Arts And Culture

Pain, healing and resilience are themes woven into Nashville artist Ashley Mintz’s new online exhibit supported by Vanderbilt Divinity School. The visual collection, "Resilient Souls: We Rest Then We Rise," will run in a fully virtual format Feb. 1–March 12 in celebration and reflection of Black History Month. Read More

Blair Academy at Vanderbilt, the  music education program for children, youth and adults at Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, has developed creative new approaches to build curriculum and share music, despite the challenges of music instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, enrollment for the adult program in particular has increased. Read More

Multidisciplinary researcher Robert Barsky has added a new approach to his studies on migration with the launch of "Contours Collaborations." The digital journal is sharing stories about borders and border crossings through the lens of art. Read More

Ediciones Vigía, a publishing house in the town of Matanzas, Cuba, began to create handbills and invitations in 1985 for local cultural events. Displayed through March of this year, these works now can be enjoyed again in the online exhibit Found in Cuba: The Ingenuity and Creativity of Ediciones Vigía. Read More

Overcoming daunting challenges is routine for Blake-Anthony Johnson, BMus’12, who in May became CEO of the Chicago Sinfonietta, a pioneering organization in the orchestral world committed to diversity and parity for all. Read More

A selection of recent accolades awarded to faculty and alumni Read More

The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery has been selected among spring 2020 applicants to receive support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for an exhibition of medieval and Renaissance artworks. Read More

For television writer and producer Saladin Patterson, MA’96, an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from MIT was not the start of his career—at least not as he’d initially planned. Thanks to his on-campus job in tech support at Wilson Hall, Patterson plotted a career that led straight to Hollywood. Read More

The symbolism of frayed, worn flags in "Flag Exchange" by Mel Ziegler, Paul E. Schwab Professor of Fine Arts, raises questions about the capacity of the American experiment to be sustained through national triumphs and shortcomings, including our own time of divisiveness. Read More

A two-year, $17,000 National Endowment of the Arts research grant will support a Vanderbilt analysis of how the characteristics and practices of more than 500 local arts agencies help or hinder their efforts to expand access to the arts in their communities. Read More

"Dream for Light Years," a collaboration between contemporary artist Ali Smith and Blair School of Music's Michael Alec Rose, can now be enjoyed online. Read More

Qualitative Data Collection Tools: Design, Development, and Applications, (2020, Sage Publishers) by Felice D. Billups, EdD’91 This unique supplementary text will guide students and new researchers to design, develop, pilot and employ qualitative tools in order to collect qualitative data. Templates of interview protocols, focus group moderator guides, content analysis… Read More

Actress Kirsten Dunst, left, and co-star Théodore Pellerin film a scene for On Becoming a God in Central Florida, a quirky Showtime comedy created by alumnus Robert Funke about a cultish, Amway-like marketing scheme. Courtesy of SHOWTIME On Becoming a God in Central Florida is an oddly academic-sounding title for… Read More

Senior Sarah Clements sings—accompanied by sophomore Calendula Cheng at the keyboards—during the dress rehearsal for January’s concert A Humming Under My Feet. Photo by Joe Howell Many women encounter glass ceilings during their careers. For women composers, those ceilings are seemingly laminated and bulletproof. That’s especially true for women who… Read More

Clara Morera, The Preboste Juan (King Juan), 2017, mixed media on canvas, 72 x 48 inches (courtesy of the artist and Dorfsman Fine Arts, Miami) Artists from the United States, Cuba and Haiti envision social change through reinterpretation of a lost work Visionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom brings together… Read More

Nothing to See Here (2019, Ecco/HarperCollins), the latest novel by Kevin Wilson, BA’00, explores female friendship, along with the question of how to raise spontaneously combustible twins. In its review, Kirkus says, “One of his greatest strengths is the ability to craft an everyday family drama and inject it… Read More

Seventh Flag: A Novel (2019, SparkPress) by Sid Balman Jr., BA’80. No place is immune from radicalism, including the small West Texas town of Dell City, where four generations of an iconic American family and a Syrian Muslim family carve a farming empire out of the unforgiving high desert. Their… Read More

Sophomores Amber Yun and Jared Schmidt, and junior Joe Pehrson of Vanderbilt University Theatre scream as they perform a scene from Catharsis, by sophomore Natalie Martinez-White, during the August Spotlight Showcase for first-year students. Photo by Anne Rayner During their first week at Vanderbilt, first-year students are met with an… Read More

Chin, shown creating in his workshop, is known for his large-scale art installations. Photo courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Visionary artist Mel Chin, BA’75, was named Sept. 25 among the class of 26 MacArthur Fellows for 2019. Given by the John D. and Catherine T. Read More

The opera The Ghosts of Gatsby, by Joshua McGuire, left, andEvan Mack, was staged in October at the Blair School. Photo by David Pike Many of history’s greatest musical collaborators have pursued a creative approach perhaps best described as “you wash, I’ll dry.” Mozart was more than happy to… Read More