Dialog, UA Faculty and Staff News

July 2005

UA Moves To “Paperless” Student Billing System
2005-06 Celebrity Series Schedule Announced At UA
UA’s EHS Office Receives High Award

UA Moves To “Paperless” Student Billing System

The UA Office of Student Receivables has announced a new system for billing students for tuition, dorm rooms, meal plans, parking fines, student health center charges and other expenses. Students will access their bills online at myBama, the UA Web site (www.mybama.ua.edu), under the new paperless system that will begin for the fall 2005 semester. No paper bills will be mailed in the new UA payment system. Students will be notified via e-mail when to access their bills and of the payment deadline for each billing period. The deadline for payment and schedule confirmation for the fall 2005 semester is Aug. 12; the deadline for the spring 2006 semester is Dec. 9.

In the new paperless system, students will be able to authorize their parents or other individuals to view financial activities on their account, make payments and confirm schedules. Payments may be made online by credit card (Visa, MasterCard or Discover) or electronic check. Payments may also be made in person during regular business hours, and credit card payments may be made by telephone. UA will continue to offer the deferment plan. Students or their parents can also sign up for the Bama Plan (a 10-month prepayment plan) through July 5. Throughout the term, miscellaneous expenses such as parking fines and student health center charges will be applied to the student account. The student, or their parents as authorized users, will be responsible for accessing their account at myBama to view any additional charges during the semester and to see the due date to prevent late payment charges from applying.

Information on the new system is being provided to incoming freshmen at orientation sessions throughout the summer. Continuing students will be notified of the changes by e-mail and by letter. For more information, contact the UA Office of Student Receivables at 348-5350, receivables@fa.ua.edu, Box 870102, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0120.

2005-06 Celebrity Series Schedule Announced At UA

UA’s School of Music has announced its Celebrity Series concert schedule for 2005-06. This season’s four offerings are the Emerson String Quartet, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, violinist Joshua Bell and Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio.

All four performances are sponsored by the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation, which marks the 17th year the Moody Foundation has brought internationally acclaimed talent to the University and underwritten the performances of world-class performers.

All performances are held in the Concert Hall of the Moody Music Building on the UA campus at 7:30 p.m., unless otherwise noted. Celebrity Series subscriptions are $72 and $55. Single tickets prices for the concerts are $22 and $15 for general admission and $7 for students. They are available for purchase at the box office at 348-7111.

Emerson String Quartet
Sept. 30
The Emerson String Quartet’s four members have been playing together since 1979. To keep their sound fresh and vibrant, Eugene Drucker and Phillip Setzer alternate as first violin. Another innovation by the group has the two violinists and violist Lawrence Dutton stand while playing; cellist David Finckel performs from a podium. Using this radical stance and positioning themselves farther apart on stage gives the musicians greater projection while providing greater clarity to the music.

Last year the Emerson String Quartet was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize, the only chamber ensemble to win the Avery Fisher Prize for best classical recording and they have received it twice in 28 years. Their selection underscores their strengths as individual instrumentalists, as previously only soloists were eligible, and highlights their collective achievements as recognized by six Grammy awards.

Frank Moody Memorial Concert with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra

Oct. 16 at 3 p.m.
Justin Brown, conductor, and Daniel Szasz, violin.
Established as one of Britain’s leading young conductors, Justin Brown has worked with most of that country’s top orchestras. He is a familiar figure in Europe, conducting in Scandinavia, Russia, Germany, France and Luxembourg, and his career has taken him worldwide to Israel, Singapore, Taipei and Australia. Brown studied at Cambridge University and at Tanglewood with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein.

Recent engagements included debuts in Asia with the Tokyo Philharmonic and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestras and in Europe with the Oslo and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras. Brown made his highly successful conducting debut in America with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

Violinist and ASO concertmaster Daniel Szasz performed his first concerto with a professional orchestra at age 13. Szasz is a winner of the Public Prize at the prestigious Vittorio Gui International Chamber Music Competition in Florence, Italy. He has participated in many music festivals, including those in Graz, Austria; Sopron, Hungary; the Blossom of Ohio; Chautauqua, New York and the New Hampshire Music Festival.

Joshua Bell, violin
March 11, 2006

At home as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestra leader and collaborator with MIT’s Tod Machover on the invention of a hyperviolin and electronically enhanced bow, Joshua Bell’s talent has proved exceptionally varied. His performance selections are equally varied - from arrangements of compositions by Couperin to those of Bernstein.

Whether it’s a concerto written for him or a cadenza he has written, Bell plays his 1713 Gibson ex Huberman violin with technical skill, artistic grace and sensitive interpretation that fulfill his promise as a child prodigy. How poetic that the musician who performed the music of a fictional red violin in an Academy Award winning film now plays the very Stradivarius that inspired the movie.

Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio with Carol Cook and Natalie Haas
April 15, 2006
The Appalachia Waltz Trio seems an unlikely name for a chamber ensemble unless you know that Mark O’Connor is the foremost practitioner of the American school of string playing - a phrase he uses to describe a performance style that melds the aspects of several centuries of American musical culture with the European classical tradition.

Violinist Carol Cook and cellist Natalie Haas complete the trio who play the music O’Connor created for “Appalachia Waltz” and “Appalachian Journey,” his recording projects with Yo-Yo Ma and Edger Meyer. As composer, violinist and fiddler, O’Connor acknowledges his mentors Benny Thomasson and Stephane Grappelli, but he has created a distinctive genre that is unmistakably his own.

UA’s EHS Office Receives High Award

UA’s Office of Health and Safety has received the highest Award of Honor from the Campus Safety, Health and Environmental Management Association, a division of the National Safety Council, for its complete safety program entry. The entry was thorough, having some 200 questions, and the process intensive; the goal of the process is to evaluate the level of a program.

The award carries prestige that compels other institutions to look at the program and suggests UA as a leader in the area. Following the annual meeting later this month, more will be covered in the CSHEMA website at www.cshema.org.

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