MUSE

Read more about Garza and her journey in writing her novel. northtexan. unt.edu/kimberly-garza

Books

The Last Karankawas

Kimberly Garza’s (’19 Ph.D.) dissertation for

UNT’s creative writing program began as a collection of short stories.

Now it’s evolved into The Last Karankawas, a novel of interconnecting stories about a community of families living in Texas. It fulfills a lifelong dream for Garza, who honed her work at UNT thanks to Distinguished Teaching Professor Miroslav Penkov.

“I’ll say one of the best pieces of advice he’s given me lately is to be patient with my writing,” she says, “and to remember that the writing is the work — not selling books, not winning awards. The writing is the important part, so take your time and write it the very best way you can.”

The School for German Brides Aimie Runyan (’10 M.A.)

This historical novel, from the Coloradobased author and UNT graduate in French, depicts two German women, one Jewish, one gentile, in the heart of Berlin facing difficult choices as World War II begins.

Texas Ranger Captain William L. Wright Richard McCaslin

The Texas State Historical Association Professor of Texas History writes about one of the “Big Four” Ranger leaders in the early twentieth century, who served under seven governors.

Bridging Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence Mark V. Albert, Lin Lin, J. Michael Spector and Lemoyne S. Dunn, editors

Over 60 coauthors led by a UNT team explain the explosion of AI ability to general audiences, how we can leverage AI for learning, and address the consequences as AI capabilities grow.

Grammy Winners

Alum Lyle Mays and others are recognized at music’s biggest event.

The late Lyle Mays, who attended the College of Music

in the 1970s, won the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for Eberhard. Gary Eckert (’92, ’21 M.A.) and faculty member Rosana Eckert (’95, ’99 M.M.) contributed vocals.

“To me, the piece itself sounds like the incredible arc of his life. It begins and ends meditatively, which is a sound he is known for,” Rosana Eckert says. “We recorded the vocals in about a week. It was an unbelievable experience. Lifechanging, lots of tears and inspiring moments — memories that I will treasure forever. I remember the moment in the studio when we took one final listen to the entire thing front to back with our vocals in it. Though it was never spoken, I knew Lyle wasn’t well. I just had this feeling that this was the last day I would see Lyle Mays. It was a profoundly moving experience.”

Tenor Charlie Kim (’12 M.M.), a member of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, was part of the recording, Mahler: Symphony No. 8, ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ that won Best Choral Performance.

Bassist Daniel Foose performed on the Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga album Love For Sale that won for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. Foose performed live with Lady Gaga, who gave him a shoutout as he started his solo.

MUSE

COLLEGE OF MUSIC ALUMNA CARMEN CUSACK WAS NOMINATED FOR A 2022 TONY AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS IN THE MUSICAL FLYING OVER SUNSET. SHE WAS PREVIOUSLY NOMINATED FOR BRIGHT STAR IN 2016.

Chopped Champ

Jason Blackwell (’07), who earned a criminal justice degree at UNT, started his professional culinary journey

after taking a cooking class in Italy. He enjoyed the handson experience so much that once he returned to Texas, he decided to take a chance and go to culinary school.

Now with over 10 years of experience, Blackwell is the head chef of his own catering business, Chef’s Knife Catering, where he whips up brunch foods, Cajun dishes and five-star meals for events in the DFW area.

He competed against three other chefs on Food Network’s No. 1 cooking competition series, Chopped, in May — winning the title of Chopped champion, along with a $10,000 prize, after a four-round competition. Blackwell created rustic chuckwagon dishes in a time crunch.

“Being on the show was amazing but bringing home the win and showing there are cowboys in Dallas was the best feeling,” Blackwell says.

He hopes to show others like himself, especially his children, that dreams can come true.

“Culinary arts has been a driving force for me,” Blackwell says. “It’s been a good journey; I have no complaints.”

Read more about Blackwell’s journey to becoming a chef. northtexan.unt.edu/chopped-champ

Talent and Tenacity

When Farah Fleurima (’97) arrived

in South Korea in 2016, she had come to teach English and fulfill her goal of living abroad.

“Korea seemed like a modern, fun and wondrous place, and I thought I’d fit in well here,” she says.

Now the alumna, who majored in composition and language and minored in journalism, is a homepage editor in The New York Times’ Seoul office. Fleurima, a former North Texas Daily staffer, has worked in journalism for more than 20 years. So, what advice does she give to students who want to work in international news? She says to stick to hard news and become a strong researcher.

“Most of all: Believe in yourself. Working at The New York Times had always been a dream when I was in my 20s or 30s. Not that I’d given up on it, but I surely never thought I’d achieve it in my 40s, and in another country, to boot!” Fleurima, 48, says. “With talent and tenacity, you can achieve anything. UNT will prepare you for excellence, as it prepared me.”

IAA Fellows

Four faculty members will receive a

semester off from teaching to pursue their creative endeavors as part of the 2022-23 Institute for the Advancement of the Arts Faculty Fellows program:

Jon Nelson, professor of composition, was inspired by the extreme gravitational pull of black holes to create the composition Toward the Event Horizon, which will stretch and granulate sound recordings to echo the notions of time and sounds during black holes.

Lauren Cross, assistant professor of interdisciplinary art and design studies, is curating an exhibition of artists of African descent who work with fiber art traditions. The works will be displayed at CVAD Galleries and her research will be included in the book, African American Women Artists & the Fiber Tradition: History & Impact.

Liss LaFleur, associate professor of new media art, and Katherine Sobering, assistant professor of sociology, are working together on The Queer Birth Project, which includes an exhibition and publication about the childbirth experiences of LGBTQ+ people in America.

Medal of Honor Winners

UNT alumni Pat Boone and David B. Hooten awarded top honor.

UNT alumni and musicians Pat Boone and David B. Hooten (’87) received

UNT Presidential Medals of Honor in April in celebration of their musical talents and undeniable impact on the entertainment industry.

Boone, a celebrated musician, actor and motivational speaker, studied at UNT from 1954 to 1955. He was a soloist for what is now UNT’s One O’Clock Lab Band, and he went on to sell 45 million records with six No. 1 records, 38 “Top 40” hits and 13 Gold Records.

“This is a wonderful confirmation that my life was headed in a good direction when I was here,” Boone says. “I really consider this President’s medal as a pat on the back from God. I received invaluable experience while I was here.”

Hooten, who plays the trumpet, is a multi-Grammy and Emmynominated musician and has released 22 albums and produced or played on over 100 albums from jazz to gospel and classical.

“You can do all of it,” he says of his versatility of genres. “That’s what North Texas gave to me. It taught me how to be a professional player where you can play whatever you’re hired to do, and I did.”

Read more about their memories at UNT. northtexan.unt.edu/boone-hooten

Gaming Duo

College sweethearts create an award-winning video game.

Clarissa “Valerie” Gotcher (’98, ’04 M.A.) and her husband, John “Andy” Gotcher (’98), met at UNT — and the two have been inseparable ever since. Married for 20 years, they combined the skills they learned at UNT to team up on a video game project, “PXLPLAY,” which won second place in the Big Indie Pitch competition in Seattle for games created by indie developers.

Valerie, a child development major who earned her master’s in speech-language pathology, has worked for several human service agencies and founded the nonprofit organization, BIND: Brain Injury Network of Dallas. Andy used his bachelor’s in communication design for a career in branding and advertising before moving to the video game industry as a skilled graphic design artist for games like Words with Friends, Halo Wars and Terminator 3.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he founded Pixel Play LLC, an indie studio that led to “PXLPLAY,” a mobile arcade game with tap-tap gameplay that features bright colors and surprising boosts.

“We truly enjoy working together ... our work ethic, love of learning and sense of responsibility is iron-clad,” the Gotchers say.

Learn more about the Gotchers’ love story and road to gaming success. northtexan.unt.edu/gaming-duo

Historic Build

UNT alumnus restores 1924 pipe organ on campus.

STORY BY HEATHER NOEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY AHNA HUBNIK

UNT’s Main Auditorium was filled with the sound of construction this summer,

but soon the auditorium will be alive with music again following an extensive renovation to a nearly century-old pipe organ that inhabits the stage walls.

The project has brought a feeling of nostalgia for Roy Redman (’60), who owns Redman Pipe Organ LLC, the Fort Worthbased company tasked with the instrument’s most comprehensive restoration in more than seven decades.

“It’s déjà vu, because I grew up with this organ in a way,” Redman says, thinking back on his time as a violin student in the College of Music.

In the late 1950s, Redman attended a series of historical organ concerts in the Main Auditorium that jump started his understanding of the instrument. He went on to a career in church music, including 35 years as the choir director at Unitarian Church in Fort Worth. Additionally, he combined his love of music and interest in the mechanics of things into his own organ repair business, which has done other work on UNT organs over the years.

“When I was in college at UNT, there was a very important movement going on to discover a more classical way of organ building,” Redman says. “It came to this country partially with Otto Hofmann, who was an organ builder in Austin. Those were very exciting times. As a result, several of my UNT classmates and I eventually became organ builders.”

Beginning in February, Redman and his team of organ repair technicians disassembled the entire instrument and spent several months checking over every moving part of the organ, which was originally built by renowned Danish-born organ builder M.P. Möller and installed on the UNT campus in 1924. It was housed

From left: Jesse Eschbach, professor of organ, and Roy Redman (’60). The 1949 Möller IV/78 in UNT’s Main Auditorium is one of four concert organs on campus, each suitable for playing a different repertoire of music. The instrument, originally built in 1924, is the university’s only electric action organ and one of the oldest working organs in the North Texas area. It includes a special organ stop donated to the university by legendary French organist Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier, under whom Eschbach studied in Paris.

“To renew something that is 100 years old, there’s something extremely gratifying about that.”

— Jesse Eschbach, UNT professor of organ in UNT’s Auditorium Building, one of the oldest buildings on campus, which once served as the university’s first official administration building.

The pipe organ was thoroughly rebuilt in 1948-49, under the direction of the late UNT organ professor and musicologist Helen Hewitt, to play classical pieces with principal choruses in the great, swell and pedal divisions.

This latest restoration will considerably extend the pitch range and quality of the organ’s sound, moving it from a III/60 to a IV/78. One of the major enhancements includes additions from a 1931 Opus 5819 theatre organ once housed at the Philadelphia Municipal Auditorium. The organ came to UNT via the University of Oklahoma, which acquired it in 2006 for preservation.

“To renew something that is 100 years old, there’s something extremely gratifying about that,” Jesse Eschbach, UNT professor of organ, says. “Due to the instrument’s location embedded in the walls on either side of the stage, it has a very mystical and remote sound.”

He says the rebuild led by Redman will “significantly enhance the effect” of the organ.

“The great choir chamber is being dramatically reconfigured to allow more presence of sound in the room,” he says. “It will be a great asset for our program, especially in playing music from the 19th and 20th centuries.”

UNT will celebrate the organ’s rebuild with a performance by French organist Daniel Roth March 7 in UNT’s Main Auditorium. Check music.unt.edu closer to the concert for details.

See a video and slideshow about the restoration of the organ.