Linda Dusman, Music, and Eric Smallwood, Visual Arts, were interviewed by The Baltimore Sun’s Tim Smith about their app Octava, which is designed to enhance the audience experience at symphony orchestra performances. Read the full article on the Sun’s website here.

“The app, called Octava, is aimed at enhancing the musical experience for listeners by delivering information via Wifi, synced with the music being played in the concert hall,” says Smith. In development for several years and formerly known as Symphony Interactive, the project received a $150,000 Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) grant in 2014 (read more here).

A message to the UMBC community from President Freeman Hrabowski:

More than 50 years ago, the nation was shocked when the 16th Street Baptist Church in my home town of Birmingham was bombed and four little girls—my friends—were killed. People of all races were in disbelief that hatred could be so strong. Today we find ourselves again in complete shock as a nation, struggling to understand how an event as tragic as the shooting of nine people in a South Carolina church could happen in 2015. None of us can say how to put this in perspective.

In times like this, it is important that we reach out and give support to others, think out loud about the importance of community, and reflect on those values that make us decent human beings: our capacity for caring for each other and respect for the dignity of life itself.

UMBC is a special community in which we believe in supporting one another, working to understand and appreciate differences, and endeavoring to learn as much as possible about those qualities that make us human. I encourage faculty, staff, and students to take the time to discuss the challenges we face in this country and beyond involving race, discrimination of all types, inequality, and other social challenges.

When my friends were killed in 1963, some of us didn’t know how we could ever move forward. It was only through coming together and pledging to each other that their lives would not be in vain that we gained strength and hope. We vowed we would never forget. I challenge all of us to do the same.

One of the things that makes UMBC great is how wonderful our alumni, students, faculty, and staff are. Because of these amazing people, UMBC often finds itself “in the news,” so each week, we’ll be sharing with you a round-up of the most newsworthy achievements from our community.

• Sunil Dasgupta, Political Science, Writes about World Politics in ISN Following FIFA Arrests
• Kate Drabinski, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Kimberly Moffitt, American Studies, on The Marc Steiner Show
• Denise Meringolo, History, Describes Baltimore Uprising Project in the Baltimore Sun
• Thomas Schaller, Political Science, Analyzes Immigration Policy in the Huffington Post, Op-Ed in the Baltimore Sun

Read more at UMBC Insights!

Maurice Berger, research professor and chief curator at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, was interviewed by WYPR’s Culture Editor for Maryland Morning, Tom Hall, about Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television, an exhibition now on display at the Jewish Museum in New York. Berger curated the exhibition, which has been co-organized by the CADVC and the Jewish Museum, and authored the companion book by the same name, published by Yale University Press.

Revolution of the Eye is the first exhibition to explore how avant-garde art influenced and shaped the look and content of network television in its formative years, from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. “Television and modern art became mutually beneficial forces, starting really at the very early days of television,” Berger explained to Hall. “The pioneers of television…looked to modern art—they were fascinated by it—as something that could help them perhaps prove that television was a discerning medium.”

The exhibition will visit UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture in Fall 2016.

To hear the full interview, which originally aired on WYPR’s Maryland Morning on Friday, June 19, click here.