College announces 2010 Alumni Award Winners

Released: April 24, 2010

Lincoln, Neb. - The University of Nebraska–Lincoln Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts announces the recipients of the 2010 Fine and Performing Arts Alumni Board alumni awards. The awards are selected by the college’s Fine and Performing Arts Alumni Board.

The awards will be presented at the College’s annual Honors Day Dinner on Saturday, April 24 at 5 p.m. in the Nebraska Union. The dinner is by invitation only.

Alumni Achievement Award in Art

Gomez received her B.F.A. in 1985 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and her M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis in 1989. She opened Gomez Art Supply in Lincoln in 2003. She is also the founder of Tugboat Gallery in 2005, which is currently located above Gomez Art Supply on 14th Street in Lincoln, which provides showing opportunities for emerging artists as well as established professionals. The goal of Tugboat, as a non-commission gallery, is to exhibit high quality exciting artwork. Gomez’s own recent exhibitions include “Have a Nice Life, no really” at the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery in 2008, “Drawing:  Selected Works by Norman Geske” at Modern Arts Midwest in 2008 and “Paper Dolls” at Pulp in Omaha. Gomez received the Mixed Media Award from the Berkeley Art Center at the University of California at Berkeley in 1991. She was the recipient of the Coleman Printmaking Award, Vreeland Award in Visual Arts and Faulkner Award while a student at UNL. She has taught drawing and printmaking in the Department of Art and Art History.

Alumni Achievement Award in Music:

Hansen is director of Choral Activities and head of Graduate Choral Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Widely known as a conductor and master teacher throughout the United States and in Europe, Hansen is a regular guest conductor for the Romanian National Radio Choir (Bucharest), and has led guest performances with the Gächinger Kantorei and Bach Collegium-Stuttgart, the Stockholm Conservatory Chamber Choir, the Moldavian and Oltenian Philharmonic Choirs (Iasì and Craiova, Romania), and the University of Regensburg (Germany) Symphony Orchestra. She led the first International Choral Conducting Master Class in Bucurest in September 2003, returning for the second such class in September 2004. Hansen received her D.M.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, her M.M. from UNL and her B.M. from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She is author of the book Helmuth Rilling: Conductor— Teacher, and is currently a member of the editorial board of the Choral Journal, where she is founder and editor of the series "On the Voice," dedicated to issues of vocal health and pedagogy. Hansen is also the founder and music director of the Milwaukee Choral Artists, the only professional women’s vocal ensemble in the Midwest.

Alumni Achievement Award in Theatre

Stark is the Head of the Design/Production Area for the School of Theatre at Illinois State University in Normal, Ill. He received his B.S. from Wayne State College in 1977 and his M.F.A. in Scene Design from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1982. Stark joined Illinois State in 1991 after teaching at Illinois Wesleyan University and Arizona State University, where he was named College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teacher of the Year in 1990. He is a member of the United Scenic Artists and he has designed professionally for Drury Lane Theatre, The Next Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Sacramento Theatre Company, Nebraska Repertory Theatre, Pennsylvania Center Stage, Famous Door Theatre, Noble Fool Theatricals, Victory Garden’s Theatre and the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. His design for Famous Door Theatre’s "The Living" won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Scenic Design in 1997.

Award of Merit:

Kozak is an actress and author. Born in Pennsylvania, she was raised in Nebraska and attended New York University. She has starred in such movies as The Favor, Parenthood, When Harry Met Sally. . . , Arachnophobia and All I Want for Christmas. She also starred in the soap operas Texas, Guiding Light and Santa Barbara. She has performed for the Nebraska Repertory Theatre, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof( 1995) and Lost in Yonkers (1996) and starred in the first Carson Film Series film, Vipers in the Grass, which is currently in post-production. She has written four novels:  Dating Dead Men, Dating is Murder:  A Novel, Dead Ex and A Date You Can’t Refuse, all of which feature greeting card designer and amateur sleuth Wollie Shelley, a woman with very eccentric friends and family. Dating Dead Men received an Agatha Award for best first novel in 2004.

Undergraduate Student Leadership Award:

Stork is a junior Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Performance and Directing and Management in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film.

Graduate Student Leadership Award:

Behrmann is currently a Doctor of Musical Arts student in flute performance in the School of Music, where she received her M.M. in 2007.