Class Notes

Medallion Reunion

Medallion Reunion Alumni who graduated before the Class of 1971—this year’s 50th reunion class—are invited to take part in Medallion reunion events. Learn more at Rochester.edu/reunion.

1948 University Life Trustee Ed Colodny writes that he has recently published a memoir, Flying High: Ed’s Words of Wisdom from the Real World (Bethesda Communications Group).

1953 Stacy Stevens writes, “Being retired in Maine is a hoot—always finding new things. While hiking on Mackworth Island in Casco Bay last weekend, we came upon this ‘dandelion tree’—or, more precisely, vine. First I have ever seen. Old dog, new tricks.”

1957 Kay Hatton Ryder writes that she has retired from her TV and radio program, Conversations with Kay, after doing more than 350 interviews with Vermont leaders in government, health care, education, the arts, and community life.

1958 Elinor Abbey would like to reconnect with classmates. Now 86 and living in Clifton Park, New York, Elinor says that she recently received a phone call from a college friend, “and we were both surprised to discover the other was still alive!” She’s hoping to catch up with long-lost friends from Rochester and asks that they call her at (518) 630-5267, as she doesn’t have email. Elinor majored in psychology at the University and also took classes at the Eastman School of Music her senior year.

1963 Angelyn Forbes-Freeze sends an update: She “retired from a career as a college administrator. My husband, George, and I moved to Frederick, Maryland, to be close to our grandchildren, in 2015. After a year, I started substitute teaching at the high school (I can walk to work!) until COVID forced me to retire again; at 80, I have decided to give retirement another try. We stay active and healthy with daily walks, yoga, gardening, making music, and being with our kids and five grandchildren.” . . . Evelyn Lutz (see pages 60–61).

1968 Alan Agresti, who holds the title of Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida, has coauthored Foundations of Statistics for Data Scientists: With R and Python (Chapman and Hall/CRC), an introduction to mathematical statistics for students training to become data scientists, using software for examples and simulations to illustrate key concepts. . . . Diane Gillman Charney writes that she retired from teaching at Yale after 33 years and has written a book, Letters to Men of Letters (Ology Books). In it she writes to authors she admires, both living and dead, who continue to keep her company. Among them are Kafka, Proust, Nabokov, Camus, Flaubert, Balzac, Leonard Cohen, Christo, and her father. . . . David Farkas, a professor emeritus in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, writes that he has published Performing 10-Minute Plays with Friends: A Guide to Do-It-Yourself Theater (FarkasWords). The book explains how to organize an informal theater group, find scripts (nine are included), stage the plays in a living room or other small space, and perform script in hand (no memorizing). He adds that he and his wife, Nettie (Jean) Blank Farkas, are once again enjoying homebrew theater post-COVID.

1970 50TH REUNION
Gerry Katz (see ’67 Eastman).

1971 50TH REUNION

1975 45TH REUNION
Richard (Rick) Renzi (see pages 58–59).

1976 45TH REUNION
Geriatrician, author, and educator Allen Power ’80M (MD), ’83M (Res), who holds the Schlegel Chair in Aging and Dementia Innovation at the Schlegel-University of Waterloo Research Institute for Aging in Ontario, cowrote the music for singer/songwriter Anne Hills’s new release, Accidental August (Hand and Heart Music). He also coproduced the recording and plays rhythm guitar on one track. Other accompanists include Tyler Woods on piano and organ, bassist Scott Petito, and drummer Peter Erskine. Allen—who studied jazz and classical composition and orchestration with Rayburn Wright ’43E and Samuel Adler and wrote for the 1978 and 1979 Arrangers’ Holiday concerts—set Hills’s lyrics to music for nine of the 10 tracks, including two pandemic-inspired songs. Allen continues his work as an international educator on innovative approaches to supporting people living with dementia and dealing with other age-related challenges.

1977 David Kopitz (see ’79). . . . Tim Smith writes that he and his wife, Deb, have published three books, with a fourth in the works. He adds that he and Deb have “a unique backstory that serves to frame up” their second careers as authors: Having met on the first day of high school, they dated for four years before going the next 40 years without seeing each other. Their mothers’ deaths led to a reunion, after which Tim and Deb, both retired teachers, began writing a weekly feature for their hometown newspaper, the Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel. In their “Life with the (Word)Smiths” column, which covers a range of topics, they “have brought tears of both joy and sorrow to our many faithful readers by sharing an incredible array of adventures,” Tim writes. Their books, all published by Pandamensional Solutions of Honeoye Falls, include The Beatles, the Bible and Manson: Reflecting Back with 50 Years of Perspective (2019); Tit For Tat Exchanges: Tim & Deb’s Greatest Hits (2020), a collection of their best “(Word)Smiths” columns over the last six years; and What’s in a Name?, a “raucous” compilation of short stories about places with intriguing names. Tim writes that he and Deb have spent years researching special places and have created “a unique book full of facts, fun, mayhem—and even the macabre” from Virgin, Utah, to Intercourse, Pennsylvania, and around the world. And “more frivolity will ensue,” adds Tim, when their fourth book, Listing Dangerously to the Left, is released later this year.

1978 Joseph Sellers, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, has been elected president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, the state’s principal nonprofit professional organization for physicians, residents, and medical students. He has previously served the society as president-elect, vice president, treasurer, assistant treasurer, and secretary. Joseph is an attending physician in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, New York, and the Cobleskill Regional Hospital. He has been a trustee of the hospital for the past 20 years and served for 22 years on the Schoharie County Board of Health. He has served medical missions in Haiti and Kenya and is a volunteer physician with the Boy Scouts of America. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and of the American College of Physicians.

1979 Alan Rubenstein has joined FLB Law, a newly established full-service law firm in Westport, Connecticut. Alan has been practicing family and divorce law for more than 30 years. . . . Vicki Ungersends an update. She and David Kopitz ’77 are celebrating the 15-year anniversary of the Kopitz Unger Wealth Management Group, based in Los Angeles. Before founding Kopitz Unger, they had separate careers in investment management, both with major financial institutions, but decided to merge their practices because of their “complementary skills and capabilities,” writes Vicki. They met at the University in

1976 and have been married for 37 years and, she adds, have three fully employed adult sons.

1980 40TH REUNION

1981 40TH REUNION

1982 Jonathan Kaplan (see ’86). . . . Daniel Mantell (see ’83).

1983 Marcia MacDonald Mantell has been named by ThinkAdvisor as a 2021 IA (Investment Advisor) 25. Her firm, Mantell Retirement Consulting, has been offering clients strategic retirement business development and marketing communications services since 2005. She writes frequent blog posts, hosts workshops, has written books on women and retirement, and trains advisors on how to work with clients, especially when it comes to Social Security, Medicare, and benefits for divorced spouses. Her husband, Daniel Mantell ’82, an investment manager with Wells Fargo, writes about the “big news in the Mantell household—out of the blue, Marcia’s Twitter account started going nuts pinging her phone” [after ThinkAdvisor released its list of honorees]. “This time,” he notes, “it was not our daughters.” . . . Randy Whitestone writes, “In September I was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Village of Scarsdale in a contested election that was delayed six months by the pandemic. My fellow board members and I are working to help the village grapple with the fiscal and social impacts of this turbulent time.”

1985 35TH REUNION

1986 35TH REUNION
Jonathan ’82 and Nina Simelson Kaplan send a photo of themselves with their daughter, Alison, “an incoming freshman of the Class of 2024.” Nina notes that they are thrilled Alison will attend the U of R. . . . Dan Ollendorf, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and a director at the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center, coauthored The Right Price: A Value-Based Prescription for Drug Costs (Oxford University Press). The book provides an accessible guide to the American pharmaceutical market and analytic techniques used to measure the value of drug therapies. It also includes real-life stories of patients and their experiences with the drug industry in making the case for the need to align pricing and value.

1987 William Heineman has been selected to become the fifth president of Northshore Community College in Danvers, Massachusetts. He has been in faculty and administrative positions with the state’s Northern Essex Community College for more than 22 years, most recently as provost and vice president of academic affairs. He began his presidency in July.

1990 30TH REUNION

1991 30TH REUNION

1993 Abe Dewing was highlighted in the Fan Stories section of the New England Patriots’ website last November. A longtime Patriots fan, he had been performing NFL-themed covers on violin (using an app to record himself playing four parts) and posting them to Twitter weekly during the football season. Abe is a marketing and events consultant, cofounder of the Fusion String Ensemble, violinist for several musical groups, and a private instructor of violin, guitar, piano, viola, and ukulele.

1995 25TH REUNION

1996 25TH REUNION

2000 20TH REUNION

2001 20TH REUNION

2005 15TH REUNION

2006 15TH REUNION
Adrian Disantagnese, vice president of business services at Consulting Group of America, writes that he has pursued a career in business during which he has “sold a business to Paychex, started three companies, and just started the third and most promising venture to date.” A health and society major at Rochester, “I planned to be a doctor and never expected to go into the business world, let alone sales.”

2008 Jennifer Mikels has been named a 2021 “Up & Coming Lawyer” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. She’s a trial lawyer at Goulston & Storrs, where she focuses her practice on professional liability defense and complex commercial disputes, particularly those involving business divorces and unfair and deceptive business practices. Jennifer handles pro bono matters through Veterans Legal Services and the International Refugee Assistance Program and has held many committee and leadership roles with the Boston Bar Foundation.

2009 Melissa Schoenberger, who teaches in the English department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, was recently awarded tenure. She specializes in Restoration and 18th-century British literature. . . . Matthew Spielmann ’20S (MBA) (see ’10). . . . Peter Swanson, founder and CEO of Dallas-based Bowtie Business Intelligence, a data management and business intelligence software company, joins fellow Dallas-based Pieces, a health care AI and technology company that recently acquired Bowtie, as vice president of strategic development.

2010 10TH REUNION
Alyssa Shoup ’20W (EdD) writes that she and Matthew Spielmann ’09, ’20S (MBA) were married in October 2019 in Rochester. Some of the many family members, friends, and fellow Yellowjackets who celebrated with Alyssa and Matthew are included in a photograph she shares: Max Sims ’15, ’20S (MBA), Dave Mullin ’16, ’19S (MBA), Andrew Flack ’09, Kurt W. Spielmann ’76, Justin Dagen ’02, Corinne Carpenter Dagen ’03, Susan Barnish ’08, Kurt J. Spielmann ’08, Melissia Schmidt ’02W (MS), Patrick Lutz, Jennifer Burger ’16 (MA), Milton J. Shoup III ’98, John DiSarro ’20W (EdD), Annamarie Spielmann Yerkes ’12, Caroline Jacobs Butler ’09, Brittiny Spinetto Trout ’09, ’13S (MBA), Ryan Perry ’09, ’11 (MA), Jeff Folger ’11, Ethan Burnham-Fay ’18 (PhD), Phil Stratigis DiTramontos ’09, Victoria Liberto Dimarco DiTramontos ’08, and Timothy Ludwig ’15W (MA).

2011 10TH REUNION

2012 Andrew Polec is one of only 15 finalists in the 2021 Lotte Lenya Competition of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music. The finals will take place in person in August and will be livestreamed worldwide. Beginning in September, the competition finals will be rebroadcast on OperaVision.

2013 Helen Zhibing Huang (see ’13 Eastman).

2015 5TH REUNION

2016 5TH REUNION

2021 Brandon Fang writes that he recently cofounded a startup in San Diego, California. Nioh Nutrition is a sports nutrition company inspired by East Asian culture. Its goal is to provide low-calorie, high-fiber protein bars and sports nutrition products composed of ingredients proven to be safe and beneficial. The product development phase is nearing its end, so he is “sharing this news with everyone.” Brandon adds that the company also prides itself on being supportive of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

1957 Alice Holloway Young (Mas), ’69W (EdD), who received the New York State Senate’s highest honor, the Liberty Medal, in March, has been awarded the University of Rochester’s Charles Force Hutchison and Marjorie Smith Hutchison Medal, the highest honor given to an alumnus, recognizing outstanding achievements and service to community, state, and nation.

1970 Ryuzo Yokoyama (PhD), a professor emeritus at Iwate University in Japan, writes, “Last May, I was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure. The awarding ceremony was held in the Imperial Palace, and I attended it with my wife, Yoko. This may be one of the biggest events in my life.” The award was established by Emperor Meiji of Japan in 1888 and recognizes distinguished achievements in research, business, health care, social work, state and local government, and other areas.

1974 Gary Merrill (PhD), a former philosophy professor at Loyola University in Chicago, writes that he has published False Wisdom (Bowker). The book addresses such questions as: What is pseudo-philosophy? How is it different from genuine philosophy? How can we identify pseudo-philosophy when we encounter it? And how should we respond to pseudo-philosophy in order to avoid its consequences? Following his academic career, Gary moved into industry R&D in such companies as Bell Laboratories, SAS Institute, Glaxo Wellcome, Novartis, and GlaxoSmithKline. He has written extensively in the areas of logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, software engineering, artificial intelligence, formal ontologies in the empirical sciences, and drug safety and drug discovery. . . . Vera Profit (PhD), a professor emerita of German and comparative literature at the University of Notre Dame, writes that she published The Devil Next Door: Toward a Literary and Psychological Definition of Human Evil (Rodopi) in 2014 as part of the publisher’s series At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries. Vera writes, “The eight characteristics of evil are victimization, failure to respect the boundaries of others, [the] depersonalization [of others], narcissism, abuse of power, scapegoating, lying, and absolute refusal to heed legitimate criticism. The book’s epilogue delineates the salient characteristics of group evil, a discrete phenomenon.”

1976 Dwight Hughes (MA), a public historian, author, speaker on Civil War naval history, and decorated navy veteran, has written Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8–9, 1862 (Savas Beatie). The book explores the first engagement between ironclad steam warships, which represented naval, industrial, technological, and social revolutions during the Civil War and is one of the most famous naval battles in American history. Dwight, a retired lieutenant commander, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1967 and served 20 years aboard warships, on navy staffs, and with river forces in Vietnam. Following a second career as a senior software engineer, he was honored by having a ridge in Antarctica named for him in recognition of contributions to Antarctic databases and information services. Dwight is also the author of A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Naval Institute Press) and a contributing writer at the Emerging Civil War blog.

1996 Michal Freedhoff (PhD) was nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate to be the assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution protection within the Environmental Protection Agency. Michal has more than 20 years of government experience, having begun her congressional service as a Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow after receiving her PhD at Rochester.

1997 Rebecca Rourke Edwards (PhD), a professor of history at Rochester Institute of Technology, published Deaf Players in Major League Baseball: A History, 1883 to the Present (McFarland), which was selected as a 2021 SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) Baseball Research Award winner.

1958 Francis Brancaleone, professor emeritus at Manhattanville College, was featured in an April episode of Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast. Francis shares the story of his growth as a musician from a young age and discusses his research findings on the history of the Pius X School of Liturgical Music, which was the precursor of the Manhattanville College music department.

1966 Barry Snyder ’68 (MM) (see ’71).

1967 Taavo Verkhaus (DMA) died from COVID-19 in February at age 86, reports Gerry Katz ’70RC, who studied piano at Eastman during his four years on the River Campus. “In pulling together some memories of faculty who had a lasting impact on my life for our 50th reunion, I decided to look up Taavo, who was the head of music activities on the River Campus during that time but also taught conducting at Eastman. I learned that Taavo had passed away,” writes Gerry. “I took three music literature courses from Taavo and worked closely with him when he conducted the professional orchestra for our student productions of Broadway musicals (e. g., How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, etc.) His courses were always totally engaging and fun. He had a dry sense of humor that you had to pay attention to in order to ‘get it.’ He was a good-looking guy whom the women students absolutely loved. But Eastman soprano Nancy Herman ’70 (MM) got him, and they were a wonderful couple for the rest of his life. While I arrived at Rochester with a pretty good music education under my belt already, it wasn’t until Taavo’s courses that I came to understand what defined each of the major eras in classical music [and] made them different from one another: baroque, classical, romantic, atonal, contemporary, etc. I credit him with turning me into a lifelong classical music enthusiast, becoming a Boston Symphony and Tanglewood subscriber for more than 45 years now. One particularly colorful memory had to do with one of his final exams. We were asked to go to the library and listen to an LP of the Mahler 6th Symphony a total of five times, to take stream-of-consciousness notes, and to write a paper about it. This was my first exposure to Mahler, and it was like nothing I had ever heard before. Mahler’s symphonies are generally quite long and complex (this one is about an hour and 25 minutes), and they express every possible emotion that human beings experience. The recording we listened to was a famous one by the Boston Symphony conducted by Erich Leinsdorf. I immediately ran out and bought it, and I still have that recording (and this was long before I realized that I would end up in Boston for the next 50 years). It was unquestionably the most self-revelatory assignment I ever received, and, happily, I ‘aced’ the course!” Gerry adds, “I know that it’s a long time ago, but I think that many alumni would remember him and would want to know of his passing.” (See also pages 60–61.)

1968 Barry Snyder (MM) (see ’71).

1969 David Levy ’80 (PhD) writes that as of July he is a professor emeritus at Wake Forest University after 45 years of service in the Department of Music. During his tenure, he served as chair of the department, associate dean of the college, and president of the university’s senate. David also directed music history seminars at Eastman for nine summers. His retirement plans include remaining active in musicological research and continuing his services as a member of the board of the Winston-Salem Symphony and contributing program notes and lectures for the Winston-Salem and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestras.

1970 Charles (Chick) Herman sends an update: “I had a 40-year career directing school bands and received three national awards, including Who’s Who,” he writes. “I studied with Frank Crisafulli at Northwestern University and have had the opportunity to play under a number of superior band conductors at the University of Michigan. I currently play first trombone in the Atlanta Wind Symphony. My band compositions are published by Warner Brothers in their Supersound series, and my brass compositions are published by the Warwick Music Group. I have also published three books of poetry and have been a Baal Shofar for 25 years.” Chick adds that all three of his kids play trombone and formed a quartet to play his original wedding music on his 30th anniversary. He and his “wonderful wife, Jessie,” live in Cumming, Georgia. . . . Geary Larrick (MM), retired as a music professor at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, writes that he recently welcomed his second grandson. . . . Phyllis Davis Pieffer (MA) received the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Women in American History Award for her 50 years of service to music teachers and students at the local, state, and national levels of the Music Teachers National Association. Her service has included terms as president of the Colorado Music Teachers Association, president of the MTNA West Central Division, and MTNA national president. She was awarded the MTNA Distinguished Service Award in 2013. The DAR award is given annually during Women’s History Month. . . . Nancy Herman Virkhaus (MM) (see ’67).

1971 Flutist Bonita Boyd is featured along with fellow long-time Eastman faculty artists cellist Steven Doane and pianist Barry Snyder ’66E, ’68E (MM) on the CD Aquarelles (Bridge), released earlier this year.

1972 Charles Herrold Jr. ’75 (MA) retired in July 2020 after a 38-year career as a music cataloger for Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

1975 Charles Herrold Jr. (MA) (see ’72). . . . Parker Bennett Sherwood (see pages 60–61).

1980 David Levy (PhD) (see ’69).

1981 William (Bill) Picher (MM) sends news of his new CD, William Picher Plays the Great Schoenstein Organ at Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine (Stemik Music). “Yeah, I know . . . longest title ever,” writes Bill. “This is the premiere recording of the new Schoenstein pipe organ consisting of 86 ranks and over 5,000 pipes at this Marian Shrine in Central Florida.” The CD features music of Buxehude, Verdi, Gigout, Schubert, Debussy, Gershwin, and other composers.

1982 Dave Flippo (MM) has led his contemporary jazz quartet, Planet Flippo (formerly Flippomusic) in Chicago since 1993. He released his sixth CD, Dedications (Oppilf Records), in June. Dave writes, “The disk primar-ily contains originals by Flippo as well as jazz arrangements of tunes by Radiohead, Amy Winehouse, and Stevie Wonder. Many of the originals explore odd/multiple meters and cover a wide range of styles and grooves.” He adds that the CD includes many tunes written for fellow players and dedicated to friends and family, including his wife, Melissa Leeb, and children, Gabriel and Gillian.

1987 Mark Steinbach (MM), ’90 (DMA) has released Glass and Bach in Dresden (Orange Mountain), performing music of Philip Glass and J. S. Bach on the 1755 Silbermann organ at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Dresden, Germany. Mark is the university organist and instrument curator and a senior lecturer in music at Brown University.

1994 Benjamin Sosland has been appointed provost and dean of the New England Conservatory. As chief academic and artistic officer, he will oversee the school’s programs in the College, Preparatory School, and School of Continuing Education. He served as interim dean and director of the music division at New York’s Juilliard School before he assumed the new position in July.

1995 Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Greg Yasinitsky (DMA) released YAZZ Band: New Normal (Origin Records) in January. The CD features contemporary, original compositions newly scored for “little big band”: four saxophones, two trumpets, trombone, and rhythm section. The project began as a studio recording, but the remainder was recorded virtually, due to the pandemic, with musicians contributing their parts individually, most recording in their homes—thus the title, the “new normal,” Greg writes. The YAZZ Band is a group of Northwest-based improvisers and ensemble veterans.

1996 Jennifer Au Tung ’98 (MM) has been selected as one of two inaugural conductors for the Women in Musical Leadership fellowship. The three-year fellowship provides support, connections, and experience to help promising music directors and conductors to enter fully into the profession while also expanding the talent pool of musical leadership in Canada.

1998 Composer Adeline Wong, a senior lecturer in the composition faculty at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore, copresented “Restriction, Repetition, Result: Minimalist Approaches in Art and Music,” in April as part of a virtual forum series hosted by the conservatory.

2001 London-based pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout ’04 (MM) released a nine-CD box set Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas (Harmonia Mundi), and this summer his final volume of Beethoven’s five piano concertos was scheduled to be released.

2002 Soprano Janinah Burnett (MM) released Love the Color of Your Butterfly (Clazz Records) in February. Janinah has performed roles on both Broadway and the Metropolitan Opera stage and has acted in film and television as well. . . . Cellist Leslie Kouzes Hamric (MM) is serving her second term as a board member of the National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division. She’s also a new member of Guiding Eyes for the Blind’s graduate council. She joined the National Federation of the Blind in 2010 and has held positions as a chapter president, board member, and committee member. Leslie married cellist Andrew Hamric in 2006, and they have a son, Michael. She performs with the Elmhurst (Illinois) Symphony and teaches cello and braille music in her private home studio. . . . Melissa Ngan has been appointed president and CEO of American Composers Orchestra. She will be responsible for the orchestra’s strategy, finances, and operations in New York City and nationwide. Melissa was most recently the CEO of Fifth House Ensemble, the Chicago-based organization she founded and has led since 2005.

2003 Composer Matthew Schreibeis, an assistant professor of composition at Hong Kong Baptist University, released a new CD, Sandburg Songs (Albany Records), which features his large-scale song cycle based on Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems along with other chamber works spanning a decade of creative work. Among those featured are Zohn Collective, which includes Daniel Pesca ’05, ’16 (DMA); Hanna Hurwitz ’08, ’16 (DMA); and Dieter Hennings ’15 (DMA).

2004 Kristian Bezuidenhout (MM) (see ’01). . . .Trumpeter Stephanie (Steph) Richards released her third CD as a bandleader, Supersense (Northern Spy). She also performs with Anthony Braxton’s group on the CD 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017 (Firehouse 12), released this summer. Stephanie has joined the music department at the University of California San Diego as an associate professor. She and her husband, Andrew Munsey, had a baby girl, Anza, during the pandemic.

2005 Daniel Pesca ’16 (DMA) (see ’03).

2008 Brad Hogarth, an assistant professor of conducting at San Francisco State University as well as the music director and conductor of both the Contra Costa Wind Symphony and the Art Haus Collective, has joined the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as conductor of the newly formed wind ensemble. Brad has a master’s degree in trumpet performance from the conservatory. . . . Hanna Hurwitz ’16 (DMA) (see ’03). . . . Tom Vendafreddo is the music director and arranger of “New Faces Sing Broadway 1961,” the latest virtual installment of Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre’s New Faces Sing Broadway series, “taking audiences on a musical journey from start to finish of an entire Broadway season in 90 minutes.” “New Faces Sing Broadway 1961” was filmed at Chicago’s historic Studebaker Theatre.

2011 Siu Hei Lee (MM), a London-based music researcher, pianist, scholar, and teacher, writes, “I am happy to share that my debut album, Luminous (Centaur), was released last year. With Kirsten Ashley Wiest as soprano and me on the piano, the album features music by James Erber (London), Jack Van Zandt and Jeffrey Holmes (Los Angeles), and György Ligeti.”

2012 Bassist Danny Ziemann ’19 (MM) published Topics in Jazz Bass Vol 2: Soloing (Low Down Publishing), earlier this year. In addition to performing, teaching, and recording, Danny produces educational video courses for the website Discover Double Bass and founded Low Down Publishing to produce music education books.

2013 Helen Zhibing Huang ’13RC is one of 15 finalists in the 2021 Lotte Lenya Competition out of a record applicant pool of 500. The finals will take place in person in August, livestreamed worldwide, and will be broadcast beginning in September on OperaVision. . . . Pianist Paul Sánchez (DMA) recorded Dreams of a New Day: Songs by Black Composers (Cedille) with baritone Will Liverman. Released in February, the CD reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Album chart. . . . Jessica Wilkins, owner and arranger at JDW Sheet Music and a Los Angeles–based freelance oboist and teacher, created an educational website, the Black Excellence Music Project (Blackexcellencemusicproject.com), after teaching herself to code. The website was inspired by a collection of videos she created last summer to celebrate Black excellence in the music world.

2015 Dieter Hennings (DMA) (see ’03).

2016 Hanna Hurwitz (DMA) (see ’03). . . . Daniel Pesca (DMA) (see ’03).

2017 Composer and percussionist Kyle Peters (MM), a percussion instructor at the Eastman Community Music School and a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, joins Roberts Wesleyan College this fall as an adjunct professor of percussion. Kyle recently published “Charm” (KP Percussion), “a two-mallet vibraphone solo that provides an opportunity for the player to highlight the lyrical and resonant nature of the instrument using techniques such as dampening and dead strokes,” he writes.

2018 Jessica Elder was a 2020–21 fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, and became the new principal horn of the Utah Symphony in June.

2019 Danny Ziemann (MM) (see ’12).

2020 Yixin Huang (MM) participated as a fellow in this year’s Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive’s workshop.

1962 Geoffrey Sperber (MS), a professor emeritus of dentistry at the University of Alberta, writes that Rena D’Souza, director of the US government’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, delivered the endowed annual Geoffrey H. Sperber Lecture at the university’s School of Dentistry in March. Geoffrey adds that the University of Alberta’s Health Sciences Library will be named for his wife, Robyn, and him upon its relocation to the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy in 2022.

1980 Allen Power (MD), ’83 (Res) (see ’76 College).

1985 Mark Eisenberg (MD), a professor of medicine and director of the MD-PhD program at McGill University in Montreal, has coedited The Essential MD-PhD Guide (McGraw-Hill Education), an overview of the process of becoming a physician-scientist, focusing on MD-PhD programs.

1988 Robbin Dick (Res) coauthored Hospital Capacity Management: Insights and Strategies (Routledge). Released worldwide in multiple languages in March, the book details many of the key processes, procedures, and administrative realities that make up the health care system that people encounter when they visit an emergency room or hospital.

2004 Roger Di Pietro (Pdc), a clinical psychologist in private practice, has published Decoding Persistent Depression: Book Four: Illustrations and Persistence (self-published), the final book in his series on persistent depression.

1955 Evelyn Lutz (see page 60–61).

1986 Nina Gaby ’90N (MS) published a personal essay in the anthology (Her)oics: Women’s Lived Experiences during the Coronavirus Pandemic (Regal House) about her friendship with Fran London ’91N (MS) from their very first day at the School of Nursing. The centerpiece of the essay concerns a ritual Nina and Fran have kept to stay connected with one another over the many years since Fran settled in Arizona and Nina in Vermont. Each year, in between their May birthdays—and coinciding with National Nurses Week—they trade sending the same plastic Florence Nightingale doll back and forth to one another, in the same box, along with a birthday note. In 2020, it was Nina’s turn, and a “perky postmistress,” she writes in the essay, “wants me to use a new box for Flo. I tell her I can’t. She’s interested in the why not, in the whole story. There is no one else at the counter, but still I apologize as I sob my way through the telling of it. The addresses layer over themselves in sacrament, like a collage of our lives made of labels, handwriting fading over the years. A plastic screen separates me from the postmistress, but I know she wants to hug me and I wish she could. How terribly strange to be turning seventy in the age of the coronavirus, I say, but she’s too young to get the reference. I tell her it’s from the famous Simon and Garfunkel song about the old friends who sit on a park bench like bookends. She still doesn’t get it. ‘Nice mask,’ she says.” Nina is a writer, artist, and psychiatric nurse practitioner. Her essays have appeared in numerous anthologies. She keeps a blog at Ninagaby.wordpress.com. Fran is a health education specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital and the author of multiple books, including No Time to Teach: The Essence of Patient and Family Education for Health Care Providers, winner of the 2010 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year.

2017 Jessica Nozzi (MBA) and Joseph Brady were married in August 2020 in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Megan Barry (MBA) was a bridesmaid (see photo, page 59).

2020 Matthew Spielmann (MBA) (see ’10 College).

1969 Alice Holloway Young (EdD) (see Graduate ’57).

1994 Kate Smith (MS) has been named president of Rio Salado College in Tempe, Arizona, where she has served as interim president since 2018 after having joined the college in 2016 as vice president of academic affairs and chief academic officer. She lives in the Ahwatukee Foothills village in Phoenix with her husband, Dennis, and their son.

2010 Nicole (Nykki) McCawthan Matthews (MS) has published a children’s book, The Truth About Me (Mylestones & Co.). “I am on a mission to change the narratives of boys, especially Black and Brown boys, one book at a time,” writes Nicole. “I believe that it is important for representation to be shown in literature, ultimately debunking the stereotypes, improving literacy, and redefining healthy relationships filled with understanding, empathy, and connection. I believe that all of this can be accomplished—or at least increase awareness—for generations to come, starting now.” The book is illustrated by HH-Pax, whose realistic images are rendered in bold colors.

2020 Alyssa Shoup (EdD) (see ’10 College).