Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts gives alumni awards

The Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has announced the recipients of the 2010 Fine and Performing Arts Alumni Board alumni awards.

The awards are selected by the college's Fine and Performing Arts Alumni Board and will be presented April 24 at the college's annual Honors Day dinner.

This year's award winners are Peggy Gomez of Lincoln, Sharon Hansen of Milwaukee, John C. Stark of Normal, Ill., and Harley Jane Kozak of Agoura Hills, Calif. Students Trent Stork of Urbandale, Iowa, and Candice Behrmann of Lincoln will also receive awards.

Gomez will receive the Alumni Achievement Award in Art. Gomez received her B.F.A. from UNL in 1985 and her M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 1989. She opened Gomez Art Supply, 120 N. 14th St. in Lincoln in 2003. She was also the founder in 2005 of Tugboat Gallery, located above Gomez Art Supply, which provides showing opportunities for emerging artists as well as established professionals. The goal of Tugboat, as a non-commission gallery, is to exhibit high quality exciting artwork. Gomez's own recent exhibitions include "Have a Nice Life, no really" at the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery in 2008, "Drawing: Selected Works by Norman Geske" at Modern Arts Midwest in 2008 and "Paper Dolls" at Pulp in Omaha. Gomez received the Mixed Media Award from the Berkeley Art Center at the University of California at Berkeley in 1991. She was the recipient of the Coleman Printmaking Award, Vreeland Award in Visual Arts and Faulkner Award while a student at UNL. She has taught drawing and printmaking in the Department of Art and Art History.

Hansen will receive the Alumni Achievement Award in Music. The director of choral activities and head of graduate choral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she is widely known as a conductor and master teacher throughout the United States and in Europe. She is a regular guest conductor for the Romanian National Radio Choir in Bucharest, and has led guest performances with the Gachinger Kantorei and Bach Collegium-Stuttgart, the Stockholm Conservatory Chamber Choir, the Moldavian and Oltenian Philharmonic Choirs in Iasì and Craiova, Romania, and the University of Regensburg Symphony Orchestra in Germany. She led the first International Choral Conducting Master Class in Bucharest in September 2003, returning for the second such class in September 2004. Hansen received her D.M.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, her M.M. from UNL and her B.M. from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She is author of the book, "Helmuth Rilling: Conductor -- Teacher," and is a member of the editorial board of the Choral Journal, where she is founder and editor of the series "On the Voice," dedicated to issues of vocal health and pedagogy. Hansen is also the founder and music director of the Milwaukee Choral Artists, the only professional women's vocal ensemble in the Midwest.

Stark will receive the Alumni Achievement Award in Theatre. He is head of the design/production area for the School of Theatre at Illinois State University in Normal. He received his B.S. from Wayne State College (Neb.) in 1977 and his M.F.A. in scene design from UNL in 1982. Stark joined Illinois State in 1991 after teaching at Illinois Wesleyan University and Arizona State University, where he was named College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teacher of the Year in 1990. He is a member of the United Scenic Artists and he has designed professionally for Drury Lane Theatre, The Next Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Sacramento Theatre Co., Nebraska Repertory Theatre, Pennsylvania Center Stage, Famous Door Theatre, Noble Fool Theatricals, Victory Garden's Theatre and the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. His design for Famous Door Theatre's "The Living" won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Scenic Design in 1997.

Kozak will receive the Award of Merit. An actress and author, Kozak has starred in such movies as "The Favor," "Parenthood," "When Harry Met Sally," "Arachnophobia" and "All I Want for Christmas." She also starred in the soap operas "Texas," "Guiding Light" and "Santa Barbara." She has performed for the Nebraska Repertory Theatre, including in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," (1995) and "Lost in Yonkers" (1996) and starred in the first Carson Film Series film, "Vipers in the Grass," currently in post-production. She has written four novels: "Dating Dead Men," "Dating is Murder: A Novel," "Dead Ex" and "A Date You Can't Refuse," all of which feature greeting card designer and amateur sleuth Wollie Shelley, a woman with eccentric friends and family. "Dating Dead Men" received an Agatha Award for best first novel in 2004. Kozak was born in Pennsylvania, raised in Nebraska and attended New York University.

Stork, a junior majoring in theatre performance, directing and management in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, will receive the Undergraduate Student Leadership Award.

Behrmann will receive the Graduate Student Leadership Award. She is a doctor of musical arts student in flute performance in the School of Music, where she received her master of music degree in 2007.