PEW FELLOWSHIPS IN THE ARTS
1999 PANELISTS

Don Byron is a clarinetist and composer. He has been a prominent player in the more adventurous circles of the New York music scene for the past decade, and has garnered international recognition as the foremost innovator on jazz clarinet. In 1995, he was appointed Artistic Director of Jazz at the Brooklyn Academy of Music where, in addition to curating jazz programming for the Next Wave Festival, he has performed for the Academy's new educational programs and hosted weekends of jazz performances. He formalized his music education by studying classical clarinet, playing and arranging salsa numbers for high school bands, and studying at the New England Conservatory's Third Stream Department while also jamming with Latin ensembles and playing in the Klezmer Conservatory Band. With his band, Existential Dred, his most recent release is Nu Blaxploitation. His other albums are Bug Music, No-Vibe Zone, Music for Six Musicians, Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz, and Tuskegee Experiments. Special projects include Mr. Byron's arrangements of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway music, his original score for the silent film Scar of Shame as well as his string quartet piece, There Goes the Neighborhood, which was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and had its premiere at London's Barbican Center in 1994. He has performed at major jazz festivals in Europe and the United States including North Sea, Umbria, Berlin, Paris, JVC, and San Francisco.
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Kim Chan is the director of Dance and New Performance at the Washington Performing Arts Society in Washington, D.C. She has presented some of the most compelling choreographers working today including Bill T. Jones, Paul Taylor, David Rousevè, Bebe Miller, and Liz Lerman. Previously she was a consultant at Dance Place/D.C. Wheel Productions, also in Washington. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Goucher College. She has served on the board of directors for both the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and the American Arts Alliance. She has been a site visit consultant for numerous organizations including National Endowment for the Arts, Florida State Division of Cultural Affairs, Meet The Composer, Arts International, New York State Council on the Arts, and ArtsLink. Ms. Chan has been a delegate to the United States-Asia Presenters Mentoring Project, through the New England Foundation for the Arts, and to the United States/Russia Theater Exchange.
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Joanna Haigood has been making dances that use environments as a point of departure for movement and narrative for the past 17 years. Generating site-specific movement vocabularies, she frequently utilizes sophisticated rigging systems that enable aerial flight and suspension. In creating pieces for her company, ZACCHO, Haigood often collaborates with sculptors, composers, and rigging masters. Haigood has received commissions from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Jacob's Pillow in Lee, Massachusetts, Boston Dance Umbrella, Festival D'Arles in France, and the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta among others. She has taught dance both nationally and internationally at institutions including San Francisco Institute of Choreography, Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, Recontres Internationales de Danse Contemporaine in France, and has been in residence at Spelman College in Atlanta and Laban Centre in London. Among her awards and honors are a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship, a CalArts/Alpert Awards in the Arts, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for both Visual Design and for Performance, and both a Dance Choreography Award and an Interdisciplinary Arts Production Award from The Gerbode Foundation.
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Martha Jackson-Jarvis is a ceramic sculptor and educator. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Temple University's Tyler School of Art and Her Master of Fine Arts from Antioch University in Maryland. She has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, The Corcoran School of Art, and the University of the District of Columbia. She has had solo exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Maryland Art Place, Museum Gallery at the University of Delaware, and has been included in group exhibitions at the SPOLETO Festival, the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, the African-American Museum in Dallas, University of Maryland Art Gallery, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and others. She has been commissioned to make sculpture for Merck Company, Philip Morris Corporation, and Arco Chemical Company. Among her awards and honors are a Study Grant at The Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, an Arts International Lila Wallace - Readers Digest Grant, and a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Sculpture.
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John Jasperse is a choreographer whose works have been presented in the United States, Brazil, Israel, Japan, and throughout Europe. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, and has studied with Judith Isaacs and Eva Karczag, members of the Trisha Brown Company, and Daniel Lepkoff. Choreographed work that Mr. Jasperse premiered recently includes Waving to you from here and Excessories, at Dance Theater Workshop in New York, and Palimpsest, at Escuela Superior de la Musica y Danza in Mexico. He has taught at Ill Conesul Danca in Brazil, Tanz Werkstatt in Austria, Institute of Movement and Dance in Croatia, Cie Christiane Blaise in France, and others. Among his numerous honors and awards are grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, and commissions from Dance Theater Workshop, National Performance Network, and P.S. 122.
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David Lang is a composer and co-founder/co-artistic director of the international New York festival, Bang on a Can; an organization dedicated to adventurous new music. He received his D.M.A. and his M.M.A. from the Yale School of Music, and his M.M. from the University of Iowa. He has received major commissions from the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Santa Fe Opera, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, The San Francisco Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet, among others. His awards and honors include the Rome Prize, the BMW Music Theater Prize (Munich), the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Revson Fellowship with the New York Philharmonic, and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has collaborated with the dance companies of Susan Marshall, Twyla Tharp, Alvin Alley, and Margaret Jenkins, as well as the Boston Ballet, Royal Ballet (London), Deutsche Oper, and Skanes Dansteater (Sweden). Mr. Lang has served as the visiting Professor of Composition at Yale School of Music, and Composer-in-Residence at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
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Libby Larsen is a composer who has always worked as an Independent artist. She has served as a composer-in-residence with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony. Larsen is a vigorous, articulate advocate for the music and musicians of our time. In 1973, with Stephen Paulus, she founded the Minnesota Composer's Forum, which is now the American Composer's Forum. She has served on the National Endowment for the Arts' music panel and on several boards of directors, including the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet the Composer. Larsen's work encompasses opera, orchestra, dance, choral, theater, chamber, and solo repertoire. Her numerous commissions, honors, and awards include a 1994 Grammy as producer for the CD The Art of Arleen Auger, an acclaimed recording that features Larsen's Sonnets from the Portuguese. Her opera, Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus, was selected as one of the eight best classical musical events of 1990 by USA Today. International interpreters of Larsen's music include Sir Neville Marriner, Leonard Slatkin, Zubin Mehta, JoAnne Falletta, Marin Alsop, David Zinman, Eugenia Zuckerman, Jehan Sadat, and The King's Singers among others. She received her B.A., M.M., and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.
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Mark Leach Leach is a poet and critic. Author of eight books of poetry , including The Imaginary Lover, whiis the director of the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte, North Carolina. He also serves as Curator of Twentieth Century Art, a position he has held since 1993. Since 1991, he has secured over 100 works of art for the museum's collection including paintings, sculptures, photographs, ceramics, furniture, works on paper, and adornment including the works of Joyce Scott, Wendell Castle, Michael Lucero, Howardena Pindell, and Cindy Sherman, among others. Prior to joining the Mint, Leach was Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Exhibitions he has curated include Michael Lucero: Sculpture 1976-1995, ARTCurrents 17: Court Savage, and Recollections: Lumbee Heritage. He is a trustee for the United States Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, an advisor for the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts, and a trustee for the American Craft Council. He has served as a juror and panelist for numerous organizations including Roanoke College in Virginia, Virginia Beach Center for the Arts, Atlanta College of Art, Portland Art Museum in Maine, the Smithsonian Institution, and the North Carolina Arts Council. He received his B.A. from the University or Arkansas and his Ed.M. from Harvard University.
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Joan Livingstone is a visual artist and professor of fiber at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was previously both Chair and Artist in Residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Livingstone has received three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships along with fellowships from the Virginia A. Groot Foundation, the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and Illinois Arts Council. She has had one person exhibitions of her work at numerous venues including Roy Boyd Gallery and Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, Dennos Museum Center and Sybaris Gallery in Michigan, and the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts. Group exhibitions in which her work has been a part include Embodiment, Arkansas Art Center; Sum Greater Than The Parts: Contemporary Sculpture, Rockford College Art Gallery, IL; Contemporary Work, Rockford Museum of Art, IL; Chicago Prints, Shinsegae Gallery, Seoul, South Korea; and Fabricated Nature, Boise Museum of Art, ID. Her work is in the collections of the Boise Museum of Art, Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and other collections, both public and private. Livingstone received her B.A. from Portland State University in Oregon and her M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
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Bebe Miller has been making dances for almost twenty years. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Earlham College and her Master of Arts from Ohio State University. She formed the Bebe Miller Company, and has been the artistic director since 1985. The company has performed in over 125 cities in nine countries, and has toured extensively nationwide and in Europe. Ms. Miller has choreographed over 30 works for the company and has over 15 commissioned works that can be found in such companies as Oregon Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, PACT Dance in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Zenon Dance Company among others. Her interest in finding a physical language for the human condition is a connecting thread throughout her work, stemming from Two, a duet made in collaboration with choreographer Ralph Lemon in 1986. In recent years she has been investigating the mix of theatrical narrative and abstract movement as a way to expand this physical language, notably in Nothing Can Happen Only Once (1993) and Tiny Sisters in the Enormous Land (1995). She has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts in addition to an American Choreographer Award and two Bessies (New York Dance and Performance Awards).
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Michael Monroe is a nationally recognized and respected authority on contemporary American craft art. From 1986 to 1995 he was the curator-in-charge at the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum on American Art in Washington, D.C. He has also served as the executive director of the American Craft Council and president of the Peter Joseph Gallery in New York. He received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin and his Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has authored numerous craft publications including The White House Collection of American Crafts, and Chihuly: Color, Glass and Form. He has delivered lectures at The Library of Congress, Sotheby's, The American Craft Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and many other institutions. He was invited by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to organize the White House's observance of the "Year of American Craft: A Celebration of the Creative Work of the hand." In 1995, Mr. Monroe was made an Honorary Fellow by the American Craft Council College of Fellows.
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Alvin Singleton is a composer who has created works for the theater, orchestral pieces, instrumental solos, choral pieces, and a wide range of works for chamber ensembles. He received his B.M. from New York University and his M.M. from Yale University, and he studied as a Fulbright Scholar with Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia Nationale de Santa Cecilia in Rome. After working for more than a decade in Europe, Singleton became Composer-in-Residence with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (1985-88), served as Resident Composer at Spelman College in Atlanta (1988-91), and was the 1996-1997 Unisys Composer-in-Residence with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He has been awarded the Kranischsteiner Musikpreis by the City of Darmstadt, Germany, and twice the Musikprotokoll Kompositionpreis by the Austrian Radio, the Mayor's Fellowship in the Arts Award by the City of Atlanta, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His compositions have been performed both nationally and internationally by the symphony orchestras of Boston, Pittsburgh, Houston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, Oregon, Baltimore, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, l'Orchestre de Paris, das Guerzenich-Orchester Koelner Philharmoniker, and the London Sinfonietta among others.
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Sally Sommer is a dance historian, critic, writer, and educator. Currently, she is on the faculty of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she teaches dance history and criticism. She has also been on the faculty at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She received her M.F.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Minnesota and New York University, respectively. Sommer is a widely published writer who writes regularly for The Village Voice and Dance Magazine. She has also contributed numerous articles on dance, theater, art, and popular culture to newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Newsday, Le Monde, Bazaar Vanity Fair, Ballet International, and Dance USA. A leading authority on tap and social dance, she lectures widely and has written books on the American dancer, Loie Fuller and tap dance. She has been a consultant on a number of television projects including the Emmy award winning Everybody Dance Now. Sommer is currently project director and producer for a documentary on club dancing called Check Your Body at the Door. Her awards and honors include a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Peabody Award.
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Joan Tower is a pianist and composer. Her bold energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences. She obtained her B.A. from Bennington College, and her M.A. and D.M.A. from Columbia University. Her recent works include Tambor for the Pittsburgh Symphony, Rainwaves for the Verdehr Trio, Rapids (Piano Concerto No. 2) for Ursula Oppens, Turning Points a clarinet quintet for David Shifrin and the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center, and Night Fields for the Muir String Quartet. The orchestras of Saint Louis, New York, San Francisco, Minnesota, Tokyo, Toronto, and the National Symphony and London Philharmonia, among others, have performed her work. Ms. Tower was recently named the recipient of the Delaware Symphony's 1998 Alfred I. Dupont Award for Distinguished American Composers, and was inducted into the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Other honors include four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and the Grawemeyer Award. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972. She is also co-artistic director of the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and composer in residence at the Institute at Deer Valley in Utah.
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