Stay up to date on the latest from your fellow Violets! Read about the many creative endeavors NYU alumni are up to in arts and culture, from visual arts to performing arts and more.

Please note: Class notes are organized first by school (you may use the links on the right to jump to a school or college you'd like to view notes from) and within each school or college, notes are organized by class year (most recent graduates to older graduates).

College of Arts & Science

Avina Pereira (CAS ’15) (AKA Ævina) has released her new pop electronica single, "Serendipity." (Fall 2021)

Adela Hurtado (CAS ’14) had her photo project, The Colors of Trujillo, included in the latest exhibition of En Foco, a NYC Latino arts organization dedicated to supporting artists of color. Adela's photos were also featured in the May edition of New York Latin Culture Magazine. (Summer 2020)

Christian Usera (CAS ’04) recently started a small art magazine with two great friends entitled, "U Magazine." This publication reserves over 50% of its content for artists of color and other marginalized groups. (Fall 2020)

Gil Varod (CAS ’03) was awarded a fellowship by the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts to develop his new musical, The Carousel of Inevitability and Certain Foreboding. A staged reading will be held in the fall of 2023. (Fall 2022)

Sylvie Yannello (CAS ’99) will release her debut EP, Treacle & Vitriol, on 1 April 2021, the tenth anniversary of the first time she saw Elvis Costello in concert. "Baptised at the Gramercy" specifically commemorates that occasion and the transformative effect it had on her life. (Winter 2021)

Rome Neal (CAS ’98) has been honored by a NYSCA/NYFA fellowship, which will go towards his team's first grant, which is a huge validation for the marathon they are on with the Black Theatre Project documentary. (Summer 2021)

Cathy Lesser (WSC ’82) has written The Sparks Fly Upward, a Holocaust Opera which will be performed in Cleveland, Ohio and livestreamed June 9-12, 2022. (Spring 2022)

Valerie Mercer (WSC ’79) is celebrating her 20th year as the Head Curator of African American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the first museum to dedicate a curatorial department and galleries to African American art. (Winter 2021)

Nancy Kelton (WSC ’69) won the Long Beach, California Playhouse's New Play Competition with her full-length play Finding Mr. Rightstein which will have a staged reading April 1, 2023 at the Long Beach Playhouse followed by a Q&A with the cast, director, professional drama critic, and Nancy. (Winter 2023)

Marcia H. Marcus (WSC ’47) will have her piece, "Self-Portrait as Athena," on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art this spring. Marcus was a vital figure on the art scene in both New York and Provincetown, MA, and one of several important women artists of the period. (Winter 2022)

Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Anna Tatelman's (GAL, LS ’15) full-length play Life on the Moon will receive its first professional production this season at the Detroit Repertory Theater. (Fall 2022)

Tara McCauley (GAL ’14) had her home featured in NY Magazine design editor Wendy Goodman's weekly "Great Rooms" feature on Curbed. (Spring 2021)

Kassandra Khalil (GAL ’12) was appointed Co-Director of Arts In A Changing America (ArtChangeUS), a national BIPOC- and artist-led initiative developing arts-focused experiences and bringing unheard voices and fresh thinking to both the arts and cross-sector tables. (Spring 2023)

Jessica B. Muise (GAL ’11) has joined The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) as the newly created role of program administer, creative economy. (Fall 2020)

Avi Wisnia (GAL ’05) is an award-winning singer/songwriter, finding inspiration in 1950’s west-coast jazz, acoustic American folk, Brazilian bossa nova, and contemporary piano pop. His new album, Catching Leaves, will be out in November. (Fall 2021)

Justin Baer (Gallatin ’04) was featured on Shark Tank for his innovative apparel company, Collars & Co. Justin secured a deal for $1 Million from Mark Cuban and Peter Jones. (Fall 2022)

Jessica Kantor (GAL ’03) recently produced Be Water My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee, which opened on July 9, 2022 at Seattle's Wing Luke Museum in partnership with The Bruce Lee Foundation. (Summer 2022)

Marya Triandafellos (GAL ’91) received an award from New York Foundation of the Arts (NYFA) to mint an NFT. (Winter 2023)

Bryonn Bain (GAL ’99) is a renowned artist and activist who will play a historic performance to a live audience at the world-famous Apollo Theater in Harlem. The performance will feature a simultaneous livestream made available to over a thousand incarcerated men, women, and youth in correctional facilities across the country and in prisons in Africa and Europe. (Fall 2022)

Darlene Zimbardi (GAL ’97) is thrilled to announce the world premiere of her theatrical reading, A Window into Elder World, a plea for elder advocacy, being presented as part of Fertile Ground Festival. (Winter 2020)

Graduate School of Arts & Science

William Ramirez (GSAS ’16) is celebrating his move as Public Programs Coordinator to the Getty Research Institute. (Winter 2022)

John Murillo (GSAS ’07) is the winner of the Four Quartets Prize. (Spring 2021)

Ada Limon (GSAS ’01) was named by the Library of Congress as the nation's 24th poet laureate. (Summer 2022)

Institute of Fine Arts

Jessica Hong (IFA ’14) was awarded Toledo's 20 Under 40, which celebrates leaders in the Toledo community. She was recognized for work as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Toledo Museum of Art. (Fall 2022)

School of Law

Alice Scovell (LAW ’84) has written The Rewards of Being Frank, a sequel to Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest, an off-Broadway production, at the ART/NY Theatre, which runs from March 3-26. (Winter 2023)

School of Professional Studies

Jessica Chew (SPS ’22) created the Helen and Joe Chew Foundation, a non-profit in honor of the Chew family's 150 year legacy in California, one of the first original Chinese families in a rural town called Red Bluff, CA. The foundation saved a California Chinatown from being forgotten in history. (Summer 2022)

Christopher Skura (SPS ’05) is currently having a one-man show of recent artwork at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center in Dunedin, Florida entitled "The Beginner's Mind", which was shown from Jan. 13th to Feb. 26th, 2023. (Winter 2022)

William Giannone (SPS ’92) arranged J.S Bach’s 15 Sinfonias, BWV 787-801, (Three-part Inventions) for 3 flutes. It has been published by Rosebud Music Publishing Co. (Winter 2020)

Diane Leon (SPS ’91, GSAS ’95) received a Bronze Award for an international juried online abstract painting show on Camelback.com. (Fall 2021)

Silver School of Social Work

Eric Alimoh (SSSW ’18) has established Ampoh Foundation, a nonprofit organization helping people with disabilities in Ghana and the communities in New Jersey. (Fall 2022)

Beverly Rohlehr (SSSW ’99) has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, part of the American Ethical Union, since February 2018, and President since June 2019. (Spring 2021)

Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

Diana Montalvo (STEINHARDT ’21) is honored to have introduced the First Lady of the United States Dr. Jill Biden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s opening of In America: An Anthology of Fashion. (Winter 2023)

Alex Wakim (STEINHARDT ’20), is putting on an off-broadway production of Dust and Ions, an exclusive concert experience featuring award-winning music, poetry, and dance combined to a night under the stars, at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater on May 6th and 7th. (Spring 2023)

Kuhoo Verma (STEINHARDT ’18) won a Lucille Lortel award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in Octet. Ms. Verma also won the Best Ensemble award at the Drama Desk Awards. (Spring 2020)

Madeline Raube (STEINHARDT ’17) is making her Broadway National Tour debut as Countess Lily in Anastasia the Musical. (Winter 2021)

Candace Harrison-Disler (STEINHARDT ’13) is newly appointed as Director, Communications - Prostate Cancer/Radioligand Therapy at Novartis Pharmaceuticals. (Spring 2023)

Andrew Jannetti (STEINHARDT ’12) was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York State Dance Education Association at the Annual Conference of the National Dance Education Organization in October 2022 in Atlanta, GA for his extensive career as a dancer, choreographer, producer, and educator. (Winter 2022)

Roxanna Walitzki (STEINHARDT ’12) is releasing a new album, Amor Fati, in January. It is comprised of sacred Baroque vocal music, reimagined with electronic production. (Winter 2021)

Andy Zimmerman (STEINHARDT ’12) won a Music Academy of the West Alumni Enterprise Award. (Winter 2020)

Vanessa Albury (STEINHARDT ’08) is the artist behind Coral Projects, the first underwater art exhibition at Oracabessa Bay Fish Sanctuary in Jamaica. (Winter 2020)

Margaret Luthar (STEINHARDT ’08) was the mastering engineer for this year’s Grammy Award winner in the Best Traditional Blues Album category, Bobby Rush's Rawer than Raw, as well as the lacquer cutting engineer for the Best Comedy Album winner, Tiffany Haddish's Black Mitzvah. (Spring 2021)

Kathleen Holland (STEINHARDT ’04) has been awarded the 2023 Herbert D. Gregg's Merit Award from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) for her article Dying to Make Theatre published in Theatre Design and Technology (TD&T), Summer 2022. (Winter 2023)

Marj Kleinman (STEINHARDT ’03) launched Stoop Stories, a documentary and community portrait project, currently highlighting how Brooklynites are coping with both COVID and racial injustice. Ms. Kleinman’s work was featured in Time Out New York and is part of a New York Times collection about stoop life. Stoop Stories will be participating in the Photoville Festival 2021. (Summer 2020)

Nathan Lanier (STEINHARDT ’03) recently scored the Apple TV+ series Home Before Dark. (Spring 2020)

David Andrew Abbinanti (STEINHARDT ’98, ’05) is one of the founders and a co-owner of Broadway Licensing, a NYC-based company that represents and licenses a diverse collection of Broadway musicals such as A Bronx Tale, Escape to Margaritaville, Head Over Heels, Summer and many more. In addition, he and producing partner Sean Cercone, oversee all aspects of musical development at Stageworks Productions. (Winter 2020)

Ann Schaumburger (STEINHARDT ’96) has an exhibition of her work at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn. (Fall 2021)

Karen Cherie Cogane (STEINHARDT ’93) was inducted into the "Marquis Who's Who" in March 2022 for her career achievements in the performing arts, literature, and education. (Spring 2022)

Daniel McBride (STEINHARDT ’93) is professionally known as 2 Time Grammy nominee 13HANDS, aka DALIEN. He was chosen to participate in and contribute to The Call to Unite, a 24-hour global livestream bringing together the world's stars and celebrities, bringing messages of hope and solidarity. (Winter 2020)

Eric Dever (STEINHARDT ’88) is pleased to announce his third exhibition of paintings, Eric Dever: To Look at Things in Bloom, September 15th thru October 15th 2022 at Berry Campbell Gallery in Chelsea, featuring 19 recent paintings created in the artist’s Water Mill, New York, studio. (Fall 2022)

Madeleine Hsu Forte (STEINHARDT ’84) recently produced two e-CDs: Hungarian Program Live and Historic Live Performance 1980. (Spring 2022)

Janet Goldner (STEINHARDT ’81) is pleased to announce Between the Ground and the Sky, her exhibition at Carter Burden Gallery. (Summer 2021)

Tony Purrone (STEINHARDT ’76) performed at Lincoln Center Rose in March to pay tribute to legendary jazz saxophonist Jimmy Heath. (Winter 2020)

Judith Peck (STEINHARDT ’71, ’83) has a sculpture, "Refugees", that is included in the Walls and Borders show at Westbeth Gallery, curated by Bruce Weber. (Fall 2021)

Hope Wurmfeld (STEINHARDT ’60) will have her photography exhibited by The Harriman Institute of Columbia University. The project, "Vintage: Soviet Bloc 1964," documents a three-week journey with her husband in June of '64. (Winter 2020)

Stern School of Business

Joseph Legasto (STERN ’15) is the Deputy CFO of DMCI Holdings, Inc., a publicly-listed investment holding company in the Philippines. Joseph looks to nurture relationships with investment bankers and financial advisors in pursuing investment opportunities in the heavy industry and engineering space. (Fall 2022)

Kara Howard (STERN ’08) is launching SI HER to onboard more women and non-binary individuals into web3. (Fall 2022)

Michael Justin Lee (STERN ’92) has achieved global distribution for his third album Romeo and Juliet: The Rock Opera (concept album) on all the major streaming sites. The album is a modernization of the Shakespearean classic, interpreted with Rock music. (Fall 2022)

Jane Dubin (STERN ’88) is being honored by Houses on the Moon Theater Company at their annual Amplify gala on October 3 at Green Room 42 in Manhattan, NYC. (Summer 2022)

Yolene Legrand (STERN ’75) had her painting "Tete de Femme" recently featured in a Brooklyn Museum Instagram post because of its presence in their collection. (Summer 2020)

Robert S. Roberson (STERN ’64) was elected Chairman Emeritus of the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, VA. (Summer 2021)

Tisch School of the Arts

Jake Schick (TSOA ’21) is performing in the New York Comedy Festival on Sunday November 13th at Littlefield in Brooklyn. (Fall 2022)

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş (TSOA ’20), Hamilton Guillén (TSOA ’20), and Camilla Dely (TSOA ’21) were officially selected to premiere their dance performance at this year's World Stage Design in Calgary, Alberta, Canada — the most prestigious theater design exhibition in the world. (Spring 2022)

Kyndall Sillanpaa (TSOA ’20) and Sam McHale (TSOA ’20) founded an artist residency on a farm in rural Indiana to give fellow actors, directors, and playwrights a safe place to continue creating during COVID-19. In October, they will perform a series of shows before socially distant audiences. (Summer 2020)

Karen Chilton (TSOA ’19) opened the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis' 2023 season as librettist of Scott Joplin's seminal work TREEMONISHA, in collaboration with composer Damien Sneed, conducted by George Manahan. (Fall 2022)

Jackson Lawrence Hirsh (TSOA ’19) performs as Rence and played two shows at Lollapalooza in Chicago this summer, drawing the largest crowd of the festival to the BMI stage. A Tisch School and Performance Studies graduate, the singer and songwriter was signed by Epic Records in 2019 just before graduation. His latest release is "Awooo!" (Fall 2021)

Misha Mullany (TSOA ’19) is the writer, director, and co-composer of Infernal the Musical, a rock musical based on Dante's Inferno, which will open October 15-17 at the Flea Theatre. (Fall 2021)

Barbara Bellman (TSOA ’18) and Emiliano Messiez wrote and produced When Broadway is Back, a song of hope and aspiration as a fundraiser to support Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids and the Actor’s Fund. (Fall 2020)

Justin Russell Metcalf-Burton (TSOA ’18) is a DC-based dancer and dance educator and will join the ranks of Wonderbound dance company in Denver Colorado for their 2021-2022 season. (Summer 2021)

Kamran Saliani (TSOA ’16) has started a thriving theater company in his hometown of Irvington, NY called The Irvington Shakespeare Company. He got exclusive, special permission from Sir Ian McKellen to revive an old play of his. The connection came from an old director of his from NYU Stella Adler. (Spring 2022)

Kamran Saliani's (TSOA ’16) theater, The Irvington Shakespeare Company, has been nominated for 14 Broadway World Regional Awards for its work during 2022. Categories include Best Play for "Love's Labour's Lost" and Best Performer in a Play for Saliani in "Acting Shakespeare." (Fall 2022)

James Clements (TSOA ’14) , Ana Cristina DaSilva (TSOA ’17) and Sam Hood Adrain (TSOA ’15) are the Co-Artistic Directors of What Will the Neighbors Say?, a Brooklyn-based theatre company with a mission to provoke questions through untold stories The company recently received a $15k grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. (Spring 2021)

Melanie Van Allen (TSOA ’12) is a New York City-based choreographer, dancer, teaching artist, and emerging scholar of dance. In 2019, she completed her doctoral program in dance studies at Texas Woman's University. Melanie's dissertation, "D-Cyphering the Jit: Dancing Detroit History and Culture," maps the development of a largely unknown Detroit cultural product, the street dance Jit. (Winter 2020)

Poet Karen Eilbacher (TSOA ’10), GLADD Media award winner, and actor from the national tour of Fun Home, introduces the show t)re(equilt in United Solo International Theatre Festival's inaugural Spring Season at Theatre Row. (Spring 2023)

Emily Davis (TSOA ’08) is making her Broadway debut this October heading the cast of Is This A Room. (Fall 2021)

Amalia Cordova (TSOA ’07, ’15) curated Indigenous Cinema '21 for the Hemispheric Institute. (Spring 2021)

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (TSOA ’07) has joined the board of Ucross, a prestigious artist residency program and creative laboratory for the arts in northeast Wyoming. (Winter 2021)

Clint Lutes (TSOA ’02) is a Paris-based dance artist working with inclusive dance and dance and health, including work with people living with Parkinson's, refugees, professional dancers, healthcare workers and researchers. He is associated artist at DaPoPa and has been working regularly with the Theatre de la Ville de Paris. (Winter 2022)

Meron Langsner's (TSOA ’00) play, BURNING UP THE DICTIONARY, has been published in an acting edition by Next Stage Press. (Winter 2023)

Daniel Banks, Ph.D. (TSOA ’98, ’05) is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of DNAWORKS and has been awarded the 2020 Alan Schneider Director Award. (Summer 2020)

Hank Willis Thomas (TSOA ’98) unveiled his long-awaited Boston monument to the married civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King on Friday, January 13, 2023. Thomas’s new sculpture, titled The Embrace, features two pairs of disembodied arms that appear to hold each other. (Winter 2023)

Alex Brown Church (TSOA ’97) releases music under the name Sea Wolf and is releasing his first album in six years. (Winter 2020)

Alex Karvounis (TSOA ’94) was recognized for his creative work at the Community College Public Relations Organization at their annual awards gala this year in Lake Tahoe, CA. Earlier in the year he won Gold at the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations annual rewards held in Denver, CO, and is currently up for a national award through the American Advertising Federation. (Spring 2022)

Elizabeth Wong (TSOA ‘91) was recently commissioned by Boston Conservatory@Berklee to write a modern adaptation of Lysistrata. (Winter 2022)

Elizabeth Wong (TSOA ’91) wrote an audio play, 91754: Bingo Bitches, commissioned and produced by Antaeus Theater Company for Zip Code Plays Season Two. (Summer 2021)

Lloyd Khaner (TSOA ’90) has been selected for the TRU Voices New Play Reading Series for his play, No One Cries For The Blacksmith. (Summer 2021)

Debra Cardona (TSOA ’80) is celebrating 1 year in the cast of the Broadway revival of FUNNY GIRL, along with fellow NYU grad Julie Benko (TSOA ’21). (Spring 2023)

Luba Mason (TSOA ’83) will be re-starting her role of Mrs. Burke on Broadway in Girl From the North Country on Oct. 13th. This is her ninth Broadway show; she originated the role at the Public Theater. Luba has also released her fourth solo album, Triangle, to critical acclaim. (Summer 2021)

Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service

Janet Langsam (WAG ’92) is the CEO of ArtsWestchester and has been honored with the Selina Roberts Ottum Award at the Americans for the Arts digital Annual Convention and Public Art & Civic Design Conference. (Summer 2020)