Opera, Theater and Festival Director Peter Sellars to Speak at School of Visual Arts 2015 Commencement Exercises

Thursday, May 14, 2015, 10:00am and 2:00pm

The Theater at Madison Square Garden, 4 Pennsylvania Plaza

Private event; Press seats available at 212.592.2010 or proffice@sva.edu

Mar 25, 2015, New York, NY—School of Visual Arts announced today that visionary opera, theater and festival director Peter Sellars has accepted the College’s invitation to speak at this year’s commencement exercises. The ceremonies for graduate and undergraduate degree candidates will be held on Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 10:00am and 1:00pm, respectively, at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York City. The events are ticketed and open to students and invited guests only; they will be streamed live at www.sva.edu/commencement.

Peter Sellars has gained renown worldwide for his groundbreaking and transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces and for his collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative artists across three decades. Whether it is Bach, Mozart, Handel, Shakespeare, Sophocles or the 16th-century Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, Peter Sellars strikes a universal chord with audiences, engaging and illuminating contemporary social and political issues.Sellars has staged operas at the Glyndebourne Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Netherlands Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Salzburg Festival, San Francisco Opera and Teatro Real, among others, establishing a reputation for bringing 20th-century and contemporary operas to the stage including works by Olivier Messiaen, Paul Hindemith and György Ligeti. Inspired by the compositions of Kaija Saariaho, Osvaldo Golijov, Günther Liebenstraus and Tan Dun, he has guided the creation of productions of their work that have expanded the repertoire of modern opera. Sellars has been a driving force in the creation of many new works with longtime collaborator, composer John Adams, including Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, Doctor Atomic and A Flowering Tree. A staging of their latest work, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, was seen in the United States and in Europe in 2013 and 2014.

Sellars’ projects in recent years have included critically acclaimed concert stagings of J.S. Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion and Saint John Passion with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, performed in Berlin, Salzburg, Baden-Baden, Lucerne, London and New York; a staging of Nixon in China for the Metropolitan Opera; and new productions of Handel’s Hercules in Chicago and Toronto, and Vivaldi’s Griselda in Santa Fe. Desdemona, a collaboration with the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and Malian composer and singer Rokia Traore, was performed in several major cities in Europe and the United States and presented in London as part of the Cultural Olympiad. In 2012, Sellars directed a double bill of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Stravinsky’s Persephone for Teatro Real in Madrid. For the 2013 Manchester International Festival, he staged “Michelangelo Sonnets,” a program of Shostakovich and Bach. A recent production of The Indian Queen, combining Purcell’s music with text and dance, had its premiere at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre in 2013 and was presented subsequently by Teatro Real and the English National Opera.

Sellars has led several major arts festivals including the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles Festivals; the 2002 Adelaide Arts Festival in Australia; and the 2003 Venice Biennale International Festival of Theater in Italy. In 2006 he was artistic director of New Crowned Hope, a month-long festival in Vienna for which he invited international artists from diverse cultural backgrounds to create new work in the fields of music, theater, dance, film, the visual arts and architecture for the city’s celebration of Mozart’s 250th birth anniversary. Sellars is a professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and resident curator of the Telluride Film Festival. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Erasmus Prize, the Polar Music Prize, the Sundance Institute Risk-Takers Award and the Gish Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been honored by the American Academy in Rome and Opera News magazine.

Peter Sellars will join a distinguished group of leaders in the arts, humanities and public service who have spoken at SVA’s commencement exercises in past years, including United States Congressman John Lewis, cultural critic Greil Marcus, multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, playwrights Edward Albee and Tony Kushner, historian Robert A. Caro, Governor Mario Cuomo, biologist Dr. Gerald Edelman, opera singer Ronan Tynan and actor B.D. Wong as well as New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd, Nicholas Kristof and Frank Rich.

SVA President David Rhodes will confer BFA, MA, MAT, MFA and MPS degrees on more than 1,100 degree candidates in SVA’s 2015 graduation class at the commencement exercises.

School of Visual Arts is a comprehensive college of art and design offering the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in advertising; animation; cartooning; computer art, computer animation and visual effects; design; film and video; fine arts; illustration; interior design; photography; and visual and critical studies; Master of Fine Arts in art criticism and writing; art practice; computer art; design; design for social innovation; fine arts; illustration as visual essay; interaction design; photography, video and related media; products of design, social documentary film; and visual narrative; the degree of Master of Professional Studies in art therapy; branding; digital photography; directing; and fashion photography; the degree of Master of Arts in critical theory and the arts; curatorial practice; and design research, writing and criticism; and the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching in art education.

SVA alumni include Guy Aroch, Renée Cox, Paul Davis, Sal DeVito, Michael Giacchino, Genevieve Gorder, Rodney Alan Greenblat, Pete Hamill, Keith Haring, Julia Hoffmann, Justine Kurland, Suzanne McClelland, Patrick McDonnell, Elizabeth Peyton, Alexis Rockman, Carlos Saldanha, Harris Savides, Kenny Scharf, Yuko Shimizu, Amy Sillman, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson and Sarah Sze.

School of Visual Arts has been a leader in the education of artists, designers and creative professionals for more than six decades. With a faculty of distinguished working professionals, a dynamic curriculum and an emphasis on critical thinking, SVA is a catalyst for innovation and social responsibility. Comprised of more than 6,000 students at its Manhattan campus and 35,000 alumni in 100 countries, SVA also represents one of the most influential artistic communities in the world. For information about the College’s 32 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, visit sva.edu.

Media Contact: Michael Grant, mgrant@sva.edu, 212.592.2011.