Faculty Notes, Sept. 4, 2013

Here’s a glimpse of what Chapman University’s award-winning faculty are doing in their areas of research and scholarly expertise.

Please send your Faculty Notes to pr@chapman.edu.

Peter Atherton, D.M.A., associate professor, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, joined the voice faculty of The University of Miami Frost School of Music Salzburg Program for the summer, where current student Kevin Gino (‘14) was a winner of the prestigious Schloss Mirabell Competition.

Robert Becker, assistant professor, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, was invited to Cremona, Italy, this summer as a guest concerto soloist, chamber music artist, and string adjudicator for the International Music Competition and Festival.

John Benitz, associate professor, Department of Theatre, College of Performing Arts, was awarded a $10,000 Community Stories grant from Cal Humanities to travel throughout California with his production of If All the Sky Were Paper by Andrew Carroll, Chancellor Fellow, Department of History, Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The grant will allow the California War Letters Preservation Project to identify, film, and post on the web the stories of California veterans, in addition to the staging of several readings of If All the Sky Were Paper at in theatres and other venues throughout California and across the country. This grant is in addition to a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts received earlier this year for the project.

Thomas Bradac, associate professor, Department of Theatre, College of Performing Arts, directed Twelfth Night or What you Will and The Tragedie of Macbeth for the 22nd season of Shakespeare Orange County.  The productions featured alumni Michael Fountain ’01 and Kevin Swanstrom ’13 in principal roles as well as current Chapman students Donathan Walters ’15, Jordan Goodsell ’15, Morgan Lauff ’15 and Sierra Stenzel ’14 and stage managers Kayla Hansen ’10 and Jenny Ludwig ’11.

Jocelyn L. Buckner, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Theatre, College of Performing Arts, presented a paper on a panel she coordinated titled Play(s), Production, and Performance: The Temporality of Performance in Plays, Games, and Blogs at the Performance Studies International conference at Stanford University.  She also presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference in Orlando, Fla.

Gabriele Camera, Ph.D., professor, Economic Science Institute, Argyros School of Business, had a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper is titled “Money and Trust Among Strangers.” The paper chronicles experiments exploring how the lack of trust among strangers made money behaviorally essential. The paper can be read online at PNAS website.

Jeff Cogan, associate professor, Department of Music, College of Performing Arts, attended the Guitar Foundation of America international convention and competition in Louisville, Ky. and conducted research and interviews with Pepe Romero, Gaelle Soliel, and Zoran Dukic for the video presentation he is creating on renowned guitar builder Daniel Friederich.

Stephen Coker, D.M.A., associate professor, College of Performing Arts, served as the headlining clinician for the choral festival VOCALIZZE held in Portugal under the auspices of the Instituto Piaget in Lisbon, where he taught conducting and conducted the Festival Choir.

Jonathan Pope Evans, assistant professor, Department of Theatre, College of Performing Arts, is the co-writer and associate producer for a feature film titled Neighbors, in development with two potential studios, and screenwriter for a feature film titled Under the Sun, which has been optioned by production company Pearl Street Films. His short film Sepulte “The Buried” continues to make the rounds of film festivals around the world.

Grace Fong, D.M.A., Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, Conservatory of Music, was a guest performer at the Callian Festival in France, and was thereafter the featured pianist at Festival Les Recontres de Moita in Corsica. In August, she was the guest performer at the Festival Musica in Collina, Lapedona, Italy

Donald Guy, assistant professor, Department of Theatre, Alicia Guy, associate professor, Department of Dance, both in the College of Performing Arts, traveled with 21 students on a 23-day long journey through France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City and Greece, touring ancient theatres, historical sites, and culturally significant museums.

Jeffrey Holmes, D.M.A., associate professor, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, traveled to France for the premiere of his piece for violin and percussion, Nastrond (IV), by Ensemble Sound Initiative (Paris) at the Etchings Festival in Maulin a Nef, Auvillar.

Robin Kish, assistant professor, Department of Dance, College of Performing Arts, was invited as a guest faculty member for the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science course titled Healthy Dance Practice and Performance, and was a guest speaker at the preconference education workshop at the annual conference of the Performing Arts Medicine Association in Snowmass, Colo., where she also presented original research.

David Michael Lee, adjunct faculty, Department of Art, Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and manager of Chapman University’s Permanent Collection, had his exhibit, “Spacedout,” reviewed for the ArtScene, which is a monthly digest in Southern California. Reviewer Liz Goldner wrote: “Hard-edge paintings, popularized in 1960s Southern California, are given new life and dimensions by David Michael Lee … They remind us of the pure beauty and artistic significance of basic shapes and colors.”

Dale Merrill, dean of the College of Performing Arts, taught a workshop at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München for student performers from the kids4kids World Foundation, which will culminate in a benefit performance in November supporting music therapy and abuse prevention programs for children.

Michael Nehring, professor, Department of Theatre, College of Performing Arts, assumed the reigns as Associate Artistic Director and the Director of Education for the Portland Shakespeare Project, teaching a master class for Portland actors titled “Michael Chekov Techniques for Building Shakespeare’s Characters,” and launched the first Portland Shakespeare Project High School Conservatory.  He also directed a staged reading of Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed.

Jessica Sternfeld, Ph.D., assistant professor, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, was selected to give a talk for the conference Song, Stage, & Screen in London in July. Her talk was titled Teaching Children to Teach the Community:  Godspell in Texas.

Nicholas Terry, Ph.D., assistant professor, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, was a member of the international percussion-orchestra Ensemble XII, which performed Schallmachine Maximus at Agusta Raurica and returned to the Lucerne Festival to present two concerts, featuring a world premiere by composer Milica Djordjevic.

Dawn Bonker

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