Five-time Grammy award winner Sheryl Crow is coming to campus on Feb. 15 and 16 as the surprising first speaker in the Montgomery Endowment's new Popular Culture Series.
Crow, a renowned singer, songwriter, actress and musician, will be speaking to several classes and giving a talk and performance on Feb. 15 at 4:30 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium.
She has won five Grammy awards, including last year's Best Rock Album for "The Globe Sessions," and has sold over 13 million records.
Crow was trained as a classical pianist and taught elementary school music before turning to performing in the early 1990s, getting her first break singing backup for Michael Jackson.
In 1994, Crow won her first Grammy for "All I Wanna Do," which won Record of the Year. It was the first single released from her debut album "Tuesday Night Music Club."
Crow also has been involved with several social causes as well as being a performer. She has supported efforts to eliminate land mines and has offered benefit concerts to support educational scholarships, the Special Olympics and the fight against poverty, among other charitable causes.
"It's just so fortunate that she could come -- she doesn't do this often," Barbara Gerstner, the assistant provost of the College and executive director of the Montgomery Endowment, said.
The Popular Culture Series will also feature Juan de Marcos Gonzalez of the Buena Vista Social Club band and the Afro-Cuban All Stars in a performance titled "Making Movies, Making Music." This installment will occur in the first days of March. Other Montgomery fellows in Popular Culture Series will be announced at a later date according to Gerstner.
Gerstner said that a Dartmouth graduate from Dallas with contacts in show business suggested a Pop Culture theme. At the same time, a Montgomery Fellow steering committee composed of students and faculty had been considering the same idea. From those two combined, the theme was chosen.
This Series may continue for over a year depending on the availability of speakers and the success of the program.
Last year's Montgomery series, "Power and the Presidency," will conclude on Feb. 24 with a panel of presidential biographers. Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy biographer Michael Beschloss will moderate the event, which will feature biographers Edmund Morris (Ronald Reagan), Washington Post reporter Ben Bradlee (John F. Kennedy) and David Maraniss (Bill Clinton).
The "Power and the Presidency" event is open to the public while the Crow talk will be open only to Dartmouth students. For the latter, tickets for reserved seats will be available on Monday morning at the Hopkins Center Box Office to students with their College I.D. Only one ticket is allowed per student.
The Montgomery Endowment was established in 1977 by the late Chicago attorney Kenneth F. Montgomery '25 and his wife, Harle, to "provide for the advancement of the academic realm of the college ... making possible new dimensions for, as well as extraordinary enrichments to, the educational experience."
-- updated 02/09/00 5:09 p.m.
