The winners of the 2008 Rhode Island Pell Awards were announced today. Visual Artist Peter Geisser and Violist Consuelo Sherba will receive Rhode Island Pell Awards for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts and RISD's Roger Mandle will be awarded the Pell Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts. The Trinity Rep resident acting company - the last company of its kind in the nation - will be honored with a National Pell Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts. The Pell Awards Gala will be held on Friday evening, May 30, 2008 at Trinity Rep. Honorary Chairs for the event are Governor Donald L. Carcieri, Mayor David N. Cicilline and Senator and Mrs. Claiborne Pell. Tickets are $250 or $500 for Patrons and corporate sponsor tables are also available. Proceeds from ticket sales benefit artistic programming at Trinity Rep. For information and reservations contact Trinity Rep at (401) 521-1100, x237.

Now in their second decade, the Pell Awards honor Senator Claiborne Pell and recognize artistic excellence in Rhode Island and on the national level. Throughout his career, Senator Pell worked to support the arts and provide new opportunities for artists. He sponsored the landmark legislation that established the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities in 1965, and chaired the Senate Education and Arts subcommittee. He also served a four-year term on the board of Trinity Repertory Company.

Peter Geisser has been an active member of the Rhode Island arts and art education communities for most of his professional life. His training in painting, ceramics, mosaics and stained glass was done at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and he also holds a BS in Education and a Master of Fine Arts from Tufts University. A stained–glass artist, Geisser has created windows for private homes, public buildings and churches throughout New England, including both the Chapel of Hope and Cancer Center at RI Hospital, the chapel of the Hasbro Children’s Hospital and AS220. Geisser also is an active arts educator, teaching at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and for the Rhode Island School of Design, Department of Continuing Education; and the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. After thirty years, he has recently retired as the Art Director at the RI School for the Deaf, where he created a highly recognized Art & Art History Program. Geisser is President-elect of Special Needs Art Ed., National Art Education Association, and Past President of the Rhode Island Art Education Association. He serves as advisor to the Access Advisory Board of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; RISD Museum; the RI State Council on the Arts; the Governor’s Task Force on Literacy and the Arts; the RI Council on the Humanities; Very Special Arts RI; Perishable Theatre; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the National Gallery of Art. He has been honored by the Rhode Island Art Education Association, the City of Providence, National Gallery of Art, RI State Council on the Arts, and the RI Business Volunteers for the Arts. He appears in Marquis Who’s Who, Paul Norton’s Rhode Island Stained Glass, and Stephan Brigidi’s Remarkable People. In 1997, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by the Rhode Island School of Design for his work as an artist, art educator and arts advocate.

Violist Consuelo Sherba has been a part of the Rhode Island musical scene since 1986, when she came to Providence as the violist of the Charleston String Quartet to participate in a joint residency with Brown University and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. An experienced educator, Sherba is a member of the applied music faculty at Brown University and also teaches at the RI Philharmonic Music School, where she coaches orchestra strings, chamber music, and heads the Creative Communities string program. Sherba is a founding member and artistic director of the performance ensemble Aurea, dedicated to exploring the connection between music and the spoken word. With Aurea, she has taken music and poetry programs to inner city schools in Rhode Island in projects that have demonstrated the important role arts education has on measurable academic achievement on students at risk. She has also performed with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, New Hampshire Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Charleston String Quartet, and was a guest violist with the Boston Chamber Music Society. She has performed at the Monadnock, Grand Teton, Aspen, and Colorado Music Festivals, was principal violist of the West Virginia Symphony, the Atlanta Ballet, and the Atlanta Chamber Orchestra. An outspoken advocate on behalf of local artists and the importance of arts education, Sherba was awarded last year’s Pawtucket Foundation Person of the Year Award alongside Patty Zacks for work with the RI Philharmonic Music School and the Pawtucket Housing Authority.

Nationally known in the field of education in the arts and humanities, Roger Mandle has been President of Rhode Island School of Design for the past fifteen years. After serving as the Associate Director of the Minneapolis Museum of Art, he was Associate Director and then Director of the Toledo Museum of Art 1974-1988. He was Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from 1988 to 1993. In addition, Mandle served as a member of the National Committee for Education Standards in the Arts, for whom he was a co-author of Education Goals 2000: Standards in the Arts. He was appointed by both President Reagan and President George H. W. Bush as a member of the National Council on the Arts, on which he served for eight years. He has been Vice Chair of the Board of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mandle was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Federation of Arts; Vice President of the American Association of Museums; a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, and on the Board of National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. He currently serves on the Board for the Alliance of Artists Communities, and on the Board of the Newport Restoration Society, of which he is Vice-chair. He was also chairman of the Rhode Island Independent Higher Education Association and a Vice Chair of the Providence Foundation. Mandle has been a Trustee of the Rhode Island Children’s Crusade, Providence WaterFire, and the Advisory Board of Perishable Theatre. He is also a member of the Board for the Silk Road Project and CEO’s for Cities. He is a member of the Program Committee of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council and Rhode Island Economic Development Council. He was also Vice-chair of the Advisory Board of the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization and Chair of the Board of RI Campus Compact. In 2006 he was Chair of the National Design Awards Jury. A cum laude graduate of Williams College, with an MA from New York University and a Ph.D. in Art History from Case Western University, Mandle is a published scholar and teacher on the subjects of aesthetics and Dutch art.

The Pell Awards’ criteria include excellence in the artist’s chosen field; work that significantly advances the art form; and contribution to the betterment of the community and the world at large through artistic presence and community service. Previous Pell Award honorees include Jason Robards, Arthur Miller, Beverly Sills, Stephen Sondheim, Toni Morrison, Robert Redford, Maurice Sendak, Jane Alexander, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis and Chita Rivera. Since the inception of the Pell Awards in 1997, there have been thirty-two New England and Rhode Island winners, including Howard Ben Tre, Dorothy Jungels, Chris Van Allsburg, Paula Vogel, Eugene Lee, David MacCaulay, Rose Weaver, Thomas Sgouros, Dave McKenna, Maria Spacagna, William Warner, Brian Dennehy, Barbara Meek, Ruth Frisch Dealy, Gretchen Dow Simpson, Dan Butterworth, Virginia Lynch, Toots Zynsky, George Kent, Bob Colonna and Duke Robillard.

About Trinity Repertory Company
Since its founding in 1963, Trinity Repertory Company has been one of the most respected regional theaters in the country. Featuring the last long standing permanent resident acting company in America, Trinity Rep presents a balance of world premiere, contemporary, and classic works for an estimated annual audience of nearly 160,000. In its 43-year history, the theater has presented 52 world premieres, mounted national and international tours, and, through its graduate-level theater arts conservatory, trained hundreds of new actors and directors. Project Discovery, Trinity Rep's pioneering educational outreach program launched in 1966, introduces over 20,000 Rhode Island and Massachusetts students a year to live theater. Trinity Rep's 44th season presents six subscription productions and an annual production of A Christmas Carol. The 2007-2008 season concludes with Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward and Paris by Night book & lyrics by Curt Columbus, music by Andre Pluess & Amy Warren. For more information, call the box office at (401) 351-4242 or visit Trinity Rep's website at www.trinityrep.com.

Hi-resolution photos

PETER GEISSER
Hi-res photo: http://www.trinityrep.com/DownloadDocs/Geisser.jpg

CONSUELO SHERBA
Hi-res photo: http://www.trinityrep.com/DownloadDocs/Consuelo.jpg

ROGER MANDLE, photo credit: Rhode Island School of Design
Hi-res photo: http://www.trinityrep.com/DownloadDocs/RMphoto.jpg