Class Notes
Photo by Nile Scott Studios
Class Notes
2025 updates from the CFA alumni community
1950s
Mark Mobius (’58, COM’59) is an American-born German emerging markets fund manager and founder of Mobius Capital Partners LLP. Mobius recently released The Book of Wealth: A Young Investor’s Guide to Wealth and Happiness (Penguin Random House India, 2024), in which he shares what true happiness means while explaining how to create and preserve wealth.
1960s
Cynthia Close (’67,’69) has completed Carnal Conversations, a memoir. Through intimate observations laced with ironic humor, Close recounts the story of how she finds herself at 40 living on Friedrichshof—a radical artists commune near the Austria-Hungary border—where the nuclear family has been banned.
Steve Robinson (CGS’66, CFA’69) offered all classical radio stations in the United States his recently completed five-part series, Valentin Silvestrov: A Composer’s Journey. Robinson’s 13-part radio documentary No Regrets: The Music and Spirit of Billie Holiday, was also made available to all US jazz stations.
1970s
Will Lyman (’71) portrayed Ebeneezer Scrooge in Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s production of A Christmas Carol, at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston, Mass.
Grant Drumheller (’76,’78) hosted What Living Is, his fourth show at Prince Street Gallery in New York, N.Y., which included his paintings “Street Salsa” and “Saturday Morning at Fort Greene Park.” Both works invite the viewer to experience the magic and mythic possibility in everyday work and play, he writes. Drumheller is also represented by Greenhut Galleries, in Portland, Maine, and the Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art in Charlotte, N.C.
Jane Murray (’78) performed a work for oboe and chorus with the Chorus of Westerly, R.I., at a remembrance and wreath-laying ceremony held at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. Murray began her 46th season as solo English horn for the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra. She is also a licensed body mapping educator who helps musicians of all ages learn how awareness of the body’s role in music making can improve stamina, breathing, and tone, and can prevent pain and injury.
Jane O’Hara (’78) completed and exhibited the 51-painting series State of the Union–Animals Across America at the New Bedford Art Museum in New Bedford, Mass. The series examines the topic of animal rights in the US. Gathering inspiration from disparate sources such as nostalgic postcard iconography and pop culture, O’Hara depicts animal living conditions—from the sobering to the lighthearted—in all 50 states. Upcoming plans for the artist include touring the series, speaking engagements, and producing a State of the Union book. O’Hara is represented by the William Scott Gallery in Provincetown, Mass., which recently showed her series A Humane Dilemma: When Animals Speak.
Patricia Steiner (’78) started an international consulting firm, received her MBA and doctorate in leadership and innovation, and now teaches for National University, Tufts, and Metropolitan College.
Patricia Randell (’79) was part of an ensemble of NYC actors that read playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Jon Marans’ latest play, with David Hyde Pierce reading the lead role, in December 2024. Additionally, Ensemble Studio Theatre featured Randell in their new Member Spotlight series.
1980s
Julia Shepley (’80) hosted Transmissible, a solo show at Boston Sculptors Gallery. Shepley’s featured works comprise an enigmatic mix of sculptural black ink drawings backed by reflective copper and a shadowbox that she used to take vibrant and atmospheric abstract photography.
David Lawton (’82) and fellow poets Aimee Herman and Eric Alter released Pixie Dust, their debut album as the group Hydrogen Junkbox. The tracks are full of the group’s poems repurposed into lyrics and accompanied by vocal harmonies, ukuleles, and a rhythm section provided by cookie tins and kitchen utensils. The album is available on most streaming services.
Julianne Moore (’83) starred in the Netflix limited series Sirens, created by Molly Smith Metzler (GRS’02). Moore played the charismatic Michaela Kell, a philanthropist, an animal activist, and the wife of a billionaire. She is also set to play Dianne Modestini, an art restorer, in an upcoming TV series about Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Salvator Mundi. Moore is also taking a stand with thousands of other Hollywood creatives who signed an open letter calling artificial intelligence a major threat to their work.
Michael Chiklis (’85) stars in Hotel Cocaine, a thriller-drama series from MGM+. Chiklis plays Dominic Zulio, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and stars alongside Danny Pino (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and Mark Feuerstein (Royal Pains). The show’s creator, Chris Brancato, was co-showrunner for Netflix’s Narcos, winner of eight Emmy Awards.
Arthur Levering (’88) released a new album, OceanRiverLake, on the label New Focus. The tracks feature works for orchestra, string quartet, mixed trio, and solo piano and are performed by members of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Lydian String Quartet, as well as pianist Donald Berman, guitarist Maarten Stragier, and flutist Sarah Brady.
1990s
Richard Width (’91) works as a hospice RN while he completes a book on his healthcare experiences with end-of-life patients and continues to balance an active career in the arts. Maintaining his Equity and Dramatist Guild memberships, he was cast in TheatreSquared’s 2024 season and filmed a supporting role for an independent feature film in Columbus, Ohio. Working with New Jersey’s First Flight Theatre Company, which he helped found in 2018, he adapted Bram Stoker’s Dracula into Mina, a one-woman play available on Amazon along with his adaptation of Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
After winning the 2023 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Music Direction, David Coleman (’93, BUTI’86) became a full-time associate professor of Africana studies at Berklee College of Music. Most recently, Coleman served as music director for Boston Conservatory’s 2024 production of Jesus Christ Superstar, conducting a 30-piece orchestra. Additionally, one of Coleman’s new compositions was the centerpiece of Boston Pops’ 2024 Holiday Pops program. The work, “Carol of the Brown King,” was based on the Ashley Bryan book of the same name, which includes original illustrations accompanying the poetry of Langston Hughes. The performance featured the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, as well as projections of Bryan’s artwork. This was Coleman’s second commission for the Boston Pops.
Revelry, composed by Valerie Coleman (BUTI’89, CFA’95) and recorded by Decoda Ensemble, was nominated for a Grammy award in the category of Best Contemporary Classical Composition. This is Coleman’s second Grammy nomination.
Grace Julian-Murthy (’96) had her artwork selected for WGBH Boston’s Community Canvas initiative. Julian-Murthy’s piece was displayed on WGBH’s Digital Mural above the Massachusetts Turnpike in Brighton. Additionally, Julian-Murthy’s artwork was showcased at WGBH’s studio, located within the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, during a live taping of The Culture Show.
Dave Shalansky (’96) recently had a supporting role in Rosemead, a feature film starring Lucy Liu. He also had a supporting role in The Missing Peace, a short film written, directed, and produced by Michael Raymond-James and executive produced by Jason Momoa (Aquaman, Dune). The Missing Peace received several awards, including Best Short Film and Best Acting Ensemble at the 2024 Indie Short Fest in Los Angeles, Calif., and was accepted into the New York Short Film Festival. Shalansky continues to audition for series regular and guest star roles, plays, and films. He is a proud husband and father.
Crystal J. Leotaud-Ramos (’97, BUTI’91) was named Music Educator of the Year by the Long Island Arts Council of Freeport, N.Y.
2000s
Noah Bean (’00) directed What It’s Like to Be Okay, a short film written by and starring Dennis Staroselsky (’00). Filmed just outside Boston, the story follows a struggling actor who prioritizes his career over his family, and must ultimately find a way to make amends with his heartbroken daughter. The film soundtrack features original songs by Fay Wolf (’00).
David Foley Jr. (’00) played Tom Keeney in the musical production of Funny Girl at the Citizens Opera House in Boston, Mass, for a two-week run in February of 2025. Photo by Nile Scott Studios
Morris Robinson (’01) (pictured below, third from right), Brian Major (‘08,’10) (second from right), and Michelle Johnson (’07) (right) starred in a one-night Boston Lyric Opera production of Aida in November 2024. The show was a specially staged concert featuring dramatic duets and some of Giuseppe Verdi’s most thrilling choral works.
Blue Jade, a 2024 oil painting by Kayla Mohammadi (‘02), was purchased by The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, for their permanent collection.
Arturo Chacón-Cruz (’03), an operatic tenor, performed at the Arena di Verona Festival in Italy, as well as South Korea’s Olympic Arena, for more than 100,000 people. He also won the Readers’ Award for Best Singer at the 2024 International Opera Awards. The award was presented live at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany, during a concert where Chacón-Cruz sang under the conducting baton of Vladimir Jurowski.
Bonnie Discepolo (’03) directed Neo Dome, an independent pilot starring Anna Camp. It won the Audience Award at the 2024 South by Southwest film festival, the Audience and Best Ensemble Awards at SeriesFest, and the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Nashville Film Festival. Discepolo is a recurring actor on Jordan Peele’s Scare Tactics, airing on USA Network.
Uzo Aduba (’05) starred in The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, a Searchlight Pictures dramedy released on Hulu, alongside Sanaa Lathan and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Aduba also appeared in The Residence, a murder mystery revolving around the most deadly state dinner in US history. In February, Aduba received the Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award at SCAD TVfest, Savannah College of Art and Design’s annual celebration of television.
Greg Hildreth (’05) starred in The Queen of Versailles, a musical running from July to August 2024 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, Mass.
Resa Blatman (’06) had a solo exhibition, Little Green, at the McCoy Gallery at Merrimack College in Andover, Mass. This new body of work, on view from September to November 2024, consisted of 27 moss paintings; a live, 30-inch moss terrarium; a wall-mounted installation; and a collaborative sound-based piece. Little Green’s next stop was the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, Mass, where it was shown from December 2024 to January 2025.
Ishan Johnson (’06), a member of the BU Alumni Council, was promoted to chief philanthropy advisor for the Boston Lyric Opera. Johnson has been featured on panels with the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, AFP Chicago, BU, the Philanthropy Club of Chicago, University Club of Chicago, Easterseals, Chicago Opera Theater, Grantmakers Association of America, and the Arts Club of Chicago. Most recently, he served as an inaugural mentor in Opera America’s Mentorship Program for Opera Leaders of Color.
Janice Checchio (’07) is associate creative director of photography at BU. In fall 2024, she exhibited her work alongside her colleagues, photojournalists Jacqueline Ricciardi and Cydney Scott, in Moments in Photography, an exhibition held at the University’s 808 Gallery. Her work is inspired by surrealism, mythology, and nature.
Rachelle Reichert (’07) exhibited her artwork at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. The show, Out of Site: Survey Science and the American West, was part of the Getty Museum and Foundation’s PST: Art & Science Collide initiative and focused on surveillance technologies in the remote western United States. Rachelle also showed her work in a solo exhibition at Sarah Shepard Gallery in Marin County from November to January. Friends and classmates can email her at studio@rachellereichert.com.
John Beder (BUTI’03, CFA’08) collaborated with noted civil rights attorney Ben Crump on the documentary How to Sue the Klan. The film toured the country as an official selection at 38 festivals and qualified for the 2025 Academy Awards in the Best Documentary Short Category.
James Thompson (’08) is a professor and chair of the music department at Des Moines Area Community College. He writes that he is focused on his academic work and teaching, but that he remains active as a soloist, a clinician, and an adjudicator throughout the Midwest.
Cynthia Galvin-Kamp (’09) is the music director for the Amagansett School, where she has been teaching since September 2005. In 2023, Galvin-Kamp completed her graduate certificate in the music education and autism program at Berklee College of Music and is a National Board–certified teacher in early and middle childhood instrumental music. Galvin-Kamp was a participant in the National Art Education Association’s Connected Arts Networks Program for the 2024–2025 school year.
Erika B. Hess (’09) was named artistic director of Chautauqua Visual Arts, part of the Chautauqua Institution of upstate New York, where she oversees the organization’s visual arts residency and lecture series.
2010s
Natessa Amin (’10) is an assistant professor of art at Moravian University, where she teaches all levels of studio art and leads courses abroad in Italy. Amin has a studio practice based in Philadelphia, Pa., and is codirector of FJORD Gallery, a not-for-profit, artist-led gallery. She lives with her husband, Gordon, and dog, Cosmo, in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood.
Jason King Jones (’12) is an Acting Company alumnus and a proud member of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Foundation leadership board, the Shakespeare Theatre Association’s IDEAA Committee, and the Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Nonprofit & Business Partners Council. The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival produces the state’s official Shakespeare festival and features acclaimed actors from Broadway, television, and film.
Kenneth Moore (’12) retired after 32 years as a secondary music educator in Michigan. In fall 2024, Moore accepted appointments as assistant professor of music education and director of the Master of Music Education, Teaching Artistry program, at Bowling Green State University.
Stephanie Sherman (’12) participated in the business accelerator EforAll on the South Coast of Massachusetts. Sherman also opened her own pottery business, where she sells her work and teaches.
Ford Curran (’14) completed a painting in CFA’s studios during the 2024 summer term, under the guidance of Wilhelm Neusser, a lecturer in art, painting, and drawing. The painting, a still life of a ceramic Boston terrier with colors and symbols included to capture the essence of the University, was presented as a gift to BU President Melissa Gilliam in recognition of her commitment to further elevating fine arts at BU.
Tricia O’Toole (’15) is manager of professional theater licensing at Concord Theatricals, working with the Samuel French catalog, which includes titles over 100 years old and those currently on Broadway. She works with professional theaters throughout the country to help develop their seasonal programming and pitch the work of living playwrights.
Aija Reke (’15,’28) performed a solo recital at BU’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, which included her own composition for violin. Reke also performed pieces by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and Gabriel Fauré at a concert at Hancock United Church of Christ in Lexington, Mass., in a program with readings by Natalie Dykstra, author of the biography Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner (HarperCollins, 2025).
Bryn Boice (’16), an Elliot Norton award winner, directed Hub Theatre Company’s production of Molière’s celebrated comedy Tartuffe. The show ran from November 9, through November 24, 2024, at The Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St. in Boston’s Back Bay.
Constituent Parts, a 2025 spring semester exhibition at BU’s 808 Gallery, showcased works by Cathy Della Lucia (’17) and Nicholas Mancini (’17), highlighting the decade-long conversation between the artists who met as MFA students at CFA in 2015. In dialog with each other, their works invite viewers to rethink how they make sense of the world around them. Images below by Mel Taing
Shelly Magno (’17) teaches fourth grade in Charlotte, N.C., and volunteers with the city’s police department’s animal care and control team. Magno created a project for her students to raise awareness of animal rescue issues by featuring 70 animals in foster care. Eighteen of the portraits were selected by Charlotte’s Discovery Place Science Museum to be viewed in their exhibition, Dogs: A Science Tail.
Padmini Chandrasekaran (’17), Joshua Duttweiler (’17), Molly Haig (’18), Vaishnavi Kumar (’18), Kristen Mallia (’18), Sarah Cadigan-Fried (‘19), and Christopher Field, a former CFA lecturer in art, are members of Radius Collective, along with Massimiliano Cerioni. Radius Collective is an international body of artists, designers, and educators creating work that engages in discourses around identity, place, and connection. Each year they decide on a theme, produce work individually, and then develop a group exhibition. The collective has exhibited across the US and as far as Rome, Italy, in 2024.
Rachel Orth (‘17,’28), a violinist, was named a recipient of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Resident Fellowship for Early-Career Musicians.
Alexandra Delano (’18) founded the agency Alex Delano Design in 2023. She has worked with clients such as GORE-TEX, Asics, CBS, Kindbody, Goslings Rum, and other well-known companies. She also has a partnership with 1% For the Planet, a worldwide initiative that encourages businesses to donate one percent of their annual sales to environmental causes.
Trevor Kowalski (’18) released The Twilight Glow, a classical piano album he produced, conducted, wrote, arranged, and performed. The album was released through the label Neue Meister. Kowalski recently scored Cherokee filmmaker Loren Waters’ film Tiger, which premiered during the 2024–2025 festival circuit. He also scored her previous film, ᏗᏂᏠᎯ ᎤᏪᏯ (Meet Me at the Creek), which received international praise. Additionally, a PBS affiliate flew Kowalski to Alaska to record live sounds for a soundtrack with Native Alaskan director Alex Sallee.
Christopher Moretti (’19,’21) was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Engineered Album, Classical, category for his recording work on A Far Cry’s A Gentleman of Istanbul, featuring musician-composers Mehmet Sanlikol and George Lernis.
2020s
Celia Daggy (BUTI’16, CFA’20) has been principal viola for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra since 2022. Based in Norfolk, the orchestra performs concerts across the Chesapeake Bay region.
Sophronia Vowels (’20) teaches pre-K through fifth grade theater classes at public schools around the Bay Area. She recently became engaged to Sébastien Garbe (’20, CAS’20), who is substitute teaching while applying for his single-subject English teaching credential.
Phil O’Neal (’21) is in his eighth year as head choral director at Woodcreek Middle School in Humble, Tex. He is also contemporary worship leader at the Atascocita Methodist Church in Atascocita, and the minister of music at the True Worship Cathedral in Houston. Additionally, O’Neal is keyboardist for Bayou City Brass Band, and a 10-year military veteran, having served in the US Army Reserve National Guard from 1992 through 2002.
Aidan Close (’23) played Scorpius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre from February through June 2025.
Alexis Peart (’23, MET’24), a mezzo-soprano, was selected to perform with the Ryan Opera Center at Chicago Lyric Opera for its 2025–2026 season. At the close of the event, she was presented with the Audience Favorite award. She is an emerging artist at Boston Lyric Opera and continues to study with Penelope Bitzas, a CFA associate professor of voice.
Yolanda Yang (MET’21, CFA’24) completed her latest project, Behind VA Shadows, where she highlights the creative expression of museum workers while reimagining how they engage with urban spaces. Yang is the arts engagement manager at Pao Arts Center in Boston, Mass., where she advocates for programs that honor the history and identity of residents of Boston’s Chinatown.
Working as The Gutter Studios, Francis Bordeleau (’25), Ella Scheuerell (’24), Daija Zhou (’24), Sandeep Bhadal (’24), and Joel Christian Gill (’04), associate professor of art and chair of BU School of Visual Arts’ Department of Visual Narrative, illustrated the history of the busing crisis in Boston for the Boston Globe. The work illustrates in detail the hardships Black students and families in the 1970s faced in Boston Public Schools, and the struggles that persist today. Images courtesy of The Gutter Studios
