Get to Know the 2025 CFA Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Awards Recipients
The annual CFA event, being held on Tuesday, April 22, honors six students' artistic excellence and helps support their work after graduation
Get to Know the 2025 CFA Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Award Recipients
The annual Boston University College of Fine Arts event honors six students’ artistic excellence and helps support their work after graduation
Passion. Purpose. And a plan. These six Boston University College of Fine Arts students and soon-to-be Class of 2025 graduates—Sydney Hovasse, Nyla Mawire, Cassandra McDonald, Gabriel Joy Reid, Anthony Venturi, and Gregg Wiggans— have demonstrated exceptional dedication to their craft during their time at BU. Now, they’re ready to take on the world, using their art to inspire, transform, and unite.
CFA is honored to celebrate and recognize the 2025 Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Awards Recipients on Tuesday, April 22 at 1:30pm in the CFA Student Lounge (Room 102) at 855 Commonwealth Avenue.
The Kahn Career Entry Award Fund was established in 1985 with an endowed contribution of $1 million from Esther Kahn (Wheelock’55, Hon.’86).
Each spring, students completing their last semester of graduate or undergraduate studies are eligible to compete for the award. Finalists are chosen based on the students’ submitted proposals detailing how they would use the award to launch their careers, their concern for social issues, and their take on the artist’s role in contemporary society. Each of the finalists receives $2,500 and the final award winner, selected by a panel of expert jurors, receives a total of $20,000.
This year’s Kahn Awards jurors are Curt Columbus, Artistic Director at the Trinity Repertory Company; Ishan Johnson (CFA’06), Chief Philantrophy Officer at the Boston Lyric Opera; and Theo Tyson, Curator of Fashion Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
SCHOOL OF MUSIC RECIPIENTS
NYLA MAWIRE (CFA’25)
BM, Tuba Performance
Nyla Mawire is a tuba player and educator completing her Bachelor of Music degree in Tuba Performance at Boston University, where she studies with Professor Mike Roylance of the Boston Symphony. Originally from New Hampshire, she is passionate about expanding access to music education and inspiring the next generation of brass musicians. As a dedicated performer, she has worked to commission and highlight repertoire by underrepresented composers and is committed to fostering diversity in classical music. She is honored to be a finalist for the Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award and looks forward to using this opportunity to further her career as both a musician and educator.
Many schools in my region do not have a tuba or low brass teacher on staff, creating a gap in instruction that I am eager to fill. By providing tailored lessons that focus on fundamental technique, musicality, and performance skills, I aim to help students develop their potential and inspire a lifelong appreciation for music.
CASSANDRA MCDONALD (CFA’25)
DMA, Trumpet Performance
Cassandra McDonald is a freelance trumpet player and brass teacher in the Boston area. In the fall of 2022, she began her DMA studies in trumpet performance with Terry Everson at Boston University. Cassie enjoys playing as much as she loves to teach, believing strongly that they are intertwined when it comes to her growth in either area. In addition to teaching her private studio, Cassie regularly plays with the New England Brass Band and the Veronica Robles Mariachi band, and she freelances with various wind ensembles and orchestras in the Greater Boston area. In the summer of 2022, she discovered her love of opera when she performed with the Mediterranean Summer Opera Festival in Caltagirone, Sicily. In August of 2024, Cassie traveled with a group of women brass players from BU to Japan to attend the International Women’s Brass Conference, where she presented on neurodivergence, performed in a recital and a masterclass, and won the trumpet solo competition and various other prizes. This summer, she is excited to attend the IWBC again this May as Dr. McDonald, competing in three competitions again. Cassie will also be attending the International Tuba Euphonium Conference in Valencia, Spain in June, performing on soprano cornet with the esteemed all-women ensemble, Athena Brass Band.
Cassie was born in Boston, but she grew up in Michigan. Her bachelor degree is from Grand Valley State University, and there she studied with SFC Kevin Maloney; her masters degree is from the University of Southern Mississippi where she studied with Dr. Jason Bergman. Since graduating, she worked as a full-time band director in public school districts, two years in Hattiesburg Mississippi and the six years in Everett, MA. During those eight years, Cassie has taught marching band, concert band, chamber ensembles, and private lessons. She loves to travel, for adventure and for music, and spending time with her two cats. In the summer of 2021, she opened a sourdough bakery out of her home.
Breaking the stigma of neurodivergencies in music is a cause I have personal stake in, and one I feel strongly about. Eventually, I want to do research with brain imaging and playing in an MRI machine to study what different types of brains look like while making music. I presented on this topic at the IWBC in Japan in 2024, and I’m excited to continue being an advocate in that realm.
SCHOOL OF THEATRE RECIPIENTS
SYDNEY HOVASSE (CFA’25)
BFA Theatre Arts, Costume Design
Sydney Hovasse is a Costume Designer and Technician based in Boston, and she will be receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Costume Design in May 2025. Sydney grew up in Burlington, Massachusetts, and has known that she wants to be a designer since she was three years old. She has always been fascinated with the way clothing can serve to tell a story and bring a character or concept to life. She has a distinct eye for color and aesthetic that she brings into all of her work. Having spent her childhood and adolescence in pursuit of a career in the arts, Sydney is particularly passionate about educating and inspiring young designers and theater artists.
Sydney’s costume design credits include BU School of Theater’s productions of Emilia (2025), Entry, or you think you know me (2024), BU Opera Institute’s productions of La Clemenza di Tito (2024) and Alice Tierney (2023), and Boston Center of the Arts production of Mother May I? (2022). Sydney has also worked as an assistant costume designer, craftsperson, and alterations assistant for many other productions at BU. Sydney has been especially invigorated by working on productions that uplift stories of women and hopes for the opportunity to select projects that reflect her dedication to female empowerment in the future.
I want to be able to use my artform to empower young women and dismantle stereotypes
by means of careful research and analysis. I examined this point specifically as I designed the costumes for BU Opera Institute’s production of La Clemenza di Tito, a Mozart piece from 1791. The female protagonist, Vitellia, the daughter of the former Roman emperor, believes that she has the right to the throne, rather than Tito, who has no blood relation. Historically, a woman trying to use tactfulness to gain power is seen as manipulative and villainous, while a man would be viewed as strategic. Instead of portraying her in this way, I decided to focus on the power in her femininity, reflecting the color and silhouette of her costume in those characteristics.
GREGG WIGGANS (CFA’25)
MFA Directing
Gregg Wiggans (Director) is a 3rd Year MFA Directing candidate Previously at Boston University: The Rink, One Penny Down, Hedda Gabler, Collective Rage, Almost Maine and BU Fringe. Previously, Gregg was the Directing Fellow at Kenyon Playwrights Conference, Artistic Associate, at the Two-Time Tony Award Winning National Playwrights Conference at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. In New York, Gregg was the SDCF Mike Ockrent Directing Fellow on Promises, Promises and Assistant Executive Producer on How to Succeed on Broadway and SMASH on NBC. Gregg has also worked at Boston Playwright’s Theatre, Carnegie Hall, William Inge Festival, StageWEST, ArtShare LA, Actors Theater of Louisville, Paper Mill Playhouse, Geva Theatre, Writers Theater of New Jersey, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Lark, Primary Stages, The Kennedy Center, NYC Fringe Festival, The Goodman, Actor’s Salon of D.C., Austin Script Works, Casa Mañana, Austin Lyric Opera, and Arena Stage. Gregg is the 2024 David Kneuss Directing Fellowship, a two-time National Directors Fellowship Finalist, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and a proud graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
I feel like theater reaches its highest levels of expression when we go out to explore the
intersection of who we are nationally and who we are as individuals — one need only look at the ancient Greeks, or Shakespeare, or Suzan-Lori Parks to know this to be true. As the political landscape and economic environment shift rapidly, even those ventures toward new workforce development that were full of ingenuity and innovation have become a casualty of organizational survival.
SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS RECIPIENTS
GABRIEL JOY REID (CFA’25)
MFA Visual Narrative
Gabriel Joy Reid (any pronouns) is a cartoonist, animator, and educator originally from Kansas City, Kansas. They currently live and work in Massachusetts, and graduated from Northeastern University with a BA in Film and Animation (2023) and from Boston University with an MFA in Visual Narrative (2025). From superheroes to social justice, and from sci-fi to slice-of-life, they strive to bring joy, knowledge, and hope to anyone who reads their work.
Gabriel is also the founder of Sunflower Workshop, a non-profit media production, art education, and publishing company dedicated to creating and curating diverse, high-quality stories for kids, teens, and young adults. Sunflower’s mission is to provide free and accessible stories and art education that empowers young people—especially those from underrepresented communities—to pursue creative careers.
Funding [from the Kahn Career Entry award] will allow Sunflower Workshop to expand beyond
local efforts and reach a wider community of educators, artists, and students and develop digital educational resources, such as free workshops, tutorials, and downloadable materials that young artists can access regardless of where they are in the world. Sunflower Workshop is based on the idea that stories have the power to change the world. The way my students’ eyes light up when they see their comic fully printed or their animation on the big screen is a powerful experience, especially when they see characters who look like them and reflect their own stories.
ANTHONY VENTURI (CFA’25)
BFA Painting
Born and raised in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Anthony Venturi explores landscape through sustained investigation and material intimacy. Primarily working in painting and printmaking, the subject of landscape is interrogated as both material and image. Wooden substrates and walnut inks are culled from the environment while images are arrived at through a sifting between observation, imagination, and memory.
Anthony has received a certificate in landscape and observational painting from Mount Gretna School of Art. His current practice is concerned with providing viewers with the tactile experience of the natural world through material specificity and community involvement. An interest in ecological art practices led him to co-founding the CFA Color Garden, where sustainable arts practices are researched and shared with the broader BU campus. Both his private studio practice and work in community engagement are concerned with calibrating oneself in relation to the location they are in, carefully and earnestly.
This work is a product of looking. A labor of seeing what is right in front of you, or more
simply a practice of perception. It is a practice of seeing with your hands and feeling with your
eyes. The role of the artist in contemporary society is located in the act of looking. Out, down, and through.
Previously Featured in CFA News
BU Women’s Brass Players at The International Women’s Brass Conference in Mito, Japan
The driven and talented Boston University Women’s Brass group had an impressive career opportunity in Mito, Japan, at the well-renowned 2024 International Women’s Brass Conference. The brass septet made it to competition finals, participated in masterclasses, played in a concert with real legends, and learned along the way that risks always pay off.
Gregg Wiggans, MFA Directing, Associate Directs Follies at Carnegie Hall
Boston University MFA Directing student Gregg Wiggans associate directed Stephen Sondheim’s Follies at Carnegie Hall, working with Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Director Jack Cummings III. The concert series showcased a lineup of Tony award-winning and -nominated actors. The one-night show sold out Carnegie Hall in less than 24 hours.
The Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo Returns to BU with New Stories
MICE, New England’s leading event for independent comics and graphic novels, provides a dynamic platform for hundreds of independent comic artists and small press publishers to showcase their work. MICE is also a gateway to new artistic opportunities and professional growth for BU’s MFA visual narrative students, like Gabriel Joy Reid.