Tag: 1990

Hi all! Here’s what we have:

Victor Khodadad will be singing the role of Don Jose in Peter Brooks’ adaptation La tragedie de Carmen with New Camerata Opera in New York City this fall. Please visit www.newcamerataopera.org for more information. He recently saw Barry Levine for dinner and enjoyed reminiscing about the days of yore!

Jonathan Torop recently moved from UBS (after 11 years) to Morgan Stanley. “It’s a good change and I’m required to be in New York City twice a week, which is great because working from home was getting a bit boring. I’m also getting involved with AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, in order to maintain the bipartisan, pro-Israel consensus in Congress. In addition, I joined a group called the Israel Economic Forum that connects global businesspeople with Israel counterparts. We were in Spain in February where we spent time with members of Spain’s small Jewish community. We have a solidarity mission to Israel in June that I’m looking forward to.”

Peter Brastow and his wife, Carolyn (Gencarella), “are still swimming along—and getting along swimmingly. Thing 1 (Julian) does the ski-bum thing in Bend, Oregon, which will be followed by a stint on the local fire crew for the USFS this summer. Thing 2 (Kaden) will finish up at UCLA in June, and vamos a ver which road he chooses. Carolyn still has her toes in science education, doing a bit of work still for San Francisco Unified School District as well as teaching a class in the education department at San Francisco State University. I, myself, continue to try and save the world in my own little corner (the San Francisco Environment Department), while it otherwise goes to hell in a handbasket.” Peter added: “We’re getting a ton of rain again this winter—maybe won’t quite match last year—and the snow is coming down again in the Sierra, where I’m headed next weekend to ski with my sis.”

Peter and Carolyn regularly see Arieh Rosenbaum, his wife, Barbara, and their two children, who “live about a half mile away.” Their older child is graduating from high school. “Arieh continues to work at the intersection of medicine and information technology as the chief medical informatics officer for Brown and Toland.” Like Peter and Carolyn, he has dreams of retiring soon! In the meantime, he exercises even more than Peter does, and on April 14, completed a triathlon in Folsom, California, where he won his age group! Arieh and Peter, as usual, look forward to next year’s 35th (!) at Wes.

That’s all for now. I hope all of you have been enjoying the summer. Please write with any news or updates that you have.

Sharene Azimi has been “enjoying working at the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) as communications director since 2020. The job puts me in a movement of people working to provide credible news and information to every community—something we believe is important for, you know, the future of American democracy. In between work and raising my two boys as a divorced mom in the New Jersey exurbs, I’ve gone back to the things I love, like tango dancing, choir singing, and travel. I get together regularly with Miriam Temin, and I was delighted that Stephanie Donohue Pilla and Brian Gottesman came to the backyard dance party I threw for my second 50th birthday this summer.”

This spring, Victor Khodadad will be singing the role of Emperor Altoum with St. Petersburg Opera in Florida. He also continues his work with New Camerata Opera, a small, professional opera company based in New York City. Please learn more by visiting www.newcamerataopera.org. 

Andy Russell has been advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza and recently signed the alumni petition demanding that Wesleyan divest from companies profiting off Israeli occupation.

Hi all. There were some nice updates and Wes memories this time around.

Owen Renfroe fondly remembers: “Best film class: Film Noir, J. Basinger. Taught me nuts-and-bolts lessons about visual storytelling that I use every day at work! Best other class: Arts in America, Creeger/Reed. A glorious walk through American art. A real invitation to explore many great works of art that make up [and] express the American spirit. Who knew Phillip Sousa wrote all those marches!?!.”

Carol Cleverdon Booth recalls that some “of the best music I heard at Wes was in the Foss tunnels—friends jamming in a makeshift band, listening to Straight Ahead in that large underground space. Best classes: Intellectual History of the Enlightenment with Professor Henry Abelove and all my Russian classes. Favorite quote from Professor Irina Aleshkovsky as we first-year students were trying to master writing the Cyrillic alphabet in cursive: “Do not hurry as you write. Remember, time is money only in United States.” Professor Bob Whitman and I stayed in touch, and I am grateful he met my son before he passed.”

Susan Ellman writes that she and Stu ’88 “are well and almost ‘empty nesters.’ Our son, Ben, who was born around our 10th Reunion, works at a real estate private equity firm in New York. Our daughter, Lily, just completed a gap year in Israel and starts college this fall. Stu still works at the VC firm he founded after business school and I am doing a lot of fiction and essay writing in the quiet of this empty nest. It’s not completely quiet, though: Our newest baby is a tricolor corgi named Bamba. He’s very cute, smart, and if Stu could carry him around in a Baby Bjorn, I think he might . . . . A favorite Wesleyan memory? My Low Rise ‘10-Man’ threw an ‘anti-Valentine’s Day’ party, sophomore year. Everyone was instructed to wear black and we served a frightening concoction called Liquid Lust. Stu and I met at that party and started going out shortly after. Favorite course: Woolf, Cather, and Colette taught by Phyllis Rose.”

Victor Khodadad will be performing with New Camerata Opera this fall. More information is available at www.newcamerataopera.org. Victor’s “favorite class while I was at Wesleyan was Acting with Bill Francisco. He was unbelievably talented as a director and acting teacher, and each class was always something that I eagerly looked forward to and learned from immensely.”

That’s all for now. Please write me with any news you would like to share!

Ted Bardacke just completed his fifth year as CEO of Clean Power Alliance, the nation’s largest provider of 100% renewable energy, with over 1 million customers in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Ted recently “spent an evening in LA with my thrice-Wes roommate Robert Featherstone ’89, who is shooting a documentary on the history of Ultimate. And still always find time to visit a few times a year with fellow SoCal Wes grads David Igler ’88 and Cynthia Willard ’88, with whom we are currently commiserating about the (hellish, for the parents) college application process for our four boys around the same age.”

Speaking of the college application process, I loved being back on campus last September with my youngest child, high school junior Camryn. Camryn and I toured campus and attended the information session, but the highlight of our visit was meeting up with Sarah Ellenzweig’s oldest son Charlie ’25, who is currently loving his sophomore year at Wes.

Finally, we were saddened to learn of the passing of our classmate Laurie Harrison. As written by Marc McKayle ’88, Laurie was “brilliant, charismatic, funny and authentic.” We extend sincere condolences to Laurie’s friends and family.

Wishing all of you health and happiness this summer.

Hi all. It was pretty quiet this time around. Here’s what we have:

In September, Lawrence Jackson’s sixth book, Hold It Real Still: Clint Eastwood, Race, and the Cinema of the American West, was published, and he welcomed Andy McGadney ’92, president of Knox College, to the advisory board of the Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts at Johns Hopkins. “In September we hosted our fourth annual free jazz concert in Lafayette Square in Baltimore’s historic jazz district, and featured Ian Friday ’87 on the turntables. With Andy’s help, I am looking forward to opening a stand-alone, community-owned, Holiday Center in West Baltimore by 2025, specializing in historical preservation, Black history, and the arts. Bob O’Meally, who was my first professor at Wes, is giving my spring 2023 Donald Bentley Address at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where I am also curating an exhibit of rare Billie Holiday materials. Best of all, my roommate, classmate, and line brother, Alan Smith, co-hosted a reception with me in Baltimore to raise money for a book scholarship in my dad’s (and oldest son’s) name for African Americans at Loyola-Blakefield High School. I encourage my classmates, many of whom met my father, to give generously to the Nathaniel Jackson Jr. Memorial Book Scholarship by emailing Loyola’s director of giving Lisa Kenney,  lkenney@loyolablakefield.org. I hope everyone already has a copy of Shelter: A Black Tale of Homeland Baltimore, which also came out this year.”

Sue Rodrigue McFarland writes that the best part of her autumn “was a leadership conference in San Diego that allowed me to pop up to the Bay Area to spend a couple of days with Julia Erwin-Weiner, Carolyn Gencarella, and Maria Poveromo. It was great to see them and spend some time in the City by the Bay. The weather was gorgeous and Carolyn was a fantastic tour guide!”

Joshua Israel enjoyed family weekend at Wesleyan this fall where his oldest son is a first-year student. He is a physician in Washington, D.C. This past summer he enjoyed a visit with Douglas Remillard ’91 at his home in Mauritius.

We were saddened to learn that our classmate Andrew Borsanyi passed away on May 30, 2022. We extend sincere condolences to his friends and family. Please feel free to share any memories of Andrew for upcoming class notes.

Wishing you all good health and happiness. Hope to hear from you in 2023.

Hi all! Here’s what we have since our last issue:

Alfredo Viegas writes that his oldest Alessandra ’20 “will be heading to USC this August to start her MFA and we will be making it a cross-country drive from NYC. Along the way we will meet up with my other daughter, Ariana, who will be a rising junior at Colorado College. My son Alex will also be a rising junior at Boston University. Likely, there is grad/professional school for the other two so it looks like no early retirement for me!”

Amy Zucker Morgenstern is going back to school to pursue a Doctor of Ministry in theology and the arts at the United Theological School of the Twin Cities, while continuing as a minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, California, where she has been since 2003. “I want to use art to further energize my congregation’s justice work. When I double majored in religious studies and studio art and did political work at Wes, I never imagined how those three threads would keep intertwining all these years later.” Amy also wrote that she was sad to learn of the death last month of retired professor of religion, Jeremy Zwelling. I would add here that while I was not a religious studies major at Wes, I share wonderful memories of Professor Zwelling, his personal kindness and his passionate and insightful teaching.

Victor Khodadad “will be singing the roles of Faust and Gonzalve in a French double bill of Lili Boulanger’s Faust et Helene and Maurice Ravel’s L’heure espagnole with New Camerata Opera in September of 2022. The production will take place at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn, New York, and will be sung in French and accompanied by orchestra. Please visit www.newcamerataopera.org for more information. Victor is a member of the company’s Artistic Committee and helps to lead the company with all elements of production including its children’s opera branch Camerata Piccola and its online video opera branch CamerataWorks.”

Tim Hintz is still living in Brookline, Massachusetts, and has been working as a counselor at one of the schools in town, “so I have a miniscule commute and then often keep in touch with people on my longer, after-school walks. I talked about schools and kids with Amy Robins of Milton, Massachusetts, and kvetch about local politics with Denise Casper, who lives in Brookline as well. I was reminded this year of the column that Andrew Siff wrote about me, Bill Sherman, and Andy Spear our senior year at Wes. We were rather enthusiastic and vocal fans of Wesleyan football, which seemingly made for good copy for the Argus. In 2022, I have been fortunate to visit all three of them in their homes—Spear is in his hometown of Berkeley, California, teaching high school; Siff is in NYC reporting on the news (he and I attended the middle-age sing-along at Madison Square Garden known as the Billy Joel residency. Siff is still 100 % on his game in Billy Joel knowledge). I finally saw Bill in Seattle at the end of a camping trip to Alaska with my family. He is still working hard for the attorney general to make sure that Washington’s air and water is clean. Also working hard is Meg Steele, whose history tours of Bath, Maine, are a must if you are visiting the MidCoast region.”

In April, Stephanie Donohue Pilla started a new job as assistant director of leadership giving at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. “If any of you attended or your kids attend/ed, please reach out to me; I’d love to connect!  In May, I spent a lovely afternoon in downtown NYC with Cameron Gearen ’91who was in the city for a wedding. In early August, I was in San Francisco, via Hawaii, and had lunch with Carolyn Gencarella. She had just returned from a trip to Spain and Portugal with Peter Brastow. Unfortunately, I didn’t see Peter because he was still in Europe on sabbatical. Their oldest son graduated from Lewis & Clark last spring and their younger son is a junior at UCLA. At the end of August, I spent time with Janet Hamada and her family for a few days in between East Coast college visits for her daughter who is a senior in high school. In September, my daughter started high school at Convent of the Sacred Heart, an all-girls independent school where Peggy Savino serves as the head of the Upper School!”

I’m sending in these notes as I head to Cape Cod for a week away with my husband David and three children (Eliza, 24; Jack, 21; and Camryn, 16). Summer will be long over by the time you are reading these notes, so signing off, I wish you all a fall/winter of health and happiness. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Hi all.  Here’s what we have:

Dave Dowsett writes from Portland, where he is practicing dentistry and focused on the connection between oral and systemic health—understanding how the mouth bacterial biome plays a role in disease and health. “It’s a cool, geeky way to really think about prevention rather than simply early diagnosis and treatment. I think my true love with health-care practice is caring for athletes of all ages and their unique needs. I am currently the secretary for the Academy for Sports Dentistry—a group of about 250 dentists across North America, who spend a lot of time making sure athletes are safe, performing at their best, and fixing them up when trauma happens. I’m looking after kids’ soccer clubs, my daughter’s high school teams, the Portland Winterhawks WHL/CHL hockey team, and even a few Olympians. It can be really fun, and you get to meet amazing people from all around the globe.”

Dave is “still married to his dental school love, Kristi (who stopped practicing almost 18 years ago after our first was born). She was raised in Honolulu, and we have been so very lucky to have spent lots of time there with her family over the years. I have three kiddos: Kekoa (15-year-old boy), a sophomore at my alma mater Jesuit HS—he is all theater, math, and art. Currently, he is playing the part of Sheldon Plankton in the upcoming performance of SpongeBob, the Musical in March. I see him at Wes so perfectly. Lehua (17-year-old girl), a junior at all-girls St. Mary’s Academy and a soccer nut. We watched the Wes women this fall make it to the national semis. Super cool.  We have a neighbor whose granddaughter is going to Wes next fall to play and this has really piqued Lehua’s interest, sooo . . . we’ll see. Maile (19-year-old young woman) is a first year at American University in DC, studying chemistry. She really wants to be a forensic scientist and would love to be Abby on the show NCIS.  She loves DC and the East Coast, so I may have lost her. . . .  When Kristi and I dropped her off last August, Laurie Malkin came down to spend the weekend. Had an absolute blast exploring the city, the food, laughing, and reconnecting. In fact, Maile and Laurie hit it off so well that Maile spent a good part of Thanksgiving break in Jersey and in NYC. She even got to go skating in Central Park and hang out with Bethel Gottlieb and her kids. I am still jealous.

“We plan to be back out visiting at spring break, in an attempt to do the college-tour thing. And the Broadway thing. And the trip-down-memory-lane thing.  Please COVID, give it a rest.”

The older daughter of Edward Ungvarsky and Olivia Smith ’91 is off to New York City next fall to Fordham University—Lincoln Center Campus, with an intended major of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies and a fashion marketing minor. “Yowza, they say! The kids and staff at Bridges Public Charter School, which Olivia founded to support children with and without special needs, have weathered COVID-19 well.” Ed walks their pandemic shelter rottweiler and practices some law.

Catharina (Lina) Schuetz (Will) writes from Dresden, Germany, with news that her eldest, Florian, joined the class of 2025 at Wes. “He is lucky to have real classes with live faculty, and is enjoying himself immensely . . .  I get nostalgic when he sends pictures from campus.”

Finally, congratulations to entrepreneur Raquel Graham who pitched her company Roq Innovation, which she founded in 2014, on Shark Tank in January, and landed a deal with two of the Sharks!  Raquel’s company creates innovative apparel accessories. The cаtаlog includes Nekz, а more mаnаgeаble аnd less cumbersome аlternаtive to scаrves; Heаdlightz Beаnies, which hаve а powerful light аttаched to them; and light-up gloves аnd heаdbаnds. Rаquel hаs been written up in Forbes and has аppeаred on Good Morning Americа аnd The View. Her products have been sold on the Home Shopping Network and featured on Mаrthа Stewаrt’s Americаn Mаde and on Oprаh’s Fаvorite Things lists. Raquel wants to keep innovating exciting products that make a real difference in people’s lives and plans to launch three new products in new categories. You can watch a clip of Raquel on Shark Tank at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkmfiS0GD9M. And this just in, Raquel was invited to speak at Wesleyan’s TedX event in April.

Wishing you all a wonderful summer and, as always, looking forward to hearing from you!

Hello, all.  It was nice to hear from a bunch of new people this time around. Here’s the latest:

Alexis Roberts writes that she, Chris Roberts ’89, and 16-year-old India are moving to Los Angeles for Chris’s new job at the UCLA School of Law (daughter Beatrix ’22 is a senior at Wes and daughter Willa is a sophomore at McGill). They are looking forward to spending lots of time with Liza Maizlish, Ted Skillman ’91, Dan Partland ’92, Ben Brand ’92, and other Wes friends!

In March, John Rasmussen and Krittika Onsanit ’91 met for dinner with another Wes couple, Carolyn Clark and David Patterson, who were in Richmond on one stop of their daughter’s college tour. “We picked a large redbrick restaurant with columns for dinner, so that we could pretend we were on the Olin steps.”

Jonah Pesner’s “happiest update is that my daughter Noa Pesner ’24 had a great first year, culminating with a trip to NCAA finals as part of Wes Women’s Crew who placed fourth overall!”

Meg Steele has launched a walking tour business in her town of Bath, Maine, which was just named one of the “best small towns in America” by Smithsonian Magazine! (Website and social media are Embark Maine Tours.) Meg invites all Wes friends that find themselves nearby to come for a tour!

David Steingart is living in Tallahassee, Florida. “I am a practicing psychotherapist and I have a nine-year-old son. It’s hot.”

Victor Khodadad will be singing the role of Turiddu in New Camerata Opera’s live, fall production of Il Borgo Siciliano. This production will be a unique, 90-minute version of the popular operatic double bill of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. The score was prepared by stage director John de los Santos, conductor Sam McCoy, and dramaturg Cori Ellison, and was presented on September 23rd, 25th, 30th and October 2nd at The Muse in Bushwick, Brooklyn. More information is available at www.newcamerataopera.org.

Jennie Bauduy recently got to catch up with “my still dear friend Rona Cohen, who lives with her family in Montclair, New Jersey, and educates and advises state officials on clean energy and climate policy. I generally keep close tabs on my buddies Meg Fry ’91 and Mike Novak, both doing well with their teenage son in Queens, New York, and planning their next adventure biking trip. I am also very happy to still be in touch with Professor Alex Dupuy (we discovered we were cousins at Wesleyan), who is doing very well with his wife in Middletown. My own son is headed to Brown in the fall. He has some longtime friends headed to Wesleyan, so I’m expecting some back and forth between the two campuses. I’ve been working as a journal editor for many years in Washington, D.C., and have recently returned to focusing on my own writing. This year, I published a memoir essay in the Maine Review.”

Carolyn Vellenga Berman, who is associate professor of Literature, chair of Literature and co-chair of Literary Studies at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School, wrote to say that she and her husband Greg (’89) “were delighted to attend the in-person graduation of our daughter Hannah ’21 from Wesleyan this spring. Our daughter Milly ’24 will be a sophomore this fall; she’s looking forward to a post-vaccination campus life.” Carolyn’s second book, Dickens and Democracy in the Age of Paper, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2022. “I enjoyed stopping by the Center for the Humanities on campus, remembering how I first got a taste for the life of a scholar.”

Finally, on July 2nd, just as I was wrapping up these notes, I received the wonderful news from James Rosenblatt that “this morning we welcomed our first grandson!  Theodore Rudy Preblich was born to our daughter and her husband. Everyone is happy and healthy but a little tired.”

On that happy note, I wish all of you happiness and health and, as always, look forward to hearing from you.