Alumni in the News

James Sclater (D.M.A., Music Studies, 1970) won the 2017 Classical Music Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters for his song cycle Carmine Natura Creaturae. 

Luis Rodriguez (B.M., Applied Music/Performance, 2010) has been appointed the assistant conductor for Plano Symphony and Irving Symphony as of January 2016. He also is the new music director for Camerata Dallas Youth orchestra as of April 2017. Photo by Michał Dembiński.

Marya Spont-Lemus (M.A., Art Education, 2010) co-led the Arts + Public Life’s Teen Arts Council for the 2016-17 school year, taking students through the process of developing a teen-curated exhibition of teen art for a University of Chicago gallery. 

Maxine Price (B.F.A., Art, 1959) will present an exhibition of paintings at the Nave Museum in Victoria through July 19.

Martin Rodriguez (B.F.A., Theatre Studies, 2015), Amanda Lloyd (B.A., Theatre Studies, 2014), Sarah Marcum (B.F.A., Theatre Studies, 2014) and Shae Tomlinson (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2015) formed Flat Tire Theatre Company in Los Angeles. They will perform in their second Hollywood Fringe Festival this year with a show titled CringeFest: An Uncomfortable Anthology. 

Talleri McRae (M.F.A., Theatre, 2010) was recognized in American Theatre's Roll Call. She is currently a teaching artist and access/inclusion consultant whose work focuses on fostering the creativity and passion of the disability rights movement and developing meaningful theatre for young audiences.

Will Davis (M.F.A., Directing, 2013), artistic director of American Theatre Company in Chicago discusses his process and planning his first season in his new role that includes work that reckons with race, gender, culture and controversy with American Theatre.

Lucia Unrau (D.M.A., Applied Music, 1992) has been appointed professor of Music and Music Department Chair at Murray State University. She will continue as Camp Keyboard Coordinator at Interlochen Center for the Arts, where she has been a member of the piano faculty since 1993.

Naomi Boyd (B.F.A., Dance, 1999) was named an endowed professor at West Virginia University. She is currently the department chair for the Department of Finance and an associate producer in the College of Business and Economics. She is also the founding director for the new Center for Financial Literacy and Education which houses many programs in wealth management, banking and insurance, as well as research opportunities and support for faculty projects to further the center.

Christopher Diaz (M.M., Music and Human Learning, 2012) was a featured singer in "Folklórico!," the annual collaborative production sponsored by Hancock College in Santa Maria, California. Diaz is a newly appointed professor in the college’s music program.