Young Artist Project Faculty
Kenneth Foster, Director of the Arts Leadership Program
Faculty of Record, Young Artist Program
Kenneth Foster is Professor of Practice in the Thornton School of Music and Director of Arts Leadership at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. Before joining the faculty of USC, he was executive director of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) for ten years. The organization thrived under his leadership, benefitting from his dedication to nurturing long-term relationships with artists, growing YBCA’s audience and establishing the Center as an international leader in the contemporary arts.
Foster has more than 30 years of experience as an arts administrator, curator, educator, and performing arts presenter at Millikin University, Penn State University and the University of Arizona in addition to YBCA and has served in leadership roles for several national arts service organizations. He has a MA degree in Educational Theater from New York University and is the author of two books: Performing Arts Presenting; From Theory to Practice (2001) and Arts Leadership; Creating Sustainable Arts Organizations (2018) He was a Founding Member of the Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium and consults regularly with arts organizations around the world on issues of leadership, organizational design and sustainability in the performing arts.
Lina Bahn, Chair of the Strings Department
Faculty Mentor, Young Artist Project
Lina Bahn is a violinist with a keen interest in collaborative and innovative repertoire, and has been called “brilliant” and “lyrical” by the Washington Post. Her publication of Mean Fiddle Summer (Naxos Label) was hailed, “From start to finish, the violinist demonstrates her adroit technical facility, kaleidoscope of colors, and consummate musical taste.” Lina is a founding member of the 4-violin quartet, Modern Violin Ensemble, committed to commissioning music focusing on social issues. Collaborations include Voices of the Ocean (National Gallery of Art) with cellist Matt Haimovitz, dedicated to ocean/water awareness, and performances with the Takacs Quartet at Concertgabouw, Carnegie, and Queen Elizabeth Halls. From 1998-2010, Lina was a member of the award-winning Corigliano Quartet, and was the Executive Director/violinist with the VERGE Ensemble at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She was on the faculty at the University of Colorado (2008-2015), and currently teaches at the Thornton School of Music at USC in Los Angeles.
Veronika Krausas, Composition / Theory and Analysis
Faculty Mentor, Young Artist Program
Composer Veronika Krausas has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. She was one of six composers involved in the acclaimed mobile opera Hopscotch. Alex Ross of the New Yorker called Hopscotch, “a remarkable experimental opera.” Opera Canada cited Ghost Opera (her third opera) as one of the best operas of the decade. Ghost Opera is a dramma giocoso with life-sized puppets created with The Old Trout Puppet Workshop with the Calgary Opera and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Commissions and performances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Industry, New York City Opera, Tanglewood Music Festival, Calgary Opera, Ensemble musikFabrik (Darmstadt Festival), Chicago Architecture Biennial, Piano Spheres, Vancouver Symphony, San Francisco Choral Artists with the Alexander String Quartet, Esprit Orchestra, Fort Worth Opera, and the Penderecki String Quartet. She received the Detroit Symphony’s 10th annual Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award in 2020 with the premiere of Caryatids in 2021 which will also be performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2022 on the GenX Festival. Veronika writes of the Young Artist Project, "It has been very inspiring to be surrounded with such a vast array of creative ideas. Working with our extraordinary students and helping them realize their visions has been a very rewarding and educational process."
Ronald C. McCurdy, Assistant Dean of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Faculty Mentor, Young Artist Project (Spring semester, 2021)
Dr. Ronald C. McCurdy is Professor of Music at the USC Thornton School of Music where he served as chair of the Jazz Studies department for six years (2002-2008). Prior to his appointment at USC he served as Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at USC (1999-2001). He has served as Professor of Music and chair of the Afro-African American Studies Department and served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Minnesota (1990-1999). In 1997, Dr. McCurdy served as Visiting Professor at Maria-Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. In 2001 Dr. McCurdy received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Kansas. Dr. McCurdy continues to tour the Langston Hughes Project, a multimedia presentation based on the Hughes’ poem, “Ask Your Mama.” This was Hughes’ social commentary on the struggle for freedom and equality among Africans and African Americans. In 2008 he premiered the orchestral version of The Langston Hughes Project, Ask Your Mama: 12 Mood for Jazz with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with rapper and television actor, Ice-T. The multimedia presentation features jazz quartet, spoken-word and images from the Harlem Renaissance.
Scott Spencer, Musicology
Faculty Mentor, Young Artist Project
Trained in Ethnomusicology, Scott Spencer investigates the musical intersections of oral tradition and digital technology. Much of his work has been through the lens of Irish traditional music, though his publications have also looked to American balladry and sonic design in museums. Spencer received his PhD in Ethnomusicology from New York University in 2010 and went on to serve as the Irish American Cultural Institute’s Visiting Research Fellow in Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He has taught interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate courses at Trinity College Dublin, and at Rensselaer Polytechnic, Drew and Villanova universities. Before moving to Los Angeles, he served as Mellon Regional Faculty Fellow for the Penn Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania.