TRIO GAIA New England Conservatory’s newest Professional Trio-in-Residence, is dedicated to offering audiences dynamic, personally relevant experiences inside and outside the concert hall. Recently, the trio won 2nd prize in the 2021 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition and were awarded the Vianello Family Audience Prize in the Plowman National Chamber Music Competition. Previously, Trio Gaia served as an Honors Ensemble and Community Performances & Partnership fellows at NEC, in recognition of their work sharing classical music in the community. They have presented concerts at venues ranging from the historic Boston Public Library to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and have crafted educational content for the Panama Jazz Festival as well as local schools and senior homes. Trio Gaia was invited to Carnegie Hall’s Audience Engagement Intensive—presented in collaboration with Ensemble Connect—which allowed the trio to reach audiences across New York City with accessible, interactive performances. The trio has studied extensively with renowned artists Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, Donald Weilerstein, Merry Peckham, and Max Levinson. Additional mentors include cellists Lluis Claret and Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, and pianists Victor Rosenbaum and Orli Shaham. When not rehearsing or performing, you can find Trio Gaia shopping for new outfits or cooking together.
Old South Meeting House
ROBERT DAVID "KC" JOHNSON is a Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. In 2007-2008, he taught at Tel Aviv University as Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities. Professor Johnson received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard and his M.A. from the University of Chicago. His books include Congress and the Cold War, which was published by Cambridge University Press and won the D.B. Hardeman Prize. He has written widely on 20th and 21st century U.S. political, diplomatic, and legal affairs. LORI ERICKSON is Collections Manager and Registrar for Revolutionary Spaces. She manages the object collections and archives, overseeing collections care, planning, and documentation. Before arriving at Revolutionary Spaces, Lori held positions as Curator and Collections Manager, in addition to working as a museum collections and exhibitions consultant. She holds both a B.A. and an M.S. in anthropology with a focus on archaeology and museum studies.
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IVÁN ESPINOZA-MADRIGAL is the Executive Director of Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), an organization founded at the request of President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement. Iván has filed and won dozens of life-changing and law-changing cases on a wide range of civil rights issues, including immigrants’ rights and LGBT/HIV equality. His work is regularly featured in publications such as the New York Times. ROBERT DAVID JOHNSON is a Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. In 2007-2008, he taught at Tel Aviv University as Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities. Professor Johnson received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard and his M.A. from the University of Chicago. His books include Congress and the Cold War, which was published by Cambridge University Press and won the D.B. Hardeman Prize. He has written widely on 20th and 21st century U.S. political, diplomatic, and legal affairs. CHERYL CRAWFORD is the 1st Vice President of the NAACP-Boston Branch. She is a former Executive Board Chair of EmergeMA, a political leadership training program. Cheryl sits on the Women’s Pipeline for Change’s Oversight and Planning Board. She is an active member of the Order of the Eastern Star; a Prince Hall affiliated organization. She is a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Council on Racial Justice and Equity. Most recently she was appointed to the Citizens’ Commission on Constitutional Amendment, as well as a board member of American Promise. Before MassVOTE, Cheryl served as Campaign Manager and then Chief of Staff to State Representative Willie Mae Allen. Born in New York, Cheryl grew up in Boston; and is a graduate of Lesley College, Cambridge, MA.
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IVÁN ESPINOZA-MADRIGAL is the Executive Director of Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), an organization founded at the request of President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement. Iván has filed and won dozens of life-changing and law-changing cases on a wide range of civil rights issues, including immigrants’ rights and LGBT/HIV equality. His work is regularly featured in publications such as the New York Times. ROBERT DAVID JOHNSON is a Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. In 2007-2008, he taught at Tel Aviv University as Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities. Professor Johnson received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard and his M.A. from the University of Chicago. His books include Congress and the Cold War, which was published by Cambridge University Press and won the D.B. Hardeman Prize. He has written widely on 20th and 21st century U.S. political, diplomatic, and legal affairs. CHERYL CRAWFORD is the 1st Vice President of the NAACP-Boston Branch. She is a former Executive Board Chair of EmergeMA, a political leadership training program. Cheryl sits on the Women’s Pipeline for Change’s Oversight and Planning Board. She is an active member of the Order of the Eastern Star; a Prince Hall affiliated organization. She is a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Council on Racial Justice and Equity. Most recently she was appointed to the Citizens’ Commission on Constitutional Amendment, as well as a board member of American Promise. Before MassVOTE, Cheryl served as Campaign Manager and then Chief of Staff to State Representative Willie Mae Allen. Born in New York, Cheryl grew up in Boston; and is a graduate of Lesley College, Cambridge, MA.
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DR.KATHERINE GERGEN BARNETT is the Vice Chair of Primary Care Innovation and Transformation in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She is also an Clinical Associate Professor at Boston University School of Medicine and a fellow at BU’s Institute for Health System Innovation and Policy. She has become an active public voice in radio and television and a regular contributor to The Boston Globe opinion pages. Finally, she is actively involved in local and state health policy involved in addressing health inequities. CHRISTIAN DI SPIGNA is the author of Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero. He is the Executive Director of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation and also serves on the board of the Bunker Hill Monument Association. DR. SCOTT HARRIS PODOLSKYis a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Medical Library.
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MNEESHA GELLMAN is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College. Her research interests include comparative democratization, memory politics, and social movements in the Global South and the United States. She is the author of Democratization and Memories of Violence: Ethnic Minority Rights Movements in Mexico, Turkey, and El Salvador (2017), and the forthcoming Indigenous Language Politics in the Schoolroom: Culturecide and Resistance in Mexico and the United States (2023). She is the founder of the Emerson Prison Initiative, and serves as an expert witness in asylum hearings in US immigration court. PETER KRAUSE is Associate Professor of political science at Boston College and Research Affiliate with the MIT Security Studies Program. He is the author of Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win (Cornell University Press, 2017) and co-editor of Coercion: The Power to Hurt in International Politics (Oxford University Press, 2018), and Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science (Columbia University Press, 2020). More at peterjpkrause.com
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HENRY ADAMS currently serves as Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. A graduate of Harvard College, he received his M.A. and PH.D. from Yale, where he received the Frances Blanshard Prize for the best doctoral dissertation in art history. He is the author of over 500 publications in the field of American art ranging in time from the 17th century to the present. The painter Andrew Wyeth described his book Eakins Revealed as “without question, the most extraordinary biography I have ever read on an artist.” LARRY DICARA served on the Boston City Council for ten years and has been intimately involved with the development process in Boston for many decades. While on the City Council, he actively participated in many of the decisions which made Boston the city it is today: Quincy Market, Copley Place, Charlestown Navy Yard, etc. As an attorney in private practice, Larry represented a wide array of clients with matters in cities and towns across the Commonwealth. Hosted by PARIS ALSTON, co-host of Morning Edition at GBH News. She was a host of the NPR podcast “Consider This,” produced in conjunction with GBH and WBUR.
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ANDREW LEONG is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Dept. in the College of Liberal Arts at UMass Boston where he teaches legal studies, Latino and Asian American Studies. His specialty is on law, social justice, and equality pertaining to disenfranchised communities, with a focus on Asian Americans. He has been active in community and civil rights work, having served on the board of trustee of numerous Asian American and civil rights-related organizations. ANGIE LIOU is a seasoned community leader specializing in affordable housing and community development since 2004 and having served as the project lead on over $150 million worth of projects. Under her leadership, Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) has expanded its programs in housing support, resident and youth engagement and leadership, community planning, and placekeeping. In 2022, Angie was selected to serve on HUD’s Housing Counseling Federal Advisory Committee representing the Real Estate industry. LING-MEI WONG is a journalist with experience in ethnic media coverage and technical writing. She led a community paper, the Sampan, as the editor of a bilingual Chinese-English newspaper based in Boston’s Chinatown from 2012 to 2020. CYNTHIA YEE is an educator, writer, artist and artistic collaborator. She writes creative, nonfiction essays from the viewpoint of an American-born Taishanese girl coming of age in Boston’s Chinatown and Combat Zone through the 1950s and ’60s. She continues exploring the themes of what makes for thriving community life and child development, how structural racism oppresses, how feminism can be nurtured, and how social justice can look in America.
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SUZANNE BUCHANAN was first captivated by the history of material culture at the age of 14 when she discovered her grandmother’s illustrated history of the Tower of London. Prior to joining the Shirley-Eustis House in 2019, she worked at Historic New England. DR. EILEEN KA-MAY CHENG is an associate professor of history and the Sara Yates Exley Chair in Teaching Excellence at Sarah Lawrence College, where her courses include “Gaming the Past: Democracy and Dissent in the United States,” “The American Revolution,” and “‘The Founders’ in Film and Fiction.” She is the author of The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth: Nationalism and Impartiality in American Historical Writing, 1784-1860 and Historiography: An Introductory Guide; she has authored articles and book reviews for History and Theory, Journal of American History, Reviews in American History, and Journal of the Early Republic. DR. J. PATRICK MULLINS is a cultural and intellectual historian of the anglophone Atlantic World, focusing on America and England over the long eighteenth century, as well as Marquette’s Public History Director. A practicing public historian, he volunteers as the Exhibit Research Director for the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum and serves as project manager for his students’ work on museum exhibits, documentary films, historic preservation research, and websites in collaboration with museums, historical societies, and other community partners.
Old South Meeting House
PANELISTS Eric Gradoia is the Director of Preservation at Historic Deerfield whose primary field of study is 17th-19th century New England vernacular architecture and building materials. He has served as adjunct faculty at Rogers Williams University, sits on the board for the Historic Eastfield Foundation, and is a registered assessor with the American Institute for Conservation. Oliver Gerrish is a Cambridge University-trained architectural historian based in the United Kingdom who specialises in preservation. Oliver is an author and lecturer on English architecture and has led several preservation initiatives with the Georgian Group, Derbyshire Historic Buildings, and Historic Decorations, a group he founded with Lady Caroline Percy. Though a Briton, Oliver’s family ancestry includes one Thomas Gerrish, a Son of Liberty and a participant during Boston’s Destruction of the Tea at the Boston Tea Party! ======================== MODERATED BY: Dorothy Clark is an independent architectural historian who has extensively researched “forgotten histories” and colonial New England buildings. Dorothy is a professor at Boston Architectural College, an editor for Historic New England’s magazine, and sits on the Board of Directors at the Loring-Greenough House.
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