First Female President of SEAMUS

The College of Architecture + The Arts’ Associate Dean— Dr. Kristine Burns has been elected to be the first female president of the of SEAMUS. The Society of Electro Acoustic Music in the United States is a non-profit national organization of composers, performers and teachers of electro acoustic music representing every part of the country. Her two-year term of office will begin the upcoming SEAMUS Conference in Salt Lake City.

The School of Music is also proud to present their visiting instructor—Dr. Paula Matthusen was elected to the board as Member-at-Large.

For more information on SEAMUS please visit http://www.seamusonline.org

DelValle, Eduardo & Mirta Gómez

Witness Number 4
FIU Art + Art History Professors Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gómez present the fourth volume in the Witness series. The book is composed of photographs taken in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico where for over twenty years del Valle and Gómez have focused on the metamorphosis of the vernacular domestic architecture of the region. The husband and wife team’s selection for this volume is compromised of the “Sections of Time,” a voluminous on-going project where the dwellings are photographed from the same spot over a number of years, bearing witness to how the structures are affected by seasonal changes and the passage of time. The fascination that del Valle and Gómez have with these houses has come to epitomize their own transformation as first generation immigrants — and like the houses they photograph, they, too, have had to adapt, change and evolve in order to survive. Witness Number 4 closes with a presentation of work by two other Cuban-American photographers who, like del Valle and Gómez, witnessed the start of the Cuban revolution in the late 1950s and who also emigrated to the United States in the early ‘60s: Tony Mendoza and Abelardo Morell.

Photographs by Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gomez were also selected and published in a new book of MoMA’s contemporary collection, “MoMA Highlights Since 1980.”
The book, published by The Museum of Modern Art, features what is said to be “a selection of 250 of the most important and influential works of art acquired by the museum since 1980.”

Theatre student makes it to top 24 on American Idol

Syesha Mercado, originally from Bridgeport, Connecticut, is currently a student in the School of Theatre, Dance and Speech Communication. She moved to Miami in 2005 in order to pursue a career in singing and acting. While there, she found that with her beauty and talent, the opportunities were limitless as she began booking commercials and modeling for various projects while attending school at Florida International University.

With her very soulful and dynamic voice Syesha was able to impress many ears as she became part of ABC’s The One: Making a Music Star and was also crowned Florida’s Super Singer 2007 in front of a three million viewers who voted and made her a proud owner of a brand new car.

Recently, after six seasons and hundreds of people advising her, she has finally decided to jump on the American Idol train. With the versatility and vocal abilities, Syesha is now looking for America’s votes to become the next American Idol.