Wynton Marsalis recently sent a letter inviting our students in the School of Music’s Miles Davis Jazz Studies program to compete in the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship in New York. In issuing this invitation, Marsalis singled out “ten of the most well-regarded university jazz programs in the country” to come to Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 19th and 20th for workshops, performances, and a collegial competition. We are proud of our jazz students in achieving this distinction and wish them the very best in the competition.
Go Spartans!
In proofreading the press release, I was struck that only one of the eighteen students in the jazz ensemble identifies as female. Historically jazz has been a gendered acoustic space and remains so today. Our jazz faculty members are acutely aware of the problem, and Director Steve Haines hosted the North Carolina Jazz Girls Day for middle and high school girls to come to campus for an all-day learning experience. This fall the students worked with saxophonist and scat vocalist Camille Thurman—a residency made possible by the Robinson Family Fund.
But instrumental jazz is not the only glass ceiling in the arts. In the School of Art’s sculpture area where aluminum and bronze casting occurs, Foundry Director Kevin Vanek is working to make the process accessible and is increasing the capacity for everyone to work safely and on an equal footing. By replacing large, heavy industrial machinery with modern, light, and easy-to-maneuver equipment and reaching out to safety equipment manufacturers, the weight restrictions that discriminated against smaller body types are becoming a non-issue.
In the School of Theatre, Costume Shop Supervisor Amy Holroyd is working to create a safe space for our trans students. Amy has purchased undergarment binders in all colors to ensure that our transgender male and gender queer students can be themselves in their costumes. Additionally, the School of Theatre faculty is challenging itself to look beyond binary definitions of gender when it comes to making casting decisions and has employed a casting consultant to facilitate this process.
Across the College, faculty and staff are identifying spaces, roles, and genres in our art forms that have been limited by constructions of gender. As part of CVPA’s commitment to inclusion, we are examining how our pronouns, historiographies, and pedagogies have in so many ways been limited and defined by gender. I am grateful for the many ways that our community is making space for new ways of being and expanding our understanding of identity in the arts so that all are welcome and visible.
Sincerely,
bruce d. mcclung, Dean
College of Visual and Performing Arts
|
|
CLOSING THE GENDER GAP IN THE ARTS
Meet two CVPA alumnæ who are making careers in historically
male-dominated areas of the arts:
Conductor Nicoletta Moss and Sculptor Karena “Kidd” Graves
|
|
Nicoletta Moss (’20 BM MM Instrumental Conducting) has a love for music and an instinct for leadership that led her to UNC Greensboro’s School of Music to pursue a degree that would combine both:
“As long as I can remember I’ve always felt comfortable being in front of other people. My personality and my teaching style are pretty calm, but I have a lot of energy on the podium, too. I approach conducting as a learning experience for all of us. It’s a really exciting thing to be able to bring together people from different backgrounds, levels, and interests in repertoire to make music, to help unite a group towards performing a piece of work together.” Read more here.
|
|
 |
Fish Dream: Edition 5, 48" x 18" x 18", repurposed junk and carbon fiber, spray foam, paint, 2021 created by Graves while in graduate school at
East Carolina University.
|
|
|
|
Karena “Kidd” Graves (’19 BFA Studio Art: Ceramics and Sculpture) is carving out her place in the sculpture world—something she began in sixth grade and honed here at UNC Greensboro’s School of Art:
“Working toward a sculpture degree, I did ceramics classes, metal classes, and woodshop. But the thing about Art at UNCG is that you do what they call Foundations, so I was in every class and was able to do an independent study with each of my professors. I also got to travel. I received scholarships to go places like Italy. Having all of that be a part of my BFA was awesome.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
This semester UNC Greensboro wraps up “She Can, We Can: Beyond the Women’s Suffrage Centennial,” a diverse and inclusive series of events, discussions, and performances that ask: what political advances and compromises resulted in the passage of the 19th Amendment, and how have these shaped issues of equity in our own time?
|
|
|
Sophi Kass (’21 MM Clarinet Performance) was recently awarded a position with the U.S. Navy Fleet Band.
Jordan Speas (’21 BFA Acting) has joined the tour of Spamilton: An American Parody in the role of George Washington.
Shayla Taylor (’20 BFA Dance) has signed with the Urban Bush Women as an apprentice. Urban Bush Women is a Brooklyn-New York-based non-profit dance company and the only professional African American women’s dance company.
Robin McLaughlin (’18 MM Music Composition) recently published her first beginning piano piece, “Beyond the Fence,” with the FJH Music Company. Read more here.
Sherrill Roland (’17 MFA and ’15 BFA Studio Art), Johannes Barfield (’14 Studio Art), and Stephanie J. Woods (’13 Studio Art) have their work featured in Reckoning and Resilience: North Carolina Art Now at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham. Read more here.
Sherrill Roland also has a debut solo exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York. Read more here.
Tyler Barnhardt (’16 BFA Acting) has a recurring guest role in the reboot of the 1990s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which begins streaming on the Peacock Network on February 13th.
Gretchen Krupp (’15 BM Vocal Performance) appeared this fall as featured soloist in concerts with Baltimore Concert Opera and The Dallas Opera. This past summer, she returned to Wolf Trap Opera as a Filene Artist where she performed in Boulogne’s L’Amant Anonyme and Viardot’s Cendrillon. Last month she made her Atlanta Opera debut as a Glynn Studio Artist in the role of Edith in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
Stephen Spencer (’11 BFA Acting) recently made his Broadway debut in Clyde’s, a new play by Lynn Nottage that opened in January at the Helen Hayes Theatre.
Paola Savvidou (’06 BM Piano Performance) has published Teaching the Whole Musician: A Guide to Wellness in the Applied Studio (Oxford University Press, 2021). Reviewers have praised the book as “crucial, research-based guidelines for music teachers...to foster healthy, lifelong music making.” Savvidou is Wellness Initiative Program Manager and Adjunct Lecturer in Music, Piano at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance.
Mark Janicello (’04 BM Vocal Performance) has released his latest film, The Finellis, a semi-autobiographical comedy loosely based on his involvement with Scientology. The Finellis has garnered 64 international nominations and 22 awards at film festivals in 12 countries and is available on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Apple TV, and Google Play Movies. Watch the trailer here.
Travis Newton (’02 BM Violin Performance) has published The Orchestra Management Handbook (Oxford University Press, 2022), which is a practical approach, including “innovative practice” case studies from a wide range of orchestras, a comprehensive list of resources for those in the field, and advice from current orchestra managers. Newton is the Director of Arts Administration at Le Moyne College.
|
|
Alumni News & Notes are compiled from self-submissions
and from the University’s news clip service.
|
|
2021–2022 ALUMNI EVENTS
Invitations to CVPA alumni events will be forthcoming by email, so make sure we know
Los Angeles | March 6, 2022
Asheville | March 24, 2022
Raleigh | Spring 2022, Date TBD
Wilmington | Spring 2022, Date TBD
CVPA alumni events will follow all public health protocols at the time of and in the location
where they take place. Adjustments to the schedule will be made as necessary.
|
|
FACULTY/STAFF NEWS & NOTES
Adam Carlin (Director of Community Engagement and Director of Greensboro Project Space) received a $20,000 grant from the Covenant Foundation to launch the Social Practice Institute at Elsewhere Museum, a ten-day artist residency for southern Jewish artists who will be trained in socially engaged art and Jewish thought leadership. Following the residency, the artists will then create social practice projects in their own communities across the southern region.
Jackson Cooper (Part-Time Lecturer in Arts Administration) has published an article, “When Nice Isn’t Enough: How Arts Fundraising Can Evolve,” in HowlRound Theatre Commons on developing trends in Arts Administration.
Andy Hudson (Assistant Professor of Clarinet) was featured as a concerto soloist with the Atlanta Wind Symphony, performing Black Dog by Scott McAllister both in Georgia and at The Midwest Clinic in Chicago. The Midwest Clinic is the largest instrumental education convention in the world.
Rebecca B. MacLeod (Professor of Strings Education) along with Florida State University Professor Dr. John M. Geringer and David S. Miller (’20 MM and ’13 BM Music Education) recently published “The Effect of Wearing Foam and Etymotic Earplugs on Musicians’ Pitch Perception” in the Journal of Research in Music Education. Results of the study showed that listeners were most accurate when tuning without earplugs, then when using Etymotic earplugs, and least accurate with foam earplugs. Differences in pitch acuity between no earplugs and Etymotic earplugs were limited to specific intervals and in magnitudes not likely to be perceived. Results indicated that Etymotic earplugs may provide valuable protection against noise-induced hearing loss with negligible effects on pitch perception.
Robert Wells (Professor of Voice) and master’s voice students William Edwards (tenor), Reginald Powell (bass), and Zachary Taylor (tenor) made their first appearances with the Charlotte Symphony in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins on January 28th and 29th. Read review here.
Faculty/Staff News & Notes are compiled from self-submissions
and from the University’s news clip service.
|
|
UNC GREENSBORO CONCERT AND LECTURE SERIES
BRINGS WORLD-CLASS ARTISTS TO UNCG AUDITORIUM
|
|
Stage and screen star, Tony Award-winner, and seven-time Tony nominee Kelli O’Hara sang UCLS into 2022 with a performance on January 14th. Earlier in the day, Ms. O’Hara shared her insights about theatre, opera, and work-life balance during a Q&A session with students.
The UCLS season continues with Margaret Atwood, one of the most influential writers of our time and author of more than fifty books including The Handmaid’s Tale; Academy-Award-winning actress and founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media; Daveed Diggs, from the original cast of Broadway’s Hamilton and television’s Black-ish; and modern dance company Malpaso, known as one of the most exciting contemporary dance companies touring today.
For tickets, visit ucls.uncg.edu or call 800-514-3849.
|
|
FINAL SPOTLIGHT
In the total ensemble of 45 stage performers in Greensboro Opera’s Porgy and Bess, nine of the cast members were UNCG alumni and nine were UNCG students. Nine alumni, faculty members, and current students also worked behind the scenes to bring the production to life.
Of nearly 40 musicians making up the orchestra, all of them were UNCG alumni, students, and faculty.
Backstage photo credit: Robert Wells
Front row: Rhiannon Giddens, Gavin Brown, Stefany Spencer, Michael Adams, Breanna Schaefer, Olivya Moore, Rafael Garcia, Sidney Outlaw
Back Row: Zion-Grace Foster, Danielle Dorsett, Reginald Powell, Lindell Carter, Douglass Grimm, Collin McCrea, Travis Gilliam, Richard Hodges, Donald Hartmann
(Not pictured: Detra Davis, Díana Thompson-Brewer, Charles Williamson
|
|
The College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) e-Newsletter is published eight times a year in September, October, November, December, February, March, April, and May.
The Newsletter is emailed to CVPA alumni, faculty, staff, students, patrons, and donors. Please feel free to forward your copy, and anyone who would like their name to be added to our distribution list can contact us via uncgarts@uncg.edu.
The e-Newsletter is edited by Terri Relos, Director of External Relations. Archived issues can be found in the “News” section of the CVPA website. To submit Alumni News & Notes, please use this form. For Faculty/Staff News & Notes, use this form.
|
|
100 McIver St, Greensboro, NC 27412-5010
Tel: 336-334-5789
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
