Four to receive art awards

By Ken Chraca

The Arts Institute plans to recognize faculty, staff and students for excellence in creative inquiry, outreach and professional excellence. Recipients will be recognized at a program and reception Friday, April 26:

Carol S. Pylant, art
The Emily Mead Baldwin-Bascom Professorship in the Creative Arts recognizes the achievements of a tenured member of the arts faculty and provides general research support for a period of two years. A member of the Department of Art since 1987, Carol S. Pylant is a professor of painting. A realist painter depicting haunting interiors and landscapes, she is working on a series of oil and mixed media paintings that will explore the relationship between pagan and Christian imagery and its relevance to the present. Her research will take her to Spain, where she will work as an artist in residence at the Fundacio Tallers J. Llorens Artigas.

Jackie Eunjung Park, music
The David and Edith Sinaiko Frank Graduate Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts supports and encourages women musicians, dancers, artists, actors and creative writers by providing them with an opportunity to present their work in public. A doctoral candidate working with music professor Todd Welbourne, Jackie Eunjung Park intends to use the Frank Fellowship to perform Beethoven’s “Waldstein” piano sonata with the restored second movement as originally written by Beethoven.

John Stevens, music
Funded by the generosity of the Bassett and Evjue foundations, the Creative Arts Award recognizes the achievements of a tenured member of the arts faculty and provides general research support for three years.

A professor of tuba and euphonium, John Stevens has been a member of the School of Music since 1985 and served as the school’s director 1991-96. Stevens has published many works that have become standard repertoire for groups all over the world. His compositions have been commissioned and/or recorded by many renowned brass soloists and groups. Stevens is a member of the Wisconsin Brass Quintet as well as America’s premiere tuba/euphonium ensemble, Symphonia.

He plans to use the Creative Arts award to produce two CD recordings: one consisting of his compositions for tuba and euphonium chamber ensemble, and the other of his arrangements of Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic periods for tuba and euphonium chamber ensemble.

The CDs will be recorded by members of the Sotto Voce Tuba Quartet, a chamber group made up of Stevens, his former students, and his professional colleagues.

William Ney, Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies
The Gerald A. Bartell Award recognizes and honors the achievements of faculty and staff in the creative arts, in the areas of outreach, public service and other activities involving the larger community.

Willie Ney, assistant director and outreach coordinator of the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program, has used arts programming to develop an understanding of peoples and cultures historically marginalized and silenced, particularly those from the Americas and African diaspora. During more than a decade, he has developed arts-centered programs with institutions to reach out statewide.