David LowVibraphonist and composer Chris Dingman ’02 releases his debut album, Waking Dreams, on June 21, 2011 on Between Worlds Music. Dingman is joined by many of New York’s best young musicians including trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, saxophonist Loren Stillman, pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer Justin Brown. Dingman recreates the experience of dreams in the form of a suite of new music that travels over its 14 tracks from darkness to light, from hazy melancholy to serene peace, while moving, often obliquely, through moments and memories from the composer’s life. The CD Release Party will be held on Saturday,…
Lara Galinsky ’96 is the author (with Kelly Nuxoll) of Work on Purpose, published by Echoing Green, a nonprofit social venture fund that supports emerging social entrepreneurs. The book tells the stories of five changemakers and their journeys from struggle and uncertainty to significance and success. Through these true-life narratives, the publication reveals how personal fulfillment and societal impact are the result of aligning passion and talents. The altruistic spirit of these young people helps craft careers with meaningful impact, contributing to a robust ecosystem of individuals and institutions dedicated to pushing forward bold ideas to solve the most deeply…
Marine scientist and educator Ellen Prager ’84 is the author of Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans’ Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter, just published by University of Chicago Press. She introduces the reader to a variety of fascinating and often strange creatures that live in the depths of the ocean—from tiny but voracious arrow worms whose rapacious ways may lead to death by overeating, to the lobsters that battle rivals or seduce mates with their urine, to the sea’s masters of disguise, the octopuses. Prager examines the ways these sea inhabitants interact as predators, prey, or potential mates.…
Stephen K. Friedman ’91 has been promoted to president of MTV. Since the fall of 2008, he has been general manager, and he will now oversee MTV, MTV2, mtvU, MTV.com, MTV Hits and MTV Jams. During Friedman’s tenure, MTV has had five consecutive quarters of growth, and launched such successful shows as Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Life as Liz, and the upcoming Teen Wolf. He joined MTV in 1998 and started MTV’s strategic partnerships and public affairs department. As general manager, he launched mtvU, the channel dedicated to college students, in 2004, and helped shape the channel’s Emmy Award-winning…
Noah Hutton ’09 has directed and scored a new documentary, More to Live For, which was shown recently at the Dallas International Film Festival. According to Glenn Hunter in the Dallas-based D Magazine, the film focuses on “three cancer victims searching for the bone-marrow transplants that could save their lives. The three are Dallas entertainment-insurance executive James Chippendale; Nigerian athlete Seun Adebiyi; and multiple-Grammy-Award-winning saxophone player Michael Brecker, who eventually died. Brecker’s widow, Susan Brecker, and Chippendale co-produced the film, which is intended to raise awareness about the importance of bone-marrow donation.” Hutton is currently a creative director at Couple…
Toby Twining MA ’06 has released a new album of his musical compositions, Eurydice (Cantaloupe Music), which represents the next wave of Western harmony and a capella music. Eurydice began as a score for Sarah Ruhl’s play of the same name, directed by Blanka Zizka and produced for the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia in 2008. The play reinterprets the classic myth of Orpheus, telling the story from Eurydice’s point of view and including a reunion with her father in the underworld. Composing for four singers and a cello, Twining found this underworld setting to be the perfect environment—quirky, funny and…
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The first comprehensive mid-career retrospective devoted to pioneering New York–based artist Glenn Ligon ’82 will be held at the Whitney Museum of American Art (45 Madison Ave. at 75th Street, 212-570-3600) in New York City from March 10 through June 5. The exhibition, Glenn Ligon: AMERICA, features about 100 works, including paintings, prints, photography, drawings, and sculptural installations, as well as striking recent neon reliefs, one of them newly commissioned for the Whitney’s Madison Avenue windows. Over the course of his career, Ligon has created a body of work that has explored American history, literature, and society as it…
Several Wesleyan graduates are involved in Armchair/Shotgun, a new literary magazine based in Brooklyn, N.Y. that publishes new fiction, poetry, visual art work and author profiles. The publication was co-founded by writers John Cusick ’07 and Evan Simko-Bednarski ’07 is run by an editorial and business staff that includes the co-founders and Laura McMillan ’05, Aaron Reuben ’07, Adam Read-Brown ’07 and W. Gavin Robb ’07. The staff celebrated the release of its second issue on March 18 at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. This issue features a profile by Kevin Dugan of novelist Jesse Ball, author of Samedi the Deafness…
The first comprehensive mid-career retrospective devoted to pioneering New York–based artist Glenn Ligon ’82 is being held at the Whitney Museum of American Art (45 Madison Ave. at 75th Street, 212-570-3600) in New York City through June 5. The exhibition, "Glenn Ligon: AMERICA," features about 100 works, including paintings, prints, photography, drawings, and sculptural installations, as well as striking recent neon reliefs, one of them newly commissioned for the Whitney’s Madison Avenue windows. Over the course of his career, Ligon has created a body of work that has explored American history, literature, and society as it has built critically on the legacies…
For three years, Dana Delany ’78 brought a refreshing jolt of energy to ABC’s Desperate Housewives, in which she played the intriguing and conniving Katherine Mayfair. After displaying remarkable chemistry with actor Nathan Fillion on another popular ABC show Castle, she will now star on the same network in her own program, Body of Proof, which premieres on Tuesday, March 29. Delany plays Megan Hunt, a medical examiner who formerly was the first female head of neurosurgery at a prominent U.S. university hospital. Hunt takes on a new career when a car crash leaves her unable to continue performing surgery.…
Dr. Halley Faust, MA ’05 has been elected the president of the Board of Regents of the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM). Faust will assume the presidency in 2013; he will sit on the Board of Regents and the executive committee of the board until 2017, according to the Jewish Ledger. Faust currently works in bioethics and venture capital from his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He is clinical associate professor of family and community medicine at the University of New Mexico, and sits on the university’s Preventive Medicine Residency Advisory Committee. Previously, he was visiting professor of biology…