40th Anniversary Alumni

The OSU College of the Arts is celebrating its 40th anniversary! Though the arts have been around since the early days of the university, 1968 marked the first time all of the arts at Ohio State were together under one academic unit. That translates to thousands of individuals who have graduated from our programs since 1968. We thought it would be fun to catch up with some of our alumni from the past 40 years. Where has life taken them? What are they up to these days? Here's a look at a sampling of alums from all areas of the College — people who have gone on to rich and wide-ranging endeavors. We'd love to know what our other alums are up to, as well. Send an email with a short bio (and photo if you would like) to: osuarts@osu.edu.

Carlos Abril

Music Education, PhD 2003

Carlos Abril is an assistant professor of music education at Northwestern University, where he is a general and elementary music education specialist with research interests that include socio-cultural issues in teaching and learning, music perception and elementary music curriculum. He is the author of a chapter in Teaching Music in the Urban Classroom and of articles in many music education journals. Abril’s music arrangements and instructional materials have been published by World Music Press and Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, and he is certified in Orff Schulwerk and trained in Dalcroze Eurhythmics. He is a former general music and choral specialist for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where he was honored with the Cervantes Outstanding Educator Award.

Chris Calori

Design, BS 1974, MA 1980

Design graduate Chris Calori recently published the definitive reference book for the design of environmental graphics, Signage and Wayfinding Design: A Complete Guide to Creating Environmental Graphic Design Systems (John Wiley & Sons, Inc), available from the publisher, Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Calori is a principal of Calori & Vanden-Eynden/Design Consultants, an internationally recognized, award-winning design firm based in New York specializing in the planning and design of signage and wayfinding programs. She is a member of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design and a professional affiliate of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Her partner David Vanden-Eynden is also a 1974 Design graduate.Calori and Vanden-Eynden have recently been elected fellows of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD). The SEGD Board annually conveys the title of fellow to distinguished individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the SEGD and who have achieved excellence in the profession.

Calori’s design work has received awards from the SEGD, the AIA/New York Chapter, the IDSA, the American Institute of Graphic Arts/New York Chapter (AIGA) and the City of New York. Her work has been featured in ID, Design, Axis, Progressive Architecture, The Wall Street Journal and the books Sign Design: Environmental Graphics and Sign Communication.

Cézanne Charles

Theatre, BA 1997

Cézanne Charles is an artist, curator and arts manager, and currently is executive director of New Media Scotland. She has worked as an artist and curator in art and technology since 1998 when she formed rootoftwo with partner John Marshall. In 2003 she co-curated Intersculpt:uk 03 presented by Fast-uk at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. She co-founded artcore - an art organization dedicated to the exhibition, production, education and exploration of art, technology and electronic culture. In 2001 she co-curated Intersculpt:Ohio 01 presented by artcore at Archetype Gallery in Dayton. She has served as a consultant to arts organizations and artists in the areas of technology planning, professional and organizational development, and strategic planning. For more information, visit fastuk.org.uk.

Chaya Chandrasekhar

History of Art, PhD 2004

Currently curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, Chaya Chandrasekhar came to Ohio State after earning her BA from Bangalore University, India, and her master’s degree from Case Western Reserve. While a doctoral student at OSU, Chandrasekhar studied South Asian, Himalayan and Buddhist art, and gained extensive research experience in the Huntington Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Related Art. Following her candidacy, she served as administrative assistant for and contributed to the catalogue of Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art, a major exhibition organized for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

She taught at Ohio State too -- the Introduction to Asian Art and the Advent of Islam and its Impact on Indian Painting, earning high marks on students’ evaluation of teaching. She also worked as a Writing Center consultant and Writing Across the Curriculum consultant at Ohio State’s Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing. Research for her dissertation, on Pala-Period Buddha Images, was funded by Battelle and Kress Foundation fellowships, and its writing by an OSU Presidential Dissertation Fellowship. Among her many recent publications are two essays for the catalogue of Goddess: Divine Energy, an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2006.

Carl Chevallard

Music, BME 1972

Carl Chevallard, Lt Col, USAF retired, is an author, pilot and life-long musician who is retired as the commander and conductor of the United States Air Force Academy Band, Colorado Springs. The Columbus native earned his BME from Ohio State and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Iowa. Prior to his Air Force career, Chevallard served on the band faculty of several universities, including as associate director of bands and director of the Michigan State University “Spartan” Marching Band. He also served as a non-commissioned officer in the 338th Army Reserve Band and the 34th Army (Iowa National Guard) Band. In a 2004 review, the MENC Journal said, “A superb guide to the programming and teaching of many types of marches, (Chevallard) includes enlightening discussions of music issues not limited to march repertoire.” He is a member of the American Bandmasters Association, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. He remains active as a guest conductor, lecturer and performing musician. In 2005, he launched his own company, ChevyComm LLC, a consulting firm offering creative communications and leadership solutions to business.

Barbara Daniels

Music, BM

Barbara Daniels is an American soprano who made her debut in 1973 as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with the West Palm Beach Opera. She sang in Austria and Germany in 1974, and appeared as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at the Royal Opera House in London in 1978. Daniels sang at the New York Metropolitan Opera House starting in 1983 as Violetta in La Traviata, Marguerite in Faust and Minnie in Puccini's La Fanciulla del West. She also sang Handel's Agrippina at Schwetzingen in 1985 and Jenufa in Janacek's Jenufa at Innsbruck in 1990.

Burdette Green

Music Theory, PhD 1969

Burdette Green, associate professor of music and area head of music theory and composition, earned his MA from Ohio state in 1953 and joined the faculty in 1954 as instructor of music theory and saxophone. In 1960 he studied musicology with Dragan Plamenac at the University of Illinois, and in 1969 completed his doctorate at Ohio State. A former member of the Columbus Symphony, Green values his career as a performer in the Columbus Jazz Orchestra. He specializes in the history of music theory and has presented papers at meetings of the Society for Music Theory and the American Musicological Society.

Olga Haldey

Musicology, PhD 2002

Olga Haldey is assistant professor of musicology at the University of Maryland. Her areas of expertise include Russian music of the 19th and 20th centuries, opera production, early modernist philosophy and aesthetics, and the music of Igor Stravinsky. A winner of the Alvin H. Johnson AMS-50 dissertation award, Haldey has also received support from other fellowships and grants. She has presented papers at professional meetings of many societies including the American Musicological Society, the International Musicological Society and more. Her work has been published in the Journal of Musicology, the Verdi Forum, Opera Journal, Australian Journal of Music Education, Victorian Journal of Music Education and others. She also has contributed to RILM as a Russian translator and regularly reviews new publications for the online journal Opera Today.

Toni-Leslie James

Theatre, BFA 1979

James has designed costumes for the Broadway productions of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, One Mo' Time, King Hedley II, The Wild Party, Marie Christine, Footloose, The Tempest, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Twilight Los Angeles 1992, Angels in America, and Jelly's Last Jam. Internationally, she has designed productions for the Royal Court Theater and the Chitchester Theatre Festival in England. Opera and dance designs include productions for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ballet Hispanico. She also spent three years as the head costume designer for the CBS soap opera As the World Turns. Recipient of the American Theater Wing Award, Irene Sharaff Young Masters Award, LA Drama-Logue Award, FANY Award and Connecticut Critics Circle Award. She also has been nominated for a Tony Award, Drama Desk American Theatre Wing Award, Audelco Award, the National American Theatre Award and the NAACP Image Award. James recently accepted a position as head of design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

John Jay

Design, BA 1971

John Jay graduated from Ohio State, where he majored in Visual Communications, and entered the world of editorial design. He freelanced for many years and was at Bloomingdale's as creative director and later executive vice president from 1980 to 1993. In the 1980s he was voted one of the most influential people in photography.

In 1993, Jay joined the advertising firm of Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Oregon, where he oversaw the prestigious Nike marketing account, as well as Microsoft and Coca-Cola. In 1999, Jay moved to Japan to lead W+K Tokyo. He has helped shape advertising campaigns for Nike, Sapporo, Uniqlo and many other Japanese clients. He was promoted in October 2004 to executive creative director of Wieden & Kennedy and returned to Portland as a member of the W+K global management team. He divides his time between offices in Portland, Tokyo and Shanghai.

Chris Jones

Theatre, PhD 1989

Chris Jones is chief theater critic for the Chicago Tribune, reviewing theater, comedy, improv and other forms of live entertainment for more than a decade. He writes the Tribune's weekly theater column and hosts the popular blog, The Theater Loop. Jones also has been Midwestern theater critic for Variety and Daily Variety. His arts criticism has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, American Theatre magazine and many others. National guest TV appearances include CBS Sunday Morning, E! The True Hollywood Story and Nightline with Ted Koppel. In the 1980s he wrote for WCBE-FM in Columbus, and Columbus Alive. A native of Manchester, England, Jones began his career teaching theater history and dramatic criticism at Northern Illinois University. He continues to teach a graduate seminar in criticism at DePaul University, and recently returned to OSU's Department of Theatre for the Annual TRI lecture.

Kathleen Keys

Art Education, PhD 2003

Kathleen Keys is assistant professor of art education and coordinator for the undergraduate and graduate art education programs at Boise State University. Her research has appeared in Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research in Art Education, Art Education: The Journal of The National Art Education Association and two National Art Education Association (NAEA) anthologies. She also has been published in The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education and in the Korean Society for Education through Art’s journal. She presents her research at conventions of the NAEA and the Idaho Art Education Association and has secured grants from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. She is a member of the Boise City Arts Commission’s Visual Arts Committee. Keys’ research and teaching interests include community arts pedagogy, community-based arts education, art teacher preparation, contemporary art in K-12 art curricula, museum education, arts-based community development, service-learning and multiculturalism.

Esther Kim Lee

Theatre, PhD 2000

Lee's book A History Of Asian American Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2006) was recently selected for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education book award. She carried out extensive research beyond her dissertation, and produced a major study in American theatre history. She is associate professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Lee graduated from OSU in 2000 and started teaching at UIUC in the same year.

Frank Mohler

Theatre, BA 1965, MA 1969, PhD 1976

Mohler is a professor,sScenic and lighting designer at Appalachian State University. He teaches theatre history, scenic design, lighting design, swordplay, stage management, microcomputers. Prior to his 21 years at Appalachian, Mohler taught at Denison University, University of South Carolina and University of Virginia. At Appalachian he has served as director of Theatre and as interim director of Cultural Affairs. Over his career he has created over 250 set or lighting designs; he also provided the conceptual design for the Appalachian’s Valborg Theatre. He has been recognized with teaching and research awards and has been the recipient of a number research grants. He has published articles on Renaissance and Baroque Theatre. He served as president of the Southeastern Theatre Conference and was awarded the Suzanne Davis Award for service to theatre in the south. He created and maintains the Development of Scenic Spectacle web site.

Stephen Montague

Music, DMA 1972

Stephen Montague is an American-born British freelance composer of orchestral, chamber, choral, piano and electroacoustic works performed throughout the world. Currently on the faculty of the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of the Music in London, Montague is also active as a conductor and pianist. In the 1960s he studied at Florida State University and from 1972-74 in Warsaw on a Fulbright Fellowship at the Experimental Music Studio of Polish Radio. Among his many honors are the London Dance and Performance Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement, 1st Prize at the Bourges International Electroacoustic Competition (France), a Distinction at Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) and named to the Composers' Hall of Fame by British newspaper The Mail on Sunday in 1996. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Ohio State in 2000 and the was made an honorary fellow at Trinity College of Music in London in 2001 and Leeds College of Music in 2004. His music has been featured in festivals worldwide including Hong Kong, Singapore, Brisbane, LA and NYC and the BBC Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. Last year he composed the Bennetts Bike Concerto, an innovative piece commissioned for the opening of the 2007 World Superbike Championships at Brands Batch, UK, which included eight revving motorcycles, the Royal Philharmonic brass and premiered for TV outside of the Royal Albert Hall, London. This October the BBC Symphony devotes an evening concert to four of his orchestral works and records them.

Henry Panion

Music, MA 1983, PhD 1989

Henry Panion III earned degrees in music education and music theory from Alabama A & M University and Ohio State. He is best known for his work as a conductor and arranger for superstar Stevie Wonder, for whose performances and recording he has led many of the world’s most notable orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic, the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, the Rio de Janeiro Philharmonic and the Boston Pops. The two-CD set Natural Wonder features Panion conducting his arrangements of many of Stevie Wonder’s chart-topping songs.

As the creative force behind Gospel Goes Classical, featuring Juanita Bynum, Jonathan Butler and the GGC Symphony Orchestra, Panion made history topping the Billboard charts on both the gospel and classical crossover charts at the same time. Panion also has had the opportunity to conduct and/or arrange for The Winans, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and American Idol winners Carrie Underwood and Ruben Studdard. As a composer, producer, arranger and orchestrator, Panion’s work has earned two Grammy Awards, two Dove Awards and a host of other national music awards and nominations.

Judith Reichel Riley

Design, BS 1978

Judy Riley, vice president of industrial design at Moen Inc, is responsible for innovative product development at the kitchen and bath company. Her team provides the vision for Moen's new collections of faucets and fixtures, and she oversees design initiatives for the Moen, ShowHouse and Home Care by Moen brands. Previously Riley was senior director of industrial design at Moen. She joined the company in 2003 after nearly 20 years at Timex Corp., where she was vice president of worldwide industrial design, with designers and markets on all continents. She also has worked for General Electric, Rubbermaid and Playskool. Her work has been exhibited and published in “Women in Design,” sponsored by the Bard Graduate School, and “Goddess in the Details,” sponsored by Pratt Institute in New York City. Riley graduated from Ohio State in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design and is an active member of the American Society of Interior Designers and the Industrial Designers Society of America.

Kuiyi Shen

History of Art, MA, PhD

Kuiyi Shen is an art historian and critic whose research focuses on modern and contemporary Chinese art and Sino-Japanese art exchanges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He earned a BA in fine arts from Shanghai Normal University and an MA and PhD in History of Art from Ohio State. He is the recipient of many major grants, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Social Science Research Council and Japan Society for Promotion of Science.

Prior to his 1989 relocation to the United States, Kuiyi Shen served as director of the art book department at the Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House. Shen taught at Ohio University, State University of New York at Buffalo, Rice University, and University of Oregon before joining the University of California San Diego (UCSD) faculty, where he is an associate professor.

Shen is the author and co-author of many books and exhibition catalogues on modern and contemporary Chinese art, including the recent The Elegant Gathering (2006); Chinese Painting on the Eve of the Communist Revolution (2006); and the forthcoming Arts of Modern China, Literature in Line, and The Challenge of Modernity: Chinese Painting of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. He also has worked as a curator and curatorial consultant for many projects in the US and China.

Mary Ann Stankiewicz

Art Education, PhD

Internationally recognized for her scholarship in art education history, Mary Ann Stankiewicz recently completed an international history of visual arts education for the International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (2007) and coauthored a chapter on 19th century art education for the Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education (2004). Roots of Art Education Practice, her history of art education for art teachers, was published in 2001. Her research has appeared in major professional journals and many books. Stankiewicz completed six years on the board of directors of the National Art Education Association in March 2007, serving as president from 2003 to 2005. She is an NAEA Distinguished Fellow and recipient of the June King McFee award from the NAEA Women’s Caucus. She was professor in charge of the art education program at Penn State University, 2005-07. She currently is on sabbatical, working on a history of Massachusetts College of Art.

Richard Stoltzman

Music, BM 1964

Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman’s virtuosity, musicianship and personal magnetism have made him one of today’s most sought-after concert artists. Born the son of a jazz-playing railroad man in Omaha, Stoltzman earned a bachelor’s degree at Ohio State, double majoring in music and mathematics, and earned a master’s of music at Yale and worked on his doctorate at Columbia University. He began a 10-year association with the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, and was a founding member of the chamber music group TASHI in 1973.

Since then he has presented the first clarinet recitals ever in the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall. In 1986 he became the first wind player to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize. Stoltzman has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestra of La Scala, Berlin Radio Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony and has appeared with stars such as Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Mel Torme, Judy Collins, the Kings Singers and many more. Among the works written for him are Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint and Toru Takemitsu’s Fantasma/Cantos, a clarinet concerto commissioned by the BBC for BBC Wales Symphony. The piece premiered in the USA in 1992 with the St Louis Symphony, and was also performed at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. It was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award and received a 1995 Grammy nomination for best classical composition.

Surya Vanka

Design, MA 1990

Surya Vanka is manager of user experience excellence at Microsoft, and oversees best practices and engineering standards to create high-quality user experiences for Microsoft’s customers. His mission is put the users rather than technology at the center of the development process for all of Microsoft's products. Vanka was professor of design at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was a fellow at the prestigious Center for Advanced Study. He is the author of two books on design, has lectured on design in more than 20 countries, and is published widely. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Form, ID Magazine, WIRED, Interactions, BBC Radio, National Public Radio and Channel 15 television. He is the recipient of several awards including best practice awards at Microsoft, an accessibility achievement award, Sloan Foundation Award and an IDSA best paper award.

Molly Warnock

History of Art, BA 2000

Molly Warnock graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State in June 2000, with distinction in art history, and minors in German and English. Her honors thesis, “Other Architects: On Hegel’s Aesthetics,” was written under the supervision of Professor Stephen Melville. Awarded a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, Warnock entered the graduate program in art history at Johns Hopkins University in fall 2000, earning her master’s in May 2001.

Now, as a doctoral student in the Humanities Center and Department of Art History at Hopkins, she has won several highly competitive and prestigious fellowships—including a Terra Summer Residency at the Musée d’art américain in Giverny, France, and a two-year Chester Dale Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She also was a foreign scholar in residence at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. She currently is completing her dissertation on the paintings of the French artist Simon Hantaï, while teaching a course on Surrealism at Johns Hopkins.