Things to Do, April 28

'Psycho' screening

Cornell Cinema presents a special screening of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," Friday, April 28, at 7:30 p.m. in the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room. Admission is $5, and includes free Blood Orange San Pellegrino and free snacks while they last.

Willard Straight Theatre will host student performances April 29-May 7, and Cornell Cinema screenings will resume Wednesday, May 10.

Eighth Blackbird concert

The Cornell Concert Series concludes its 2016-17 season with contemporary ensemble Eighth Blackbird, April 28 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall Auditorium. General admission tickets are $28 general, $17 for students.

Over the last 20 years, the sextet has won multiple Grammy Awards for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance, including a Grammy in 2016 for "Filament," which will be performed at Cornell. Also on the program are works by Philip Glass, David Lang, Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner, whose "Murder Ballades" draws on the dark side of European fairy tales and American folk music.

The group has commissioned and premiered hundreds of works by composers such as David Lang, Steven Mackey, Missy Mazzoli and Steve Reich ’57, whose "Double Sextet" went on to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize.

Celebrating Christopherson

The Department of City and Regional Planning celebrates the life and work of its late professor and chair Susan Christopherson, April 29 from 2-5 p.m. in Milstein Auditorium.

"Celebrating Susan Christopherson: The Joy of Learning in Service to the World" includes a memorial service and presentations by colleagues, friends and family from Cornell and beyond, plus live music and a reception.

Christopherson, who died in December at age 69, is also being honored with an exhibition in Milstein Hall depicting her Cornell career, research and publications, and a tribute by alumni at the Cornell Women's Planning Forum April 28. All events are free and open to the public.

Spring Concert

The Cornell Chamber Orchestra ends the 2016-17 season with its Spring Concert, April 30 at 3 p.m. in Barnes Hall Auditorium. The one-hour concert program is free and open to the public.

Under the direction of Chris Younghoon Kim, director of orchestras and associate professor of music, the orchestra will perform Antonín Dvořák's "Serenade for Strings" and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20, featuring pianist Xak Bjerken, professor of performance and piano in the Department of Music.

Collaborative friendship

The root of friendship is freedom and love. What does collaboration look like when based on these principles? The more one gets to know a friend, the more of a mystery they become.

Poet Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon and scholar Dagmawi Woubshet, both associate professors of English, will discuss their collaborative translation project as an effort to discover that mystery in their lives and work, in a conversation May 3 at 4:30 p.m. in Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, Klarman Hall.

Imagined as a chapbook, the project includes Van Clief-Stefanon's poems on Ethiopia alongside Woubshet's Amharic translations; and a suite of conversations about the pleasures and ethics of the sensual life, the kinship between Africa and African America, and the creative spark and space that exist in friendship.

The "In A Word" series showcases the Creative Writing Program faculty's influences and literary contributions. The event is free and open to the public. A reception follows in the English Department Lounge, 258 Goldwin Smith Hall.

Fiction reading

Best-selling author Dorit Rabinyan will discuss and read excerpts from her new novel, "All the Rivers," May 4 in 106 White Hall. A reading in Hebrew is at 3 p.m. and a reading in English at 5 p.m., both free and open to the public. The event sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Jewish Studies Program.

Rabinyan also is the author of "Persian Brides" and "Strand of a Thousand Pearls." "All the Rivers" (aka "Borderlife") depicts a taboo relationship and raises questions about the convergences of homeland and exile, borderlines and destinies.

Player-piano conference

In the early 20th century, player-pianos were ubiquitous in public and private spaces, and revolutionized how people made and listened to music.

The Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies and the Department of Music host "Ghosts in the Machine: Technology, History, and Aesthetics of the Player-Piano," May 4-6, with lectures, roundtable discussions, demonstrations of the instruments and performances including newly commissioned music for player-piano and piano.

The conference – in Lincoln Hall, Barnes Hall and A.D. White House – was organized by graduate student Sergio Ospina-Romero. It features participants and scholars from a multidisciplinary range of expertise and perspectives including technology, cultural and musical histories, media and sound archives and instrument preservation. Performances include live pianola in Barnes Hall Auditorium, May 4 at 8 p.m., and Bob Berkman in B20 Lincoln Hall, May 6 at 1 p.m.

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