Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Concert Entertains, Raises Funds for Competition by DR. GAIL MORFESIS The Capitol Room is proud to present a chamber concert of award-winning, aspiring young performing artists on Thursday, Jan. 16, at 7 p.m. The proceeds from this concert will provide funding for travel of these young artists to Louisville, Ky., for the regional semifinal of the Music Teachers' National Association Competition held on Jan. 20 at the University of Louisville. Champions of 12 southeastern states will compete for the opportunity to reach the national finals in Chicago in March. One winner from each division will reach the finals. Shinae Ra and Hanbin Koo, of Fayetteville, were the winners of the Music Teachers' National Association state competition. Shinae, cellist age 14, was awarded top junior strings performance for her Haydn Concerto, Saent Saens Concerto and Bach solo work. Hanbin, flutist age 13, was awarded top junior winds performance for her Bach Sonata and Mercadante Concerto. The competition was held at Mars Hill University in November. Yi Sak Kim, clarinetist, placed as an Shinae Ra alternate in the competition. International pianist and local instructor, Jesse Davis, accompanied the students and will perform with them. Earlier in 2013, Shinae won the Kiwanis Talent Night Grand Prize and participated in international music festivals. Hanbin was also a Kiwanis gold medalist in her division. She will compete as a pianist in the North Carolina Music Teachers annual piano competition and a variety of state concerto competitions this year. Sixteen year old pianist, Madison Blake, student of Jesse Davis, has performed in various venues including Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh, in a pre-concert for the N.C. Symphony. In January 2013, she performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" at Seabrook Auditorium, Fayetteville State University. Madison was also the winner of the ECU Pre-college Piano Competition that is a tri-state event hosted annually. One American composer prize for best performance is given, and Madison won that prize in the Spring of 2012 at ECU School of Music During this season, chamber music concerts have been coordinated at The Capitol Room as a way of supporting international performing artists living and teaching in the Fayetteville area. Davis, who has been featured on several of these performances noted, "It is important for active performers to devote a portion of their time to the instruction of aspiring young artists." This concert will include performances of aspiring performers as well as their instructors who have performed nationally and internationally. Performers include: Shinae Ra, cello, Hanbin Koo, flute, & instructor Sunyoung Kim, Yi Sak Kim, clarinet, and instructor Sejung Ra, instructor Jesse Davis and student pianists Madison Blake, Aaron Priest, Connor Basilici, and David Esensoy. Dr. Gail Morfesis and advanced student vocalist Marie Lowe will perform two operatic duets from Mozart Operas, The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutti. There is limited seating for this event. Tickets are available by contacting Morfesis, gail.morfesis@gmail.com , phone 624-2651 Hanbin Koo or Jesse Davis, jdavis7373@ gmail.com, ph. 704-2230209. Ticket prices are: $20 regular ($15 senior/military) and $10 students. Don't miss this exciting DR. GAIL MORFESIS. Contributing opportunity to support local Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ performing artists. upandcomingweekly.com. Time to Employ Common Sense by JOHN HOOD According to official government estimates, paying people not to work for extended periods of time is good for the economy. This is an excellent reason why you should not take official government estimates all that seriously. To concoct such fanciful models is to think like my children did in their preteen years. When it came to money, they knew only that it bought things they liked — cheeseburgers, candy and computer games. If more was required, Dad just went to the bank and got some. Who put the money in the bank in the first place? Who cares? As they start to earn their own money, and to understand what it takes for Dad to earn money, the boys see things a little differently. (Not a lot differently, mind you. They are still teenagers.) Given limited time and opportunity to earn, you can't accumulate unlimited dollars. So if you buy one good with a dollar, you can't buy something else with the same dollar. Unemployment insurance is a transfer program. It moves money from some pockets (current taxpayers or bond buyers) into other pockets (recipients). Unless current taxpayers or bond buyers were going to use their cash to kindle their Yuletide fire, the result of extending unemployment insurance benefits can't be a net increase in spending. Instead, current taxpayers will spend less on goods and services, and bond buyers will spend less on investments in other sectors of the economy. President Obama, desperate to change the subject from healthcare, is trying to pressure Congress into extending federal UI benefits yet again. Not surprisingly, most Democrats and liberal activists are cheering him on. More surprisingly, some Republicans and conservative activists say they are open to the idea. Even more surprisingly, some are citing North Carolina's recent experience as supporting Obama's push for extended benefits. Faced with a multi-billion-dollar debt in North Carolina's UI program, the General Assembly enacted changes during the 2013 session to bring the state's benefits more in line with competing states and thus reduce future debt-servicing costs. Under federal rules, that meant that as of July, North Carolina could no longer participate in extended federal benefits. Critics predicted economic disaster. Some claim to see it now. But that's not what the preliminary evidence shows. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM From July to November, North Carolina employers added nearly 40,000 new jobs. Civilian employment, a different statistic derived from household rather than employer surveys, rose by 22,000. The state's unemployment rate dropped by 1.4 percentage points, to 7.4 percent, while the national unemployment rate dropped by only 0.6 percentage points. Critics point out, quite correctly, that North Carolina's labor force also declined during the period, by about 10,000 persons a month. But they seem not to have noticed that the labor force was declining at a somewhat-faster rate, about 13,500 persons a month, before North Carolina exited the extended-benefits program. There are two possible ways for extended benefits to elevate a state's unemployment rate. One way is to keep recipients in the labor force who would retire, move, go back to school or otherwise exit the program without an in-state job. The other way is to discourage recipients from taking in-state jobs they might not relish. North Carolina's unemployment rate has clearly fallen significantly since July. Liberals want to attribute the drop entirely to the first cause. But as Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner points out in a new analysis, the second cause — people taking available jobs — appears to be having a larger effect on North Carolina's numbers. Congress should reject the president's lobbying for extended benefits. Unemployment insurance was designed to provide temporary benefits for those who, through no action of their own, suddenly find themselves without employment or sufficient savings. It was never intended as open-ended income support. Lengthy spells of unemployment will tend to lead to retooling, retraining or relocation as long as people aren't presented with perverse incentives. North Carolina isn't a JOHN HOOD, Contributing Writer. pariah when it comes to COMMENTS? unemployment insurance Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. policy. It is a leader. JANUARY 8-14, 2014 UCW 17