� Conspirare keeps racking up the honors: Now it’s a nomination for an Edison Award, the Grammy of the Netherlands. Not surprisingly, the professional choir was recognized in the category of Choral Music, but surprisingly, it’s being recognized for Requiem, the same recording that earned Conspirare its first two Grammy nominations two years ago. Turns out the original release on Clarion in 2006 never made it outside the States, so it was only when Harmonia Mundi reissued it last year that the CD hit Europe. Conspirare won’t hear the results until June 18, but you can hear Conspirare sing David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Little Match Girl Passion this weekend: May 7-9 at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, 616 W. 15th. For more information, visit www.conspirare.org.
� The announcement of the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowships was twice as nice for the University of Texas Department of Art & Art History: Faculty members Lawrence McFarland and Troy Brauntuch were both among the 180 scientists, artists, and scholars awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City. McFarland, now in his 25th year in the department, holds the William and Bettye Nowlin Endowed Professorship in Photography. Brauntuch, an associate professor in studio art and internationally exhibited artist who most often works in paint and Conté crayon, joined the faculty in 1998.
� University of Texas student John Meyer has won the $20,000 grand prize in the annual George H. Mitchell Awards for Academic Excellence, presented by the University Co-op. Faculty members nominate undergraduates who have made “an uncommon contribution to their fields of study,” and a committee selects nine to receive cash awards. Meyer, nominated by Shakespeare at Winedale Director James Loehlin, was cited for his drama American Volunteers: A Play in Four Acts, which focuses on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and was staged in the FronteraFest Long Fringe this year.
This article appears in May 7 • 2010.