it won’t be with me.

“So again, it’s that question of ‘will I find another one like that?’ I’ll just wait and get Paris out of the way and see how I feel.”

Whatever happens in France, Hester’s story is written.

A script has been finished for a biopic charting his journey from a humble start on Sark, a tiny Channel Island with donkeys but no cars, to a gold medal and mixing with the social elite as one of the world’s top dressage riders and trainers.

Producer Andrew Curtis said that Hester’s story was akin to ‘Billy Elliot’, the 2000 movie about a working-class boy growing up in a gritty mining community with a yearning for ballet.

Hester joked he would be happy, at this stage in his life, to be portrayed by George Clooney.
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