NEWS
Faculty News
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
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- Julia Baumanis was given the 2024 Mason Gross Inclusive Community Award at this year’s convocation ceremony. The award is given to a faculty or staff member who has “had an extraordinary impact in fostering a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment” for our school. MUSIC
- Jacqueline Thaw has been selected to receive the Provost Award for Excellence in Cross-Disciplinary Research. The honor carries an institutional award of $5,000. Thaw’s research delves into food access and health, among other issues. ART & DESIGN
- Melissa Dunphy’s choral piece “Change” for children’s choir was recently published by Edition Peters and was premiered by the Lake Superior Youth Chorus last May. Inspired by the writings of young singers, the work enables the performers to express the desire for positive change in the world. Dunphy’s choral piece “Halcyon Days” will be performed by UK vocal ensemble VOCES8 at the Sydney Opera House on June 23, 2024, as part of the Utzon Music series. In addition, a new BBC commission, “Totality,” will have its world premiere at the BBC Proms on July 21, 2024. VOCES8 and The King’s Singers will perform the work, which is inspired by this year’s total solar eclipse. MUSIC
- Ani Javian has been awarded a 2024–25 Fulbright Scholar Award for her project “Listening Inward, Moving Outward: Dance and Memory, Story, and Trauma,” to teach and conduct research in Yerevan, Armenia. She will travel to Yerevan in the fall. DANCE
- Brandon Williams is our new director of choral activities. Williams, an associate professor of music education and conducting, joined the faculty in 2016 and received the 2020–21 Rutgers Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Innovations, the Mason Gross Inclusive Community Faculty Award, and the 2021–22 Rutgers Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence Award. In Dean Geary’s announcement, he said that, after a national search, Williams “emerged as the candidate with just the right combination of first-rate musicianship and conducting skills, leadership and administrative acumen, a deep and abiding commitment to inclusive pedagogy, and a compelling vision for building on the proud traditions and existing strengths of Rutgers’ internationally known choral program while charting new paths toward increased visibility, excellence, and recognition.” MUSIC
- Christopher Cartmill was a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome in March and April 2024. He was there to work on his translation of Carlo Gozzi’s play The Little Green Birdie, which was first performed at Mason Gross in 2022, to prepare the work for publication. THEATER
- On June 22, Pam Tanowitz received the 2024 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award at a ceremony in the Berkshires. Jacob’s Pillow leadership describe her as “an influential collaborative and creative force, admired for her abstract treatment of classical and contemporary movement ideas, informed by rigorous research.” DANCE
FACULTY VOICES IN THE MEDIA
- Mitchell D. Weiss provides financial tips in WalletHub’s article “Cities with the Highest & Lowest Credit Scores.” RUTGERS ARTS ONLINE
- Christopher Cartmill is quoted in this Los Angeles Times article about the meaning of banter and its place in dating and on dating apps. THEATER
- Min Kwon was interviewed by former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley for his Sirius XM radio show, American Voices, about her “America/Beautiful” project, which includes 70 composers and their take on “America the Beautiful.” Kwon has begun recording all 70-plus new works written for the project, which received media coverage from The Financial Times, NBC Nightly News, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and International Piano, among others. She is collaborating with the Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse for this recording (five volumes), which will be released later this year. MUSIC
- Rebecca Cypess, associate dean for academic affairs, wrote an opinion piece for Inside Higher Ed titled “The Abuse of Scholar Activism,” in which she outlines how ideologically driven scholar activism contributes to campus antisemitism. MUSIC
- Jeff Friedman spoke with NorthJersey.com about the Disability Studies minor, a collaboration between MGSA, SMLR, Bloustein, and SAS, as part of the website’s feature “Rutgers launches disability studies minor to explore world of oft-ignored community.” DANCE
- Rebecca Cypess, associate dean for academic affairs, penned an Op-Ed at NJ.com titled “Rutgers gets creative about climate change and creates a new minor.” MUSIC
- Composer and multimedia artist Scott Ordway speaks about the relationship between art, landscape, and emotion on the Climate Change and Happiness podcast (Helsinki, Finland). MUSIC
- Patrick Stettner weighed in about the benefits and limitations of using a smartphone to shoot a movie in a WIRED article, “You Can Shoot a Movie on a Phone. Just Don’t Expect It to Be Easy.” FILM
FACULTY FEATURES
Artists including Nicholas Galanin, Lorraine O’Grady and Park McArthur win Guggenheim Fellowships (The Art Newspaper) ART & DESIGN
Haiti-born Didier William’s dazzling, gazing paintings are literally an eyeful (Los Angeles Times) ART & DESIGN
Review: Pam Tanowitz’s Witty Dance Secrets in London (The New York Times) DANCE
Oakland Museum of California Opens an Exhibit Highlighting the Life and Career of Angela Davis (Gerry Beegan in Ebony magazine) ART & DESIGN
How to Decolonize a Museum? Try an Ax. (Raphael Montañez Ortiz in The New York Times) ART & DESIGN
Road Trip to Escape, USA (Julie Langsam in Dense Magazine) ART & DESIGN