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2007 Heart of the Arts Awards Celebration
Sunday, October 7, 2007 3:00 p.m.
The Forum Theatre, Binghamton
HEART OF THE ARTS NOMINEES
The Heart of the Arts Award recognizes an individual’s contributions to the arts in Broome County during the past year. There are ten stellar nominees this year for three awards, sponsored by IBM Corporation and Frederick R. Xlander Law Offices. Recipients will be announced and the awards will be presented during the 4th Annual Heart of the Arts Awards Celebration on October 7, 2007 at the Forum Theatre in downtown Binghamton. And the nominees are:
Elizabeth Cohen,
Columnist & Reporter, Press & Sun Bulletin
Currently at work on a book of essays
about people who change their lives, Elizabeth Cohen is the author of
two books of poetry, Impossible Furniture and Mother Love ; and
co-author of a biography of a Navajo woman surgeon, The Silver Bear and
the Scalpel. She grew up in New Mexico and moved to the Binghamton area
from New York City. Her memoir The House on Beartown Road, about a
winter she spent alone caring for her Alzheimer’s-stricken father and
her infant daughter, was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of
2003, among other honors. Her poetry and essays have appeared in many
national publications and anthologies and she has received writing
awards from, among others, the Associated Press, the New England Medical
Writers Association and Gannett Corporation, owners of the Press & Sun
Bulletin newspaper, where she is a popular columnist and feature writer.
Elizabeth Cohen holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia
University. (Back to nominees list)
Gene Czebiniak,
Designer
Gene Czebiniak’s work
includes graphic design, textile design, illustration, scenic and
costume design, and he specializes in tabletop and giftware pattern
design. During his 20-year career as a free-lance designer, he has
created visual concepts and designs for numerous area arts groups,
including Tri-Cities Opera (main season campaign graphics and imagery),
Cider Mill Playhouse (season brochures and campaigns, show logo
designs), Southern Tier Celebrates!, First Night® International and The
Goodwill Theatre. For First Night® Binghamton 2007 and for previous
years, he has collaborated with other local artists in the design of the
signature admission button, guide booklet cover and poster. He has
created scenic designs for S.R.O Productions, such as Seussical the
Musical and Secret Garden, as well as serving on S.R.O’s board of
directors and performing as a singer/actor with S.R.O. Productions III.
He also is a long-time member of the Tri-Cities Opera Chorus. His design
work with industry leaders such as Lenox includes a custom scarf design
for then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also worked with Lenox in
the creation of design and artwork for former President and Mrs.
Clinton’s official White House China pattern. His awards include the
1999 Society of Glass and Ceramic Decorators’ Vandenoever Award (Lenox
China’s MILLENIUM™ plate and bowl designs), Genesis Awards for
Tri-Cities Opera (1994, 2005, 2006) and First Night® International Award
for 2006 First Night® Binghamton (button/poster design). A native of
upstate New York and a graduate of Syracuse University, Gene Czebiniak
operates his design business Artistic Pursuits in the Binghamton area. (Back to nominees list)
Andy Horowitz,
President & Director, Galumpha
Andy Horowitz co-founded The Second
Hand Dance Company in 1987 and Galumpha in 2002, with both of these
locally-based dance companies becoming internationally renowned. As a
choreographer and dancer, he has performed more than 2000 shows in 25
countries and in 40 of the 50 US States. His television appearances
include Late Night with David Letterman, HBO, Germany’s ARTE Network,
and NTV in Japan, among many others. Through his 21 years as a dance
company director, he has consistently made it a priority to hire
personnel from the Binghamton area. His office staff, stage management,
interns, videographers, and dancers have overwhelmingly represented the
local area. He continues to travel the world as a dancer while
overseeing every aspect of Galumpha’s business, including the design and
creation of costumes, choreography and tour management. Since 1992, he
has been Artist in Residence of the Binghamton University Department of
Theatre. Born in New York City, he moved here as a toddler when his
father took an Anthropology teaching position at Binghamton University
in 1961. He calls Binghamton home, despite years of living and traveling
overseas. He lived in the Caribbean Islands of Puerto Rico and
Martinique, attended first grade in Norway, second grade in England,
third grade in Niger, West Africa, eighth and ninth grades in Côte
D’Ivoire, before returning to Binghamton to graduate from Central High
School in 1978. He also lived in China for a year and is fluent in
Mandarin. Andy Horowitz holds a B.A. in Theatre from Binghamton
University and an MBA from Syracuse University. (Back to nominees list)
Ken Millett,
Owner, Night Eagle Café
In January 2007,
he moved the Night Eagle Café to the arts district in downtown
Binghamton from its original home in Oxford, NY. Millett took over the
Night Eagle Café in 1997 and struggled to keep the doors open. To build
awareness of the independent artists featured at the Night Eagle and
other coffeehouse-style venues, he hosted two weekly radio shows on WHRW
Binghamton and Norwich 94 KXZ for over five years and then became the
entertainment director of Colorscape Chenango, the annual arts & music
festival, where audiences could sample the music of independent players
often presented at The Night Eagle. Eventually, the Night Eagle became
and remains one of the premier, small, independent music venues in the
Northeast. Ken Millett’s decision to move the venue to Binghamton this
year created an important new arts and music destination in Broome
County. (Back to nominees list)
Margaret “Pej” Reitz,
Pianist/Accompanist
Pianist “Pej” Reitz, a Binghamton
area native and faculty member at Binghamton University and Ithaca
College School of Music, has accompanied musicians throughout the United
States, England, and South America in addition to the American Institute
of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. She was recently a guest soloist
with the Binghamton University Orchestra performing Mozart’s Double
Piano Concerto. She has been invited to perform the Beethoven Triple
Concerto with the Binghamton Community Orchestra next season with Hakan
Hromek, cellist, and Pattie Sunwoo, violinist. She was a guest artist on
the Cornell Summer Series in August 2006 and is appearing again in the
2007 series. Also this summer, she was an official pianist at the
International Double Reed Competition and Convention and was selected to
accompany at the Interpretation of Spanish Music in conjunction with
University of Madrid in Grenada, Spain. She was an official accompanist
for the MTNA State and Eastern Division Competition held at Ithaca
College in 2006. She has been a guest chamber music artist in Morges,
Switzerland. She was recently invited to play a recital in Tokyo, Japan
with Timothy Perry, clarinetist, and Stephen Stalker, cellist. She and
Timothy Perry, a fellow Binghamton University faculty member, were
winners of the 1997 Artistic Ambassadors Program by the United States
Information Agency in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for
the Performing Arts.
She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance with an emphasis in accompaniment. She attended Boston University, New England Conservatory and Binghamton University and has studied piano with Jean Casadesus, Victor Rosenbaum, Seymour Fink and Walter Ponce and accompanying with Allen Rogers. She serves on the Executive Board of the New York District MTNA organization and is a past President of the local Southern Tier Music Teachers Association as well as an active adjudicator for the National Piano Guild Organization. “Pej” Reitz maintains a private piano studio in Vestal, New York. (Back to nominees list)
Craig Saeger,
Producing Director & Resident Scenic, Lighting and Sound Designer, Cider
Mill Playhouse.
Craig Saeger is an adjunct professor
at Binghamton University Theatre Department and Broome Community College
Theatre Department. He was one of the Founding Directors of the Cider
Mill Playhouse in Endicott. Born and raised in Binghamton, he was the
Producing Director of the Tanglewood Theatre (PA) under the tutelage of
John Sedgwick, Director of the Edge of Night television show. In New
York City, he worked as a Production Stage Manager, Company Manager and
Business Manager for One Star Limited Theatrical, producing The Me Know
Body Knows (Tony nominated), Castaways, and A Bistro Car on the CNR.
Returning to Binghamton, he became Tri-Cities Opera’s Technical
Director, building over 20 shows and helping to establish TCO’s
successful scenery/props rental program. He has taught at Ithaca College
and was a freelance designer and technical consultant for projects such
as the City of Ithaca’s Centennial, Opening Ceremonies of the Park
Building at Ithaca College, Cornell University Celebrations in NYC at
the Waldorf Astoria and Javits Convention Center, and the Dali Lama’s
World Peace Tour. Craig Saeger earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree
from Ithaca College and his Masters of Arts degree from Binghamton
University. (Back to nominees list)
Orazio Salati, Artist,
Gallery Owner, Arts Educator
A pioneer of the arts movement in the
Binghamton area, Orazio Salati moved his studio from Endicott to
downtown Binghamton in 2000, opened Gallery I soon afterwards and opened
Gallery II in 2006. Orazio Salati Studio & Gallery showcases multiple
visual artists at once and is one of the most popular stops on the First
Friday Art Walk. Exhibits feature fine art works by painters,
photographers, mixed media artists and ceramicists from the local area,
the region and throughout the Northeast. A teacher of the arts for more
than three decades, he currently teaches part-time at Maine-Endwell High
School. At the college level, he currently is an adjunct professor at
SUNY New Paltz and the College of St. Rose in Albany, and formerly
taught at Broome Community College, Keystone College, and Empire State
College. For 31 years, he taught at Union-Endicott High School, where he
became head of the arts department. He was named New York State Educator
of the Year in 1995. As a professional artist, he has worked with fiber
arts, clay and precious metals. As a painter, he has worked in a variety
of styles, sizes and mediums and currently is exploring abstract
expressionism. His first major works were featured as illustrations in
the 1994 book A Tribe Returned, by Janet Cunningham, about the massacre
of a Native American tribe. In 2003, he was invited to exhibit his work
in Florence Italy at the Firenze Biennale Internazionalle Dell’’Art
Contemporanea. Orazio Salati immigrated to the United States with his
family as a young child in 1955 and grew up in Endicott, NY. (Back to nominees list)
Ann Doris Szymaniak,
Owner/Artistic Director, The Dance Connection
Ann Doris Szymaniak founded The Dance
Connection in 1982, offering classes in dance, as well as vocal and
theater workshops. For the past 25 years, Ann has worked with dancers of
all ages to instill the discipline and love of dance. Her students have
performed at state and national levels and locally at such venues as The
Empire State Games, Binghamton War Memorial Benefit, The Spiedie Fest,
First Night® Binghamton, and The Mets Stadium. To enable her students to
get involved and give back to the community, she organized
“Dance-A-Thon” annual fundraising events, which have raised over $22,000
for local charities or groups since 2004. She is also the choreographer
for Chenango Valley Theater Drama Guild, and recently choreographed her
seventh production for the group. In November 2006, Ann directed her
first theatrical musical performance, “Seussical the Musical” for SRO
Productions III. She and her staff of teachers are currently working on
bringing back to the stage their original production The Dreaming Tree,
first produced locally in 2003. Ann Doris Szymaniak, a resident of Port
Crane, NY, believes that “the ordinary becomes the extraordinary simply
by adding dance.” (Back to nominees list)
Stephen Wilson,
Executive Director, Binghamton Philharmonic
Stephen Wilson was appointed
Executive Director of the Binghamton Philharmonic in January 2000 and
has guided it successfully, following the merger of the Binghamton
Symphony and Pops Orchestras. He developed and oversaw a search process
which engaged the local community and resulted in the selection of music
director José-Luis Novo. Stephen Wilson also oversaw the establishment
of the orchestra’s first endowed chairs, first-time collaborations with
local artists such as Galumpha and the Burns Sisters, and, in the
2007-2008 season, the appointment of the orchestra’s first-ever composer
in residence Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez, funded through a grant from the
New York State Music Fund. Prior to joining the Philharmonic in 1997 as
development director, he worked as a grant coordinator for the Broome
County Arts Council, overseeing the United Cultural Fund Project Grant
and New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant programs.
He was born in West Palm Beach, Florida and is a graduate of Boston
College and Boston College Law School. Stephen Wilson received his
Masters Degree from Binghamton University in 1992. (Back to nominees list)
Hong Zhang,
Singer, Educator, Founder & Director, Song of Silk Group
Hong Zhang is the creator of Song of
Silk, a unique music group that aims to bridge East and West. It
features Chinese masterpieces performed on Western instruments including
piano, violin, and the operatic voice. In 2005 and 2006, Song of Silk
staged two successful concerts in Binghamton University's Anderson
Center. She has been an active soloist in many concerts and groups,
including the Shanghai Philharmonic Society, the Milwaukee Symphony
Chorus, the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Eastern Silk. Currently a Senior
Lecturer of Chinese at Binghamton University, her curriculum includes
the groundbreaking course, Singing Chinese. She also authored the book
Chinese through Song. Hong Zhang holds a Masters of Music degree in
Voice Performance from Binghamton University and a Bachelor of Music
degree in Voice Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Back to nominees list)
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