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In The Limelight For April 26, 2011: Local Arts News

Here's what's in the limelight for the week of April 25, 2011 in local arts news.

Three IU Bloomington Professors Receive Guggenheims



It's official. Among this year's recipients of the John Simon Guggenheim fellowship are three professors at Indiana University: professor of American literature George Hutchinson, neuroscientist Olaf Sporns, and and poet Maurice Manning. The purpose of the Guggenheim is to provide funding for scholars and artists to work on their own, with total creative freedom, for a year or more. George Hutchinson is working on a book of linked essays on the 1940s in America; Olaf Sporns will begin a book on brain development and the evolution of connections in the brain; Maurice Manning plans to spend the year working on a book of poems related to the dissolution of rural America. IU's awardees are three of 180 fellows this year who were drawn from over 30,000 applicants. They bring the number of Guggenheim fellows at IU over the years to 136.



Composer Aaron Travers Appointed To Jacobs School Faculty



The composer Aaron Travers has won numerous awards and prizes, including the Chicago Symphony First Hearing Award, the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award, and the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in choral composition. He has been commissioned by many musical groups-the Frost Wind Ensemble, Ars Mobilis, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, to name just a few. In August, Aaron Travers will join the faculty of the Music Composition Department at IU's Jacobs School of Music. He is a welcome addition to the department; in a statement, department chair David Dzubay praised Travers' "intellect, knowledge, experience, and solid musical craftsmanship" as well as his "generous spirit."



Temple Grandin At The Indianapolis Museum Of Art



Designer and doctor of animal science Temple Grandin is well known for her work in autism advocacy and her famous hug machine, which provides comfort to hypersensitive people; she became a household name when Claire Danes portrayed her in an Emmy-winning film for HBO last year. Grandin will give a talk Thursday this week at the Toby in Indianapolis. The talk is sold out, but prior to the event there will be a public conversation and book-signing with Grandin at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.



Indianapolis Earth Day Festival



More than 140 environmental and conservation exhibits were on view at the 2011 Earth Day Indiana Festival at White River State Park in Indianapolis this past weekend. There were tents featuring groups as diverse as the Indianapolis Zoo, the Pedal and Park Bike Corral, and Cobb's Cajun Cooking, as well as activities for children and a variety of local performers. The annual festival was founded in 1990, on the twentieth anniversary of the first-ever Earth Day, to promote dialogue about sustainable living, environmental protection, and conservation. The number of attendees this year has not yet been determined, but by 2009, Earth Day Indiana attracted a record 30,000 people.



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