BULLETIN YOUNG MUSICIANS WINTER 2017 In this ISSUE 23 WINTER 2017 34 34 Swept Up in Sound The Working Lives of Four Young Professional Musicians By Bonnie Blackburn-Penhollow ’84 DEPARTMENTS 3 On Main Hall 5 Taft Trivia 6 Alumni Spotlight 44 13 In Print Making Art Real 14 Around the Pond For nearly 20 years, the Rockwell 28 Sports Visiting Artists Program has helped 52 Alumni Notes bring the arts to life at Taft. 91 Milestones By Julie Reiff 44 27 m Taft’s fall theater production, Shrek the Musical, offered stunning set design, highly technical production and choreography, and make-up challenges that include prosthetic pieces to create its whimsical characters. Taft Bulletin / WINTER 2017 1 On Main Hall A WORD FROM HEADMASTER WILLY MACMULLEN ’78 WINTER 2017 Volume 87, Number 2 EDITOR Linda Hedman Beyus DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS AT THE TABLE: ON STRIVING FOR ROBUST AND RESPECTFUL DEBATE Kaitlin Thomas Orfitelli It will not surprise you that this fall, with its unprecedented presidential election, we had a ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Debra Meyers challenging and productive campus dialogue. We work very hard each year to create a community with a really diverse student body, with the kind of difference of perspective and experience PHOTOGRAPHY you would expect with 600 bright students from all over the nation and the world. That kind of Robert Falcetti community will inevitably have robust debate, disagreement, and discussion, and these things are ALUMNI NOTES EDITOR the very foundation of a good education and a necessary rehearsal for democratic citizenship. After Hillary Dooley all, each day in the classroom is about exploring contesting views—be it a discussion of Macbeth or a DESIGN calculus solution—and that exercise inevitably, and healthily, spilled into the campus dialogue about ON THE COVER Good Design, LLC | www.gooddesignusa.com the issues that dominated the presidential campaign. So, there was a lot of discussion this fall. Freddy Gonzalez ’05 performing with the But saying that the conversation is happening does not mean that it is an easy one to have. Underground Horns in New York City in 2013; SEND ALUMNI NEWS TO | After all, there were plenty of American families who found themselves arguing emotionally over one of our four young professional musicians Taft Bulletin Alumni Office The Taft School the Thanksgiving table. If you think of the Taft campus as a really big family at a really big table, in the feature on page 34. SEAN T. SMITH 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 you can easily imagine how much more challenging this can be. And so we, too, as a school, had to [email protected] work really hard to find ways to disagree productively, listen respectfully, and speak thoughtfully. DEADLINES FOR ALUMNI NOTES But if you believe in the basic goodness and intelligence of students, faculty, and staff, and if Spring–February 15 | Summer–May 15 | Fall–August 30 | Winter–November 15 you believe as well that a strong institution is one with the capacity to hold really diverse views together, then good things can happen. ONLINE SEND ADDRESS CORRECTIONS TO Taft | I found a couple of books helpful. Sharon Crowley, an Arizona State University English Cathy Mancini Alumni Records Find a friend or past Bulletin: The Taft School professor, argues in Toward a Civil Discourse that the ancient art of rhetoric, the skill of finding taftalumni.com 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 means of persuasion, can serve us well as we work to manage competing claims in the civic sphere. [email protected] Properly exercised, rhetoric, Crowley writes, “allows those who are familiar with [its concepts Visit us on your phone: taftschool.org/m 860-945-7777 | WWW.TAFTALUMNI.COM and vocabulary] to intervene fruitfully in disputes and disagreements.” Positions are changed, ideas are modified, and often agreement is uncovered. What happened at today’s game? COMMENTS? TELL US! Debate conducted in this way is productive. To engage in a rhetorical discussion, Crowley says, taftsports.com We’d love to hear what you think about the stories in this Bulletin. We may edit your letters for length, clarity, and content, but please write. obligates you to very hard work, to be willing to submit your claims to inquiry and dispute, to Shop online: taftstore.com Linda Hedman Beyus, editor respect and encounter opposition, and perhaps to risk having your mind changed. These are Taft Bulletin all good lessons for Taft students. Here’s how she puts it: “[Rhetorical] argument…requires an 110 Woodbury Road facebook.com/thetaftschool Watertown, CT 06795-2100 advocate to recognize that an opponent has a position on the issue at hand….[and] it requires will- [email protected] ingness to be addressed by another.” It’s good counsel for a school. twitter.com/taftschool The second book was Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. The Taft Bulletin (ISSN 0148-0855) is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November, by The Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100, It’s more of a corporate guidebook, but it was helpful for us as well. The authors seemed to and is distributed free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of the school. instagram.com/taftschool understand what members of a community like ours carry when we enter these kinds of All rights reserved. bit.ly/taftlinkedin “We…as a school, had to work really hard vimeo.com/taftschool to find ways to disagree productively, Explore Taft: get the app on iTunes listen respectfully, and speak thoughtfully.” Please recycle this Bulletin or share with a friend. 2 Taft Bulletin / WINTER 2017 Taft Bulletin / WINTER 2017 3 FROM THE Headmaster Campus LENS Students engage in a lively discussion with the authors of All American Boys, Taft’s all- school summer reading selection. conversations and write, “Any time we feel vulnerable or our self-esteem is implicated, when the issues at stake are important and the outcome uncertain, when we care deeply about what is being discussed or about the people with whom we are discussing it, there is potential for us to experience the conversation as difficult.” Taft TRIVIA When I shared that quotation with the school leaders, they agreed that every phrase in the Who donated this fine beast to Taft, and where is it located? sentence was “spot on” at Taft—and very helpful. The authors also note how important it is to Send your guess to the editor ([email protected]). “We are still have realistic goals, something all of us on campus needed to be reminded of: “Achieving perfect The winner, whose name will be randomly chosen, will win a surprise Taft gift. gathered together, results with no risk will not happen. Getting better results in the face of tolerable odds might.” . And they argue that we see these difficult conversations as the sharing of stories: “We have c Congratulations to Roger Stacey, trying to make ? former Taft faculty member different stories about the world because we take in different information and interpret this intellectual elbow (English), who, along with several information in our unique ways.” others, correctly guessed that room for everyone, We stumbled some, experienced strong emotions, learned a lot. It was not easy, and we were the bronze sculpture is in an debate fiercely and not “perfect,” whatever that means. After all, on a campus like ours, this hard work never ends. alcove opposite the Mark W. But we might close with that metaphor of the table, and it’s one we have used all year. Horace Potter Gallery. No, the sculptor respectfully, and is not Remington, as some Taft opened the school with a handful of students sitting together at a dining room table in thought—it is by Joy Clinton listen seriously and Pelham Manor in 1890, and at our most essential level, not much has changed. We are still Shepherd in 1928 and was empathically.” teachers and students, if more in number, and more diverse and inclusive, but we are still donated by the Fownes family. gathered together, trying to make intellectual elbow room for everyone, debate fiercely and respectfully, and listen seriously and empathically. CORRECTION In our fall issue’s Alumni Spotlight article “Rocket Woman,” on pages 10–11, we neglected to include the byline of Julie Reiff, former editor of this magazine. Willy MacMullen ’78 4 Taft Bulletin / WINTER 2017 Taft Bulletin / WINTER 2017 5 Alumni SPOTLIGHT like a jet engine on the inside, and create puzzle. As he explains, he and his col- energy succeed despite the years of hard SPOTLIGHT this massive amount of energy.” leagues are constantly discovering better work ahead. He credits one particularly Alumni As a freshman at Southern Methodist ways to power communities. “We have the impactful experience at Taft for instill- University, Klein had another career path technology, and we know how to apply it, ing him with this exceptional drive. As he in mind. “When I first went into school, but on our end it’s all about how to apply remembers, “There was one day that we engineering was not what I wanted to go technology in the best way that gets the were in precalculus, and no one was really into,” Klein says. “I was more interested in most efficient product for not only our paying attention. Mr. Richards just raised business or management.” But in the back clients, but also for the general public and his voice and said, ‘You guys have to pay Building Energy’s of his mind, he couldn’t shake his early for these local communities.