HUNTINGTON -- Marshall University's Dining Services department is sponsoring a canned food drive for Helping Hands Across America. The event started Nov. 2, and continues through Thursday, Nov. 12.

Canned food items will be collected in the dining halls, with all donations going directly to the Huntington Area Food Bank. The university also is attempting to break a world record for most canned food items collected in a 24-hour period, working with other campuses across the country to do so.

Appalachian memoirist to read from her work

HUNTINGTON -- Writer Linda Tate will read from her work at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Room 2W16 of the Memorial Student Center. Tate is the author of "A Southern Weave of Women: Fiction of the Contemporary South" and "Power in Blood: A Family Narrative."

The latter is her latest work and is a dramatic family history that reads like a novel. It traces Tate's investigation of the Cherokee-Appalachian branch of her family and explores the poverty, discrimination and violence that marked their lives.

Tate is an Appalachian author and spent 15 years teaching at Shepherd University in West Virginia. She now teaches at the University of Denver.

Her appearance is a part of the Visiting Writers Series, sponsored by the Marshall English Department and the College of Liberal Arts. It is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Art Stringer in the English Department at 304-696-2403.

Marshall percussion ensemble to perform

HUNTINGTON -- The Marshall University Percussion Ensemble will perform in concert at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in Smith Recital Hall. The group, which is under the direction of Steven Hall, will perform selections ranging in style from ragtime to the Puerto Rican plena.

"This performance is a wonderful opportunity to hear a wide variety of interesting and exotic percussion music played by a talented and dedicated group of university students," Hall said, in a news release.

Members of the ensemble are primarily music education and performance students specializing in percussion at Marshall. However, the ensemble is open to any MU student with percussion experience, according to Hall.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Festival Chorus to visit Marshall Nov. 6 and 7

HUNTINGTON -- Marshall University's Department of Music will welcome 130 high school students from across West Virginia and Ohio for the 2009 Festival Chorus on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 6 and 7.

Students attending will have the opportunity to participate in rehearsals alongside members of Marshall's University Chorus and Chamber Choir, according to Robert Wray, Assistant Professor of Choral Music Education and organizer of the event. They will also participate in workshops presented by Marshall faculty members in the vocal/choral area.

"This festival is not only a great opportunity to bring high school students interested in music to our campus, but is a wonderful chance to highlight the students involved with the MU Department of Music," Wray said.

Public concerts will be performed at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, in Smith Recital Hall. It will showcase the two student-only choral ensemble at Marshall, in addition to solo performances by other Marshall music faculty.

The second concert, at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, in Smith Recital Hall, is the finale of the two-day festival. Those in attendance will see and hear the attending high school students along with the participating MU students perform the music selections rehearsed over the course of the festival.

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