April 2015 Issue

Upcoming Events
 

Community Arts Academy 

In this Issue 

 

Celebrating Passion for Music 

 

Photos Shown Internationally  

 

Interior Design Winners 

 

Stopa Exhibition in NYC 

 

VPA Artists in 33 Variations  

 

Crouch's Photographic Journey 

 

Art for an Aging Society 

 

Piano CompetitionWinners  

 

Montenegro's Outreach 

 

In Memorium

 

Steven K. Prater, 32, of Columbia City, formerly of Silver Lake, Ind., died Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. Steven was a Visual Communication and Design major concentrating in imaging and photography. IPFW hosts The Day of Remembrance each year to honor students, faculty and staff we have lost at IPFW. Prater will be remembered by Mikhael Antone, assistant professor of photography, at this special service on Sunday, April 26, from 4 - 5 p.m. in the Walb Union Atrium. Everyone is welcome.

 

Successes

  

  

 

Interior Design major Brittany Bellam was the winner of the Fort Wayne Artists Guild's Logo Design Challenge. For the winning design, Brittney will receive a one-year free membership to the Fort Wayne Artists Guild and a $200 prize. 

 

 

Melissa Dowty Hines ('04, B.A., theatre ) is the new marketing manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Prior to accepting the position in Kentucky, she served as a vice president for BroadwayGPS, a Broadway ticket group sales company located in New York City.

 

 

Morgan McClarnon ('14, B.A., art education) in her first year teaching art has been voted Teacher of the Year by her peers at North Side Elementary in Kendallville, Ind. "Morgan shows up with a smile every day, is eager to learn, and eager to help on top of being a fantastic educator," explained Principal Mickey Wagner. "Morgan has done a fantastic job here at North Side both in her classroom and beyond!"

   

 

Five undergraduate music students received $250 Louisa Panou Scholarships and were awarded roles in Suor Angelica and Le Nozze di Figaro at the prestigious Operafestival di Roma at the University of Florida School of Music in Gainesville, Florida. The students include:

* De'Andre Martin (sophomore, music and an outside field)

* Jonathan Casey (junior, vocal performance)

* Josiah Hawkins (freshman, music therapy)

* Brandon Melia (freshman, music education)

 

* Alana Miller (sophomore, vocal performance)

The winners are from the studios of Sam Savage, assistant professor and coordinator of studio voice, and associate faculty member Mark Stachofsky.

   

 

For those of you who were not able to join us in the audience, The Flowering Tree will be broadcast Sunday, May 3, 2015, at 3:30 p.m. on PBS39-4.  

The Flowering Tree, an Indian dance performance presented by the Natya Dance Theatre, was a collaborative presentation by the IPFW College of Visual and Performing Arts and Shruti Cultural Society of Fort Wayne performed live at IPFW on Nov. 8, 2014, as part of the Indian Performance Series.

   

 

John Ilang-Ilang ('13, B.F.A., graphic design) is now a graphic designer with Borschoff, an advertising, branding and public relations agency headquartered in Indianapolis.

 

 

Two VCD modeling and animation alumni, Kevin Sanders ('14)and Amaya Ayers ('14)were accepted into the one-year (fall 2014-spring 2015) immersive program at the Digital Animation and Visual Effects School (DAVE School), the industry's leading program for computer generated imagery (CGI) artists focused on modeling, rigging, animation, texturing, and gaming interaction. This program is the gateway access for computer animation teams to become part of big production movies. Students accepted in this program must demonstrate exceptional skills and a strong portfolio. 
 

 

Associate Professor of Interior Design Suining Ding presented a paper entitled "A Qualitative Inquiry of the Impact of Hospital Lobby Design on Wayfinding Performance" at the 2015 Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Annual Conference held in Fort Worth, Texas, from March 11-14, 2015. The paper presents a study that examines how physical environment design impacts the wayfinding performance in hospital lobbies through comparative studies. At each year's IDEC conference, submissions go through a double-blind peer review process. This year there were 147 total presentation submissions, in which 68 were accepted.

 

 

Jeremy Stroup ('13) was chosen as one of three winners in the Artlink 10th Regional Exhibition. This juried show selects artists from a 100-mile radius of Fort Wayne and as one of three award winners, Stroup will be part of a three-person exhibition at Artlink during the 2015-16 season. Work by Fine Arts major Andrew Dubach also was selected for exhibition.

 

 

Blane Pressler

('04. B.A., theatre) is working for Ozark Actors Theatre this year. After four years with them in their acting company, he was offered a position as NYC casting associate and ran their NYC auditions in 2014. He recently performed a staged reading of a new musical called Wendy's Shadow at Irvington Town Hall Theatre. The show is a contemporary retelling of Peter Pan from an adult Wendy perspective. It featured Broadway actors Jessica Hendy (Cats, Aida, and Amour) and Paul Piltz (Bye Bye Birdie). After the initial reading it was picked up for a concert version presentation at the Cutting Room and will next be turned into a concept demo album being produced by Broadway composer and conductor Charlie Rosen.  

 

Playbill Article

Broadway World Article 

 

Expressions Staff  

Susan Domer, Editor, Writer

John Kaufeld, Contributor 

Melinda Haines, Copy Editor 


Contact Us 

260-481-6025

artsvpa@ipfw.edu  

 

Click Here to Access Archives 

 

Hundreds Celebrate Their Passion 
 
Foreground (left to right) Hamilton Tescarollo and Chancellor Vicky Carwein. Composer Patrick Roux, and Zakir Husain. Background: 50-Hands Monster pianists playing Sabre Dance with conductor Daniel Tembras. 

 

March saw hundreds of audience members visit Auer Performance Hall in the IPFW Rhinehart Music Center to celebrate their passion for music. Zakir Hussain's Pulse of the World: Celtic Connections on March 14, 2015, drew nearly 1,300 people to the Auer Performance Hall, bringing Indian and Celtic cultures together for a perfect blend of musical magnificence. The VPA and the Shruti Cultural Society of Fort Wayne again will celebrate when they present Ragamala Dance performing Song of the Jasmine on Saturday, September 19, 2015, at 7:30 p.m. in the Auer Performance Hall.

 

The next weekend heralded the much-anticipated 50-Hands Monster Piano Concert, a featured event for IPFW's 50th Celebration, on Friday, March 20, in the Auer Performance Hall. The concert, a first for IPFW, Fort Wayne, and the region, drew more than 800 people and featured Chancellor Vicky Carwein in a duet with Hamilton Tescarollo, associate professor and director of keyboard studies. The concert concluded with 24 pianists on eight pianos playing Sabre Dance conducted by Dan Tembras, assistant professor and director of instrumental studies. The amazing concert ... Read more.


Photographs Shown Internationally
Photos from left: Fort Wayne Skyline by Olivia Ulch, Fort Wayne Ballet by Jim Gabbard and IPFW Sunset by Ajna Wagenfeld. 

 

VCD continuing lecturer Jim Gabbard and VCD students Olivia Ulch and Ajna Wagenfeld have been invited to participate in Fort Wayne and Its People, an international exhibition in our Sister City of Plock, Poland. The exhibition will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Plock and Fort Wayne sisterhood and opens on May 9, 2015, at Darmstadt House in Plock, Poland.

 


Interior Design Wins at Nationals

A project to design a "patient care + family" space by Brittany Bellam and Phillicia Overmeyer (both interior design seniors) won the Honorable Mention Award (fourth place) in a field of 99 entries as part of the national 2015 Interior Design Educator's Council (IDEC) student design competition at the organization's national conference in Fort Worth, Texas, March 11-14. This is the first time that our interior design students participated in the IDEC competition at the national level. The design project's challenge was to create "unique and creative solutions that promote healing and family interaction with patients." You can see Brittany and Phillicia's complete design here.The students' advisor for the project was Suining Ding, associate professor and program coordinator of interior design.


New York City Takes Notice

 

Hionas Gallery, located in New York City, is currently presenting a solo exhibition of the paintings of Jason Stopa ('07, B.F.A., painting) entitled Double Trouble,  that will run from March 26-April 25, 2015. Comprised of recent abstract paintings from the artist's "High Fructose" series, this exhibition is Stopa's fourth solo effort and his first time showing with Hionas. Stopa's brand of abstraction is simultaneously a fundamental one and a tongue-in-cheek exercise ...Read more.


VPA Artists Featured in 33 Variations
From the left: Pianist Hope Arthur and actors Julie Donnell, Susan Domer 

 

The recent Fort Wayne Civic Theatre production of 33 Variations from March 20 - April 4,featured two actors and a pianist from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Adjunct music faculty member Julie Donnell played the role of Dr. Katherine Brandt, a musicologist who was working to complete a research project on Beethoven's 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli. During the play, she was increasing debilitated by ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), which eventually overcame her character at the end. VPA marketing and public relations specialist Susan Domer played the role of Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger, an archivist, whose life's work was caring for Beethoven's sketchbooks in Bonn, Germany. Beethoven's variations, which were an integral part of the play throughout all 33 scenes, were performed by two alternating pianists, one of which was music major Hope Arthur.


Crouch's Photographic Journey
Debra Crouch, Mouse Game, 12 inches x 15 inches, photograph taken
during the DeKalb County Free Fall Fair. 

Debra Crouch
('09, A.S., interior design; B.F.A., photography) currently has an exhibition entitled A Photographic Journey through a Year in a Small Town on display at Manchester University College of Pharmacy. 
Crouch has been a resident of DeKalb country her entire life and this environment served as the subject for her project, which documented a year of various events in Auburn, Ind. The gallery is located off the main lobby in the building  at 10627 Diebold Road off Dupont Road. The work can be viewed until May 29, 2015, Monday - Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information contact the receptionist at 260-470-2700.

Workshop on Art for an Aging Society
 
Linda Wright-Bower (indicated by arrow) and fellow Creative Center classmates. 

Linda Wright-Bower, assistant professor of music therapy, was selected to be one of 27 participants in the 4th annual Creative Center's Training Institute for Artists and Administrators in Creative Aging. The week-long workshop trained individuals to take the arts to aging people in their respective parts of the world as a part of health and wellness. The workshop provided both a theoretical and didactic approach to implementing and sustaining high-quality arts...Read More.   

 


Winners Shine in Piano Competition
Peter Rutkowski, First Place Winner in the Junior Division (ages 13-15), age 15 from Granger, Ind. Rutkowski is the student of Patricia Collins-Jones. 
 

The 2015 IPFW Gene Marcus Piano Competition took place Saturday, February 28, in the Rhinehart Recital Hall. Twenty-nine competitors ranging in age from 6 to 18 from Indiana, Ohio and Michigan (all within the 100-mile radius specified by the rules set by Gene Marcus herself) took part in this year's competition. All competed in the...Read More. 


Professor, Writer, Presenter, Expert
 
Andres Montenegro, foreground, works with a VCD student.
Andres Montenegro, assistant professor of computer animation, has had a busy 2014-15 academic year with a number of successes. His paper, Two Phenomenological Notions Expressed in the Interactive Art Contained within Myron Krueger and Jeffery Shaw's Immersive Environment, was featured on the Nov. 24, 2014, home page of The Journal of Digital Media Arts and Practice, a publication of the International Digital Media Arts Association (iDMAa)...Read More.