Everything Nac

Ticket sales for Stephen F. Austin State University’s student-run Culinary Café and Lumberjack Express mobile food lab will open at 8 a.m. Monday, Jan. 31.

Tickets for the Culinary Café are $10 and include a three-course meal, along with tea, coffee and water. Tickets are not limited but quickly sell out.

The Culinary Café, in its new location at 1401 Mound St., will open to the public March 3. Lunch will be served starting at 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. each Tuesday and Thursday. It is recommended that guests arrive no later than 12:15 p.m. to ensure lunch service. Guests may be seated with another party to maximize limited capacity.

The new location, previously the home of former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, recently was renovated to preserve the home’s history and elegance, while adding a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen equipped with a prep area and a walk-in refrigeration and freezer unit. It allows students to experience commercial cooking in a professional setting.

“Everyone is eagerly anticipating the new location,” said Dr. Chay Runnels, professor of hospitality administration and interim director of the School of Human Sciences at SFA. “We’ve been planning and dreaming of this for years, so it’s exciting that it’s a reality.”

Lumberjack Express, a quick-service food truck, will open from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15, at the end of Raguet Street near the Cole STEM and Norton HPE buildings. Patrons have the option of ordering upon arrival or purchasing tickets in advance for $8.

Express meals include an entrée, side dish and bottle of water. Ice cream is available for an additional $2.

View menus and purchase tickets at sfasu.edu/culinarycafe and sfasu.edu/lumberjackexpress. For more information, call (936) 468-4502. To learn more about SFA’s hospitality administration program, visit sfasu.edu/hospitality.

By Nathan Wicker, senior marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University

Mezzo soprano Dianna Grabowski will be a featured soloist when the Pineywoods Camerata performs at 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 6, in Cole Concert Hall on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University.

The Pineywoods Camerata is an SFA faculty-led, conductorless chamber orchestra, dedicated to period-informed performances of Baroque music, according to Dr. Jennifer Dalmas, professor of violin and viola in the School of Music and member of the ensemble.

“This is the first Pineywoods Camerata performance in four years, so we are excited to finally have this concert again,” Dalmas said.

Grabowski will perform as vocal soloist for BWV 170 by J.S. Bach. Described as “glamorous” and “glowing-toned” by the Dallas Morning News, Grabowski is an active performer of music spanning the Renaissance through the 21st century. She states she “particularly values the collaborative nature of classical singing, be it in chamber music, oratorio, opera, choral music, early music or new music.” As a concert soloist, she has performed with such groups as le Violon d’Ingres (Paris), Santa Fe Pro Musica, Dallas Bach Society, Bourbon Baroque and the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus. Among her more recent performances are singing with the New York Philharmonic and Grammy award-winning vocal ensemble The Crossing in the world premiere of “Fire in My Mouth” by Julia Wolfe. Grabowski sings frequently with other professional choruses such as the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and the Grammy-nominated ensemble, Seraphic Fire. Her opera roles have included the title role in Jacques Offenbach’s “La Périchole “(with Opéra du Périgord), Diane in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Zéphyre” and Céphise in Rameau’s “Pygmalion” (with the Dallas Bach Society), and recently a workshop performance of a new operatic work by Leanna Kirchoff and Rachel J. Peters, “Friday after Friday.” She is married to Dr. Gregory Grabowski, conductor of the SFA Symphony Orchestra, and they reside in Nacogdoches with sons Ben and Sam.

The ensemble is composed of faculty and student string players and will also feature faculty members Christina Guenther, flute, and Graham Mackenzie, oboe, in the cantata, along with Grabowski. Maria Lyapkova will perform on harpsichord for each piece.

Other works on the program include “Merry” Suite in C major by Georg Philip Telemann and Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 4 by George Frederick Handel.

“Beginning with a stately overture, the Telemann suite is a charming collection of movements composed mostly in dance forms,” Dalmas said, adding that the Cantata BWV “Rest contented, beloved Soul” is “a beautiful work” for solo voice and orchestra, written in five movements that alternate between aria and recitative.”

Dalmas described the final piece on the program, the Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No 4, as “a wonderful example of Handel’s contribution to the genre, with its beautiful melodies and exciting fugal episodes.”

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit finearts.sfasu.edu. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.

Dornith Doherty, 2016 Texas State Artist – 2D and 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, will visit the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art on Thursday, Feb. 3. As part of her visit, Doherty will offer a public lecture on her work bridging art and science at 5 p.m. that day in the Lower Art Building, Room 106. The lecture is open to the public free of charge, and masks are strongly encouraged.

Doherty works with photography, video and scientific imaging to visualize the questions that are often left invisible when considering human entanglement in changing environments. Her project “Archiving Eden,” which documents and explores the collections of seed storage facilities around the world using both traditional photographs and x-ray images, was published in book form in 2017. Her current project, “Atlas of the Invisible,” incorporates images of migratory bird feathers and insect wings made with a scanning electron microscope to better understand the earth’s atmosphere. Selections of Doherty’s work are on view as part of an invitational exhibit, “Respire,” showing Jan. 25 through March 20 at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House, 329 E. Main St., SFA’s art gallery in downtown Nacogdoches.

Doherty was born in Houston and received a B.A. cum laude from Rice University and a M.F.A. in photography from Yale University. She is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas. In addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship, she has also received grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the Indiana Arts Commission, and the United States Department of the Interior, the University of North Texas, and the Houston Center for Photography.

Doherty’s visit is part of an interdisciplinary pilot project in Emerging Photographic Technologies, funded through the SFA President’s Innovation Fund. The pilot project has included collaborations between art, astronomy and biology, making images using drones, telescopes and microscopes.

For more information, contact the School of Art at (936) 468-5500.