Daniel Chong.

Bates College presents violinist Daniel Chong and pianist Frank Glazer at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Apr. 26, at the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission for this Olin Arts Alive concert is $12 for the general public, available at batestickets.com. Free tickets are available for the first 50 seniors and students; reserve by emailing olinarts@bates.edu. For more information, please call 207-786-6163.

The program consists of music by J.S. Bach, Claude Debussy and César Franck.

The founding first violinist of the Parker Quartet, Chong has concertized extensively as soloist and chamber musician throughout the world. Chong’s and the quartet’s awards and prizes include the prestigious biennial Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2009-2011 season, and top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild Competition, Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition.

His recordings with the Parker Quartet can be heard on the Zig-Zag Territoires and Naxos labels. Their recording of the complete quartets by György Ligeti won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

Pianist Frank Glazer. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

The 98-year-old Glazer, of Topsham, has had a distinguished international career that began in the 1920s and has included numerous recordings, solo recitals and performances with orchestras and chamber ensembles. With his wife, the late Ruth Glazer, he founded the Saco River Music Festival, held for many years in Cornish, Maine.

Glazer has been an artist in residence at Bates since 1980. He recently finished a season of concerts revisiting his favorite music from three decades of performing at the college. In 2012, he released the book, A Philosophy of Artistic Performance (With Some Practical Suggestions), a collection of aphorisms and advice that he has been amassing since the 1930s.

Frank Glazer in 2006. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Frank Glazer, a pianist of international renown, became an artist in residence at Bates College in 1980. This academic year, the 97-year-old musician performs an entire season of programs comprising his favorite music from his 30-plus years of concertizing at the college.

The autumn half of the series begins with a Sept. 14 performance in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. Admission is $10 per concert or all eight programs at $65 per seat, available at batestickets.com. Proceeds benefit the Frank & Ruth Glazer Scholarship Fund.

A limited number of free tickets are available for seniors and students; contact olinarts@bates.edu or 786-6163.

Featured this year on American Public Media’s popular program The Story, Glazer, of Topsham, has had a distinguished international career that includes numerous recordings, solo recitals and performances with orchestras and chamber ensembles. With his wife, the late Ruth Glazer, he founded the Saco River Music Festival, held in Cornish, Maine.

“In past seasons, Frank has actively embraced the opportunity to perfect and present pieces that are new to him,” explains Seth Warner, manager of the Olin concert hall. But after three decades at Bates, Glazer agreed with Warner that “it would be best if he could trade this quest for the new for the thrill of rediscovering some of his most cherished works.”

Here’s the autumn schedule of Glazer concerts:

• 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14: Music by Handel, Mozart, Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven — the “Pathétique” sonata.
• 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12: Schoenberg’s “Six Short Pieces,” along with music by Schubert, Brahms and Chopin.
• 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9: Ravel’s “Valses nobles et sentimentales,” along with music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.
• 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2: Music by Franck, Weber, Gershwin, Barber, Copland and Brahms.

Glazer’s energy remains a source of amazement and inspiration for those around him. In June, he published the book A Philosophy of Artistic Performance (With Some Practical Suggestions), a collection of aphorisms and advice that he has been amassing since the 1930s.

“I’ll tell you what makes Frank truly exceptional,” says Warner. “It’s that the time and energy he devotes to his music is equally reflected in the love and effort he puts into the human connections and relationships in his circle, both those at Bates and those that look back over nine decades.”

Red Baraat

Opening with Ethiopian-born Finnish singer-songwriter Mirel Wagner and concluding with the college’s own Jazz Band, the autumn 2012 concert season at Bates College represents the best of music from Bates and the world.

The season includes the debut of the Olin Arts Alive concert series featuring internationally renowned and emerging performers.

Classical music highlights include visits by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the contemporary music ensemble Momenta Quartet, performing a piece by a Bates composer. In addition, pianist Frank Glazer, an artist in residence at the college since 1980, will offer a season-long series comprising music from his most cherished Bates programs.

In a joint presentation with L/A Arts — one of several undertaken by Bates this academic year — rhythm and blues singer Francine Reed returns to Olin a year after her smash appearance here. Other familiar faces include the Bates College Orchestra and College Choir. And new to the college is Red Baraat, a most exciting ensemble combining the sounds of South Asia and the New World.

With exceptions as noted, most concerts are open to the public free of charge and take place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. To buy tickets, please visit batestickets.com. For more information or to arrange tickets for the free concerts, please contact olinarts@bates.edu or 207-786-6135.

Here’s the season schedule:

Mirel Wagner (7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 12): Born in Ethiopia, raised in Finland, this folk and blues singer is known for her minimalist style and emotive depth. Note: This Olin Arts Alive series concert takes place at Keigwin Amphitheater at Lake Andrews, next to the Olin Arts Center. Rain site: Olin Concert Hall. Learn more.

Pianist Frank Glazer in 2006. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program I (7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14): The renowned pianist begins a season of music from his most cherished Bates programs. Tonight: Handel, Mozart, Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven (Pathétique). Admission: $10 per concert or all eight programs at $65 per seat, at batestickets.com. Proceeds benefit the Frank & Ruth Glazer Scholarship Fund. A limited number of free tickets are available for seniors and students; contact olinarts@bates.eduor 207-786-6163.

BatesDowntown (5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28): The college’s informal series of free downtown concerts resumes with an artist TBA. Note: The venue is 22 Park St., Lewiston.

An Evening of Chamber Music (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29): Four friends — Bates pianist Jim Parakilas, violinist Mary Hunter, cellist Steve Witkin and violist Heather Cook — perform Mozart, Fauré and Dvořák, including the beloved “Dumky” piano trio. Free, but tickets required; contact olinarts@bates.edu.

Red Baraat (7:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30): Driven by bandleader Sunny Jain’s dhol, a North Indian drum, this uproarious Brooklyn band blends Brit-Indi Bhangra with funky New World brass. Admission $15/ $10, available at batestickets.com. Free tickets are available for the first 100 seniors or students. To reserve, please email olinarts@bates.edu. Learn more.

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6): One of America’s most compelling pianists, Jeremy Denk is among the six CMS players in an Olin Arts Alive performance. Featured is music by Bruch, Brahms and Dohnányi. Admission $15/ $10, available at batestickets.com. Free tickets are available for the first 100 seniors or students. To reserve, please email olinarts@bates.edu. Learn more.

Francine Reed

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program II (7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12): See Program I, above, for artist and admission details. Tonight: Schoenberg’s Six Short Pieces, along with music by Schubert, Brahms and Chopin.

Francine Reed (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13): Olin Arts Alive and L/A Arts present an evening with this blues, gospel and jazz singer. A hit at Olin a year ago, the openhearted, full-throated Reed is the widely recognized voice in Lyle Lovett’s Large Band, but has a powerhouse career in her own right. Admission: $15 / $10, increasing to $20 /$10 on the day of the show. Available at batestickets.com. Learn more.

Alexandre Tharaud (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21). Olin Arts Alive presents the up-and-coming French pianist. “Tharaud is dazzlingly nimble-fingered and often admirably sensitive, without romanticizing,” wrote the BBC. A program of Scarlatti, Ravel, Chopin and Liszt. Admission $12, available at batestickets.com; free tickets are available for the first 100 seniors and students. Email olinarts@bates.edu to reserve. Learn more.

Rollin’ to Olin(12:30 p.m. on three Thursdays: Nov. 1, 8 and 15). The public is invited to this free arts-literacy program for local schoolchildren. A Bates College Museum of Art presentation takes place at 12:30 p.m., followed by a mini-concert from 1 to 1:30.

Europa Galante

Europa Galante (7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2): Olin Arts Alive presents a Baroque music ensemble from Italy, founded and still directed by violinist Fabio Biondi. The program “Apotheosis and Folia” includes music by Vivaldi, Couperin, Mascitti, Corelli and C.P.E. Bach. Admission $12, available at batestickets.com. Free tickets are available to the first 100 seniors and students; reserve by emailing olinarts@bates.edu. Learn more.

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program III (7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9): See Program I, above, for artist and admission information. Tonight: Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, along with music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.

Bates College Orchestra (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10): Hiroya Miura directs the ensemble in a program including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92. Free, but tickets required.

Bates College Choir (8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1): John Corrie directs the choir in a program TBA. Free, but tickets required.

Frank Glazer Retrospective, Program IV (3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2): See Program I, above, for artist and admission information. Tonight: music by Franck, Weber, Gershwin, Barber, Copland and Brahms.

Momenta Quartet

Momenta Quartet (7:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 4): Olin Arts Alive and the Bates College Museum of Art present this quartet whose repertoire ranges widely from the classics to contemporary — such as tonight’s premiere by Bates composer Hiroya Miura, commissioned for the museum’s exhibition Starstruck. Also on the program: music by Debussy, Kee Yong Chong and Jason Kao Hwang. Admission $12, available at batestickets.com. Free tickets are available to the first 100 seniors and students; reserve by emailing olinarts@bates.edu. Learn more.

Bates College Jazz Band (7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5) Tom Snow leads the band in arrangements for large and small ensembles, and genres from big band to bossa nova to funk. Free, but tickets required.

Pianist Frank Glazer in 2006. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Frank Glazer, a pianist of international renown whose performing career dates back to the late 1920s, has released a book.

A Bates College artist in residence since 1980, the 97-year-old Glazer wrote the just-published A Philosophy of Artistic Performance (With Some Practical Suggestions). The book is a collection of aphorisms and advice that Glazer has been amassing since the 1930s.

The publisher is XPress Literary Publishing of Portland. Costing $16.99, the book is sold through the Bates College Store. For more information, please call 207-786-6121 or visit the bookstore website.

Glazer’s intention for the book is to offer younger pianists and other musicians a set of tools that will enable them, he explains, “to help them find and evolve their own feelings about the art in in music, instead of the mechanics of it.

“The mechanics of it anybody can teach, but the art is between the lines,” he says. “It’s invisible. Just like detectives use ultraviolet light to read invisible ink, our insight is the ultraviolet light we use to find the art.”

Among the aphorisms in the book:

“Play it as you understand it, / but try to understand it as it is.”

“Compete against a standard of excellence, / not against another person.”

“Flow does not mean fast, / and slow does not mean static; / Fast can be static, and/ slow can flow.”

Glazer traces the impulse behind the book to his studies with the influential pianist Artur Schnabel in the early 1930s. After a Schnabel performance, Glazer asked the older artist what he should study in his quest to attain real artistry.

“You won’t find it in books, only in life,” Schnabel replied.

“Now, more than three-quarters of a century later, I know the truth of Schnabel’s remark,” Glazer writes in his introduction. “One cannot know how the process will evolve, but what will help is an attitude that fosters the process: having an open mind, an abiding love of life and, not least, the capacity for work, be it ever so solitary.”

Glazer sees the book as a legacy to his students and other young musicians. But there are useful lessons here for nearly anybody doing creative work, Glazer adds.

“If I had had it when I was 19 years old, I’d have saved myself a lot of grief and questioning and wondering,” he says. “I’m glad, at long last, I lived long enough to see it happen.”

Glazer maintains an active performing schedule, with appearances at Bates, elsewhere in Maine and across the nation. Recently featured on the American Public Media’s popular program The Story, this Topsham resident has had a distinguished international career that includes numerous recordings, solo recitals and performances with orchestras and chamber ensembles.

With his wife, Ruth Glazer, he founded the Saco River Music Festival, held for many years in Cornish, Maine. A Philosophy of Artistic Performance is dedicated to Ruth, who died in 2006.

Frank Glazer. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Former colleagues in the late and lamented New England Piano Quartette, pianist Frank Glazer and violist Scott Woolweaver join forces again for a Bates College performance of music by Brahms, Schumann and Herzogenberg at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 27, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission is free, but tickets are required. For tickets or more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

For more than 25 years, into the 2000s, Glazer and Woolweaver made music together in the New England Piano Quartette, along with cellist George Sopkin and violinist Werner Torkanowsky, succeeded after his death by Curtis Macomber. The popular quartet was known for the excellence of its performances, its breadth of repertoire (including Torkanowsky’s compositions) and the credentials of its members.

Recently featured on the American Public Media’s popular program The Story, the 97-year-old Glazer, of Topsham, has had a distinguished international career that includes numerous recordings, solo recitals and performances with orchestras and chamber ensembles. With his wife, the late Ruth Glazer, he founded the Saco River Music Festival, held for many years in Cornish, Maine. Glazer has been an artist in residence at Bates since 1980.

Violist Scott Woolweaver.

Woolweaver is artist associate at Williams College and lecturer in viola and chamber music at Tufts University. He is a regular guest of the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society and is director of the Adult Chamber Music Institute at Kneisel Hall in Blue Hill, Maine.

He founded the Boston Composers String Quartet, which won the silver medal at the 1993 String Quartet Competition and Chamber Music Festa in Osaka, Japan. From 1999-2006 he was a member of the Ives Quartet, based in San Francisco.

At Bates, the pair will perform the Sonatas for Viola and Piano Op. 120, Nos. 1 and 2, by Brahms; Schumann’s “Märchenbilder”; and Herzogenberg’s “Legends,” Op. 62.

Pianist Frank Glazer in 2006. Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Public radio listeners now know that pianist and Bates artist-in-residence Frank Glazer is looking ahead to 2014-15: He plans to perform a season-long survey of preludes and fugues by J.S. Bach, and the complete mazurkas by Frédéric Chopin.

The occasion? His 100th birthday.

Glazer revealed this idea — along with his intentions for the 2012-13 season, news of a forthcoming book and much more — in a wide-ranging interview with Dick Gordon on American Public Media’s popular program The Story.

Broadcast March 2, the piece follows Glazer through a musical career reaching back to the 1920s, looks at the pianistic technique that has served him so well for so long and divulges his thoughts about what awaits after an extraordinarily long and productive life. (Available on the website for The Story, the piece will also be transmitted by Maine Public Broadcasting at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 14.)

Glazer himself, in fact, raised the subject of his passing. “My wife [Ruth Glazer] died five years ago, and I know that I’m going to be put as close to her as can be done — I already told the fellow who takes care of that kind of thing — so once more I’ll be with her,” he told Gordon.

“And you might say, ‘Well, you can’t converse and what not.’ But when you are asleep in bed, and you’re alive, you can’t converse with each other anyway. But at least I’ll be next to her, so it will be a long, long, long sleep. And that is consoling to me.”

• Listen to “Frank Glazer’s Long Road” on American Public Media.

Clarinetist Jon Manasse.

Clarinetist Jon Manasse, one of the most distinguished musicians of his generation, and Maine pianist Frank Glazer perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, in Olin Concert Hall at Bates College, 75 Russell St.

Tickets are $6, available at batestickets.com. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Here’s the program: Debussy’s Première Rhapsody; Brahms’ Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 120, No. 2; and von Weber’s Grand Duo Concertante, Op. 48.

Manasse is recognized for his inspiring artistry and charismatic execution. The San Francisco Classical Voice writes, “All the basic virtuoso qualities–intonation, rhythmic accuracy, flawless phrasing and the like–are to be heard in Manasse’s playing, yet what sets him apart is his exceptionally beautiful sound.”

Manasse is the principal clarinetist of the American Ballet Theatre and the Mostly Mozart Festival orchestras. Since 1995, he has been associate professor of clarinet at the Eastman School of Music (where Glazer taught 1965-80); in the fall of 2007, Manasse joined the faculty of his alma mater, The Juilliard School.

Manasse and his duo partner, pianist Jon Nakamatsu, are the artistic directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival.

Pianist and artist-in-residence Frank Glazer.

The 96-year-old Glazer, of Topsham, has had a distinguished international career that includes numerous recordings, solo recitals and performances with orchestras and chamber ensembles. With his wife, the late Ruth Glazer, he founded the Saco River Music Festival, held for many years in Cornish, Maine. Glazer has been an artist in residence at Bates since 1980.

Hiroya Miura conducts the Bates College Orchestra in a 2006 rehearsal.

It’s a big weekend for classical music Nov. 12-13, as the Bates and Bowdoin Orchestra and pianist Frank Glazer present back-to-back concerts in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The orchestra, which will be conducted at Bates by Hiroya Miura and includes musicians from Bates and Bowdoin colleges, plays works by Bartok, Haydn and Mendelssohn at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12.

Glazer performs music by Berg, Beethoven, Brahms and Liszt at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, in the concert hall.

Both concerts are open to the public at no cost, but tickets are required. Please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Pianist and artist-in-residence Frank Glazer.

The orchestra program consists of Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances; Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 in E-flat major; and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 (“Italian”).

The ensemble also performs this program at 3 p.m. the following day at Bowdoin’s Studzinski Recital Hall, Kanbar Auditorium, conducted by Bowdoin’s Roland Vazquez.

“The Haydn and Mendelssohn symphonies both have connections to London,” Hiroya explains. The 99th symphony is the seventh of the so-called “London Symphonies,” which Haydn wrote during his second visit to London where he was invited by the violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon to conduct large orchestras.

Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ symphony was commissioned by the London, now Royal, Philharmonic Society, which Salmon founded with a few other members 20 years prior. “Although the pieces by Haydn and Mendelssohn are 40 years apart, in my mind they both share the cosmopolitan flair that Europeans, especially Londoners, were enjoying at the time.”

Hiroya adds, “Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances show yet another aspect of the European cosmopolitanism, although Bartok was much more invested in the local roots of Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian folk music.”

The 96-year-old Glazer, an internationally acclaimed pianist, has been an artist in residence at Bates since 1980. Here’s his program:

Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1: Berg and Glazer were both students of Arnold Schoenberg, the composer who introduced the notion of atonality and the 12-tone approach to composition. Berg composed this early sonata, which is still tonal and rooted in traditional sonata form, while he was Schoenberg’s student.

Beethoven’s 15 Variations and Fugue in E Flat Major, Op. 35 (“Eroica” Variations): One of two theme-and-variations works that Beethoven considered substantial enough to assign opus numbers — works in which he elevated the form to a new level. This shares a melodic theme with three other compositions, including the “Eroica” Symphony, hence the nickname for this piece.

Brahms’ Theme and Variations from the String Sextet in B Flat Major, Op. 18: This arrangement for solo piano of the second movement of Brahms’s Op. 18 String Sextet, composed early in his career, was a gift for Clara Schumann, the widow of his friend Robert Schumann.

Brahms’ Scherzo in E Flat Minor, Op. 4: The earliest published Brahms composition, composed at age 18.

And three by Liszt:

Legende No. 1: Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds was inspired by St. Francis of Assisi’s well-known story in which he delivers a sermon to the birds.

Années de Pélerinage: Sonetta 104 del Petrarcha is one of a series of 26 piano pieces that Liszt composed over four decades, an autobiographical series inspired by the journey to maturity undertaken by Goethe’s fictional Wilhelm Meister.

The Rigoletto Paraphrase is based on a vocal quartet from the fourth act of Verdi’s opera by that name.

“You will fail — you should fail,” Evelynn Hammonds, dean of Harvard College, told the Bates College class of 2011 on May 29.

“But if you stick with it, and let your peculiarities become assets, you will succeed.”

Hammond, who is also a historian of science and professor of African American studies at Harvard, was one of three honorary degree recipients who spoke at the college’s 145th commencement. The others were Frank Glazer, a pianist of international renown and member of the Bates music faculty, and Robert Langer, an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a highly prolific inventor of healthcare technologies.

The event drew a large and enthusiastic throng, wielding cameras and portable boat horns, to the college’s shady Historic Quad. In different and complementary ways, the three honorands urged the 437 graduating students to stay true to themselves, to regard failure not as a conclusion but as a steppingstone to success, and to dream big.

The occasion marked the end of the students’ lives as Bates seniors, but it was final in another way too: It was the last of the nine Commencements hosted by President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, who leaves the college at the end of June to become executive director of the Center for Talented Youth at the Johns Hopkins University.

Hansen’s welcome offered a recap of the seniors’ time at Bates that was pertinent also as a record of achievements during her tenure. She reminded the departing seniors of her words to them in September 2007, at the Convocation that launched their Bates careers.

The class of 2011 was also the first to under earn their degrees under new curricular requirements that renewed the emphasis on writing, laboratory work and quantitative thinking, and that include General Education Concentrations intended to locate individual courses “within a multifaceted network of meaning.”

“And you have changed in another key dimension as well, arriving near the beginning of an intense effort to enrich what we now call diversity and inclusion,” Hansen said — an effort that has realized a doubling in the percentage of incoming students from previously underrepresented racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Yet, Hansen told the students, change is one of the few unchanging qualities of an institution like Bates. “I reminded you in 2007 that while in some ways Bates in your time might seem uniquely challenged by all this change, in fact we remain aligned with and anchored by founding values of the college.”

She said, “Our founders would immediately recognize you and the values you have chosen: intellectual achievement, social responsibility, self-discipline, creativity, good work, warm hearts.”

Hansen concluded, “You won’t remember exactly what we say at Commencement, but you will always be able to say what you were doing and who you were with on May 29, 2011. And there won’t be many days like that.”

Presented by Dean of the Faculty Jill Reich for a doctor of fine arts degree, the 96-year Glazer drew from his 75 years of teaching a few guiding principles — in the process invoking the dust-yourself-off brand of optimism that defined so much of American culture during the 20th century.

A can-do attitude counts, the pianist said. “Others may see possibilities in us that we are totally unaware of. And if, instead of saying, ‘I can’t’ or ‘I won’t,’ we act upon these possibilities, our lives may be immeasurably enriched and we may thereby enrich other people’s lives.”

“With good grace, accept yourself for who you are and will be, without worrying about who you aren’t, and never will be,” Glazer concluded. “Do your best and let time do the rest” — fitting words from an artist whose treatment at the hands of time has been nothing short of astonishing.

Hammonds, presented for a doctor of humane letters degree by Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees Alison Bernstein, revealed that she and Bates shared a good friend and mentor: the Rev. Peter Gomes ’65, who passed away on Feb. 28. Gomes, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard, was a steadfast champion of Bates.

Gomes once told the Bates community that its founding dedication to equal opportunity made the college “quite peculiar, in the best of ways.” Extending the concept, Hammonds told the students to “celebrate your peculiarities whatever they may be.”

“Now, when you are different and somewhat peculiar, there can be a great deal of pressure from the world to do the same thing, to fit within the roles that have already been scripted for you, to resolve apparent contradictions by erasing them,” she said. “I’d like to urge you to do something different.”

The road to self-transformation is paved with failure, Hammonds reminded her listeners, offering a story about a college job she held at Bell Labs. Assigned to construct circuits for laser controllers, she couldn’t seem to build one that would work — until she could.

“To tolerate failure and frustration requires, if you will excuse the alliteration, fortitude,” she said — a kind of fortitude that, in Gomes’s words, “is the fuel of the long-distance moral runner, who despite inner fatigue and apparent outward success of others, nevertheless keeps on keeping on.”

Bates was founded by such long-distance moral runners, said Hammond. It continues to produce them. “When you succeed, she told the seniors, remember those moments at which you failed, and think you how might extend your hand to those who walk in similar paths behind you.”

Echoing Hammonds and Glazer, Langer offered two lessons: “Try to dream big dreams, dreams that can change the world and make it a better place.” And stick to those dreams no matter what.

Langer’s time in the wilderness came after he earned a degree in chemical engineering. He got more than 20 job offers from oil companies, but “I had this dream of wanting to use my background to improve people’s lives.” Opportunities to do such work — creating math and science curriculums for underserved youth, and doing health-related research — were scarce.

“But then one day, one of my friends told me that I should write to Dr. Judah Folkman, who was a surgeon,” Langer recounted. The friend said, “Sometimes he hires unusual people.” And it was his time with Folkman that set Langer on his current path.

“Whatever your dream is, many people may tell you that it’s impossible, that it will never work,” Langer concluded. “But I think that’s very rarely true. If you really believe in yourself, if you’re persistent and work hard, there’s very little that is truly impossible.”

• Frank Glazer, pianist and Bates artist in residence
• Evelynn Hammonds, scholar of science and race who is dean of Harvard College
• Robert Langer, renowned MIT bioengineer and prolific inventor

Frank Glazer: “We are dealt a certain hand at birth over which we have no control. But we have a lot to say about how we play the game.”

Internationally known for his artistry and dedication, beloved for his generosity and celebrated for his artistic longevity, pianist Frank Glazer made his concert debut on a vaudeville stage in 1927. The event began a performing career that’s still in progress.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Evelynn Hammonds: “I’d like you to try your hand at failing, and, by failing, to discover something more about your own fortitude.”

Considered one of the leading scholars in the field of the intersection of science and race, Hammonds is dean of Harvard College and also the Barbara Gutman Rosenkrantz Professor of History of Science and of African and African American Studies.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Robert Langer: “Dream big dreams. Many people may tell you that you’ll never achieve it. But I think that’s very rarely true.”

Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, is a bioengineer with some 760 patents issued or pending worldwide, in use by 220 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies.

Click here to view the embedded video.