Wednesday, February 26, 12 – 1 PM, lunch provided at 11:45 AM (RSVP by 2/20), PAHB 216
In Find Your Why, Dr. Tatiana Mann will lead us to explore why we engage with our disciplines, what informs our decisions and how to light our creative fire to fuel our future success.
As artists and humanists, why do we choose our career paths? Because of lucrative remuneration (supported by plentiful research grants) and a lavish lifestyle (afforded by sleepless nights working several jobs)? In pursuit of quixotic research, prestigious performances, exhibitions, publications, and accolades? Or do we choose to do what we do because at some point we couldn’t imagine a life without art, or without investigating humanity’s larger questions? Whatever our reasons, since we embarked on our career path, the surrounding landscape has changed and we are left wondering where to head next. To reach our destination (hopefully intact), it is helpful to reflect on what motivates, what drives us and what gets us fired up.
Dr. Tatiana Mann is a classical pianist, educator, administrator, and a passionate advocate for the arts and humanities. She has performed throughout the US and in Europe, as a recitalist, orchestral soloist, and as a chamber musician. Tatiana is the recipient of the Rockefeller Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center (Lennox, MA), where she performed, and worked in masterclasses with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianists Charles Rosen and Peter Frank, and with Soprano Dawn Upshaw among others. She has appeared on live radio broadcasts for WQXR (NYC) and KLRE (AR) radio stations and can be heard on Sony Classical “Finding Home” album (Released in 2022) performing works by American composers A. Kernis and A. Copland, and on Naxos “Jazz Nocturne: American Concertos of the Jazz Age”, playing the big band version of G. Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. Dr. Mann ‘s framed wall collection of degrees includes a BMus from Arizona State, a MMus from Manhattan School of Music (NYC), a Post-graduate Diploma and a Pedagogy Licentiate from the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK and a DMA from the University of MN (with a music theory minor).
As an arts administrator with more than 20 years of experience, Dr. Mann was the founding executive director of the Wildwood Academy for Music and the Arts (WAMA) in Little Rock, AR – a summer program that provides arts and music instruction, with a focus on children from underprivileged backgrounds. In 2021 she founded the first registered chapter of American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at Texas Tech University, helping her colleagues organize and advocate for freedom of speech.
Currently, Dr. Mann is the Project Manager of Breaking the M.O.L.D. Leadership Initiative in partnership with UMBC, UMD and Morgan State University, sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Breaking the M.O.L.D. Initiative aims to provide its faculty participants with leadership development skills informed by the arts and humanities, helping them expand their leadership potential and discover new professional opportunities. Dr. Mann helps design and lead the Breaking the M.O.L.D. Initiative’s programming, collaborates with the faculty and administrators across the partner institutions, and oversees the grant’s logistics.