Musers

Musers & Performers

"Musings" is a time of thoughtful inspiration and introspection built into the heart of the busy Academy schedule each day. All participants assemble to think about the role of the arts in education and in life.

At each Musings session, an individual who is significantly involved in the arts acts as a muse and leads the group in examining the richness and depth that the arts add to the lives of all people. Well-known Musers who have led these sessions include Broadway composers Charles Strouse (Annie), Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line), and Henry Krieger (Dreamgirls); concert pianist Lorin Hollander; lyricists Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof), Dean Pitchford (Fame), and Joe DiPietro (Memphis); designer Patricia Zipprodt (My Fair Lady); authors Wilma Dykeman and Will D. Campbell; theatre critic John Simon; conductors Michael Stern, Isaiah Jackson, Giancarlo Guerrero and Robert Bernhardt; educator Graham Down; Emmy and Tony award-winning actress Cherry Jones; Shakespearean directors Adrian Hall and Tina Packer; Hollywood composers Richard Sherman (Mary Poppins) and George S. Clinton (Austin Powers); Broadway director Scott Ellis (1776); poet Nikki Giovanni; stage combat director David Leong (Carousel); filmmaker Jay Russell (My Dog Skip) and many others.

Craig Jessop

Monday, July 15, 2013

1:10PM

Craig Jessop is professor of music, head of the music and theatre arts departments, and dean of the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University. He is also the music director of the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra. These appointments follow Jessop’s distinguished tenure as music director of the world famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He concurrently serves as the music director of the Carnegie Hall National High School Choral Festival, sponsored by the Weill Institute of Music at Carnegie Hall. Prior to his appointment with the Tabernacle Choir, Jessop was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force music programs, where he served as director of the U.S. Air Force Singing Sergeants in Washington, D.C., as commander and conductor of the Band of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe at Ramstein, Germany, and as commander and conductor of the Air Combat Command Heartland of America Band. He lives in the peaceful setting of the Northern Utah Valley of Cache County with his wife RaNae.




Murray Riss

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

1:10PM

Murray Riss has been working in photography for most of his life and is one of the most acclaimed artists in the mid-south. He first moved to Memphis at the request of Ted Rust to establish a photography department at Memphis College of Art, where he has taught for almost twenty years. His work has been shown in group exhibitions at the George Eastman House Museum of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Orleans Museum of Art; and in solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In 1991, he was asked to organize and lead the fundraiser “Works of Heart,” benefiting the Child Advocacy Center—a project that received as much of his passion as the art he creates. And in 2004, Riss was asked by True Story Pictures to participate in their acclaimed project, The Arts Interviews, a series of in-depth, life story interviews with significant regional artists. Riss’s most recent project is a collection of photographs taken at various hunting clubs throughout the Delta region: “First Shooting Light: A photographic journal reveals the legacy and lure of hunting clubs in the Mississippi Flyway.”


Marc Cherry

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

1:10PM

Marc Cherry is a Hollywood writer and producer. He spent the early years of his childhood in Buena Park, California, and also lived briefly in Hong Kong and Iran. Cherry excelled in high school drama classes and went on to major in theatre at Cal State Fullerton. In the late 1980s, after winning $15,000 on the Dick Clark game show $100,000 Pyramid, Cherry took his winnings and moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in writing. He began his career as a personal assistant to Dixie Carter on the set of Designing Women, and early success as a writer soon followed. Most notably, his writer and producer credits include the beloved television classic The Golden Girls and its sequel, The Golden Palace. He also served as writer and executive producer on the television comedies Some of My Best Friends, The Crew, and The Five Mrs. Buchanans. Cherry got his second big break in 2004 when ABC and Touchstone Television picked up his original Desperate Housewives script for production. During its eight-year run, the show won seven Emmys, three Golden Globes, thirty-three additional awards, and more than one hundred nominations. Currently, Cherry is creator and executive producer of the highly anticipated new drama Devious Maids, which will premiere on Lifetime Television this summer.

Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley

Thursday, July 18, 2013

1:10PM

Together and individually, “Broadway’s Golden Couple,” Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley, have been delighting audiences around the world with their glorious voices, moving interpretations, and wonderful comic timing.  Mazzie is a three-time Tony award nominee and multiple award winner for her recent star turns on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and London’s West End in Next To Normal, Kiss Me, Kate, the musical Carrie, Monty Python’s Spamalot, Ragtime, Passion, Man of La Mancha, Into The Woods, Big River, and Kismet. Danieley has received multiple awards and nominations for creating starring roles on Broadway and the West End in the Pulitzer prize-winning musical Next to Normal, as well as in the musicals Curtains and The Full Monty. Danieley made his Broadway debut playing the title role in Candide and is a frequent guest of New York’s highly acclaimed City Center Encores! concert series. Together Mazzie and Danieley are frequent guest artists with American Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the New York Philharmonic. Several of their concert appearances have been featured on television, including their most recent special—featured on PBS’s Great Performances—Live at Lincoln Center: A Tribute to Kander and Ebb. Between the two of them, Mazzie and Danieley have received three Tony Award nominations, an Olivier Award nomination, a Drama Desk nomination, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Theatre World Award.