Accomplishments: College of Fine Arts
Daniel Gerrity (Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction), Brett Levner (Film) and a group of students collaborated to create a short documentary about water conservation and reuse in Southern Nevada. Their project was funded by a grant from the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program…
Forty undergraduates recently were awarded scholarships through the office of undergraduate research's summer undergraduate research funding (OUR SURF) program. These scholarships support undergraduate research, scholarship, entrepreneurial, performance, or visual art projects in the summer months. A total of $39,000 in funding was…
Jonathan Rhodes Lee (Music) presented his research on George Frideric Handel's oratorio Joseph and His Brethren at the prestigious Hallische Händel-Festspiele (Halle Handel Festival). Each year, an international group of Handel specialists gathers in Halle, the city of the composer's birth, to share research on a given theme. This year's…
Jonathan Rhodes Lee (Music) presented his research at the biennial meeting of the American Handel Society (AHS) at Princeton University in April. The AHS is North America's most prestigious scholarly society devoted to the study of Handel's life and works, and its meeting attracts scholars from around the world. Lee's paper was on the…
Michael Spicer (Music) won a prestigious 2017 DownBeat Magazine Student Music Award for outstanding performance in the Graduate College Jazz Composition Category.
The 8kbet Wind Orchestra has received numerous outstanding reviews for its latest CD, The Return. (This is the Wind Orchestra's 10th release for label Klavier, and its 19th since it began releasing music in 1994.) Fanfare recently interviewed director Thomas Leslie (Music) about the wind orchestra program and its tremendous success both…
8kbet Jazz Ensemble I, directed by Dave Loeb (Music), won first place at the prestigious 2017 Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival, tying with the University of the Arts from Philadelphia. 8kbet Jazz will perform in September in the Monterey Jazz Festival. Dean Nancy Uscher and all of the College of Fine Arts are extremely proud of these…
David Loeb (Music) was honored as a guest performer and featured presenter at the 2017 Las Vegas Philharmonic Gala at Reynolds Hall in the Smith Center on Feb. 9. 8kbet's director of jazz studies, Loeb also conducted the Show Stoppers Orchestra for Lady Gaga's performance in the Encore Theater at The Wynn Hotel in December. In addition, he was the…
Jonathan Rhodes Lee (Music) has just had his critical edition of the harpsichord works of Pierre Nicolas La Font published by A-R editions as part of its "Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era." This publication was also the recipient of an award from the James R. Anthony Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded…
Linda Lister and 8kbet Opera Theatre (both Music) won second place in the Musical Theatre Division of the National Opera Association Collegiate Opera Scenes Competition. Lister serves as director of 8kbet Opera.
8kbet Jazz Ensemble I (Music) has been invited, through a rigorous audition process among some of the top university jazz ensembles in the nation, to compete as a finalist in the 2017 College Big Band Division at the prestigious Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival, in Monterey, California. Other…
Jennifer Bellor (Music) composed a piece, "Chase the Stars," that recently was awarded The American Prize in the orchestra category. Written for soprano, rapper, flute, bass clarinet, string quartet, percussion, electric guitar, electric bass, and drums, "Chase the Stars" was commissioned by ShoutHouse in 2015, and Bellor later recorded the…