Arts

The Boston Globe reports that Prof. Emerita Joan Jonas has been awarded the 2018 Kyoto Prize. The prize honors “important figures in the fields of advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts and philosophy.”

Prof. Tod Machover speaks with Mary Louis Kelly and Audie Cornish of NPR’s All Things Considered about capturing the everyday sounds featured in his latest symphony, “Philadelphia Voices.” When recording the Commonwealth Youth Choir, for example, Machover explains that he “asked them to each sing the word Philadelphia in a way that showed something about how they felt about Philadelphia and also something about themselves.”

Prof. Tod Machover details his experience creating “Philadelphia Voices,” which is “the latest in a series of Machover symphonies inspired by cities,” writes Michael Cooper for The New York Times. “To help organize his library of Philadelphia sounds he used software developed at M.I.T. called Constellation, which can analyze hundreds of sound files by volume, frequency and shape, then visually display them.”

Mark Feeney writes for The Boston Globe about the exhibit “György Kepes Photographs: The MIT Years, 1946-1985,” which is on display at the MIT Museum through July 2018. This is the second show in a two-part series that celebrates the 50^th anniversary of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, which Kepes founded as an Institute professor.

World-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma will deliver an on campus talk titled "Yo-Yo Ma: Culture, Understanding and Survival" as part of MIT's Compton Lecture series. “Ma is a prolific performer who has recorded more than 100 albums and has worked to promote collaboration among artists from different cultures,” notes the Associated Press.

Prof. Martin Marks hosted a conversation with Audra McDonald, the 2018 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT recipient, where she spoke about her personal experience as a Tony Award-winning actress and shared advice with the gathered students, writes Sophie Cannon for The Boston Globe. “Realize you have value and you have worth and what you maybe don’t have is experience but that is what you are here to get,” McDonald said.

Prof. Martin Marks hosted a conversation with Audra McDonald, the 2018 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT recipient, where she spoke about her personal experience as a Tony Award-winning actress and shared advice with the gathered students, writes Sophie Cannon for The Boston Globe. “Realize you have value and you have worth and what you maybe don’t have is experience but that is what you are here to get,” McDonald said.

Alexa Vazquez of WBUR writes about a new MIT Museum exhibit that uses virtual reality to place visitors face-to-face with fighters who have experienced lifelong conflict. “The aim was to go for more kind of intimate conversations that you wouldn’t normally have access to, with people from diverse sides of these diverse conflicts,” says Prof. Fox Harrell, who worked on the VR aspect of the exhibit.

PRI The World’s Lydia Emmanouilidou spotlights a virtual reality exhibit at the MIT Museum by photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa that allows visitors to explore both sides of international conflicts. “What is the point of images of war if they don’t change people’s attitudes towards armed conflicts, violence and the suffering they produce?” says Khelifa of the inspiration for his work. 

Six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald is the recipient of the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT, which includes a residency and public talk by the singer-actress, reports Don Aucoin for The Boston Globe. 

David Weininger of The Boston Globe writes about the longest instrumental work composed by Prof. Keeril Makan, a 47-minute movement performed by the New York-based chamber ensemble Either/Or. “Makan creates a succession of fresh and inventive colors, especially when he places two unusual instruments — glockenspiel and cimbalom — in dialogue,” writes Weininger.

Senior Lecturer Ken Urban speaks with HuffPost reporter Michael Levin about the burgeoning theater program at MIT. “There is a lot of institutional support for the arts in all of its forms at MIT and I think it’s because that process of being creative and realizing that it’s super-important for engineers,” says Urban. 

Boston Globe reporter Steve Annear spotlights how MIT students have transformed the walls of a pedestrian tunnel that runs underneath Ames Street into a giant work of art. Annear notes that, “in true MIT fashion, they rolled out an app that makes some of the work come to life when it’s viewed through a smartphone screen.”

New York Times reporter Robert Berkvist memorializes the work of A.R. Gurney, a prolific playwright who taught American literature and humanities as a member of the MIT faculty for 36 years. Berkvist writes that in Gurney’s plays “the conventions of the drawing-room comedy became the framework for social analysis.”

MIT was named the top university in the world for the sixth consecutive year in the QS World University Rankings, reports Kyle Scott Clauss for Boston Magazine.