Arts And Culture

Will the Count be caught cheating? Will Cherubino really be voted off? And who, exactly, will marry Figaro? Vanderbilt Opera Theatre cast members were filmed by students from the Department of Cinema and Media Arts for webisodes to preface VOT’s Marriage of Figaro, produced at Blair in November as a… Read More

Alphabet card, France, early 19th century; from the George Clulow–U.S. Playing Card Co. Gaming Collection, Vanderbilt University Special Collections The George Clulow and United States Playing Card Co. Gaming Collection—one of the world’s premier collections of books about card games, games of chance, playing cards and chess—has been acquired… Read More

Michael Kurek, associate professor of composition, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Album chart this summer with The Sea Knows, an album that continues his transition to more traditionally melodious music. The Sea Knows, on the Navona label, features a lush, gorgeous sound in the traditional… Read More

With all that we have been taught, all that we have learned, just what have we wrought with all that we’ve burned? (oil on canvas, 2015) is featured in Morgan Craig’s solo exhibit With all that we have been taught …, on display through Nov. 30 at Sarratt… Read More

Visual artist Mel Chin, BA’75, was named this year’s Peabody College Distinguished Alumnus. (Courtesy Mel Chin) Visionary artist Mel Chin, BA’75, was honored during Commencement May 12 by Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development with the 2017 Distinguished Alumnus Award. Born in Houston in… Read More

Mark L. Schoenfield, professor of English, is among 173 scholars, artists and scientists in the United States and Canada to be awarded a 2017 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Arts Jonathan Rattner’s film The Interior won the Michael Moore Award for… Read More

The program cover for the Verlaine celebration featured this watercolor illustration by artist László Barta(1902–1961) under the name of Brutus, for a 1936 edition of a collection of Verlaine’s poems titled “Hombres.” Poet Paul Verlaine rocketed between emotional highs and lows, between a life of complete freedom… Read More

James Berkenstock (top right) and his wife, Jean, co-founded the Midsummer’s Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, dedicated to the chamber repertoire. (Courtesy Midsummer’s Music Festival) Some people believe the life of a musician is nomadic, traveling the world and playing in all kinds of venues. However, James… Read More

Inspired by last year’s flooding in Louisiana, Chris Lowry wrote his winning composition, which premieres in June in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Christopher Lowry In August 2016 much of southern Louisiana lay underwater, flooded by more than 7.1 trillion gallons of rainfall. It was, meteorologists said, a… Read More

Lucy Mensah is completing a prestigious fellowship at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lucy Mensah, MA’12, PhD’16, who graduated with a doctorate in English, is drawing on her humanities training to take a path less traveled. Mensah started graduate school in 2011 with the goal of… Read More

Soprano Kelsey Onwuzuruigbo sings at Nashville’s inaugural Opera on Tap event, held at Harpeth Brewing Co. in September 2016. Photo by Nduka Onwuzuruigbo Nashville is known for its live music scene. Some nights you can drink a beer and enjoy country, blues, bluegrass, opera … no, not opry, opera—complete… Read More

“Day Boy Night Girl” by Sarah E. Vaughn is on view at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center exhibit “Breaking Ground” through June. Whether we realize it or not, we often silence individuals who have intellectual and developmental disabilities because of our own inability to communicate with those unlike ourselves. Read More

• The Blair Big Band, directed by Ryan Middagh, director of jazz studies, was invited to play the recent annual conference of the Jazz Education Network, the professional organization for jazz musicians and jazz educators, in New Orleans. The conference features the finest professional and educational jazz musicians and… Read More

Polar, by a 26-year-old male diagnosed with schizophrenia, reflects how he presents himself to the world (right side) compared to how he feels (left side) An exhibit during the fall at Vanderbilt’s Department of Art displayed the works of clients from an outpatient mental health program in The… Read More

Sabrina Bradford (violin), Antonia Rohlfing (piano) and Blake Kitayama (cello) rehearse their chamber music piece at the Blair School. Photo by Anne Rayner Musicians learn not only how to play an instrument, but how to play in a group, be it a full orchestra or a quartet. Learning to… Read More

Painting 1909: Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Henri Bergson, Comics, Albert Einstein, and Anarchy (2017, Yale University Press) by Leonard Folgarait, professor of history of art In 1909, renowned artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) embarked on a series of stylistic experiments that had a dramatic effect on modern art. The book examines… Read More

The Observers, 2006, graphite on paper, 30 by 22 inches At the end of the spring 2017 semester, after 37 years of teaching Vanderbilt undergraduates drawing and painting, Professor of Art Marilyn Murphy will retire. From the beginning Murphy has brought an interesting point of view to her… Read More

Handbook of Early Childhood Special Education coedited by Erin Barton, assistant professor of special education, with Brian Reichow of the University of Florida, and Brian A. Boyd and Samuel L. Odom, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2016, Springer) The handbook discusses early childhood special education, with particular… Read More

The Blair School of Music opened its concert season with numerous premiere performances this fall, including several world premieres of works specifically commissioned for Blair faculty. Read More

In his American Epic series, currently on display at Vanderbilt Divinity School, Shaw presents broad themes like religion and technology in lush, detailed and sometimes disturbing imagery, rooting his interpretation in the style of the painters of the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Read More