Events

In this special lecture, Maestro Alasdair Neale will talk about what is involved in studying and understanding a musical score, how to communicate to the orchestra what is in the score through technique, the rehearsal process, and his duties as a Music Director.  

Maestro Neale is the Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Sun Valley Music Festival (SVMF) and Marin Symphony.  He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cambridge University and a Master’s from Yale University, where his principal teacher was Otto-Werner Mueller. He lives in San Francisco and New Haven. 

Photo credit: Eisaku Tokuyama

It is well known that California could eliminate or drastically reduce its water deficit by diverting and storing the water from the upper 10% of high-magnitude river flows (for example, floods). Where could this water be stored? Answer: in groundwater systems, which have been sufficiently depleted in California that they could store additional water amounting to more than 3-times the storage capacity of the state’s surface reservoirs. This would require significant effort to recharge the groundwater systems with diverted floodwaters, which is known as “Flood-MAR” (managed aquifer recharge). I will discuss Flood-MAR and how California might use it to help solve its water supply problems as the climate continues to warm.

 Professor Emeritus of Hydrogeology, UC Davis, Dept. of Land, Air and Water Resources and Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences. I have spent the last 45 years researching and teaching about groundwater hydrology, including groundwater flow, contamination, computer modeling, and water resources management under climate change.

Amarok Society is proud to have partnered with more than a hundred Rotary Clubs to pursue an unusual model of education: instead of teaching children directly, we teach illiterate mothers to become neighbourhood teachers. 

Gem Munro has devoted his life and career to improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged people across Canada and abroad. Pursuit of this objective carried him into residence in unfortunate communities across most of Canada, before carrying him overseas.He is presently a Director of Amarok Society, a registered Canadian charity that provides education programmes to the very poor in Bangladesh. As well, Gem is a bestselling author and artist whose new book, And Where the Wind Spun Them, follows the epic adventures of a resourceful girl and her courageous little brother who struggle, by wit and grit, to overcome the perils and extreme disadvantages of their lives. (Sale of his books is a major fundraiser for Amarok Society.) For their work, Gem and his wife, Dr Tanyss Munro, were recipients of Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medals.

We’re past climate change and into climate emergency.  “Getting to Zero” is a boring goal — and not enough!  Find out about transforming cities and infrastructure for carbon sequestration.

Bruce King is the author of “The New Carbon Architecture” and "Build Beyond Zero", and has been a structural engineer for 45 years, designing buildings of every size and type all over the world. He is also author of the world’s first climate friendly building regulation, the Marin County Low-Carbon Concrete code.