Norwich University’s Sullivan Museum opens exhibit on sound

For Immediate Release
April 4, 2011

Contact: Daphne Larkin
802-485-2886 or 595-3613(m)
dlarkin@norwich.edu

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NEWS RELEASE

NORTHFIELD, Vt. – Norwich University’s Sullivan Museum and History Center (SMHC) will celebrate the opening of the special exhibit, “Touch the Sound,” on Wednesday, April 6 at 12 p.m. with bagpipers for entertainment and a light lunch snack.

This event is free and open to the public.

The exhibit includes such explorations of sound as an ear model from the Department of Biology to three paintings from the art department demonstrating visual rhythm.

The Engineering Department shares three displays including how they use music as the motivating backdrop for teaching students the proper use of machine shop tools and computer programming skills.

Visitors are invited to play a “student flute,” strum a violin or a mandolin, and hear guitar compositions. WNUB, the NU radio station 88.3, shares clips and promos and sweepers from over the decades while the History Department presents music of the Civil Rights and how it impacted mass meetings.

The SMHC shares some of its special “sound” objects including the Estey Organ, the World War Field Phonograph, and the original carillon (c. 1934) without the bells which now resides in the Museum. Hands-on fun is also included in a “horrific sound” activity that is not to be missed—explore what horrible sounds—like fingernails on the chalkboard—concern most Americans!
For more information please call the Sullivan Museum at 802-485-2183, 2379 or 2448. The Museum is free and open to the public from 9-4 pm Monday through Saturday.

This special exhibit is on display April 6 through August 30, 2011.

Two Lunch and Learn programs are associated with the exhibit:

Thursday, April 14: Amp it Up: Getting Musical Vibration Into the Sound System with NU Engineering Professor Michael Prairie presenting how vibrations are turned into electrical signals.

Tuesday, April 19: Sing and Be Free: Using Song to Invoke God, Forge Unity, and Change History during the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-65: presented by NU History Professor Rowland Brucken.


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Norwich University is a diversified academic institution that educates traditional-age students and adults in a Corps of Cadets and as civilians. Norwich offers a broad selection of traditional and distance-learning programs culminating in Baccalaureate and Graduate Degrees. Norwich University was founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge of the U.S. Army. Norwich University is the oldest private military college in the United States of America and the birthplace of our nation's Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). www.norwich.edu