Faculty Accomplishments

Native American and Indigenous Studies Mellon Award by Five Colleges, Incorporated (FCI) and the Gathering at the Crossroads project, for a residency project with Native composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate leading to the creation of a new course and the first ever full-length Chickasaw opera, Shellshaker. The project is for one year. This funding is made possible thanks to support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

Concluded a pandemic trilogy of virtual operas with "A Survivor's Odyssey", staged in UnReal and performed live on the newly developed TuttiRemote platform on September 21, 2021 with White Snake Projects. Focused on the social issues brought to the fore by the pandemic, this latest installment worked with multiple Boston community organizations to highlight the rise of intimate partner violence.

Hosted a libretto workshop on September 22 - 25, 2021, with Lila Palmer (American Lyric Theatre) on Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate's groundbreaking opera, Shell Shaker, an opera written and performed completely in Chickasaw. 

Was invited as a guest artist with the Lviv National Philharmonic of the Ukraine for a festival of music by the newly rediscovered composer, Thomas de Hartmann on September 17, 2021. The concert represented the culmination of a four-year long consultancy editing and performing the orchestral works of this contemporary of Rachmaninoff. Stravinsky and Kandinsky.

Released 10 new podcasts in partnership with WGBH in Boston and New England Public Media between October 12, and November 15, 2021, featuring performances of 10 new commissions with composer interviews.

Presented two new radio shows, Identity Duets and El Puerto Rico (The Rich Port) on New England Public Media on September 26, 2021 and October 3, 2021 respectively. 

Was a guest speaker at the FaceToFace Symposium organized by Atttica! (Mexico), Ensemble Thing (UK) and AEJAA (UK) on June 12, 2021. The session was titled, Pandemic Music Making.

Was a guest speaker together with librettist and producer, Cerise Jacobs, and composer, Jorge Sosa at Maastricht University's Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music Symposium on April 22, 2021. The session was titled, Alice in the Pandemic - An Opera for the Pandemic, and the Promise of New Possibilities.

Music directed  "SWELL", a multimedia event featuring live performance online, centered on texts by Melisa Tien, hosted by the HERE Arts Center in New York and promoted by the American Composers Forum. Featuring 10 original songs offering insights into the immigrant experience today in the U.S. Live performances ran from March 16 - 21, 2021 and will remain asynchronously available for the next 2 months. 

Created and produced "Identity Duets", a concert of 7 world premieres by composers of Puerto Rican heritage, as a joint artistic response to the pandemic. Performed by the Victory Players, the show premiered in joint presentation by New England Public Media and the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts,on January 23, 2021, and was presented again on March 7, 2021 by Pregones Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in association with BronxNET in New York City as part of the March is Music 2021 Series.