Leadership
Pioneering Stanford professor emerita in art history continues to break new ground
The three years of research Wanda Corn conducted to produce her exhibition and book, "Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern," was underwritten by an Andrew W. Mellon Emeritus Fellowship administered by Stanford’s Department of Art and Art History.
Wanda Corn, who has been a pioneer in the art world for more than 30 years, isn’t slowing down. The renowned art historian and former Stanford educator has a new project, this one the artist Georgia O’Keeffe. Corn’s ties to Stanford are long. When she joined Stanford in 1981, it was a momentous occasion for…
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Stanford’s St. Lawrence String Quartet brings Beethoven to the San Francisco County Jail
The St. Lawrence String Quartet, Stanford’s ensemble-in-residence, performed at the San Francisco County Jail, sharing classical music with inmates. One prisoner described the experience as “a drink of water in a desert of concrete.”
Music lives and thrives in all sorts of unexpected places: theaters and living rooms, dingy warehouses and brightly lit stadiums. It blasts through car stereos and provides quiet comfort in moments of solitude. Stanford’s ensemble-in-residence, the St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ), brought live music to an unexpected place, far removed from the concert hall. They…
Read More Alexander Nemerov to deliver Mellon Lectures on the Fine Arts
For six weeks this spring, ALEXANDER NEMEROV will be spending Sundays at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where he will give the 66th annual A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. The topic of his lectures, The Forest: America in the 1830s, is the first ever in the history of the…
Read More Stanford alum earns Oscar nomination for “Hidden Figures”
And the Oscar goes to … well, maybe to ALLISON SCHROEDER, ’01, for co-writing with Theodore Melfi the adapted screenplay for Hidden Figures. This is the first Academy Award nomination for Schroeder and she is the lone woman on Oscar’s 2017 screenwriter lists, according to the Los Angeles Times. The story behind Hidden Figures, a…
Read More Stanford arts leadership capitalizes on Arts Initiative momentum
Harry Elam and Matthew Tiews are taking the arts to the next level.
When Harry J. Elam Jr. began his career at Stanford 26 years ago in the Department of Drama, as it was known then, the Dance Division had not yet joined the department, Roble Gymnasium was still an athletics facility and the arts district was years away from conception. His office in Memorial Auditorium was literally…
Read More Stanford alum’s debut novel gets National Book Critics recognition
The reaction on YAA GYASI‘s Facebook page to the news that her debut novel Homegoing was the 2016 recipient of the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard Prize was swift: 379 likes; 22 comments; and 19 shares. And that was before dawn. The John Leonard Prize was established to recognize outstanding first books in any…
Read MoreHarry Elam appointed vice president for the arts and senior vice provost for education
Harry Elam, vice provost for undergraduate education at Stanford since 2010, has been appointed to two additional key leadership roles in the Office of the President and Provost. He will now oversee the non-departmental arts programs as well as direct and coordinate critical efforts in education, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Provost-designate Persis Drell announced Monday.…
Read More Stanford is shedding light on career paths in the arts
From lunchtime Q&As with professional artists to a yearlong opportunity to explore the music industry, Stanford is building a wide variety of professional development opportunities for students who want to explore careers in the arts.
“Show me the way.” That is what Stanford offers students interested in pursuing careers in the arts. Because arts organizations, by the nature of their work, recruit in non-traditional formats, the university is bringing art paths into the light in other ways. Among them are arts internships, hands-on arts courses, grants and a program called…
Read More Nick Cave exhibition at Stanford challenges artistic conventions
A new exhibition at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University blends the visual arts with performance. Nick Cave’s Soundsuits are part sculpture, part costume. Made of a myriad of discarded and disused materials, they are designed to be worn and moved in, concealing the wearer’s race, gender and age. The exhibition runs through Aug. 14,…
Read More Lightning-Bolt Laureate
For Juan Felipe Herrera, poetry is action. In full color.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA sits in a vacant suite of offices at California State University in Fresno. Around him, the bland, sand-colored furniture, circa 1990s, has been stripped of phones and computers—it’s the business equivalent of a ghost town. But not for long. Herrera, an emeritus professor here and at UC-Riverside, is also the U.S. poet…
Read More Forum explores art, culture at the Stanford Center at Peking University
In early July, the Center for East Asian Studies explored contemporary arts development in China in a major event at the Stanford Center at Peking University. The China Arts Forum featured two visual artists, one performing artist, and one art market executive, all of whom were women. JINDONG CAI, associate professor in the Center for…
Read More Chris Lorway named executive director of Stanford Live and Bing Concert Hall
CHRIS LORWAY was named the new executive director of Stanford Live and Bing Concert Hall. According to an announcement on Monday by Stanford and the Stanford Live Advisory Council, Lorway will assume the position in late summer, as the fifth season of Stanford Live begins. Lorway was the founding artistic director of Toronto’s internationally recognized…
Read More Stanford music scholar explains Beethoven’s rise as a cultural icon in China
Through interviews coupled with archival research, Stanford’s Jindong Cai researched the history of Beethoven’s popularity in China in hopes of creating cultural connections between China and the West.
In Beijing in 1970, Jindong Cai crouched next to a phonograph. He and a friend had shuttered the house’s windows and were keeping their voices low. They could get into serious trouble for listening to the subversive album they were about to play. The rebellious music: Beethoven. The German’s music was banned in China during…
Read More Alumna and others with Stanford ties win validation for their work on Oscar night
On Sunday, Feb. 28, Stanford alumna Shermeen Obaid-Chinoy took home her second Oscar after winning Best Documentary Short for her film, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness. But Obaid-Chinoy, an alumna of both the International Policy Studies (‘03) and Communications (‘04) programs at Stanford, won more than a gold statuette and bragging rights.…
Read MoreFor Robert Moses, rehearsal is full of amazing, beautiful, wonderful things that nobody else will ever see.
When Robert Moses was a young member of Twyla Tharp Dance and ODC, he threw himself into performance with the spirit of an athlete. Today, his artistic life is less about performance, the “jumping over people’s heads,” and more about sharing – with himself, with students, with other dancers. In addition to teaching at Stanford, Moses…
Read More Stanford organist draws lofty sounds from Memorial Church’s thousands of pipes
Under the skillful hands – and feet – of university organist Robert Huw Morgan, Stanford’s Memorial Church fills with remarkable music from the Fisk-Nanney organ, a Baroque-type instrument that is one of five organs in the church.
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