Faculty Accomplishments
Check out some highlights of accomplishments by the faculty in the Division of Creative Arts!
Summer 2022
June 2022
Prof. Rakowski was a composer in residence at Yaddo, where he finished a saxophone quartet called 6:20 and wrote a solo viola piece called Open Season, for Michael Hall.
June 2022
The Lydian Quartet performed at Duke University as a guest of the Ciompi Quartet’s summer chamber music series. They performed Andrew Waggoner’s 5th Quartet (Fromm commission dedicated to the Lyds) in addition to string quintets by Harbison and Schubert.
June 2022
Prof. Berger performed eight concerts as Third Dimension Music Festival artist along with members of the Grammy nominated Hermitage Piano Trio and other internationally renowned soloists and chamber musicians.
July 2022
Prof. Jahn designed costumes for summer productions of CASTOR AND PATIENCE at Cincinnati Opera and THE PASSION OF MARY CARDWELL DAWSON at Glimmerglass Festival
July 2022
Prof. Wong's article “Yuan Jai’s Deconstructive Paintings and Craft Conceptualism: Sentiments of the 1.5 Generation” was published in the Yuan Jai Reader. She also contributed a chapter on Developments of Chinese-style Painting in Post-war Taiwan to General History of Taiwanese Art (Taipei: Taiwan Art History Association).
July 2022
Prof. Glenn performed at ArtsLIVE! in Fredericksburg, VA ; Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival; and in the Conference Ensemble for 2022 Composers Conference, held at Brandeis. She also recorded "china is the fuiture48," a solo album of contemporary Chinese music (with Konstantinos Valianatos, piano).
July 2022
Prof. Walsh directed the New England premiere of GRAND HORIZONS by Bess Wohl at Gloucester Stage.
August 2022
The New York Times Style Magazine profiled Sheida Soleimani, visiting her home art studio and wildlife clinic.
Spring 2022
January 2022
On January 14, Nancy Scott gave a lecture on the Kimbell Art Museum's current exhibition "Turner's Modern World" with Prof. Em. James Walvin, University of York. This lecture is available on YouTube.
February 2022
Prof. Krstansky performed in the play "People, Places and Things," produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, February 11-March 5, 2022. Previous appearances at SpeakEasy include Every Brilliant Thing, Tribes, Body Awareness and Snakebit.
February 2022
Prof. Gee received an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges composers who have arrived at their own voice. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 300 members of the Academy. The four recipients receive $10,000 and an additional $10,000 to record their work, and will also have their music presented in a concert at the Academy.
March 2022
“Absence/Presence/Silence/Noise,” a chapter by Prof. Shapiro-Phim has been published in Dancing Transnational Feminisms: Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice (University of Washington Press, 2022). Edited by Ananya Chatterjea, Hui Niu Wilcox, and Alessandra Lebea Williams, the book “explores timely questions surrounding race and performance, gender and sexuality, art and politics, global and local inequities, and artists’ responsibilities toward their communities,” with a focus on the artistry and decolonizing feminisms of Ananya Dance Theatre. Shapiro-Phim’s piece shines a light on two conversations in separate cities among artists of movement as they navigate memory, historical and contemporary power imbalances, and the fostering of empathy and action.
March 2022
Prof. Soleimani was in a a group exhibition, "The Immune Project," at the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland that opened March 20, 2022.
March 2022
Prof. Almeida was in a group exhibition call "The Black Pages 01-100" at Franz Josef Kai Gallery in Vienna Austria. Exhibition on view from March 23 to July 17, 2022.
March 2022
As part of Providence College Gallery's annual On the Wall mural exhibition, Prof. Soleimani will present a multimedia installation that explores her parents' past as Iranian political activists and refugees. Exhibition on view from March 30–July 30, 2022.
March 2022
Prof. Scott participated in the Scholars Day at the MFABoston for the opening of the exhibition, Turner’s Modern World, where she gave a talk on the provenance of Turner’s Slave Ship from London to Boston, and how it narrowly escaped being sold off for a private gain.
April 2022
Prof Wong participated in an International Virtual Symposium called "Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting: Histories, Borders, and Values." Her talk was entitled "Two Female Ink Modernizers in Colonial Hong Kong: Fang Zhaoling and Irene Chou".
April 2022
Prof. Scott has an article in the forthcoming festschrift for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Vincenzo Vela called “Imaging slavery in 20th and 21st Century Memorials: A Legacy of Vela’s Spartaco.”
April 2022
Associate Professor of Music and Department Chair Karen Desmond gave the Sacred Music at Notre Dame Spring 2022 Calvin M. Bower Lecture: "In Pieces: Composing and Analyzing the Late Medieval Alleluya" on April 1, 2022.
May 2022
Prof Wardwell is one of six international artists featured in Revival: Materials and Monumental Forms, at the ICA Watershed in East Boston. Inspired by the Watershed building’s mixed-use history—built in the 1930s as a copper pipe and sheet metal manufacturing plant and serving since 2018 as a free site for contemporary art—this exhibition highlights how artists have derived inspiration from industry, labor, and the poetic and political power of found goods.
May 2022
Art historian and curator Dr. Jordan Amirkhani wrote an essay about Prof. Soleimani's practice and her exhibition at the Smith Center for the Arts (Providence College Galleries). Read about how the work touches the notion of home, recuperates memory through the stories of her family and uses photography in a new "akimbo" way.
May 2022
Pillars of Industry is Prof. Soleimani's first solo exhibition in Italy, following her residency at Castello San Basilio. Her residency focused on ILVA, Italy’s largest and most pollutive steel plant, and the ethical questions surrounding how large entities operate. The exhibition was on view from May 28-September 4, 2022.
May 2022
Prof. Anderson designed a world premiere opera, RUR A Torrent of Light, composed by Nicole Lizée, and directed by Michael Mori at the Tapestry Opera in Toronto, Canada,
May 2022
While conducting research in Berlin on theater and the Holocaust, Prof. Troyanovsky--a native of Ukraine--spent time volunteering as translator for Ukrainian refugees traveling through the Hauptbahnhof train station.
Fall 2021
September 2021
Prof. Mead participated in JOSQUIN 500 FESTIVAL, Video Concert: "Like a Virgin: Women in the Music of Josquin des Prez" with Nota Bene Viol Consort. She also gave a lecture called "Why Josquin?" and did a participatory workshop called "Repeat after Me".
September 2021
Prof. Shapiro-Phim, along with Liberian singer and anti-violence activist Fatu Gayflor, delivered the inaugural presentation for the Peace Research Institute of Oslo's INSPIRE seminar series. They spoke about their documentary film, Because of the War.
September 2021
A hyperallergic article featured Prof. Soleimani's objections to an opening event at Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles, which incorporated the release of live birds.
September 2021
Prof. Wooden participated in REACTIVATING MEMORY, a virtual symposium hosted by Princeton University to mark the centennials of the Shuffle Along premiere on Broadway and the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921.
October 2021
On October 7th the Queen of Holland opened a major Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Drentsmuseum, co-curated by Prof Ankori and Circe Henestrosa. The exhibition combines two of the major Kahlo collections from Mexico for the first time, including dozens of paintings, drawings, photographs, and the artist's personal belonging.
October 2021
Prof. Gee had performances in October of "Mouthpiece II" at Festival Mixtur in Barcelona; Inter Feral Arts/New Music Festival in Malmö, Sweden; and the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris. Erin is also currently featured on the PBS series Resonant Bodies.
October 2021
Prof. Ungaub published an essay on Poussin's "A Dance to the Music of Time" in the catalogue for a major loan exhibition "Poussin and the Dance" at the National Gallery, London (October 9th-January 2nd) and the Getty Museum, Los Angeles (February 15-May 8, 2022).
October 2021
Prof. Walsh directed the world premiere of "Think of Me Tuesday" by Ken Riaf for Gloucester Stage Company.
October 2021
Prof. Wardwell had a solo exhibition at LaMontagne Gallery called "I'm Afraid of Americans."
November 2021
Prof. Almeida exhibited work at Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, Lisbon; Galeria Nuno Centeno, Porto; and Galeria Cristina Guerra, Lisbon.
November 2021
Prof. Desmond published an article on W. de Wicumbe in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, a flagship musicological journal.
November 2021
Prof. Shapiro-Phim along with Naomi M. Jackson, Rebecca Pappas were editors on The Oxford Handbook of Jewishness and Dance published in November 2021.
November 2021
Life in Plastic: Artistic Responses to Petromodernity, edited by Prof Irr, was published by University of Minnesota Press.
November 2021
Work by Prof. Wardwell was featured in the Boston Globe about mural project for the Roxbury branch of the Boston Public Library.
December 2021
Prof. Chasalow is currently composing a violin concerto for Miranda Cuckson and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, to be performed as an "intervention" in the Rose Art Museum in December 2021, and a song cycle on themes of climate change.
Summer 2021
June 2021
Prof Almeida is part of an exhibit called "All I want: Portuguese Women Artists from 1900 to 2020" at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. This exhibition featured two hundred works of art from 40 Portuguese women artists created between the start of the 20th century and our days will be reunited in this grand exhibition, as part of the Cultural Programme of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
June 2021
Prof. Fair received a Port Neighborhood Grant, Cambridge Public Art (2021 - 2022). Her sculpture, "Portable Window", gives agency to explore how we frame ourselves in relationship to each other and to our surroundings at large. The sculpture is essentially a wood wheel with handles and a rectangular window in the center that frames a view. While our digital culture has made it incredibly easy to frame and take pictures without restraint, Portable Window slows down and makes framing our surroundings a more physical act in sync with our bodies. Generating conversations, happenings, and time lapse videos from rolling and positioning Portable Window in accessible locations such as Spy Pond, opens up several platforms to listen and learn in an unprecedented time of pandemic anxiety and cultural upheaval.Throughout the grant year, residents of the Port neighborhood of Cambridge will co-create with a Portable Window Kit, a small 2-foot sculpture that is easily assembled and rolled by individuals. These rolls will generate a larger archive of videos and conversations that represent a 2021 portrait of The Port, framed by the residents. Engagements began in June 2021.
June 2021
Prof. Paulding was awarded a Whiting Fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation to study traditional Manding dance-drumming at the Gambia Academy. Ben’s study of the music of Gambia adds to his already rich knowledge of traditional African music of Ghana, Togo and Benin.
June 2021
Work by Prof Soleimani was part of the survey exhibition "With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932", at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
June 2021
Prof Swigart's paper proposal on English-language hegemony at the International Criminal Court was selected among a large pool of applicants to be part of a publication project entitled "International Criminal Justice: a Counter-Hegemonic Project?" It is organized by Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin and the group presented their drafts via Zoom on June 21-22.
June 2021
Prof. Troyanovsky directed Magda Romanska's new play "Life is Everywhere" for Project Resilience at the SpeakEasy Stage Company, Boston (streaming June 2021). "Life is Elsewhere" narrates the changes that pandemic inflicted on those of us for whom our homes became both places of confinement and places of freedom. Will the changes in how we communicate create a permanent society-wide mental capacity for reimagining access to work, knowledge, and resources?
June 2021
Prof. Von Mering has signed a contract with Routledge for a co-edited volume (together with Monika Hübscher) on "Antisemitism on Social Media".
June 2021
Work by Prof. Wardwell is part of the group exhibition "While You Were Sleeping", at LaMontagne Gallery in Boston.
July 2021
Work by Prof. Almeida was part of exhibit "Double Trouble" at the ICA/MECA in Portland, ME. The exhibit featured the work of five artists working in the mediums of painting, sculpture, photography, and installation. Working with the idea of the double - as mirror, representation, or iteration - these artworks ask viewers to reflect on the potential of seeing themselves in new ways.
July 2021
Prof. Anderson was scenic designer for Glory Denied at the Berkshire Opera Festival, July 22-24, 2021.
July 2021
Prof. Gee performed her composition "Mouthpieces 34" in an online premiere that took place on July 14, 2021 on YouTube. The audio/video piece was originally shown in the spring of 2020 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
July 2021
Prof. Mead’s viol consort Nota Bene, along with five singers, released a CD of the Quattordeci Sonetti Spirituale of Pietro Vinci (1525-1584). This recording grew out of a project funded in part by Mandel Faculty Grant and the Brandeis Arts Council, and was originally inspired by a collaboration with Brandeis professor Ramie Targoff during the 2013 meeting of the New England Renaissance Conference that took place at the Mandel Center. The performances of the works, which were directed by Sarah, were recorded in 2019 in the Brandeis Harlan Chapel. It represents the first recording of this music. A review of the CD can be found on MusicWeb International.
August 2021
Prof. Almeida had her 5th solo exhibition at Simone Subal Gallery in New York City.
August 2021
Prof. Chasalow was the Artist in Residence at the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy) and The Studios of Key West.
August 2021
Prof. Kalb's book "Art Since 1980" was translated into Korean and published by Mijin Publishing Co. Seoul.
Spring 2021
January 2021
Prof. Fair had an exhibition, "Portable Window," which opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art on January 15, 2021. The video and sculpture of Tory Fair frames new perspectives in landscape. Inspired to steward some of the seeds that pioneering feminist Mary Miss planted as a sculptor in the 1970s, Fair opened an intergenerational dialogue with Miss and is guided by her priorities: “Breathing space, human scale, and first-hand experience.” Through generating conversations, happenings, and videos Fair’s playful work opens up several platforms to listen and learn in an unprecedented time of pandemic anxiety and cultural upheaval.
January 2021
The newly published Coexistence in the Aftermath of Mass Violence: Imagination, Empathy and Resilience (Eds. Eve M. Zucker and Laura McGrew) includes a chapter by Prof Shapiro-Phim. The book demonstrates how imagination, empathy, and resilience contribute to the processes of social repair after ethnic and political violence. Adding to the literature on transitional justice, peacebuilding, and the anthropology of violence and social repair, the authors show how these conceptual pathways — imagination, empathy and resilience — enhance recovery, coexistence, and sustainable peace.
January 2021
Prof. Shapiro-Phim presented a paper as part of a "Transnational mobilities of music and dance in the Global South: Choreographing belonging, composing identity" workshop, hosted by the Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University (The Hague, Netherlands).
January 2021
Prof Shapiro-Phim gave a presentation on IMPACT, in collaboration with an IMPACT colleague in Cyprus, at the International Peace Research Association conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
February 2021
Work by Prof. Almeida was part of a group show called, "l'entre-deux," at the Pina Gallery in Vienna, Austria.
February 2021
Prof. Fair gave a talk with artist Mary Miss that was hosted by Institute for Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. This talk was in conjunction with Tory Fair's solo exhibit "Portable Window" on view at the museum from January 15 through March 14.
February 2021
Prof. Lichtman was in a group show called "Paradise Island" at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects in New York. Show was on view from February 17 to March 20.
February 2021
Prof. Scott wrote an article that was published online by the UK journal, the Journal for the History of Collections, and will later be in the print journal. Article titled "Henry Clay Frick and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The blockbuster exhibition of 1910."
February 2021
On Wednesday, February 10th, Prof. Scott presented a paper at the College Art Association Conference. The paper, "The Woman Abolitionist and The Slave Ship: Alice Sturgis Hooper, Collector of Allston and Turner" was presented on a panel called "Chronicling Lost Legacies: Women Collectors and Dealers of the long Nineteenth Century."
February 2021
Prof. Swigart was invited to serve on a selection committee for the NEH-funded Council of American Overseas Research Centers senior researcher fellowship.
March 2021
Prof. Freiberg received a Visual Arts Artist Fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council and the Mass Cultural Council.
March 2021
Prof. Frost had an exhibit up at the Boston Sculptors Gallery called “non-pastoral." It was featured in WBUR's Artery list of spring art exhibitions to see!
March 2021
Prof. Gisholt had a solo exhibition, "Rituals of Perception" up at Deborah Colton Gallery in Houston Texas.
March 2021
Prof. Soleimani was interviewed about her work and practices in Phroom Magazine.
April 2021
In April 2021, as one of the featured composers in Collage New Music’s “The Composer Speaks” series, Prof Chang was interviewed by conductor David Hoose, and their lively conversation included topics ranging from musical identity to composition advice. The entire interview is posted on Collage’s YouTube channel.
April 2021
Prof. Freiberg received a Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts (CJP) and Culture Community Impact Grant, for Love + Salt public art installation and virtual platform. The in-person part is an installation of cement paintings at a public site, featuring a visual narrative of my family’s refugee story from Baghdad. On the Love + Salt virtual platform, guests will be invited to share their own commonly used terms for love and curses. As a means to make this project inclusive, the website will encourage guests to write their phrases in their native tongue. The website will be fully accessible, with a survey link for guests to share their favorite terms of love and insults.
April 2021
Prof. Scott was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa chapter as Honorary Member of her alma mater, Austin College. She was chosen as the recipient for 2020, due to her career in arts and humanities, and the generosity of the College who honors an alum each year since the PBK chapter was granted in 2001.
April 2021
Prof. Soleimani was asked by the New York Times to create a photo assignment on how we have 'fun' during the pandemic - check out what she came up with.
April 2021
Prof. Soleimani has created a seven-piece body of work, Coping Mechanisms, for Denny Dimin Gallery in New York.
May 2021
Prof. Soleimani was selected as a Bernstein Faculty Fellow by the School of Arts and Sciences for the 2021/2022 academic year. She received this honor in recognition of the promise of her scholarship and teaching.
May 2021
"Modernism In the Global Context: Art and Society in Taiwan" on May 7-8.
Fall 2020
September 2020
Prof. Almeida has work in a group show, Vantage Points, at the GRIMM Gallery in New York. The show opens on September 3rd and closes October 17th.
September 2020
Prof. Krstansky participated in Playwrights Lab as an actor at MIT. Check out this article about the lab.
October 2020
Prof. woods participated in a lecture series entitled: "Forms of Reparations: The Museum and Restorative Justice." The series is presented by the Museum & Curatorial Studies graduate students of the School of Art at California State University, Long Beach.
October 2020
Prof. woods gave a keynote on Saturday, October 24th for Now and There, the Public Art Accelerator Forum that will examine public art-making while sharing the resources available to the artists who participated in the three-year pilot N+T Public Art Accelerator program.
November 2020
Prof. Almeida, had a show open at Tørreloft in Copenhagen. The show, Standard Error, also features work by artist, Magnus Frederik Clausen, and is on view till December 4. Sonia's work, all under the title of "Pocket and Lies," includes 1 large fabric piece, which is pictured here, 9 works on paper, and 1 book.
November 2020
The Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University presented Hellbent, a solo exhibition by Prof. Ariel Basson Freiberg. Hellbent explores the structure of spectatorship through paintings that fluctuate between the divide of spectacle and concealment. Drawing from narratives and representations of Salome, the young woman who lasciviously danced in exchange for the head of John the Baptist, Freiberg beckons us to consider the nature of the infamous performance in relation to desire, gender, sexuality, and power. Through the sensuous and energetic handling of her medium, Freiberg operates alongside her protagonist, and her painterly gestures multitask as form and narration. The exhibition is on view from November 16, 2020 through May 28, 2021.
November 2020
Prof. Frost has a piece in the exhibit "Interpreting the Natural: Contemporary Visions of Scholars Rocks" on view at the Gallery Korea, Korean Cultural Center in New York City.
November 2020
Prof. Rosenberg (HISP, COMP LIT) was a speaker at the International Colloquium on the Inter-American System of Human Rights, on a panel about Symbolic Reparations.
November 2020
Prof. Soleimani had a solo exhibition, "Hotbed" at Denny Dimin Gallery, running from November 6th to December 23rd, 2020. An opening talk with the artist and Jasmine Wahi, the Holly Block Social Justice Curator at the Bronx Museum, accompanied the exhibition on November 6th.
November 2020
Prof. Swigart was a panelist on an American Anthropological Association event organized around the theme "University-based centers and institutions as spaces for social justice and social change."
November 2020
Prof. Wong agve a lecture on Friday, November 13th in conjunction with the exhibit "Interpreting the Natural: Contemporary Visions of Scholars’ Rocks" on view at the Gallery Korea, Korean Cultural Center in New York City.
December 2020
Prof. Almeida gave two virtual artist talks. One the Vakalo Art and Design College in Greece and one to Nick Oberthaler's class at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in France.December 2020
Prof. Shapiro-Phim's documentary film, "Because of the War," was the focus of part of the UNESCO Art-Lab's International Human Rights Day celebration on December 10, 2020. UNESCO screened the trailer and interview Dr. Shapiro-Phim as well as Fatu Gayflor, one of the Liberian anti-violence activists and artists who share their stories in the movie.
About the film: In West Africa and North America, four Liberian women -- mothers, singers, dancers, survivors of civil wars, refugees and immigrants -- use their music to address injustice and inspire action for social change. Fatu Gayflor, Marie Nyenabo, Zaye Tete and Tokay Tomah share their stories in this film, deepening understandings of the active, constructive roles the arts and artists can take in moments of crisis in the lives of families and communities
December 2020
Prof Shapiro-Phim gave a presentation at the Theatre in a Time of Crisis conference hosted by the Open University of Cyprus.
Summer 2020
July 2020
Prof. Bradfield's (English, Creative Writing) poem "Touchy" was in the July/August 2020 issue of Atlantic Monthly. One of her essays, "Buried Birds" was published in a new anthology, "When Birds Are Near," from Cornell U Press. And she has been teaching online for the Orion Environmental Writers Workshop.
July 2020
Prof. Cohen (Director Peacebuilding and the Arts, Ethics Center) served on an external review committee for the Program in Human Rights at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She also serves as co-convener of the Creative Approaches to Transitional Justice series, a set of virtual presentations and conversations based on the special issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice that she co-edited in March 2020.