Faculty News

Chiisana Omatsuri by Kei Akagi

Jazz pianist and head of the Jazz Studies program at UCI, Prof. Kei Akagi, was recently invited by Bay Area artists Brenda Wong Aoki and Marl Izu to be part of Earth Dance 2020: First Voice Earth Day, Offerings to Mother Earth. "Many traditions believe everything and everyone is part of a living...

Saints and Anteaters together in Music during COVID-19

2020 was going to be the year that the annual combined concert, comprised of the UCI Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Ana High School (SAHS) Symphony Orchestra, "went bigger" and became the "Triple Jubilee." The ensembles were poised to perform in the Downtown Santa Ana Arts District on the 2nd...

In remembrance of Peter Alexander

UCI Institute and Museum of California Art and Claire Trevor School of the Arts remember Peter Alexander The University of California, Irvine’s Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA) and Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA) community mourn the passing of artist Peter Alexander—a...

Investigating Exploration and the ‘Aha’ Moment

"What happens in your brain when you experience an ‘aha!’ moment? Anecdotally you may feel your world expand and your understanding blossom…but what does that mean and how can someone create that experience? These questions sparked an innovative collaboration between two scientists, Linda Palmer...

The radical possibilities of a box

By Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson for Curbed Online Magazine "Brigham became a minor celebrity during her lifetime—regularly contributing articles to popular magazines like Ladies’ Home Journal and displaying rooms of box furniture inside model homes and at international exhibitions—but like so many...

Prof. Jennifer Pastor and two UCI Art Alumnae named 2020 Guggenheim Fellows

Jennifer Pastor, professor of art in the UCI Claire Trevor School of the Art’s department of art, is among the 175 writers, scholars, artists, and scientists awarded the 2020 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Guggenheim Fellowships. In addition, two UCI Art alumnae Rheim Alkadhi (M.F.A. ’99...

The Artists

By M.H. Miller for New York Times Style Magazine "For decades, the art world ignored artists of color — an institutional neglect it’s now trying to correct. But in the 1960s and ’70s, in Los Angeles and New York, three galleries led the way in showing the work of black artists, many of whom are...

Assistant Professor Marcy Froehlich receives the Excellence in Teaching Award

Assistant Professor of Costume Design, Marcy Froehlich, has been chosen to receive the Excellence in Teaching Award for her notable actions as a member of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts Department of Drama.  Recipients of this award are hand-picked by the Dean of the School, Stephen...

Departments across UC Irvine design, build face shields for medical staff in Orange

As medical providers and hospital administrations grow increasingly desperate for personal protective equipment, the UCI Medical Center in Orange is receiving a shipment of 5,000 face shields from an unlikely source — the very medical students it works to educate.    

Have a 3D Printer? You Can Use It to Make Face Shields for Medical Workers

Excerpts published by the thewirecutter.com, April, 3, 2020 Hospitals, universities, and other centers of research are looking into ways to produce face shields at a massive scale. A team at MIT, for example, has developed a die-cutting process that can produce thousands of face shields an hour...

Changing Tides II - A Telematic Translocational Concert

Changing Tides II A Telematic Translocational Concert A simultaneous performance, different time zones. Stream Now In February 2020, Prof. Michael Dessen, along with a group of intercultural artists, presented Changing Tides II – an intercultural music collaboration responding to the...

Experimentation. Reflection. Wild ensembles. Photos show 5 L.A. artists working under quarantine

Painter Monica Majoli’s latest series captures the blissful ecstasies of living as an epidemic looms on the horizon. Titled “Blueboys,” her alluring white-line woodcuts are inspired by the 1970s gay porn magazine of the same name, expressions of ebullient male sexuality before HIV/AIDS was part of...

Molly Lynch: UCI Dance Department Chair

By Terry Schilling for the Irvine Commnity News "Molly Lynch is a petite woman with a ready laugh and eyes which frequently sparkle behind her signature neon red-rimmed eyeglasses. Before coming to UCI, Molly spent 16 years as the Director of Ballet Pacifica.  She became Chair of the Claire...

The Spirit of Revolution Thrives in UCI Performance of Hollywood and the Red Scare

Scott Feinblatt, from the Irvine Weekly, reviews "Hollywood and the Red Scare" presented by the Department of Drama's Prof. Robin Buck and a creative team from the opera community at UCI's Winifred Smith Hall.

Faculty Research: Embodying Humanity

What if dance could make us all better people? S. Ama Wray, associate professor of dance, believes it can. “The world needs dance to connect with our bodies in terms of rhythm (since the constraints of time impact everything), and to connect with empathy to one another,” Wray says. “These things...

Triple Jubilee Brings UCI Music to Downtown Santa Ana This Spring

Triple Jubilee Brings Longstanding Partnership between UC Irvine Department of Music and Santa Ana High School Music Program to Downtown Santa Ana This Spring Having developed a partnership spanning seven years, and serving hundreds of high school and college students, the team of educators...

‘Changing Tides II’ Has Musicians Respond To Climate Change

Prof. Michael Dessen collaborates with Prof. Mark Dresser (UC San Diego) for a "Telematic Translocational Concert" with musicians from South Korea’s Seoul Institute of the Arts in the Experimental Theatre at UC San Diego. Read the article from KPBS to learn more.

H. Colin Slim (April 9, 1929 – October 22, 2019)

H. Colin Slim (1929–2019), music historian, conductor and pianist, founded the Department of Music at UC Irvine in 1965 and served as its chair until 1978, and several times thereafter. He had previously taught as an Assistant Professor at The University of Chicago. In 1968–69 he was a Fellow at...