Seats were packed in the Redfern Arts Center’s Main Stage as Don Baldini directed his last Jazz Ensemble, featuring guest soloist Frank Newton on flute and tenor saxophone on Wednesday, Dec. 7, before his retirement at the end of the fall 2016 semester.

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

The Jazz Ensemble has been a part of the Keene State community for 26 years, beginning in 1990, and has only had two directors for the entirety of its span; Baldini himself has directed the ensemble for much of this time, said President of Keene State College Anne Huot upon introducing Baldini to the stage.

Before coming to Keene State in 1992, Baldini said he worked and toured with Frank Sinatra, The Tonight Show Band, Johnny Mathis and many other big names.

President Huot said, “Not only has Don Baldini worked with many talented jazz musicians in his career, he is one himself.” Additionally, President Huot said, “I can’t begin to count the number of students he (Baldini) has inspired.”

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

Baldini said, “I have worked with some of the best people in the business and you learn from all of them. You learn from the good experiences and bad experiences. I learned to not be late, be prepared and to be responsible for my instrument and my music; those are things that students struggle with early on and hope they can take away from working with myself.”

Baldini said, “It’s been emotional all semester, we (the band) have a real special relationship and it’s going to be difficult for them too, and I have told them not to count on me too much because I might have a hard time… I can’t imagine it (the performance) not being emotional for me.”

In between songs during the performance, Baldini said, “I am probably more nervous tonight than ever before in my life.”

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

About the performance, audience member and KSC music major, Nick Blitchington said, “I like it a lot… I really liked the second song, ‘Feels So Good’, it was great.”

Baldini mentioned that it is somewhat unusual for a jazz ensemble to feature a vocalist, however, he said he felt since it was his last performance, it was all right if he bent the rules a little bit.

The fifth song in the night’s set featured vocals by KSC junior Erin Conti. Audience member and KSC film major Madison McGrory said, “She was great, I thought her voice went really well with the instruments.”

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

Baldini said working with the students at KSC has been one of the most memorable experiences during his time at Keene State.

“It’s been a lot of fun… and bringing in guest soloists who are friends of mine, who work with and inspire the students, has been great too.”  I feel good about it (the performance). The band sounds really good, it’s bittersweet and a little odd to be calling it quits, but I feel good about it.” said Baldini.

Fletcher Rice can be contacted at frice@kscequinox.com

Winona LaDuke, founder of the Honor the Earth program and Vice Presidential nominee for the Green Party, was greeted by a full house in the Redfern Arts Center’s Alumni Recital Hall on Nov. 29 as she discussed some of the most recent information on the situation at Standing Rock in North Dakota.

Having first-hand experience combatting oil corporations, as well as at Standing Rock, LaDuke focused part of her discussion on ways our culture can transition out of what she calls “The Fossil Fuel Era.”

Associate Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at Keene State Dr. Sara Hottinger said, “The work she is doing is incredible and has had such a huge impact…the fact she has been able to gather people together to fight off corporate power is huge.”

Samantha Moore / Art Director

LaDuke is a Native American and lives on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, which borders North Dakota. She traveled to Standing Rock to help prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline shortly after overcoming the Sandpiper Pipeline that threatened her own reservation.

Dr. Hottinger said, “When it comes to communities of color, there has been a lot of abuse in the past and I think what we are seeing at Standing Rock is a continuation of some of that, particularly environmental abuse.”

A repeated phrase in LaDuke’s presentation was, “I want to live in a society where the rights of corporations do not proceed the rights of people.”

Dr. Hottinger said that what really resonated with her from the discussion was the idea of “an infrastructure for people, not for companies.”

LaDuke remained optimistic saying that on Jan. 1, a number of contracts for the Dakota Access Pipeline expire and she hopes some of the corporations backing and funding the project will drop their contracts during renegotiation.

As audience and community member Rebecca Carter said, “The economic piece to this discussion was mind-blowing. How much money is being put into these pipelines is absurd… there are miles of pipeline that haven’t been updated in decades that can now harm the environment.”

Dr. Hottinger said, “If you invested that much money into solar or wind power, especially on those upper Midwest reservations where there is so much wind, it would just make so much sense.”

LaDuke said she hopes that at the end of all of this, Standing Rock will be able to get two megawatt wind turbines because they have plenty of wind to offer the move into environmental and sustainable energy.

Dr. Hottinger said LaDuke brings creativity and humor to the work that she does and she has an ability to rally a group of people, which can be really important.

Carter said, “I found the presentation really interesting…plus [LaDuke] had a nice humor to add to such a serious topic.”

The audience celebrated LaDuke’s presence with a standing ovation after the end of her lecture, as well as an open discussion with the audience in the closing 20 minutes.

The discussion was paired with the opening of the Honor the Earth the Art of Resistance Exhibit that can be found at the Mariposa Museum in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and features artwork by 20 Native American artists. It will remain on display until Feb. 26, 2017.

Fletcher Rice can be contacted at frice@kscequinox.com

This Weeks Student Assembly Meeting was the second to last for Keene State College’s Fall 2016 Semester, with only one more left on Nov. 29, after meetings will resume again in the Spring 2017 Semester.  With no update on any information pertaining to budgets there was no old or new business to be discussed.

The overall meeting focused on each committee making the Assembly aware of future meetings amongst the individual committees themselves such as the Senate, Finances, and Public Relations committees. The Assembly adjourned with Alex Monteforte, the Speaker of Student Assembly, concluding it has been a “Great Semester”.

Fletcher can be contacted at frice@kscequinox.com

Locals to the Keene area, father John Cucchi and son Alex Cucchi, are both Keene State College alumni who have continued to follow their passions upon graduating. John, a musician, has continued to play his guitar and perform in the local Keene area, where as Alex has continued his passion for film production and has even worked with well-known documentarian Ken Burns.

John Cucchi said he graduated from Keene 1984 and continued with his musical passion, moving to New York City where he played rhythm guitar at the Rainbow Room. He played for Saturday Night Live and even performed during their fifteenth anniversary in 1990.

Alex said, “I had grown up around music and film my entire life and found myself falling in love with both at a very young age. That was mainly brought on me by my father, who is also a Keene State alum[nus].”

Upon graduating, Alex has done work with Ken Burns, a documentarian who recently was on campus for a documentary piece he did in collaboration with Dr. Lawrence Benaquist of Keene State. Alex took a job with Burns as an assistant editor at Florentine Films. Alex said, “Working with Ken Burns has been nothing short of an amazing experience.”

During John’s time at Keene, Benaquist introduced the Film Production Program to Keene State, which John decided to pick up as a minor before graduating. This is where his interest in film production began.

John said he believes some of Alex’s interest in music and film production may have began with John’s instrumental and production based equipment lying around the house when Alex was at a young age.  and other. John additionally said, “It helped him. He liked the film and now he’s got an excellent job and he’s assistant editor for a famous documentarian and he really likes the company.”

On his experience at Keene State, Alex said, “The nature of the small classes really helped me develop relationships with professors and classmates alike.”

Dr. Benaquist was a professor at Keene State when both Alex and John attended the college and helped guide them through the Film Studies Program that he introduced to Keene State in 1970.

Alex said Dr. Benaquist was a big help in aiding him with the film program and in classes. “Dr. Benaquist was able to see my flaws, but was able to help me build my skill set around those flaws, giving me the confidence to pursue a career in film,”said Alex.

Dr. Benaquist said, “Alex was great, he wrote so well and I used to tease him and say, ‘Alex you write better than your dad….Once he got involved in the film program and learned how to edit, with his hard work and intelligence he was able to get employed by Ken Burns,” said Dr. Benaquist, “which is absolutely great.”

Alex said the film industry has been great since he has graduated from Keene State and has enjoyed his work, but said, “The best experiences I’ve had while working in film is the relationships I’ve made along the way.”

Fletcher Rice can be contacted at frice@kscequinox.com

Authors, illustrators, and readers alike flocked to Keene State on Saturday, Oct. 29 for the 40th anniversary of the nationally recognized Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival.

Dr. David White of Keene State founded the KSC Children’s Literature Festival in 1977 and introduced the first festival to campus on April 1, 1978.

He said the festival has come a long way since then, remarking, “Some of the speakers now were not even born when this festival was started.”

colton mccracken / Equinox staff

Dr. White has dedicated much of his time at Keene State to the festival, and though he is retiring from teaching come the end of the 2017 spring semester, he said, “However, I will not be leaving.”

White said, “I am very pleased that the college has accepted my proposal for a part time position that will let me continue to run the festival and the gallery collection. The event has given Keene State College a national recognition and we send about 4,000 fliers in the mail every year. We also now have our Facebook page and the college website, and I have even heard people in Europe say they know about the festival,” said Dr. White.

White also said there used to be three big literature conferences in New England, but after over 25 years, the other two conferences have ended.

One speaker at the festival, Marilyn Singer, said, “I had heard of (the festival) because I knew other people who had been to it. So I asked various people how is this conference? Everybody said, ‘it’s a fantastic conference definitely do it.’”

Many of the speakers were still children at heart and let it show throughout their speeches and discussion. Singer told the audience how she loves to play games, and thinks of the idea of putting her projects together as one big game made up of smaller games, making the whole process more fun.

This was received by the audience with cheers, applause and laughter, along with Singer in the process.

Audience member and librarian Alice Gordan from Manchester, New Hampshire, has been returning to the festivals since 1985 and said, “The artists that David brings to the festival are just incredible, and there is an amazing variety of talent.”

colton mccracken / Equinox staff

Gordan also said she enjoys how the festival puts the audience, the authors and the illustrators all on the same plain and allows for the audience to really learn a lot.

A main focus of the festival is not only the writer’s and illustrator’s process, but the children themselves.

One author and illustrator Lita Judge spoke to the audience about her process and her approach to her work and said, “Sometimes we cannot literally reach out and help the children reading our books, but it’s the stories we write that can.”

Upon closing her speech to the audience, Lita Judge was given a standing ovation from the audience for the power she conveyed in her talk.

Be sure to come out to next year’s Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival on Oct. 28, 2017, where featured speakers will be David Elliott, Daniel Salmieri, Grace Lin, Brian Floca and Sophie Blackall.

Fletcher Rice can be contacted at frice@kscequinox.com

Election day is only a few weeks away and Keene State’s Carroll House Gallery opened its doors to a political take on the race to presidency, as well as other political topics in the United States on Oct. 27 through a student-orchestrated art exhibit titled “Vote Now!”

Jon Gitelson, advisor of the Art Collective, which is the group that put on the exhibition, worked with the students to help put together the art exhibit using a hands-off approach, allowing the students to do a lot of the work and installation of the pieces themselves. He described the collection as “a window into the political season and all its different parts.”

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

The Carroll House has been home to a number of art exhibits before, but this particular exhibit is a bit different. Gitelson said, “Most of the other exhibits I have put together here [at the Carroll House Gallery] have been outside professional artists.

So, for example, I will have a photographer from Boston do a big show and then there is maybe one room for students, but this is the first time that I have done a show here that is all student’s work.”

With the election coming up on Nov. 8, Gitelson said the great thing about the exhibition is that since it remains open through the election, it will be interesting to see how the feeling of the overall exhibition may change based on the candidate who wins.

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

Regarding the political influence on the pieces, featured artist and junior studio art major at Keene State Emily Mathieu said, “The Art Collective has meetings every Thursday, and at the first meeting we brainstormed ideas and decided to make this surround politics and the election.”

Mathieu said she has previously had her art exhibited in the Carroll House Gallery, but she has never put anything together to this scale. It was her first time being able to put together a full show, which allowed her to appreciate all the hard work other artists put into their pieces.

Another featured artist and senior art major at Keene State Hannah Soucy said she found the whole experience behind putting together the exhibition and collection to be very rewarding.

Her own inspiration for her pieces came from “the chaos and the confusion that comes with every election, by what people see as common knowledge and by the idea of never knowing who to vote for.”

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

Exhibition attendee Cory Davis said he has been to several of the art galleries before, but he enjoyed this specific collection because, “The exhibit is incredibly timely since there are two weeks to go until the election, and especially with all the protests and issues that have surrounded it.”

The “Vote Now!” exhibit is open to the public and can be found in the Carroll House. This particular collection is a one month exhibition and will remain available until Nov. 27.

Fletcher Rice can be contacted at frice@kscequinox.com

Tuesday Oct. 11, Dr. Rudra Aryal, a physics professor at Franklin Pierce University, visited the Keene State College.

Dr. Aryal spoke in the Mabel Brown Room with his informative presentation of long range air pollution transportation as part of the KSC Environmental Studies Lecture Series.

The main focus of Dr. Aryal’s lecture was man-made Aerosol pollution also known as Anthropogenic Emissions and their effects on Nepal.

Dr. Aryal said growing up in the area of Nepal and seeing the effects of the air pollution first hand is what got him so interested in studying air pollution and Aerosols.

There is such a high concentration of Aerosols and air pollution throughout the area of Kathmandu due to its geographical location being between China and India, two of the biggest contributing countries to air pollution, and the fact it is located in a valley under the Himalayas giving the air pollutants no escape said Dr. Aryal.

Matt Caswell a senior at Keene State said he heard about the lecture through a friend in the environmental studies program and found Dr. Aryal’s presentation to be interesting considering the harmful effects Anthropogenic Emissions have on humans themselves.

The number of Aerosols in the air in Nepal is dangerous for humans since they can cause irritation to the eyes and throat and additionally cause damage to the lungs said Dr. Aryal.

The Chair of Environmental Studies at Keene State, Dr. Gabauer said Nepal is one of the poorest countries but also one of the most generous and she finds it eye opening to see how many people have health issues from air pollution but poverty keeping them from seeking help and aid

Dr. Aryal said, “Data findings have shown that there is the most air pollution during the pre and post monsoon seasons because there is a lack of rainfall.”

Dr. Aryal additionally said that rainfall is important because it helps wash away the air pollution particles over Nepal.

At one point during the presentation Dr Aryal displayed a slide that showed a picture of the city of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, comparing it with sufficient air pollution and with hardly any.

Caswell said, “I did not think rainfall could have that large an effect on air pollution… it was hard to believe the two images were of the same place.”

Dr. Gabauer said, “I didn’t know how much air pollution comes from a long distance …I always thought it was locally produced air pollution … it was interesting to hear other countries have been significantly contributing. “

Caswell said it was a very eye opening presentation and that he did not realize how heavily such a small country like Nepal was being so affected by air pollution from bigger countries like India and China.

Dr. Aryal said he is hopeful that his research as well as the research some of his students are conducting at Franklin and Pierce on climate science and Aerosol pollutants will directly help humans better understand air pollution and result in a way for humans to lessen the amount of pollution emitted into the atmosphere.

Fletcher Rice can be contacted at frice@kscrquinox.com

Capitol Steps returned to Keene State College for a sold-out show Friday, Sept. 30, for a comedic look into the 2016 presidential election, along with other political figures and moments. The Redfern Arts Center was full of laughter during the two hours Capitol Steps spent impersonating notorious political figures who have been prominent in mainstream media as of late.

Tim Smith / Photo Editor

Capitol Steps draws an audience of mixed political stand points such as Democrats, Progressives, Republicans and other political viewpoints said Assistant Director of the Redfern Arts Center Sharon Fantl.

Director of the Redfern Arts Center Shannon Mayers said audiences would enjoy a humorous take on this election year since it has been so crazy and tense. Mayers additionally said bringing Capitol Steps to campus can help everyone relax about the intensity and seriousness of the election through humor and comedy.

The clever play on words of Heidi Murkoff’s New York Time’s best-selling book, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” the Capitol Steps tour title “What to Expect When You’re Electing” was enough to bring audience member Dave Stone out to the Redfern.

Stone said he enjoyed how the Capitol Steps took real world situations, such as the political debate, and added humor to create a light-hearted twist in political broadcast he watched earlier in the week.

Tim Smith / Photo Editor

Another audience member from Vermont thought the show was very good and she enjoyed the satirical aspect of the performance. The audience member said the Capitol Steps closing with a song about Canada, and the cast’s hope that the country will take in Americans after the election is said and done, was an enjoyable part of the performance.

The idea of moving to Canada because of politics has become fairly prominent in the media within the last year, but the constant changing in other political scenarios in the real world allows the Capitol Steps to have a wide variety of material.

As Mayers said, “We don’t know what their program order is until they get here because they always see what’s going on during the week and write new skits the night before.”

Brad VanGrack a member of the Capitol Steps for twenty-six years said, “It (writing material) is a bit of a challenge, especially this year when we have to actually try and be funnier than the candidates.”

Tim Smith / Photo Editor

VanGrack said he enjoys taking on a number of characters and political identities on stage. Though he also said, “Its pretty tough to top the real thing and sometimes you have to come up with really hard rhymes.”

A big difference from previous years performances is Hillary Clinton being the Democratic nominee, as Tracey Stephens, a member of the Capitol Steps for the past sixteen years said, “It’s very different for the last sixteen years; it’s always been a man’s game, so now it’s actually a women’s game and it has been quite interesting to play Hillary Clinton.”

Stephen’s portrayal of Clinton, as well as many others of the five cast member’s impersonations, were welcomed with cheers, laughs and applause upon entering the stage during the performance.

With Election Day fast approaching, voters may need a break from the seriousness of the politics, as Mayers said, “It (the performance) helps give a lighter side to the candidates themselves since the countries is so divided on Hillary and Trump, and they may add some skits about the third party.”

VanGrack and Stephen’s said the best part of being in the Capitol Steps is traveling across the country and allowing audiences to laugh at serious political topics. VanGrack noted that the Capitol Steps have travelled and put on performances in all fifty states.

Fletcher Rice can be contacted at frice@kscequinox.com