Daniel Shapiro will present the next concert in Drake’s Keys to Excellence Piano Series. The concert is free and open to the public and begins at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 18 in Sheslow Auditorium. Shapiro will also present a master class for piano students at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 17, in Sheslow Auditorium.

Shapiro continues to gain recognition as a leading interpreter of Schubert, Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, and Beethoven, and as a teacher and coach at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has given critically acclaimed recitals and concerto appearances across the United States and in Brazil, Europe, Korea, and China. To learn more about Shapiro and Keys to Excellence, visit the Drake Newsroom.

Don’t miss Cavalcade of Choirs, a concert featuring all four of Drake’s choruses, on Sunday, April 24 at 3 p.m. in Sheslow Auditorium. This free concert will include works by contemporary American composers as well as works by Michael Haydn, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arvo Pärt, and folksongs from Latvia and Finland.

—Aimee Beckmann-Collier, the Ellis and Nelle Levitt Distinguished Professor of Conducting

Please join us for the fourth spring event of our 2015–2016 series on death and dying—a lecture from Amy Hollywood on “Secular Death.” The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on April 14 at 6 p.m. in Sussman Theater (lower level of the Olmsted Center). Note that the time is an hour earlier than usual Comparison Project events.

Amy Hollywood is the Elizabeth H. Monrad Professor of Christian Studies and the chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. She is the author of The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart, which received the Otto Grundler Prize for the best book in medieval studies from the International Congress of Medieval Studies; Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History; and Acute Melancholia and Other Essays. She is also the co-editor, with Patricia Beckman, of The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Professor Hollywood is currently exploring the place of the mystical, often re-described as enthusiasm, within modern philosophy, theology, and poetry.

Professor Hollywood will offer a performance and meditative talk about how we imagine our own deaths and the deaths of others.

—Tim Knepper, Professor of Philosophy

Join Drake University alumnus and director David Heineman for his documentary screening of Suffering in Silence, about campus sexual assault, today, April 11, 7–9 p.m. in Meredith Hall, Room 101. David will do a talk-back after the screening. It is free and open to the public.

—Alysa Mozak, Coordinator for Sexual Violence Response and Healthy Relationship Promotion

The Drake Theatre Department and the Office for Sexual Violence Response and Healthy Relationship Promotion presents “Messages: A Lived Experience Play about Sexual and Relationship Violence” on Tuesday, April 12, 7–9 p.m. in Sussman Theatre, Olmsted Center. This play is based on five interviews with survivors of sexual and relationship violence in Iowa and was co-written by John Graham, associate professor of theatre arts, and Wendy Gourley. The performance is open to the Drake and general public.

This project was generously supported through a Slay Grant Social Justice Award: The V.O.I.C.E.S. Project.

—Alysa Mozak, Coordinator for Sexual Violence Response and Healthy Relationship Promotion

Renee Ann Cramer, associate professor and chair of law, politics, and society at Drake, will discuss her book, Pregnant with the Stars, on Wednesday, April 20, at 7 p.m. in the Cowles Library Reading Room. The conversation and a reception following are free and open to the public.

“Check out that baby bump!” Online and print magazines, television shows, and personal blogs are awash with gossip and speculation about pregnant celebrities. What drives our cultural obsession with celebrity baby bumps? Pregnant with the Stars examines the American fascination with, and judgment of, celebrity pregnancy and exposes how our seemingly innocent interest in “baby bumps” actually reinforces troubling standards about femininity, race, and class, while increasing the surveillance and regulation of all women in our society.

This author event is sponsored by Cowles Library.

—Leslie Noble, Assistant to the Dean and Manager, Library Support Operations

Softball
Drake vs. Creighton
April 12 at 4 p.m.
Ron Buel Field

Track & Field
Jim Duncan Invitational
April 15 at 3 p.m.
Drake Stadium

Track & Field
Jim Duncan Invitational
April 16 at 8 a.m.
Drake Stadium

Softball
Drake vs. Missouri State (Doubleheader)
April 16 at 12 p.m.
Ron Buel Field

Softball
Drake vs. Missouri State
April 17 at 12 p.m.
Ron Buel Field