Wilmette music student scores

• Reprints

Lauren Tu

Indiana University music student and Wilmette native Ari Fisher will debut the new score he wrote for the 1922 silent film, “David Copperfield” at 7 p.m. on Feb. 4 at the Indiana University Cinema. Fisher, a sophomore in IU’s Jacobs School of Music, was commissioned by IU Cinema to write the 75-minute score as part of the “David Copperfield Project” to celebrate Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday. The project is a collaboration between IU Cinema and the Jacobs School of Music. Nicholas Hersh, a graduate student, will conduct the 17-member orchestra at the premiere.

May groundbreaking: Dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Toni-Marie Montgomery, might just have the biggest smile on campus right now. At long last plans have been announced for a new $117 million lakefront building for NU’s prestigious music school, now located in a house on Elgin Road. “I went to practice in one of the rooms there,” said Montgomery, who is a pianist, “and we could hear each other playing. How can the students practice there?” Designed by Goettsch Partners, Inc. of Chicago, the 150,000-square- foot building will be just south of Pick-Staiger. “We move in the fall of 2015,” she said, “and we’ll be on the most beautiful part of the campus.”

New director at Gymnasium: The Board of Directors for The Actors Gymnasium in Evanston recently announced the appointment of Jerry R. Foust as the organization’s new Executive Director after a national search that began last July. Foust comes from Berkeley, Calif., where he was Executive Director for the Berkeley Playhouse. While there, he oversaw the tripling of classes and programs and the merger of the playhouse with the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Foust was the Artistic Director and Conductor of the San Diego Men’s Chorus prior to joining the Berkeley Playhouse. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from Butler University and a master’s degree in post-secondary education from San Diego State University.

Form Fellow: Northwestern University Professor Inigo Manglano-Ovalle was recently named a USA Fellow, which carries a $50,000 prize with the honor. Manglano-Ovalle is a professor of art theory and practice in NU’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. His own work combines sculpture and video to raise questions about social and political issues. He’s also a 2001 MacArthur Fellow and has had solo or group exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim museums in New York and Bilbao, Spain, and elsewhere. He’s known for his “Gravity Is A Force To Be Reckoned With,” a 25- by 25-foot recreation of a never-built glass house designed by architect Mies van der Rohe.

Piano champ: Glenbrook South High School junior Lauren Tu, 16, was the winner of the 2011 Illinois State Music Teachers Association Senior Division Piano Competition last month after earning a place in the state finals by winning her ISMTA district competition. She has studied the piano with Sueanne Metz since the age of 6. In addition to winning numerous local competitions, she has received awards from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Youth Auditions, the Walgreens National Concerto Competition, the Chopin Youth Piano Competition, the Michigan Music Teachers Association Concerto Competition, the Steinway Young Artists Competition, and the Illinois State Music Teachers Association Junior High State Piano Finals. She first performed on WFMT (98.7 FM) at age 10 and was featured three years later on their show “Introductions.” Lauren has also performed in the Young Steinway Concert Series and has performed in New York’s Carnegie Hall. Most recently she was a winner of the 2011 Glenbrook Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and a finalist in the 2011 Louisiana International Piano Competition.