Horticulture for the holidays

Hortus Forum, Cornell’s undergraduate horticulture club, will hold its annual Poinsettia Sale Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 at the Livestock Pavilion, 48 Judd Falls Road, near the Dairy Bar on campus. Hours of the sale are 1-5 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Club members have grown more than 500 poinsettias for the sale, in 15 varieties including Christmas Feelings Merlot, Mars White, Red Glitter and Venus Hot Pink. Pre-order and see the selection here. Plants are $12 each; on-campus delivery is available.

The club cultivates an appreciation for plants and horticulture across the Cornell community through sales and hands-on experience. All profits from the sale will help pay for greenhouse space and fund club activities.

Lessons and Carols 

Lessons and Carols, an annual tradition at Cornell, return to Sage Chapel Dec. 2 and 3 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and entry is first-come, first-served. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. each evening.

The candlelight services feature traditional songs and readings from the seasons of Advent and Christmas, and music by organist Michael Plagerman, accompanying choral selections and familiar hymns and carols.

Carols will be sung by the Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club under the direction of Robert Isaacs, interspersed with audience carols and readings by members of the Cornell community, with different readers featured each night. The Cornell Chimes will play for 30 minutes before and after each program.

“Bound for Glory”

Singer-songwriter Cosy Sheridan returns to campus for a “Bound For Glory” show, Dec. 2 at 8 p.m. in Durland Alternatives Library in Anabel Taylor Hall. Admission is free for all ages, with three sets of music starting at 8:30 p.m.

The long-running folk music program, now in its 52nd season, broadcasts live on WVBR, 93.5 FM, and streams online, 8 to 11 p.m. Sundays.

Sound and space

“Sound/Stage,” a concert of music by graduate student composers showcasing the performative aspect of sound, will be presented Dec. 4 at 8 p.m. in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Flexible Theatre. Admission is free.

The Cornell Contemporary Chamber Players and artists-in-residence, the International Contemporary Ensemble, will explore different notions of sound production, the intimate relationships between sound and theatricality, performativity and place, vulnerability and volatility.

The concert is part of the 2018 Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial.

The Department of Music also presents an open rehearsal of the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble, Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. in B20 Lincoln Hall, open to audience participation. The Cornell University Jazz Ensemble performs Oliver Nelson’s “The Kennedy Dream,” Dec. 5 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall auditorium; and students of Xak Bjerken and Ryan McCullough will celebrate the centenary of Claude Debussy’s death with a concert program Dec. 6 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall, featuring works performed on an 1878 Blüthner piano similar to the instrument Debussy himself had. All events are free and open to the public.

Endangered eagles

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology presents a free screening of “Bird of Prey,” an award-winning new documentary about the endangered Great Philippine Eagle, Dec. 3, 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre in conjunction with Cornell Cinema.

The future of many species is tied to the fate of the Philippines’ last fragments of old-growth forest, including the world’s largest and rarest eagle, of which fewer than 800 remain.

The film’s director, Eric Liner, video production engineer at the lab, will be at the screening to answer questions. For information, email cornellbirds@cornell.edu.

Surveillance in the neighborhood

Cornell Cinema will have a free screening of “The Feeling of Being Watched” with filmmaker Assa Boundaoui, Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre.

Credit: Focus Features/Provided

Boundaoui, a journalist for NPR and CNN, examines surveillance in her community, a largely Muslim Arab-American neighborhood in suburban Chicago, in the 1990s and 2000s – the FBI’s largest-ever counterterrorism investigation at the time.

The event is cosponsored by the Department of Information Science and the Media Studies Initiative.

Also showing: The documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, an intimate look at television children’s show host Fred Rogers, will screen Dec. 7-9.