David Porter to present

Play, music and otherwise, to be topic of Porter recital

David Porter, president emeritus of Skidmore, will present ?The Well-Tampered Clavier: Play, Musical and Otherwise,? at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, in Filene Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

Porter will perform excerpts from First and Second Piano Sonatas by Charles Ives, The Tides of Manaunau, The Aeolian Harp, and The Banshee (1912) by Henry Cowell, and selections from Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946-48 by John Cage.

Porter will conclude the performance with five of Erik Satie?s Sports & Divertissements (1914), accompanied by slides of the pochoir prints that were included in the first edition. Joining Porter in the performance will be Sheldon Solomon, who will read the narrative comments that also accompany these short and playful pieces. Solomon is Ross Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Skidmore professor of psychology, and one of the team of faculty who teaches ?Human Dilemmas,? the Scribner Seminar that is sponsoring the event.

Students in ?Human Dilemmas? are currently studying the nature of knowledge and are reading Northup Frye's ?The Meaning of Metaphor? and a piece by Susanne Langer on art (Expressiveness). According to Solomon, ?Both readings emphasize the vital role of imagination and creativity in human affairs, and David's performance is meant to highlight these ideas and at the same time introduce, by example, the fundamentally playful nature of creativity/imagination.?

Porter is currently the Harry C. Payne Visiting Professor of Liberal Arts at Williams College, where he has taught since 1999. Among his recent musical activities at Skidmore are performances of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations in 2002 and of Schubert's song cycle, Die Sch ne Mullerin, in 2004, with tenor Rand Reeves; and a recital in 2006 that featured works by Mozart, Ives, and Schubert. Porter also participated in two series of performances at the Tang Teaching Museum, ?Satie-Cage Tango? in 2000, at the time of the Tang's inauguration, and ?Mak 3? in 2004, an ambitious performance piece built around George Crumb's Makrokosmos III, for two pianos and percussion.

Before coming to Skidmore in 1987, Porter taught classics and music at Carleton College for 25 years and served as president in 1986-87. He has given recitals and lecture-recitals throughout the United States, in Great Britain, and on radio and TV, including programs in recent years at Williams College, Bennington College, Drew University, Whitman College, and at the Intermezzo Chamber Music Festival in Salt Lake City. Porter is the author of books on Horace and on Greek tragedy and of two monographs on Virginia Woolf, and editor, with Gunther Schuller and Clara Steuermann, of a book on pianist and Schoenberg colleague Edward Steuermann, with whom he studied for seven years. Porter?s latest book, On the Divide: The Many Lives of Willa Cather, will be published in 2008 by the University of Nebraska Press.