By Denise Perreault
PBN Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE – Visual artist Peter Geisser and violist Consuela Sherba will receive the 2008 Pell Awards for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, organizers said today, while Roger Mandle, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, will be honored with a Pell Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts.
Geisser is a stained-glass artist who has created windows for private homes, public buildings and churches throughout New England, including the Chapel of Hope and the Cancer Center, both at Rhode Island Hospital, and the chapel at Hasbro Children’s Hospital of Rhode Island.
He has taught at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, RISD and the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth. He recently retired after 30 years as art director at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, where he created a highly regarded art and art history program.
Sherba is a member of the applied music faculty at Brown University and teaches at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School, where she coaches orchestra strings, chamber music and heads the Creative Communities string program. She is a founding member of the performance troupe Aurea, dedicated to exploring the connection between music and the spoken word.
Mandle, president of RISD for the past 15 years, previously was chief curator and deputy director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. After retiring from RISD at the end of June, he will leave for the Persian Gulf, to lead the national Qatar Museums Authority in Qatar. (READ MORE.)
A cum laude graduate of Williams College, with a master’s degree from New York University and a doctorate from Case Western Reserve University, he is a published scholar and teacher on the subjects of aesthetics and Dutch art.
They will be honored May 30 during the 12th annual Pell Awards Gala. The awards ceremony, in the Trinity Repertory Company’s Chace Theater on Washington Street, will be followed by a free-flowing party in a city-block-sized tent, with food and mixed drinks served from restaurant-themed bars.
As previously announced, the theater’s entire resident acting company – the last of its kind in the nation, according to Trinity Rep – also will receive a Pell award. (READ MORE) Serving as honorary chairs for the event are Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, former U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell and his wife, Nuala Pell.
Tickets for the gala are $250, or $500 for patrons. Corporate sponsor tables are available. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit artistic programming at Trinity Rep. For reservations or additional information, call Trinity Rep at 521-1100, ext. 237.
Trinity Repertory Company – founded in 1963 – is a regional theater presenting a variety of world premiere, contemporary and classic productions for an annual audience of nearly 160,000. It also hosts a graduate-level conservatory and an educational outreach program, Project Discovery, for students from Rhode Island and Massachusetts. To learn more, visit www.trinityrep.com.
