Faculty and Staff Notes

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber was interviewed on WBUR's Here & Now about what the exhumation of fomer Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco's remains means for Spain and the politics of memory.

Harp professor Yolanda Kondonassis continues to receive rave reviews for her 2019  world premiere recording that appears on the Azica label album, American Rapture. This visceral, live-recording release features her performance of Jennifer Higdon's Harp Concerto, a work Kondonassis commissioned in partnership with numerous orchestras across the country, including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra featured on this recording. Harp Column magazine writes, "This is unexpected in a harp concerto and presents Ms. Kondonassis with the opportunity to totally live in her virtuosic self without compromise." TheArtsDesk.com echoes praise published by numerous writers, "It's an immediately engaging piece, Higdon's transparent scoring allowing Kondonassis to shine: the rapid fingerwork in the second and fourth sections wonderfully secure. Though, for all the fireworks, the concerto's heart is its slow movement, the solo harp accompanied by a succession of solo instruments. There's nimble support from Ward Stare’s Rochester Philharmonic, dazzlingly secure in a live recording."

In October 2019, musicology professor Steven Plank gave two solo organ recitals in northeast Ohio. He performed a program entitled “Organ Music of the Seventeenth Century” at Cleveland's Trinity Episcopal Cathedral as well as at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights during their month-long Ars Organi Festival. He offered works by Samuel Scheidt, Dieterich Buxtehude, Girolamo Frescobaldi, and Louis Couperin. Plank also presented a paper at the graduate historical performance colloquium at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, entitled “Seeking the Historical Listener.”

Professor of Mathematics Bob Bosch’s book Opt Art: From Mathematical Optimization to Visual Design will be released by Princeton University Press on November 12, 2019. In it, Bosch offers an introduction to the geometric, algebraic, and algorithmic foundations of mathematical optimization and its classical applications, such as determining the best way to assign workers to jobs or devising the best route for a delivery driver. A book release event takes place on November 12, 2019 at the National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) in New York City.

Bosch will also give the 2019 President’s Lecture titled, “Opt Art: From Mathematical Optimization to Visual Design” on November 8 in Finney Chapel.

Professor of Medieval Art History Erik Inglis gave the keynote talk, "History in the Making: Categories, Techniques and Chronology in Church Collections, c. 800-1300" for the conference, "Collecting, Curating, Assembling: New Approaches to the Archive in the Middle Ages," hosted by the University of Saint Andrews, in Scotland.

At the University of Michigan's Premodern Colloquium, Inglis led a discussion of his work-in-progress, "Reading Storied Ground: Finding Apostolic Presence in the Streets and Springs of Medieval Rome," and he gave the paper "'It Began with a Picture', or, Inventing Stories to Make Sense of Images in the European Middle Ages."

Assistant Professor of Economics Evan Kresch presented, "Political Determinants of Public Service Investments: Evidence from Brazilian Elections" at the Sustainability & Development Conference, Oct. 11, 2019, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
 

Recorder and Baroque flute professor Michael Lynn participated in the 2019 ANIMUSIC Organological Congress in Belmonte, Portugal in September. The title of the 8th International Scientific Meeting for Sound and Musical Instrument Studies was "Instruments of culture and peace." Lynn presented a paper, “The flute of Pierre Gabriel Buffardin and his rebirth,” and performed the closing concert with Swiss historic flute specialist Jörg Fiedler. 

Oberlin Orchestras director Raphael Jimenez appears as the guest conductor of the Ashland Symphony Orchestra at Loudonville’s Historic Ohio Theatre on Sunday, October 27. The program of Bach, Telemann, Vaughan Williams, and Haydn also features the solo performance by Lisa Jelle, professor of flute at Capital University.

Professor of Mathematics Bob Bosch '83 was interviewed for the October 2019 issue of Mathematics Magazine in the piece “Dominos, Traveling Salespeople, and Art: An Interview with Bob Bosch,” written by Allison Henrich. The interview is accompanied by four examples of Bosch’s optimization-based mathematical artwork, and there are five additional examples of his work elsewhere in the issue.

Assistant Professor of Economics Martin Saavedra's paper, "A Machine Learning Approach to Improving Occupational Income Scores" has been accepted by the journal Explorations in Economic History.