Alumni Notes
In 2023, Leah Claiborne (MM ’14, DMA ’18, piano pedagogy & performance) was named one of Yamaha’s “40 under 40,” a list of the most influential music educators in America, and was an SMTD Alumni Award winner. She received early promotion with tenure at the University of the District of Columbia.
A 2022 Tony nominee for excellence in arts education, Janeece Freeman Clark (BM ’99, voice) serves on the faculty at Manhattan School of Music and Seton Hall University, and she is the founding, producing, and artistic director of Vanguard Theater Company in Montclair, New Jersey. Freeman Clark is a 2023 SMTD Alumni Award winner.
An educator, dancer, and choreographer, Erika “Red” Stowall (BFA ’08, dance) is a 2023 SMTD Alumni Award winner. She is currently the dance teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Detroit, her alma mater. Stowall is the founder and current artistic director of Big Red Wall Dance Company.
Creative producer Thomas Laub (BFA ’19, musical theatre) is a 2023 SMTD Alumni Award winner. Laub founded Runyonland Productions in 2018 and has produced over 50 new plays and musicals on Broadway and across the country. He is also co-founder of Standing Room Theatrical Solutions, an agency that promotes accessibility in the arts with data-driven solutions.
Yoshiko Iwai (BFA ’18, BS ’18), who double-majored in dance and neuroscience, is a medical student now heading to a residency in general surgery at Harvard Medical School/ Massachusetts General Hospital. She shared insights on her career path in the Winter 2024 Michigan Muse.
Rob Bisel (BS ’14, sound engineering) served as a producer, songwriter, instrumentalist, engineer, and mixer on SZA’s album SOS, the 2024 Grammy Award winner for Best Progressive R&B Album. The album included two songs also honored: “Ghost in the Machine” by SZA and featuring Phoebe Bridgers won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and “Snooze” won Best R&B Song.
David Newton (BM ’16, percussion), Jameson Eisele (BFA ’15, performing arts technology), and Patterson McKinney (BM ’15, MM ’17, percussion) launched Sly Pup Productions – a multimedia production company – in 2016. In the Winter 2023 Michigan Muse, Eisele and Newton share how they helped SMTD meet a surging demand for video recording and livestreaming since the pandemic.
Kara Dupuy-McCauley (BM ’04, music technology and piano performance) is now a Mayo Clinic pulmonologist with a specialty in sleep medicine. She is collaborating with her former professor Stephen Rush and performing arts technology students on a research study highlighted in the Winter 2023 Michigan Muse.
In fall 2022, Josephinex Hansis, BFA ’06 (performing arts technology, media arts), released the EP Playing The Victim with their band, Godmother, accompanied by a music video for the song “I’ll Never Learn” and a concert at the Berghain Kantine in their homebase of Berlin.
Brendan Ryan (BFA ’21, dance) is a professional choreographer, dance instructor, and a Los Angeles Rams cheerleader since 2021. He discussed his community service experiences in the Winter 2024 Michigan Muse.
Violinist Yuki Numata Resnick (MM ’06, violin, chamber music) began her career performing and recording around the globe. She co-founded Buffalo String Works in 2014, improving youth access to music education, and she became director of arts and culture at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo in 2023.
Ned Hanlon (MM ’08, SM ’10, voice) – a member of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus since 2014 and the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) since 2009 – was elected AGMA president in June 2023. Hanlon also founded a nonprofit that raised nearly $750,000 to support out-of-work artists during the pandemic.