Dee Kittany
Denise Iacovone
Renzo Ventrella ’92
Keeping their Edge On Xavier teachers are also working artists
D
ee Kittany can’t remember when music wasn’t a big part of her life. Raised in a small town in Arkansas, Ms. Kittany, a campus minister and vocal music teacher at Xavier, played piano and loved to sing with the church choir. “It was part of who we were and what we did,” she noted. Her focus in college, however, turned to science and she later earned a master’s degree in biology and became a science teacher. Yet her passion for music never abated. “I knew music would always be a part of my life and that I would continue to learn and grow in it,” Ms. Kittany said. That she has. A longtime member of the New York Choral Society (NYCS), the 180-member choral group widely recognized for its outstanding performances, Ms. Kittany has performed at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall and has also traveled extensively to sing with NYCS at international music festivals in Mexico, Greece, Israel and Austria among others. She also completed additional coursework at Westminster Choir College at Rider University in choral conducting. The pursuit of an artistic life outside of Xavier classrooms, she says, is not unusual. “All of us who teach in the Fine
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Xavier Magazine
Arts Department are all working artists as well. We do as we teach. We live in a city where we do have opportunities to keep our edge on and bring that into the classroom.” “I try to bring my experience to my teaching,” said music teacher Jerome Neuhoff. Questions about a piece of music such as Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” can spark in-depth conversations because Mr. Neuhoff has performed it many, many times. A classical timpanist, he has decades of experience playing for the Regina Opera, Staten Island Philharmonic, Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra and many other music ensembles in the metropolitan area and beyond. Mr. Neuhoff is also a composer of original music for numerous performing arts organizations including the Dance Collective, a New York City based modern dance company. Chair of the Fine Arts Department Denise Iacovone keeps her edge as an improvisational painter. She recently finished an ambitious series, “The 72 Names of God.” The 72 paintings took four years to complete and each painting, said Ms. Iacovone, “is based on the Hebrew symbols that represent an aspect of God, such as peace, humility and health.” As an artist, she also embraces the Ignatian ideals Xavier instills in its students, such as