Boston University College of Fine Arts Appoints Five New Faculty Members
Top row: Minju Kim (left), Alison Trainer
Bottom row: E Tubergen (left), Tasia Jones, and Daniel Parsley
Boston University College of Fine Arts Appoints Five New Faculty Members
BU College of Fine Arts welcomes new full-time faculty members for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) announces the appointments of five faculty members, all assistant professors, to join the ranks of the arts faculty at Boston University beginning this fall 2023. Boston University School of Music welcomes violinist Minju Kim as Assistant Professor of Music, Violin; conductor Daniel Parsley as Assistant Professor of Music, Choral Conducting, and the new Director of Choral Activities at BU; and soprano singer Alison Trainer as Assistant Professor of Music, Voice. Boston University School of Theatre welcomes director and performer Tasia Jones (CFA’07) as Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing; and Boston University School of Visual Arts welcomes artist E Tubergen as Assistant Professor in Art, Sculpture and Painting.
2023-2024 BU College of Fine Arts New Faculty
Tasia Jones • Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing
Tasia A. Jones (CFA’07) (she/her) is a professional director, performer, and educator focused on socially and civically engaged theater practices. She obtained her BFA in theatre arts at Boston University and her MFA in directing at Northwestern University.
Her most recent directing credits include 1919 (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), A Raisin in the Sun (American Players Theatre), Intimate Apparel (Northlight Theatre), Intimate Apparel (Utah Shakespeare Festival), Small Mouth Sounds (UCCS Theatreworks), Voyeurs de Venus (Northwestern University), and The MLK Project (Writers Theatre). Upcoming projects include Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution (Court Theatre). “I am excited to return to my alma mater, BU, to mentor the next generation of theatre artists/activists,” Jones says.
Minju Kim • Assistant Professor of Music, Violin
As a violinist and an educator, Dr. Minju Kim leads a multifaceted career spanning education, performance, and social advocacy. Dr. Kim has held esteemed faculty positions at institutions such as the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory Program and was previously the Chair of the String Area and Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola at the University of Akron School of Music.
Dr. Kim’s past experiences include teaching at institutions such as the Festival del Lago International Academy of Music, Encore Chamber Music, Community Music School at Oberlin College, IU Summer String Academy, and as an Assistant Instructor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and masterclasses at Fredonia SUNY, University of Montreal, and others. Dr. Kim’s pedagogical experience also extends beyond traditional settings, as she has worked with programs such as Habitat4Music and Fairview Violin Project, providing extracurricular music education programs to underperforming or underfunded public schools.
Combining her passion for arts education and social advocacy, Dr. Kim founded and directs the Third Culture Ensemble. This initiative unites professional musicians, music students, and local arts and social organizations to use music as a means of serving diverse communities.
Daniel Parsley • Assistant Professor of Music, Choral Conducting and New Director of Choral Activities
Dr. Daniel Parsley enjoys an active career as a conductor, educator, scholar, and professional chorister. At BU, Dr. Parsley oversees the conducting programs, teaches graduate conducting and choral literature, and leads the BU Singers and Symphonic Choir. He was most recently the Director of Choral Activities and Program Head at Thomas More University, where he founded and directed three choruses that included over 125 singers and taught music history and music theory. While in Cincinnati, he also served as associate director for the Cincinnati Youth Choir, Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Since 2019, Dr. Parsley has served as associate conductor of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO). At the CCO, he leads the We Are One series, special events such as the Walk with Amal project, and assists with an annual Summermusik festival. In 2023, he will make his guest conductor debut with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and Coro Volante. Most recently, Dr. Parsley was the assistant conductor and choral conducting fellow for the Cincinnati May Festival, where he prepared choruses for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops.
Dr. Parsley completed a Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting with a cognate in orchestral conducting at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (CCM). He also holds a MM in Choral Conducting from Bowling Green State University and a BM Voice Performance and BA International Studies with concentrations in economics and history from Xavier University.
Alison Trainer • Assistant Professor of Music, Voice
Internationally acclaimed coloratura soprano Dr. Alison Trainer is a gifted singing actress, who has garnered top prizes in major vocal competitions and performed with opera companies, symphony orchestras, and on recital stages across the United States and Europe. Between 2009-2017, Dr. Trainer debuted many of her signature roles in Europe, such as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Fiakermilli in Arabella, Gilda in Rigoletto, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, among others.
Before beginning her European career, Dr. Trainer performed as a soloist with New York City Opera, New Jersey Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Tulsa Opera, San Francisco Opera, Asheville Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Erie Philharmonic, Pennsylvania Symphony & Ballet, Sinfonie St. Gallen, and the National Chorale in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.
An avid recitalist with a passion for innovative programming, Dr. Trainer has performed in recital at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Cleveland Art Song Festival, the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, San Francisco Opera Center’s prestigious Schwabacher Recital Series, Glimmerglass Opera, Josyln Art Museum, Trinity Church on Wall Street, and the Southeastern Festival of Song.
E Tubergen • Assistant Professor in Art, Sculpture and Painting
E Tubergen is an artist living and working in Leyden, MA. Tubergen’s work stems from a negotiation of queerness as a spatial condition and relationship as site. Their work has been shown internationally at artist-run spaces and public institutions such as Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany, Tabakalera in Spain, Monster Truck Gallery in Ireland, the New School’s Aronson Gallery in NYC, Islensk Grafik in Iceland, Vox Populi in Philadelphia, the UICA in Grand Rapids, and DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Boston.
They have been generously supported by grants from the Jerome, Rema Hort Mann, and Harpo Foundations, as well as fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Jacob K. Javits Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, and Ox-Bow School of Art among others.
Tubergen received their BA from Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia and their MFA from Hunter College in New York City in 2013. They attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2015, where they continued to work in the Sculpture Shop until 2021 and held an appointment as a Senior Critic and Core Faculty Member in Sculpture at Yale School of Art from 2016-2023, where they also served as fabrication shops director from 2020-2023.
Additional CFA full-time faculty hired as lecturers include Erik Broess, Visiting Assistant Professor in Music, Musicology; Andrius Žlabys, Lecturer in Music, Piano (BU School of Music); Brockett Horne, Lecturer in Art, Graphic Design; and E. E. Ikeler, Lecturer in Art, Painting (BU School of Visual Arts).
About Us
Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher education and research. With more than 34,000 students, it is the fourth-largest independent university in the United States. BU consists of 17 schools and colleges, along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes integral to the University’s research and teaching mission. In 2012, BU joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. Learn more at bu.edu.
Established in 1954, Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) is a community of artist-scholars and scholar-artists who are passionate about the fine and performing arts, committed to diversity and inclusion, and determined to improve the lives of others through art. With programs in Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts, CFA prepares students for a meaningful creative life by developing their intellectual capacity to create art, shift perspective, think broadly, and master relevant skills. CFA offers a wide array of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, as well as a range of online degrees and certificates. Learn more at bu.edu/cfa.
Founded in 1872, the School of Music combines the intimacy and intensity of traditional conservatory-style training with a broad liberal arts education at the undergraduate level, and elective coursework at the graduate level. The school offers degrees in performance, conducting, composition and theory, musicology, music education, and historical performance, as well as Artist and Performance diplomas and a certificate program in its Opera Institute.
The School of Theatre at Boston University College of Fine Arts offers conservatory-style education for the study of acting, stage management, design, production, and all aspects of the theatre profession within the setting of a major research university. The School of Theatre seeks to provide students with opportunities for artistic growth through a rigorous curriculum, professional connections, and an emphasis on collaboration and new work.
Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts prepares students to think seriously, to see critically, to make intensely, and to act with creative agency in the contemporary world. The School of Visual Arts merges the intensive studio education of an art school with the opportunities of a large urban university, and is committed to educating the eye, hand, and mind of the artist. With rigorous graduate and undergraduate fine art programs that are rooted in studio practice, CFA School of Visual Arts provides highly motivated students with programs in the bedrock disciplines of the fine arts coupled with a vast array of electives and liberal arts opportunities.