UAB Briefs: Piano Series continues Jan. 28, poet wins a prize
Welcome to another installment of UAB Briefs.
In this weekly online feature, we keep track of interesting people and events on campus.
Know people, places and programs on the UAB campus that deserve a mention? Email us at jchambers@starnespublishing.com.
A riveting young pianist
The UAB Piano Series, presented by the Department of Music, brings the world’s finest pianists to Birmingham.
The series will continue Sunday, Jan. 28, with a performance by Sahun Hong, who is known for his colorful style and riveting energy.
Hong will play in the Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center at 4 p.m.
The program will consist of Beethoven’s Sonata in F major, Op. 10 No. 2; Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35; Leon Kirchner’s “Interlude II” (2003); and Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13.
On the roster of Young Steinway Artists since 2010, Hong was a finalist for the 2017 American Pianists Awards, has been featured as a guest soloist with numerous orchestras and has played at such prestigious venues as The Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
Professor of piano and artist-in-residence Yakov Kasman, a Van Cliburn medalist, directs the UAB Piano Series.
Tickets are $15 general admission and $5 for students through grade 12 and UAB employees. UAB students are admitted free.
For tickets, call 975-2787 or go to alysstephens.org.
For more information, 934-7376 or go to uab.edu/cas/music.
Poet takes the prize
Tina Mozelle Braziel, who serves as executive director of the Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop at UAB, has been named the winner of a prestigious literary award in California.
Braziel is the winner of the 2017 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry book contest awarded by the graduate creative writing program at Fresno State and announced on Jan. 8.
She will receive a $2,000 prize, and her debut full-length book, “Known by Salt,” will be published and distributed by Anhinga Press, which co-sponsors the prize.
"I was kind of shocked and thrilled at the same time," Braziel told Iron City Ink.
The prize at Fresno State honors the late poet and professor emeritus Philip Levine, a founder of Fresno State’s poetry writing program, a 1995 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry and the 2011 U.S. poet laureate.
Braziel beat out substantial competition for the award. There were 867 manuscript submissions, the second-highest number of entries ever, according to a Fresno State news release.
"It just makes me feel a little more lucky in a way that my work was appealing enough to be the winner and not a semifinalist again," Braziel said, citing some other recent contests where she fell a little short of the top prizes.
C. G. Hanzlicek, a poet and Fresno State professor emeritus who served as a judge, praises the “well-wrought poems” in Braziel’s book, as well as her “keen” observations and attention to detail.
“Known by Salt” is “also a celebration of Alabama, with its forests, its rivers and lakes, and its creatures: snakes, deer, birds, lizards,” Hanzlicek said in the news release.
A Pell City native, Braziel earned her master's of fine arts degree at The University of Oregon, and her poems have appeared in numerous journals.
Having her book published, likely by December of this year or January 2019, is the realization of a dream for Braziel.
"It’s absolutely huge," she said. "It has been something I have been working for and working toward for at least 15 years now."
The Ada Long Workshop that Braziel directs is an intensive summer program for high school students. It's designed for students interested in creative writing for personal enrichment, as preparation for university work in creative writing or as an introduction to writing as a career field.
National rankings from U.S. News
U.S. News & World Report ranks two UAB online programs in the nation’s top 25.
The UAB School of Nursing’s online graduate program is ranked No. 16 of the 154 schools rated in that category.
The Collat School of Business’ online master of science in management information systems program is ranked No. 23 of the 52 schools listed.
In addition, Collat School’s master of accounting online degree was ranked No. 30 in the best online graduate business, non-MBA category.
The programs were assessed using such factors as student engagement, faculty credentials and training, student services and technology, admissions selectivity and peer reputation.
To see all of the 2017 U.S. News & World Report Best Online Programs, click here.
To see all of UAB’s program rankings, click here.