Posted on Sep 27, 2007

Posted on Sep 26, 2007

The Music Department will kick off its new afternoon Drop by Emerson concert series on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 4:30 p.m. with acclaimed pianist and conductor Max Lifchitz in the recital hall of the Taylor Music Center.

Lifchitz will introduce a selection of recent works by American women composers. The March/April 2007 American Record Guide describes these pieces as romantic, lyrical, impressionistic and passionate.

On Nov. 1, Union College Orchestra concerto soloist and former Union practicum teacher Young Kim, piano, returns for a performance with Parnas Duo, violin and cello. The concert includes Beethoven’s Trio, Op. 70, No. 2, an audience favorite.

The new concert series will feature performances two Thursdays of each term, at 4:30 p.m. All are free and open to the public.

“These are shorter concerts, about an hour long, that fit at the end of your day, before your evening activities,” says Hilary Tann, the John Howard Payne Professor of Music.

The Fred. L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium is the centerpiece of the $4 million Taylor Music Center, located in the renovated North Colonnade and made possible by a generous gift from Jim ’66 and John ’74 Taylor. The building features 13 Steinway pianos and a prestigious ranking as an “all-Steinway” program.

For more information about the Drop by Emerson series, contact Tann at ext. 6566 or at tannh@union.edu.

Posted on Sep 26, 2007

Laurie Tyler, assistant professor of Chemistry, has been awarded a prestigious Jerome A. Schiff Charitable Trust grant of $30,000 for the academic year 2007-08 in support of her project, “Structure Determination and Dynamics of Transition Metal Complexes Using Isotopically Labeled Ligands: Through Metal Coupling of NMR Active Nuclei.”

Tyler will use her award to purchase chemicals and related equipment and to provide stipends for several students who will be conducting research under her guidance. She is interested in developing new, innovative methods for determining chemical structure using NMR spectroscopy. Her initial NMR studies have yielded promising and exciting findings that have not been reported previously.

Tyler holds a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The Schiff grant is designed to assist a faculty member whose research has been difficult to fund externally because it is too interdisciplinary or esoteric for traditional funding agencies.

Posted on Sep 26, 2007

The Music Department kicks off a new afternoon concert series Thursday, Oct. 4 at 4:30 p.m. with acclaimed pianist and conductor Max Lifchitz in the recital hall of the Taylor Music Center.

The “Drop by Emerson” concert series features hour-long performances two Thursdays of each term, at 4:30 p.m in the Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium. All events are free and open to the public.

Lifchitz, founder and director of North/South Recordings, will perform a selection of recent works by American women composers. The works have been described as “romantic, lyrical, impressionistic and passionate.”

On Nov. 1, Union College Orchestra concerto soloist and former Union practicum teacher Young Kim, piano, returns for a performance with Parnas Duo, violin and cello. The classical concert includes Beethoven’s Trio, Op. 70, No. 2.

For more information on the series, contact Hilary Tann, the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at (518) 388-6566 or tannh@union.edu.

Posted on Sep 26, 2007

The topic of weather has been used as a conversation starter, usually as fodder for idle chat when nothing else comes to mind. To researchers like associate professor of geosciences James Lawrence, however, the interest in weather had led him to try to better understand the nature of natural disasters, particularly hurricanes through his scientific investigations.

"It's important because it might be able to help people at the National Hurricane Center provide advisories to public and let them know what they should do," Lawrence said about his research.

A professor at the University of Houston since 1984, Lawrence has concentrated his efforts on measuring the hydrogen and oxygen isotope content that arises during a hurricane by constructing a device that can evaluate the amount of these particles present in high-speed winds — a main source of destruction next to the flooding that occurs and affects property and human life.

Lawrence received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Union College, and his master's and doctorate from the California Institute of Technology. He has also been affiliated with the American Geophysical Union, the Geochemical Society and the American Meteorological Society.

Previously, the device has been tested and had successful results in a wind tunnel facility located at the Texas A&M, but has yet to be flown by the hurricane research division of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to test its capabilities and durability in an actual natural disaster.

"We will know within a few weeks when and if it will be flown this season," he said.

The device is expected to resist high-speed winds while flying multiple times though a hurricane in a four-engine NOAA plane.

The machine measures the isotopes present in the air as a way to determine the strength of the storm.

During a Category 3 hurricane, seawater that is blown away from the waves is called "sea-spray." The stronger the winds become, the more water is taken from waves, which in turn, increases the amount of salt in the air. "During a storm the wind blows across the waves and rips the water off of the waves and into the air," Lawrence said.

The internal winds of a hurricane are not uniform in strength and areas of high winds contain more isotopes in the air.

Lawrence's machine intends to map out the levels of intensity in a hurricane that correlate with the high levels of salt in the air.

"Because it gets its wind speed by a different method, it may add extra information," he said.

This new method of measuring the intensity of a hurricane could be more accurate than radar, which evaluates "instantaneous speed," whereas the sea-spray method emits an average over time and could possibly predict hurricane wind speed changes better than current technologies.

Based on the recent experiences of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, natural disasters have become an increasing concern, particularly during hurricane season, which begins in May and ends in November.

Lawrence's interest in attempting to understand the nature of hurricanes came naturally.

"Who wouldn't be (interested)?" he asked.

Hurricanes are known to gain their strength from warm water that fuels the storms' trajectories. In recent years, global warming has also become an issue raised by scientists who have warned about the dangers of changing climate patterns and has concerned the international community of its effects.

Lawrence also said that he hopes that scientists can learn more from highly destructive hurricanes, evaluated as Categories 3, 4 or 5.

"Anything we learn about changes in intensity will be helpful," he said.