What’s Worth Saving Talk and Performance
7:00pm, doors at 6:30pm
An evening of whale science, art, and music accompanying Jonathan Latiano’s new exhibition, featuring a live installation soundscape by Andrew Cote, a chance to hear from the Ocean Alliance’s CEO Dr. Iian Kerr, and a new composition for cello accompanied by whale songs by Sam Wu and performed by Nicole Boguslaw.
Dr. Iain Kerr has a Bachelor of Education Degree from the University of London and a D.H.L. from the University of Southern Maine. Iain began his career at Ocean Alliance as a volunteer and has grown with the organization over the last 30 years. He is listed as author on over 35 scientific papers and has ensured that Ocean Alliance messages reach the general public through international television and films. Iain has led international conservation research efforts across the globe. As a result of exposing illegal sea cucumber fishing in the Galapagos, Iain received the SOS Grand Blue award in 1994. Iain was awarded the Chevron Conservation Award in 2006 and in 2014 the Annenberg Foundation listed Iain as one of 25 visionary leaders. In 2013, Iain recognized that drones could be the future of whale research and conservation.
As a composer of acoustic and electronic music, Andrew Cote’s compositions have been performed and recorded across three continents. His works have been featured at the Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, the World Saxophone Congress, and various other festivals and conferences. His latest album, Ulterior Motives: The Saxophone Music of Andrew Cote, is available on itunes, Amazon, and most other online retailers. Andrew previously taught music composition, orchestration, music technology, and directed the new music ensemble at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Andrew began teaching at Merrimack College in the fall of 2020, where he teaches courses in music theory and music technology.
Sam Wu‘s music deals with the beauty in blurred boundaries. Many of his works center around extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the search for exoplanets that harbor life. Selected for the American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot readings and the Tasmanian Symphony’s Australian Composers’ School, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Sam Wu also received First Prize at the Washington International Competition. Sam’s collaborations span five continents, notably with the orchestras of Philadelphia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Sarasota, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Shanghai, the New York City Ballet, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Sydney International Piano Competition, the Lontano, Parker, Argus, ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Case Scaglione, and Benjamin Northey, and sheng virtuoso Wu Wei. Sam has been featured on the National Geographic Channel, Business Insider, Harvard Crimson, Sydney Morning Herald, Asahi Shimbun, People’s Daily, CCTV, among others. From Melbourne, Australia, Sam (b. 1995) holds degrees from Harvard and Juilliard, and pursues his DMA in Composition at Rice. His teachers include Tan Dun, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Chaya Czernowin, and Richard Beaudoin.
Dr. Nicole Boguslaw has been playing cello since the age of eight and has been teaching for the past fifteen years. She earned her doctorate in cello performance from the University of Maryland in 2022, and taught at the university level both there as well as at Anne Arundel Community College. As an orchestra musician, she is a section cello member of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, and has played with the Washington National Opera Orchestra, the Maryland Symphony, Alexandria Symphony, and the Apollo Orchestra. In 2016 she won San Francisco Academy’s concerto competition and soloed with the SF Academy orchestra. She has performed while touring across Europe, the Caribbean, and North America. Recently she collaborated with artist Jonathan Latiano for his installation Love to the Letter and the Letters Spelled Death at the Boston Sculptors Gallery. She currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland where she frequently plays in her piano trio, Rock Creek Trio.
