A folk-singing geneticist, a harp-playing administrator, a biochemist-cellist, and a sax-tooting medical student will share the floor next month with Rodin, Rembrandt, Monet and Matisse. All will be part of UCSF Night at the elegant California Palace of the Legion of Honor, on Friday, Oct. 17, an event billed as a celebration of creativity in science, art and education.

UCSF has its own collection of creative people -- not only in the sciences, but arts, too -- and many will tuck away their labcoats and laptops to perform that evening. Some 30 UCSF scientists, students and staff will showcase their musical talents with instruments ranging from the piano and harpsichord to Tibetan bells and the huaca. The classical, jazz, opera, blues and gospel will ring in the corridors of a museum that houses the work of some of the world’s greatest artists.

Michael Weiner

The exclusive “UCSF Night at the Legion” is sponsored by UCSF Arts and Performances and EMPACT! and co-hosted by the Science and Health Education Partnership. A limited number of tickets for members of the UCSF campus are still available for the event, which will include wine, food and docent-led tours of permanent collections at the museum, which recently reopened after a $34 million renovation.

“During my 12 years of producing campus events, I’ve been overwhelmed by the caliber of artistic talent here,” says Karen Attix, manager of the campus Arts and Performances program, which sponsors such groups as the UCSF Orchestra and the UCSF Gospel Choir .

“These people are at the top of their fields in science, health and education,” she says. “Many would also be at the top of their profession, if they had chosen music.”

So, Attix has arranged for a unique venue to showcase their talents and “celebrate creativity.” Plus, “what a great place to have a UCSF party,” she says. Performances will take place throughout the museum, from 7 to 11 p.m. In the outer courtyard, home of Rodin’s “The Thinker,” guests will be greeted by the soprano saxophone sounds of fourth-year medical student Matthew Huddleston, who will also play a haunting Australian aboriginal instrument, the didjeridoo.

The upstairs Spreckels Gallery will feature: UCSF’s Doctors’ Jazz Ensemble (Robert Markison on reeds, David Watts, bass, John Conte, keyboards, and Herb Peterson, bass guitar); UCSF Orchestra members -- urology department administrator Lydia Derugin, harp, and dermatologist Ruby Ghadially; and Albert Howell, of Reprographics, who will play Tibetan bells.

Downstairs in the Rosekrans Court, performers will include: harpsichordist Michael Mock, a technician in the anatomical pathology lab at SFGH; an all-student a cappella choir, led by pharmaceutical chemistry graduate student Yoko Haga, singing medieval madrigals; a string quarter of medical students Anton Chen, Nisha Acharya, Michele Pelot and Marcel Gemperli; and Millberry intramural program director Alan Tower, playing the huaca, a South American gourd instrument.

The Palace’s 300-seat Florence Gould Theater will feature: Ira Herskowitz, biochemist and co-director of the Program in Human Genetics, singing and playing guitar; the UCSF Trio with violinist and renowned arthritis expert Ephraim Engleman, biochemist and cellist Tom Kornberg, and pianist Lise Ostwald, the wife of the late Peter Ostwald, who founded the Performing Artists Clinic; soprano Pat Buley, a clinical pharmacology staff research associate at SFGH; classical pianists Peter Huang of the department of biochemistry and graduate student Julian Chen; and jazz pianist Michael Weiner, who directs the Magnetic Resonance Unit at the VAMC.

The event will close with a cabaret in the museum’s cafe, featuring the upbeat and contemporary sound of “jilbrazil,” guitar, violin and vocals of the UCSF Child Care Center’s Jean-Pierre Duboucheron; the Gospel Choir; and the blues harp of Millberry Outdoors Programs director Steve Leonoudakis and friends.

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is located at 34th Avenue and Clement Street in Lincoln Park. Tickets for UCSF Night at the Legion are $10 for students, $15 staff and $20 for faculty. Tickets are available at the Millberry Central Desk and all EMPACT locations. The event is being underwritten by a donation from Merck and Company and individual donations from UCSF faculty. For more information, call 476-6761.

By Andy Evangelista

1st appeared 09/18/97