MOUNT VERNON — Nature photographs by Mark Peterson of Ames are on exhibit in “Solitude,” a show running through Dec. 22 at the Orange Carpet Gallery of The Commons at Cornell College. Admission is free.

Peterson creates his photographs by “stepping into the landscape, simplifying nature’s chaos by concentrating on the patterns, textures, forms, intimate details and vivid colors occurring within it,” he says.

He specializes in natural history and global travel photographic images. He considers himself a “portrait” photographer, although his subjects are seldom people. He attempts to make dramatic, artistic portraits of the world.

For more information on Peterson’s work, go to www.mpetersonphoto.com.

MOUNT VERNON — The Cornell College English department stages Shakespeare’s colorful “Much Ado About Nothing,” directed by a former member of the American Shakespeare Center, in the Plumb-Fleming Studio Theatre of Armstrong Hall on Nov. 3, 4 and 5.

Performance times are 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are available at the door beginning one hour before each performance for $9 (adults) and $6 (students and seniors).

The Cornell production’s guest director is Joyce Peifer, formerly associate artistic director, traveling troupe manager, actor and education coordinator at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va. She also was co-founder and former artistic director of Upstart Crow Productions in Manassas, Va.

“Much Ado” features the sassy Beatrice and Benedick, laughable Dogberry and mischievous troublemaker Don John, all set to a soundtrack of today. The soldiers come home, only to find out that no truce has been declared in the war of the sexes. This production of “Much Ado” will appeal to all who like to laugh, flirt, plot and pull pranks on unsuspecting friends.

This is Cornell’s biennial Shakespeare play produced by students in the course Shakespeare After Shakespeare: Performance and Cultural Criticism, taught by Katy Stavreva, associate professor of English. Besides staging the production, the students engage in discussions of the aesthetics and politics of performing Shakespeare in English and other world languages.

The Shakespeare production in conjunction with a course was originated in 1978 by Stephen Lacey, a 1965 graduate of Cornell who returned in 1977 as an English instructor. Following his death in 2000, the Stephen Lacey Memorial Shakespeare Fund was established to help support continuation of the production, which celebrates the love of learning, art and laughter of a beloved teacher and colleague.

MOUNT VERNON — Iowa City artist Genie Hudson Patrick displays recent oil paintings in “Bounty,” an exhibit Nov. 5 through Dec. 3 in Cornell College’s Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall.

A reception for the artist is Sunday, Nov. 12, from 2-4 p.m. A gallery talk is Thursday, Nov. 16, at 7 p.m.

Patrick’s paintings are subtle and evocative in their response to the Iowa landscape. Sometimes her work is quiet and still, but it also often includes elements that make it dramatic, acknowledging atmosphere, time of day, seasons, weather and other natural forces.

“These factors condition my responses to the landscape,” she says. “Retaining my initial abstract structure as my visual point of departure, I allow this more expanded view of nature to become my inspiration.”

Her work sometimes depicts human activity and what we build, such as roads, highway signs, posts, poles, ditches, bridges, barns and silos.

“Although such manmade elements intrude in the nature that these paintings observe, they always seem to refer and even defer to the broad and forceful sweep of form and rhythm present in the landscape,” she says.

Patrick’s work has been published in “Land of the Fragile Giants: Landscapes, Environments, and Peoples of the Loess Hills,” “Plain Pictures: Images of the American Prairie” and “The Art of the State: Iowa.” She is represented by Hudson River Gallery in Iowa City and Olson-Larsen Galleries of West Des Moines.

Luce Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.

MOUNT VERNON — Known for fusing the classical quartet sound with contemporary music such as jazz, rock ’n’ roll, and R&B, Turtle Island String Quartet brings its Grammy-winning sound to Cornell College on Nov. 6.

The concert, which begins at 7:30 p.m. in King Chapel, is the second in Cornell’s Music Mondays series. Tickets are available at the door for $10 (adults) and $5 (students).

Turtle Island’s Cornell program, “Outside the Lines,” will include arrangements of pieces by Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Dave Brubeck, Pat Metheny, Thelonius Monk, J.S. Bach, Chick Corea, Antonio Vivaldi, Maurice Ravel and Frank Zappa.

The group won a 2006 Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album for its collaboration with the Ying Quartet, “4 + Four,” a mix of classical and jazz. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma proclaimed Turtle Island to be “a unified voice that truly breaks new ground – authentic and passionate – a reflection of some of the most creative music-making today.”

Taking its name from creation mythology found in Native American folklore, Turtle Island String Quartet’s inception in 1985 was the result of violinist David Balakrishnan’s brainstorming explorations and compositional vision while writing a master’s thesis at Antioch University West. The quartet has dabbled in folk, bluegrass, swing, be-bop, funk, R&B, rock, hip-hop, as well as music of Latin America and India. Besides recordings for numerous labels, Turtle Island’s music is heard on soundtracks for major motion pictures, TV and radio programs such as “The Today Show,” “All Things Considered” and “Prairie Home Companion,” and in collaborations with artists including clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, The Manhattan Transfer, pianists Billy Taylor and Kenny Barron and the Parsons Dance Company.

The remaining concerts in the Music Mondays series, now in its ninth year, are Mozart Piano Quartet on Feb. 19 and Auryn Quartet on March 12.

MOUNT VERNON — A Cornell College alumnus has donated $5 million to endow a program that will prepare future leaders in business and public policy, as a tribute to his grandfather who rose from meager beginnings to run one of the most successful businesses distributing industrial bearings. Read More…

MOUNT VERNON — An actor who appeared in the 1975 Broadway production of “Equus” plays the lead role when Cornell College opens “Equus” on Friday, Oct. 13, at Kimmel Theatre.

Performances are Oct. 13 and 14 at 8 p.m., Oct. 15 at 2 p.m., Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for students, seniors and youth. Admission is free to Cornell students, faculty, staff, emeriti faculty and retired staff, but reservations are required. To reserve tickets, call the box office at (319) 895-4293 or go to www.cornellcollege.edu/theatre/box_office/.

“Equus,” a Tony-winning play by Peter Shaffer, focuses on the causes underlying a seemingly senseless act of violence — the blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in Hampshire, England — by an adolescent boy. The violence forces the characters to confront questions of responsibility and ultimate meaning. “Equus” contains adult content.

Starring in the lead role as psychiatrist Martin Dysart is guest artist David Combs of Los Angeles, who played Nugget, the lead horse, in “Equus” on Broadway. Martin Dysart, he says, is “one of those roles that has become classic.”

“It was a big hit on Broadway, and so many excellent actors have done the role and were challenged by it,” he says, noting Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins both starred as Dysart in the Broadway run. “I know the role so well, having done nearly 700 performances of the play. It requires a certain amount of maturity to understand what the man is going through.”

Combs should be familiar to eastern Iowans as a frequent cast member in Riverside Theatre productions, especially the summer Shakespeare Festival in Iowa City’s Lower City Park, which is how the Cornell connection developed. Mark Hunter, chair of Cornell’s theater department, occasionally directs at the Shakespeare Festival; Riverside co-artistic director Ron Clark is artist-in-residence and director of Cornell’s production of “Equus.”

Combs left New York in 1987 for California to work in commercials and television. His screen credits include “The West Wing,” “JAG” and “NYPD Blue,” and several films including “The Accidental Tourist.”

MOUNT VERNON — Mount Vernon native and Cornell College alumnus Peter Wilch has been named Cornell’s new vice president for alumni and college advancement.

Wilch succeeds Terry Gibson, who is taking on a new role as senior vice president for the campaign to focus on key Cornell funding initiatives.

“We are delighted to welcome Peter back to campus. His professional experience, understanding of our mission and his passion for Cornell will drive our efforts in identifying resources to help provide extraordinary opportunities for our students,” said President Les Garner.

Since graduating in 1994, Wilch has worked in development at Cornell, Grinnell College and most recently as executive director of development for the Iowa Law School Foundation at the University of Iowa College of Law. As vice president for alumni and college advancement, Wilch will direct the activities of Cornell’s alumni and college advancement office, which includes the offices of college advancement, college communications and alumni relations.

Wilch and his wife, Melanie, a 1992 Cornell graduate who teaches sixth grade in Lisbon, live in Mount Vernon with their four children. Wilch is a trustee of the Mount Vernon Community School District Foundation, a member of the school district’s Advisory Committee and a coach for Mount Vernon Youth Girls Basketball.

MOUNT VERNON — The John Corbett Band, featuring the actor best known for “Sex and the City,” “Northern Exposure” and the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” opens Cornell College’s Music Mondays concert series Oct. 16.

The concert begins at 6:30 p.m. in King Chapel with opening act Jason McLain, followed by headliner Corbett at 7:30. Tickets are general admission and sold only at the door for $10 (adults) and $5 (students). A capacity crowd is expected; early arrival is recommended. Doors open at
6 p.m. On-campus parking will be open to the public in all faculty-staff parking lots.

Corbett released his self-titled debut album in April, but he’s hardly a newcomer to the country music scene. He was raised in Wheeling, W.Va., just five blocks from the Capitol Music Hall, home to the Wheeling Jamboree. Now known as Jamboree USA, it is second only to the Grand Ole Opry as the longest running live country music radio show.

Corbett played bass in a high school band and then took his guitar on to California in the mid-1980s, where he and current band member Tara Novick met and jammed together for fun while the actor starred in TV’s “Northern Exposure” as philosophical disc jockey Chris Stevens.

For a decade, Corbett owned a music club in Seattle, the Phoenix, where he hung out and supported touring and local acts. Back to Los Angeles in 2000, he reconnected with Novick. Four years later Corbett was an award presenter at a country music event in Nashville. Eventually he and Novick landed a recording session that would lead to the debut album.

The album features tracks such as “Good to Go” and “Bottle of Whiskey,” which blend concise, straightforward Nashville song craft with tight, combustive Southern rock arrangements that allow Corbett’s fiery band to stretch out.

Opening act Jason McLain is a piano-pounding singer-songwriter from the Twin Cities and a 1998 graduate of Cornell, where he formed his first band and where his father, Martin Hearne, is a professor of music. His debut solo album, released earlier this year, is “Drifting Through the Corners.”

The remaining concerts in the Music Mondays series, now in its ninth year, are Turtle Island String Quartet on Nov. 6, Mozart Piano Quartet on Feb. 19 and Auryn Quartet on March 12.