School of the Arts Grants Awardees

The Spring 2026 Film Visiting Lecture Series, with the generous support of a School of Arts grant, welcomed television writer and producer Nina Fiore to Boise State on April 8 and 9, 2026, for an intensive on-campus engagement focused on film storytelling, industry outlooks and career readiness. Nina, who has worked on projects such as The Handmaid’s Tale and The Vampire Diaries, met directly with students in a classroom setting, participated in a community reception held in partnership with the Idaho Film Society, and hosted an evening lecture open to the public.

In Fall 2026, the Treasure Valley Youth Saxophone Ensemble will launch. Open to local high school saxophonists, the group will rehearse weekly beginning in late October in preparation for a December public concert. Students involved will work with Boise State Assistant Professor of Saxophone Dr. Matthew Castner, members of the Boise State Saxophone Studio and other guest clinicians. Thanks to support from the School of the Arts, there is no registration fee required for participation in Fall 2026.

Professors Derek Ganong and Logan Frewer in music are expanding the recording capacity in their space in the Morrison Center by purchasing additional preamps and associated equipment so that they can record a full ensemble simultaneously. They are also planning to expand their live-sound capacity by purchasing student-focused live sound equipment so that students can start doing their own live sound events as part of a career readiness focus and to support the popular music production certificate and redesigned Music BA that centers industry engagement and pathways.

Chad Erpelding, Professor of Art, and Beret Norman, Associate Professor of German (in the World Languages Dept), are teaming up to offer a study abroad program in Berlin, Germany. Erpelding’s course ART297/497 “Art in Berlin” and Norman’s courses WORLD355 “Memory Culture in Berlin” and as an optional component of UF225 “Memory Culture” will bring students to Berlin, where they will experience firsthand the historical significance of the city, as well as the ways artists continue to reinvent it and thrive there. Containing one of the most dynamic art scenes in the world, Berlin also bears witness to many of the atrocities committed during WWII and the Cold War. The students will visit historical sites, art museums, history museums, art centers and galleries, memorials and an artist residency program, providing students with direct contact with artists in Berlin and with contested sites of memory.

Kirsten Furlong has been awarded the School of the Arts Grant to support a traveling solo exhibition of her work during summer 2026. The show will feature large-scale drawings, sculptural installations and interdisciplinary artworks created during 2025 and 2026. This body of work expresses her desire to bear witness to the entanglements and shared crisis that humans, animals and plant species share on earth today. The project aligns with the School of the Arts’ goals to strengthen community partnerships and bring visibility to the arts in the region, along with their priority to celebrate and support the artistic excellence of the Boise State University faculty. Kirsten will be joined by local and national community partners, The Common Well, Garden City, ID, Gallery One – Visual Arts Center, Ellensburg, WA, the Alexa Rose Foundation, Boise, ID, and artist Rachel Reichert, Milwaukee, WI.

The Common Well is a dynamic community of artists and entrepreneurs who share space, collaborate and network, as well as a gallery featuring exhibitions and programs from regional and national artists. Co-founder and gallery curator Katherine Shaughnessy will be the thinking and building partner on the initial exhibition. The show will then travel to Gallery One – Visual Arts Center, the focal point for artists, art patrons, students, community members and tourists to interact with the visual arts and arts education in downtown Ellensburg, WA. Their exhibition coordinator, Renee Adams, will be the creative and administrative partner in bringing the exhibition to this venue.

The Alexa Rose Foundation awarded Kirsten the 2025 Alexa Rose Foundation Fellowship, the philanthropy’s most competitive annual prize, which supported the creation of several of the artworks included in the exhibitions and the time to approach the community partners about bringing the work to their venues. She will be visiting with the resident artists of the foundation’s innovative Show and Tell Residency Program for emerging artists during the exhibition at The Common Well. The final community partner will be Rachel Reichert, Boise State ADVS alumnus, visual artist and cultural sites expert, who will lead a public gallery discussion with Kirsten on June 25, 2026, at 6 p.m. at The Common Well.

The Arts Collab VIP is a yearlong, cross-disciplinary creative initiative uniting the School of the Arts at Boise State University with internationally recognized recording artist Amanda Warner (MNDR). Through a Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) model, students from music, media arts, GIMM, theatre/film, art & design, and Arts Entrepreneurship will collaborate to reinterpret MNDR’s work through musical performance, visual art, film and interactive media. The project culminates in a three-day campus residency and public performance in Spring 2027 during Treefort Music Fest.

MNDR is an ideal collaborator due to her interdisciplinary practice spanning music performance, electronic production, visual storytelling and immersive media. This proposal builds on a successful prior collaboration between MNDR and the GIMM department in 2022, where students created a virtual reality project based on her song Dove, which demonstrated strong artistic alignment and her ability to work effectively with students. The proposed collaboration deepens this partnership and expands its reach across the full School of the Arts.

The School of the Arts Grants funds were used to pay for catering at two receptions and meals with guest artist Leire Bilbao. Leire is a writer from the Basque Country; her visit to Boise State coincided with the release of her first book in English translation. Nicholson hosted Leire for a talk at the Basque Museum and used funds from this award to pay for catering from Ansots. The rest of the money was used to pay for catering at a reception on campus before her reading. Students, faculty, admin, donors and local community members were in attendance at both events. Funds were also used from the award to pay for a dinner with Leire, faculty and donors.