Faculty and Staff Notes

Yolanda Kondonassis has been nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY® Award in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category for her world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra led by Music Director Ward Stare. This work appears on the album American Rapture. Higdon’s Harp Concerto is also nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The Harp Concerto is a consortium commission from six American orchestras: The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, Lansing Symphony Orchestra, and Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Kondonassis performed the work with all six of the commissioning orchestras during the 2018-19 concert season. A second weekend of concerts with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra kicked off the season in September 2018, which was recorded live for the album. In January 2020, Kondonassis is slated to perform the concerto with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Creative Writing  Joshua Sperling's essay about John Berger was published in Aeon.

Oberlin violin professor Sibbi Bernhardsson has been appointed artistic director of the Harpa International Music Academy (HIMA). Found in 2013 in Reykjavik, Iceland, the 11-day festival is held in the award-winning Harpa concert hall and conference center.

The academy conducts two simultaneous programs in violin, viola, and cello—a junior division for string students ages 7 to 12 and a senior division for emerging young artists ages 13 to 22. In both divisions, students receive daily lessons, participate in chamber music rehearsals and coachings, attend and perform in master classes, have access to workshops on professional and career development, and are given performance opportunities. While most of the students come from Iceland, HIMA also draws participants from Europe, Asia, and the Americas every year.

“My goal is to help enrich the vibrant musical life and training of young musicians in my native Iceland as well as continue HIMA’s mission of connecting the country to the international musical world,” says Bernhardsson.

The 2020 festival runs from June 9-20.

Holly Handman-Lopez joined the Labodanse research team to help craft the second phase of a visual reality/dance experiment initially conducted at the Tate Modern. Handman-Lopez was one of two choreographer/dancers on the project and worked with the team at the National Scientific Research Center in Paris, France.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Cynthia Taylor published the paper "Unakite: Scaffolding Developers' Decision-Making Using the Web" with Jane Hsieh ’20, and it received an honorable mention for the best paper award at The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2019). 

Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries Alexia Hudson-Ward has been elected co-vice chair of the Board of Trustees of LYRASIS, a non-profit membership organization whose mission is to support enduring access to the world’s shared academic, scientific, and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions, and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums, and knowledge communities worldwide. LYRASIS is home to more than 1,000 member academic and public libraries, museums, archives, and other collections-holding organizations located in 28 countries.

Ana María Díaz Burgos, assistant professor of Hispanic Studies, published "Tras la conjuración de brujería en Cartagena de Indias (1634-1636): Retractaciones, espacios carcelarios y tortura" in the Spanish journal Edad de Oro. The article studies how women persecuted by the Inquisition used carcereal spaces to carry out a 1634 conspiracy that threatened the institution’s legitimacy in the port-city of Cartagena de Indias.

Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies Ana María Díaz Burgos published "Tras la Conjuración de Brujería en Cartagena de Indias (1634-1636): Retractaciones, Espacios Carcelarios y Tortura" in the Spanish journal Edad de Oro. The article studies how women persecuted by the inquisition used carcereal spaces to carry out a 1634 conspiracy that threatened the institution’s legitimacy in the port-city of Cartagena de Indias.

Danforth-Lewis Professor of Economics John Duca presented, "Interest Rate, Regulation, and Tax Effects on Commercial Real Estate: Lessons from the Past Half Century" at the Real Estate Markets & Capital Markets (ReCapNet) conference in Mannheim, Germany, on November 15, 2019.

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber co-wrote a piece in the Nation covering the negotiations and prospects for a progressive government in Spain.