Each weekday starting Monday, March 30, the Center for Faculty Excellence will host brief performances and talks by faculty artists—musicians, painters, poets, dancers, writers, photographers, filmmakers, and more.
Please join us at this Zoom link for 15-20 minutes starting at 5PM EDT.
Our guests for the first week include Ivy Walz, Jerry Mirskin, Daniel Gwirtzman, Marc Gomes, and Mike Titlebaum. See the schedule below.
Monday, March 30
Mezzo soprano Ivy Walz has been awarded numerous roles, solo performances and featured artist positions with opera companies, orchestras and chamber music groups nationally and internationally. She was a finalist for the American Prize in Art Song in 2019. Ivy is an engaged clinician who gives master classes on integrating healthy singing techniques with dynamic performance practice. She has been a guest clinician for Higher Voice Studio, TCO Teens, College Audition Advantage, Affiliated Choruses of Ithaca, Denver Art Song Project High School Competition and other schools, colleges and universities. For more information on her recent and upcoming performance activities, please visit www.ivywalz.com.
Tuesday, March 31
Jerry Mirskin’s poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and he has presented his work and given workshops at universities, colleges, public libraries, art centers, and on public television and radio. Jerry won the Arts & Letters Prime Poetry Prize for a selection of poetry. His manuscript, Picture a Gate Hanging Open and Let that Gate be the Sun, was the winner of the Mammoth Books Prize for Poetry, a national poetry competition. As a result of that prize, Jerry’s first and subsequent books were published by Mammoth Books. You can find sample poems on Jerry’s personal poetry website: https://jerrymirskin.org
Wednesday, April 1
Daniel Gwirtzman–producer, educator, filmmaker and dancer--celebrates twenty-five years as a New York choreographer and company director. His repertory for the nonprofit Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company and other concert and commercial projects, has earned praise for its humor, stylistic diversity, musicality, charisma and accessibility. “Mr. Gwirtzman does know that in dance less can be more. And that’s a good thing for any choreographer to know” writes The New York Times. The New Yorker describes him as a choreographer of “high spirits and skill.” Daniel joined the IC faculty in the fall of 2019. Focus of presentation: Daniel will introduce highlights from his diverse repertory through a live narrated slideshow. A few minutes will be left to respond to questions.
Thursday, April 2
Marc Gomes is an actor, writer, filmmaker and teacher. Marc has starred in television series including, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, Sue Thomas: FBeye, Commander in Chief; Lightning Force, Chasing Rainbows, Criminal Minds, Medium, Dexter, and Goliath. Marc performs as Third Space Performance Lab with scholar/performer Shanti Pillai. He has co-written and created The Lost Chronicles of Food, a television program that highlights the foodways and cooking methods that contributed to the development of early human societies and cultures. Gomes has served as a Development Committee member, an original teaching-artist, and director with The Unusual Suspects Theater Company since 1996. The Unusual Suspects brings theater making skills to incarcerated and underserved young people in Los Angeles as a means to foster self-confidence, and cultural and racial tolerance.
Friday, April 3
Michael Titlebaum is a saxophonist, composer and arranger, and IC’s Director of Jazz Studies. He has played in many of New York's world-famous musical venues, including the Blue Note, Smalls, Augies, Fez Under Time Cafe and the infamous CBGB's as well as the pit orchestra of the Broadway musical "Cats." He has performed with the Rochester and Binghamton Orchestras and dozens of internationally recognized artists and groups such as Jason Robert Brown, Red Rodney, Randy Brecker, the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, the Mingus Big Band, Cab Calloway, Jeff Tyzik, Natalie Cole, Billy Taylor, Mel Torme, Manhattan Transfer, Branford Marsalis, Clark Terry, Lee Konitz, Kenny Wheeler, Billy Hart, Paquito D'Rivera, and many others.
