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A Year of Student Creativity

During the past school year Arts students distinguished themselves in many creative ways, from winning awards and performing recitals, to building art installations and screening digital films.

 

This year's artists were deeply engaged in creating their own learning environments and in creating the blueprints for their futures as inventive entrepreneurs. As interns and tutors, collaborators and role models, they generously mentored each other and collectively raised each other's academic expectations. Here are some of those who made this year's Arts scene at UCSC bold and remarkable.

 

Shane Liliedahl, a 4th year Music student currently interns with the E.A. Hall Middle School in Watsonville, where he teaches piano and choir in the after-school program. Liliedahl also teaches music at Ohlone Elementary School through the ArtsBridge program as well, and is a prime example of "reaching out" to the larger community that is the attitude of more and more of our arts students.

 

History of Art and Visual Culture's Pamela Ong provides another example of student excellent. With the highest GPA in the HAVC major, Ong will graduate with highest honors this month. She has been accepted as a tutor in Philadelphia with City Year, one of the country's top youth leadership programs. HAVC senior Jeffrey Charest, whose tutoring appointment is supported by Arts Dean's Excellence Funds, also teaches ESL students at Berkeley City College.

 

Music senior and cellist Esther Cynn has performed with the Music Department's Resident String Ensemble during her entire UCSC career, and also won the Concerto Competition for 2013.

 

Film Department senior Spencer Koobatian—highlighted in a recent "Featured Student" profile—presented a paper in the Spring at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and will attend the AFI graduate program in Hollywood this fall. Film student Anita Chang's graduate project Tongues of Heaven was just screened last month at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

 

The Art Department's Matt Fowler is currently interning with a local architect, and has been accepted to the summer Harvard Architecture Program for visiting post collegestudents.  Art major Kelsey McNickle organized the Art Department graduation celebration.

 

Theater Arts student Todd Pivetti co-starred alongside theater professionals, playing the title role of Peer Gynt in the multi-media experimental Winter production. Jen Schuler of Theater Arts was lead designer and conceptual artist for Peer Gynt costumes, and won grants to travel to Norway for pre-production research.

 

Social Documentation MA Graduate Students will be screening their senior thesis films at Santa Cruz' Del Mar Theatre on June 12. The Music Department's opera program offered a full, four-day production of Mozart's Cosí fan Tutte at the end of the Spring Quarter. And the Art Department's Irwin Scholarship recipients were honored with an end-of-the-year exhibition at the Sesnon Gallery which runs through June 16. This year's Irwin Scholars are: Patrick Appleby, Jessie Chernetsky, Heidi Cramer, Christopher Cravey, Noah Miska, Coleman Pritchard,  Jose Rodriguez, Ethan Snyderman, Kati Teague, Lynora Valdez, Joanne Wang, and Dmitri Zurita.

 

Talent, passion, social responsibility, creativity—these are the hallmarks of this year's crop of students in the Arts.

 

[shown here, 2013 Irwin Scholar Heidi Cramer, photo by Carolyn Lagatutta]

 

Monday, June 3, 2013 - 12:00am