The Ģ����ý’s Eastman School of Music has announced a new bachelor of music (BM) in music creation and technology, a degree program designed for students whose musical practice is grounded in electronic and digital technologies.

Led by ’05E (DMA), associate professor of music and technology and former head of music learning at music software company Ableton, the new major will emphasize electronic music production and performance, sound design, recording and editing, DJing, and the development of software and hardware. The inaugural class will begin study in fall 2027.

The program is part of Ģ����ý’s newly established , an interdisciplinary academic collaboration between two leading Ģ����ý schools: Eastman and the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. The department also serves as the academic home for faculty engaged in SoundSpace, a transdisciplinary research center advancing Ģ����ý’s leadership in music and technology.

Together, the new major, department, and research center reflect the inspiring combinations possible at Ģ����ý—where artistry, engineering, creativity, and emerging technologies come together to shape how music is made, studied, and experienced.

• Read more about Eastman’s .

When the international art extravaganza opens on May 9, visitors to the pavilion sponsored by the Vatican will find a fusion of past and present in the music of the 12th-century German Saint Hildegard of Bingen being interpreted by some of today’s most innovative artists.

Helping bring the exhibit to life is , a professor of musicology at the Ģ����ý, whose extensive research into Hildegard has shaped how the world understands and performs her music.

Meconi was among the consultants to the creative team behind the Holy See’s pavilion, titled which as one of “eight pavilions that have the Venice Biennale buzzing.” The life and work of Hildegard inspired the exhibition and, according to the Holy See, centers on themes of “slowing down, listening, contemplating, and caring” and features performances by 24 artists, including stars like FKA Twigs, Brian Eno, Dev Hynes, and Patti Smith.

“One of the things I’ve always loved about Hildegard is how inspiring her music is to artists of all kinds,” says Meconi, whose book (University of Illinois Press, 2018) remains the first and only English-language text devoted to Hildegard’s work as a composer.

“Her music consists of a single melodic line that modern musicians use as a tabula rasa, bringing their own ideas and interpretations to it while still engaging with something authentically medieval,” Meconi says.

The Venice Biennale was founded in 1895 and is held every two years. Often described as the “Olympics of the art world” for its pavilions hosted by countries, the festival brings together artists, architects, and musicians and is a major stage for new ideas and cultural exchanges.

Part of the Vatican’s pavilion is located in The Mystical Garden in Venice, where visitors can listen to commissioned re-compositions of Hildegard’s music through headphones as they wander the secluded garden’s plots of vegetables and flowers.

The pieces were curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers in collaboration with Soundwalk Collective, an experimental sound art organization based in Berlin and New York City.

Ģ����ý scholarship shapes a global stage

Meconi’s involvement began last fall when Soundwalk Collective contacted her seeking guidance on Hildegard’s music.

“They knew they wanted modern performers to interpret her work, so I provided editions and translations and answered questions about pronunciation, tuning, and so on,” Meconi says. “I was also able to suggest pieces that might be appropriate for specific artists.”

As part of her role, she was recorded singing Hildegard’s music at Electric Lady Studios, the legendary space founded by Jimi Hendrix in New York City.

“That was surreal,” Meconi says. “But it is also surreal for someone who specializes in music before 1600 to see Brian Eno’s name in an email subject heading and to do a translation specifically for him.”

Another highlight for Meconi, as she tells it, was learning that Pope Leo XIV had translated one of Hildegard’s song texts into Portuguese for the famous fado singer Carminho. The song was one for which Meconi had provided the edition.

“Technically speaking,” she says, “the pope and I are now collaborators.”

Who is Hildegard, and why is her work so hot right now?

“She was the Boss Lady of the 12th century.”

Hildegard of Bingen was a German Benedictine nun and polymath of epic proportions. In addition to founding a convent, writing theological treatises on her heavenly visions, inventing a new language and alphabet, corresponding with everyone who was anyone in the 12th century, and authoring books on the natural world and healing, she was a prolific musician. She penned 77 songs and a musical drama before her death at 81 in 1179.

“She was the Boss Lady of the 12th century,” Meconi says.

The Holy See says its pavilion responds to the broad theme of the Biennale, titled “In Minor Keys.” The festival’s curator, Koyo Kough, died last year, but wrote of the exhibition in her original curatorial statement: “In refusing the spectacle of horror, the time has come to listen to the minor keys, to tune in sotto voce to the whispers, to the lower frequencies; to find the oases, the islands, where the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.”

The Biennale runs from May 9 to November 22.

Hungarian novelist, essayist, and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai has won the  for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art,” according to the Nobel committee. Calling him “a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard,” the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, describes his writings as marked by “absurdism and grotesque excess.”

For Ģ����ý alumnus Declan Spring ’87, the award was both thrilling and personal. Spring, executive vice president and senior editor at the legendary literary press New Directions, has edited Krasznahorkai in English for decades. “I knew he deserved it, but waking up this morning was just unbelievable,” says Spring. “I’ve gotten quite close to László and have worked on so many of his books. It was a very emotional experience.”

Spring first became aware of Krasznahorkai when the late American critic Susan Sontag recommended the Hungarian author to his press after having read the British edition of . (Plus, it didn’t hurt that the New Directions team is close with the author’s German editor). From there, he and his colleagues recognized a voice that struck “a powerful chord with all of us,” recalls Spring.

Today, he says, the Nobel not only validates that vision but also provides crucial support for a lean publisher like New Directions that doesn’t publish commercial bestsellers: “We spent all morning frantically figuring out with our printers and distributor how quickly we could get the reprints out. Most of all, we’re happy for László.”

Ģ����ý’s literary translation ties

Spring isn’t the only Ģ����ý connection. Chad Post—who heads up , the University’s nonprofit, literary translation press—has long admired Krasznahorkai’s work and has met the author. “It was only a matter of time until he won,” Post says.

Post helped award Krasznahorkai’s translated novels back-to-back Best Translated Book Awards in 2013 () and again in 2014 ( The honor is administered by , the online literary magazine of Open Letter that publishes essays and reviews, and hosts podcasts.

Although Open Letter hasn’t published Krasznahorkai’s work directly, its translators have connections to URochester. After all, it’s the work of translators, many of whom are authors themselves, that make books accessible to international audiences. (a pseudonym), who translated Seiobo There Below, spoke to Post’s graduate seminar on world literature and translation shortly after she won the Best Translated Book Award. The British poet and translator George Szirtes, another Krasznahorkai translator, had won the same award a year earlier.

Spring, who sits on Open Letter’s advisory board, has also returned to the Ģ����ý campus to speak to Post’s students about the art and craft of editing and publishing literary translations, and about his own formative experience at the University.

“I had the most brilliant and supportive professors,” among them English faculty members Bruce Johnson and Russ McDonald, says Spring. “They gave me so much confidence and got me even more excited about literature than I already was.”

Krasznahorkai’s singular style

Known for his dark and difficult novels, short stories, and essays, Krasznahorkai’s writing style is unmistakable.

Long, desultory sentences capture “the state of being for regular people, usually living with a sense that the apocalypse is just around the corner,” says Post.

Said apocalypse might come in the form of a Satan-like figure in his 1985 breakout debut novel , a strange circus in , or the rise of neo-Nazis in . His writing is driven by people rather than plot. As an example of his “looping, incredibly detailed sentences, which dazzle and overwhelm,” yet eschew a single period for more than 2,000 words, Post points to the opening of Herscht:

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Willy-Brandt-Straße 1, 10557 Berlin—that was the address he wrote down; then, in the upper left-hand corner, he wrote only Herscht 07769 and nothing else, signaling, as it were, the confidential nature of this matter; no point, he thought, in wasting words by adding any more precise indicators of his own self, as the post office would send the reply back to Kana based on the postcode, and here, in Kana, the post office could get the letter to him based on his name; most essentially, everything was contained on the piece of paper which he had just now folded twice, nicely and accurately, slipping it into the envelope, everything formulated in his own words that began by noting that the Chancellor, a learned natural scientist, would clearly and immediately understand what was on his mind here in Kana, Thuringia…

The challenge of his prose, however, offers abundant rewards to the patient reader. “His voice,” says Post, “is unique and instantly identifiable, rendered beautifully by his translators.”

Adds Spring, “He writes with such pathos about the human condition, his characters are so human and vulnerable. His writing style is poetic and elegant and he’s lucky to have a truly brilliant translator, Ottilie Mulzet.”

Krasznahorkai’s work has not only been translated on the page, but also to the big screen: Several of his novels have been adapted for film, most notably through his long collaboration with Hungarian director Béla Tarr.

For both Post and Spring, Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize shines an international light on the work of an author whose uncompromising vision has shaped their professional lives—and deepened Ģ����ý’s place in the global literary conversation.

The Ģ����ý is hosting the inaugural from October 16 to 18. Jointly organized by the University’s and its , the festival is the first of its kind in North America, exploring the intersection of music, sound technology, and visual media.

Located in Rochester, New York, the birthplace of film and mediated imagery, Soundtrax underscores Ģ����ý’s transdisciplinary strengths in acoustics, optics, engineering, and music while building on Eastman’s legacy as a leader in film-music education and performance.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on January 14, 2019. It has been updated and republished with the .

Thomas Perry ’74 (PhD) is the acclaimed author of 26 suspense novels. His latest, The Burglar (Grove Atlantic, 2019), follows The Bomb Maker, cited by New York Times crime fiction reviewer Marilyn Stasio as one of 2018’s best thrillers.

Praise for Perry extends from critics to masters of the genre. According to Stephen King, “there are probably only a half dozen suspense writers alive who can be depended upon to deliver high voltage shocks, vivid, sympathetic characters, and compelling narratives each time they publish. Thomas Perry is one of them.”

During a book tour, Perry took time out to talk about his latest book and his long career as a writer.

Q&A with award-winning author Thomas Perry

Tell us about Elle Stowell, the new protagonist you introduce in The Burglar.

Perry: Elle is a young woman who jogs through the richest neighborhoods of Los Angeles, looking like one of the daughters of the residents. Just a small, blond woman wearing a college T-shirt and a pair of running shoes that cost several hundred dollars. But she’s a fake. She cases the area to find houses where the owners are out of town so she can break in and rob them. Early one morning, she breaks into a house, reaches the master suite on the second floor, and finds three naked people on the bed with bullet holes in their foreheads. She also finds a video camera running. Did it record the murders, or her arrival? Very soon, she’ll be trying to find the killer before he finds her.

Where do you get your ideas?

Perry: Ideas for novels are still mysterious to me. They come from looking, listening, and remembering. There’s a blank page, and then the next minute there’s an image in your mind, and you begin to write about that image and tell its story.

You have a pretty scholarly background—an undergraduate degree from Cornell and a doctorate in English from Rochester. How did you get involved in the world of suspense novels?

Perry: I’ve written from the time I was in junior high. My parents were both teachers, my brother became a professor of anthropology, and my sister taught. I always assumed that’s how I would make a living. After a year as a commercial fisherman off Santa Barbara, I began working in universities and kept writing. In 1980, I finished a book called The Butcher’s Boy, about a professional killer. When the book won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America [for best first novel], I thought, “Oh, so I guess that must be what I am.”

How did The Butcher Boy get published?

Perry: I wrote it in two chunks during 1979 and 1980. I got a list of literary agents from an article I read in Atlantic and began sending my synopsis to them in alphabetical order. One of the Bs, Lurton Blassingame, replied, “Send the manuscript. I’ll read it.” A couple of weeks later, he said, “I like it. I’ll try to sell it.” And he did, to Suzanne Kirk at Scribner’s.

Do you have any literary idols?

Perry: I’d have to say William Faulkner. He was the subject of my doctoral dissertation at Rochester, and I continue to admire him for all the usual literary reasons.

One of your leading protagonists, Jane Whitefield, is a Native American woman. That seems pretty groundbreaking.

Perry: Good! Every writer hopes to be groundbreaking. Jane came out of a big failure of mine. I spent over a year working on my version of the great California earthquake novel and planted about 10 characters whose lives would be changed by the parts they played in the disaster. When I had 465 pages and wasn’t nearly finished, even my wife found it impossible to get through it. I decided instead to write about the area where I had been born and raised—Tonawanda, New York. I needed a character who could see the region in several ways at once, and Jane Whitefield began to develop. She’s a Seneca with ties to the Tonawanda reservation. I wanted her to be a woman, because I had not yet written a book with a female protagonist.

You’ve held a lot of jobs—as a park maintenance man, a factory laborer, and a commercial fisherman. Were any of your characters or plots inspired by these experiences?

Perry: I’m sure they were. Being a writer is like being a thief who steals lots of tiny items every day and brings them home in his pockets to a huge store room, where he hopes to reassemble them into a new new world of his own. Any real experience has an advantage, because a writer doesn’t just want to describe what exists. He wants to tell readers how it feels.

Thomas Perry’s picks for top literary crime-stoppers

Perry knows a lot about compelling characters. He picks his five most important crime novel protagonists in history:

Sherlock Holmes, the often-imitated model of deduction created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887. “Holmes is a step forward, because in him the thinker becomes heroic.”

Hercule Poirot is Agatha Christie’s most famous character, appearing in 33 novels and more than 50 short stories between 1920 and 1975. “He’s Christie’s variation on earlier detectives, a foreigner with charming quirks.”

C. Auguste Dupin made his first appearance in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), widely considered the first detective novel. “Dupin is important because he’s the original professional puzzle-solver.”

Philip Marlowe is a hard-drinking private eye created by Raymond Chandler in the novel The Big Sleep (1939). “Marlowe is the American tough guy and inspired thousands of imitators.”

George Smiley is a career British intelligence officer created by John le Carré for his first novel, Call for the Dead (1961). “Smiley has inspired almost everyone who writes suspense today.”

A version of this story appears in the winter 2019 issue of Rochester Review, the magazine of the Ģ����ý.

This story was originally published on September 16, 2020. It has been republished with the news that METS was awarded the from the American Web Marketing Association. The award recognizes the success of the METS website rebuild both in terms of its coherence and innovation, and its accessibility and versatility for users.

Teachers and students of medieval literature long faced a problem that people studying other literary periods did not: the scant availability of texts.

That’s not because there wasn’t plenty of literature produced in the Middle Ages or because not much survived. The problem was access.

Publishing medieval texts isn’t like offering editions of literary works created after the advent of the printing press. “Everything was copied by hand in the Middle Ages, and so every medieval copy is different. And we almost never have the copy that was written by the author. We just have copies of copies of copies,” says , director of the Ģ����ý’s and .

Each copy introduces difference. The scribes made mistakes or repeated words as they carried out the grueling work of copying. When working in languages they did not know, they sometimes introduced misspellings or substituted one word for another. Words, sentences, and even paragraphs might be omitted from a particular copy.

Scholars of medieval literature have traditionally had to travel to different archives to compare copies—and, if publishing an edition, decide which of the copies is most authoritative and create the notes and context that explain the differences between the various manuscript copies. German scholars took on a lot of this work 200 years ago.

“The German editions, they were made for experts by experts. They’re often from the 19th century. They’re hard to use and hard to find,” says Siebach-Larsen. As a result, undergraduates studying medieval literature were largely confined to the texts—frequently, just excerpts—available in anthologies. The narrow slice of medieval literature that achieved canonical status shut out “many of the widely circulated texts and authors that medieval people actually read and shared,” she says.

It left students—and anyone else interested in medieval literature but outside the scholarly community or without access to a world-class library—high and dry.

‘Changing the study of Middle English literature’

, for more than 50 years a Rochester faculty member and now a professor emeritus of English, knew there had to be a better way. In 1990, working with the Teaching Association for Medieval Studies (TEAMS, of which he is a founding member), he established the . It offers free digital and affordable print editions of a wide range of medieval writing.

“It completely changed the study of Middle English literature,” says Peck, the general editor for the series, as he looks back over 30 years of work.

Siebach-Larsen, who holds a PhD in medieval studies from Notre Dame, used METS texts herself as a student. “METS democratizes access,” she says. “It puts the literature out there for everybody.” And by offering a more complete view of the literary period, the series has helped “transform our understanding and study of medieval culture,” she adds.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently awarded the project a three-year grant to support its mission of offering the broadest possible readership—from specialists to undergraduates and high school students to people simply curious about the Middle Ages—access to the full range of literary output from medieval England. The latest award extends a long history of support for the project from the NEH.

“METS takes as its mission the creation of affordable editions that would pass scrutiny from the most demanding expert, yet would prove comprehensible, and even enticing, to someone who had never read Middle English before,” the team wrote in its application for support from the NEH.

Tools of the trade

Each volume in the series offers both the scholarly apparatus demanded by researchers and the tools that help a novice understand the text: glosses and facing-page translations, textual and explanatory notes, contexts and background.

—a professor of English, the consulting editor to METS, and the principal investigator for the NEH grant—says the series “offers the richest portal into the Middle Ages to the largest number of people with the widest range of interests and expertise of anything that exists out there.”

Among the many titles METS has published are William Caxton’s The Game and Playe of the Chesse, a chessboard-inspired allegory about contributions to the common good; Prik of Conscience, among the most popular medieval English poems; and the Complete Harley 2235 Manuscript—one of the most important literary books to survive from the Middle Ages, it’s a rich collection, in three languages, of lyric poetry, satire, comedies, collected sayings, and more.

METS is a partnership between TEAMS, scholars in the field, Rochester’s , and the River Campus Libraries, in particular, the Robbins Library—the University’s medieval studies library—and the Information Discovery Team, along with the Digital Scholarship Lab and other library metadata and IT experts.

Individual volume editors are scholars from around the world, supported by METS’s own editorial team, which includes Rochester graduate students and undergraduates. The students hone their skills in paleography—the study of handwriting—and copy-editing, and acquire a wide range of digital humanities skills. The project is a “source for both intellectual rigor and growth and marketable, career-driven skills,” says Hahn.

A ‘lifeline’ for scholarship and teaching

Ninety-five volumes have been published online and in print, offering today’s readers more than a thousand texts. The series includes prose, poetry, drama, travel writing, devotional literature, autobiography, and other forms—all from the British Isles between the 12th and 16th centuries. The online texts, hosted on the River Campus Libraries’ website, generate about half a million hits per year. Online readers are predominantly from the US and the UK but also come from about 135 countries and a wide variety of language groups around the world.

The multilingual dimension of METS is now central. The series has broadened its focus to include many of the languages in use in medieval Britain, including all the dialects of English, Older Scots, Welsh, Anglo-Irish, Anglo-Norman, and Continental French.

Among the tasks ahead for the creators of the series is an overhaul of its digital editions—an effort already well underway—to improve sustainability as well as access and possibilities for future users. The age of COVID-19 has demonstrated how critical such multimodal, user-friendly interfaces are.

“This pandemic has only made more clear how important METS’s dedication to open access is,” says Siebach-Larsen. “We have heard from researchers and instructors around the world that METS’s digital editions have been a lifeline for their scholarship and teaching.”

Vocalist, music and education champion, and University Trustee Joan Beal ’84E and Emmy-winning composer have made a historic, multimillion-dollar gift to the at the Ģ����ý. The gift—made by the alumni as part of —supports the intersection of music, technology, and education. It is also the largest individual gift made to the school since George Eastman established it in 1921.

The couple’s transformative generosity builds on the success of , established during the University’s last comprehensive campaign, The Meliora Challenge. The Beals’ newest gift marks a major expansion of the institute and will provide critical funds for facilities, technology and innovation, new undergraduate and graduate programs, and scholarships that support student success across the school. Ultimately, it will build new opportunities to equip graduates for 21st-century careers in music.

“We are incredibly thankful to Joan and Jeff Beal for everything they have done in support of the Eastman School of Music and the URochester,” says University President Sarah Mangelsdorf. “This latest gift is another example of the many ways that they support the next generation of Eastman musicians. Their philanthropy will have a lasting impact. The Beals exemplify our Meliora mission—making the world ‘ever better’ every day. We are proud to count Joan and Jeff Beal as Rochester alumni and dear friends.”

“We are deeply grateful to Joan and Jeff for their vision, partnership, and dedication to music, to Eastman, and to the University overall,” says Kate Sheeran, the Joan and Martin Messinger Dean of the Eastman School. “As artists, they are models for us all—innovating, evolving, and forging pathways for new generations. Their gift is truly consequential, shaping our school in profound ways, strengthening our mission, and affirming the vital role music plays in advancing knowledge, innovation, and human connection.”

“Jeff and I are who we are today largely because of the education, mentorship, and opportunities we received at Eastman,” says Joan Beal, cochair of the University’s For Ever Better campaign committee. “Staying connected with the school and the University has only deepened our appreciation for that experience.”

Adds Jeff Beal, “This gift is really about giving back—making sure the next generation of musicians, innovators, and creators have the support and opportunities they need to grow and succeed in the ever-evolving technological and cultural landscape of music.”

In alignment with the University’s and its campaign priorities, the Beals’ gift will provide immediate support for the following:

• The Beal Innovation Hub: This new, state-of-the-art collaborative center—to be located on the fifth floor of the Miller Center—will span 6,000 square feet. It will house labs, creative spaces, workstations, recording booths, and teaching studios. The Beals’ gift will help repurpose and modernize an existing space while creating an environment that will enhance connections across the University. This includes —a new transdisciplinary center advancing the University’s leadership in music and technology in partnership with the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences.

• Scholarships and student success: New scholarships made possible by the Beals will enhance Eastman’s ability to offer competitive financial aid to undergraduate and graduate students across the school’s programs. This increased support will play a pivotal role in attracting and enrolling the most talented students from around the world, regardless of their economic circumstances.

• Academic programs: The Beals’ gift includes initial funding to support new undergraduate and graduate programs that will launch in fall 2027. In his newly created role as the Beal Institute’s associate professor of music and technology, will lead these initiatives. The couple’s generosity will also provide dedicated resources to hire additional faculty, welcome industry professionals, and purchase state-of-the-art technology for students to be successful in their careers.

“The tremendous support of the Beals strengthens our commitment to excellence and scholarship and propels Eastman into its most transformative moment in 104 years,” says Sheeran. “And it most certainly reinforces the words inscribed on our Eastman Theatre: ‘For the Enrichment of Community Life’.”

The Beal Institute, led by Emmy Award–winning composer and conductor and Eastman professor , has been named by and for several years running as a top program in the nation for film composition and contemporary media.

Ģ����ý Joan and Jeff Beal

The Beals are deeply committed alumni, dedicated to nurturing the next generation of creative talent. Joan Beal, an accomplished vocalist, has recorded on hundreds of film and television scores and performed with some of the world’s most renowned composers and orchestras. Her artistry spans classical, film, and contemporary music, and she is widely respected as a mentor and advocate for young artists.

In addition to her recording career, she has been and serves in leadership roles at the URochester, including on the University Board of Trustees and Eastman’s National Council. She, along with University Trustee Juan Jones ’88S (MBA), is a volunteer leader who cochairs Rochester’s For Ever Better philanthropy and engagement campaign, launched in September 2025.

Jeff Beal is a five-time Emmy-winning composer acclaimed for his richly expressive scores for streaming and film—including Netflix’s House of Cards, HBO’s Carnivale and Rome, Ed Harris’s film Pollock, and the documentaries Blackfish and Queen of Versailles—which feature his singular compositional voice.

Equally respected as a concert composer and performer, Jeff Beal’s commissioned works are performed by major orchestras and ensembles around the world. His solo piano recording of New York Études has been featured on NPR and BBC3 radio, receiving millions of streams. His violin concerto, performed by Kelly Hall Tompkins ’93E and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, was lauded as “splendid” by San Francisco Classical Voice, which also noted that “Beal is an engaging and resourceful composer.”

After a day of seeing and treating patients, eight faculty-physicians from the Ģ����ý met at the University’s (MAG). They sat on folding stools before a painting of a woman and three children gathered around a table, on which the woman appeared to be cutting something. Pink sticky notes concealed the painting’s label with its title, artist, and other context.

“What do you see?” said , an assistant professor at the , a family physician in the UR Medicine Primary Care network, and the group’s facilitator.

Rodrigues had just asked the first question of the , the lynchpin of the Art of Observation partnership between the University’s medical school, the , and the museum.

Designed to enhance observational skills for healthcare professionals, the sustained viewing and structured dialogue help participants unpack their assumptions, consider different perspectives, and avoid jumping to conclusions—among other cognitive biases—based on titles, dates, or locations. (That information is only revealed with the fourth question, when the sticky notes come off.)

“I see a mom cutting food for her children,” one member of the group said. “Why doesn’t she use a cutting board on that nice wooden table?”

“She’s the maid,” another suggested.

“But the kids look like her,” someone countered.

“The room’s a bit barren and skimpy.”

“I don’t know if it’s skimpy, or just blurry. It actually looks lush, maybe lit by a fire.”

“‘Skimpy’ is definitely subjective,” said Rodrigues. “What else do you see?”

After a minute of silence, one responded: “The kids seem healthy.”

“The kids are hungry. Look how their hair is disheveled and they’re staring at the food she’s cutting. They’re starving.”

“Or did they just wake up from naps? Kids are always hungry.”

Each observation revealed a unique focus, perspective, and lived experience—which is exactly what doctors and nurses often bring to the exam room.

The fine art of patient care

“Everything about the 5QP is designed to build clinical skills,” says , a senior associate at the Memorial Art Gallery and with the . “This protocol evolved in response to a concern that physicians were jumping to conclusions. The Art of Observation program was designed to slow the viewer down, to actually focus on how they know what they know.”

Daiss cofounded Art and Observation at the URochester in 2002 with , now a professor emeritus, after they both read about a program at Yale University that focused on enhancing medical students’ observational skills through the study of detailed Victorian narrative pictures. Each educator brought unique interdisciplinary training to the partnership, with Daiss having experience in both art history and hospital-based pastoral care, and Clark having trained as a medical doctor before completing a doctorate in the humanities.

From the outset, Daiss and Clark have targeted the development of sound clinical practices beyond mere observational skills. These include listening, asking questions, acknowledging biases, and describing visual information, with the objective being to avoid errors in the often-complex process of clinical diagnosis.

“While we can’t be bias-free,” Daiss says, “we can be bias-aware.”

Students’ first taste of the program is the second day of medical school or early in the Program. During sessions at the Memorial Art Gallery, they break into small groups, study a selection of narrative paintings, and review the 5QP with a trained facilitator who has knowledge of both art history and healthcare.

“One of our objectives for this program is learning to separate out observation from inference and assumption,” says Instructor of Clinical Nursing Kristina Santory ’06, ’14W (MS). “In a field that is so focused on physical assessments, lab values, and what to do next, this act of careful looking helps nursing students to pause and think: Are we seeing the whole picture?”

Santory often hears students ask, “‘We’re looking at the same painting; how can we see such different things?’ That’s the most surprising, but also most enriching, part of the activity.”

Taking time to see the bigger picture

Far from a “one and done” experience, Art of Observation lays the groundwork for other opportunities to engage with visual arts throughout medical school, from visits to anatomy labs to a course called Drawing to See: Drawing as a Tool to Build Observational Skills, taught by Daiss in partnership with the museum’s art courses.

Piper Schneider ’27M (MD) says her experience with Art of Observation primed her to invoke the 5QP as she studied the live model in Drawing to See. Having students sit in a circle around the model, she adds, gave each one a distinct perspective that reinforced the lessons learned in the program. “The act of actually creating the work took me back to that thought process: Am I drawing something that I only think should be there, or that I can actually verify?” she says.

As Schneider prepares for clinical rotations as a medical student, she plans to “check in” with herself using queries that arose during Art of Observation. “Am I going down the right path? Am I filling in gaps with my own biased thoughts and feelings or am I truly listening to what the patient is sharing with me? The close study of art, and drawing technique, give me tools for how to approach patient conversation and diagnostic thinking.”

Rodrigues, Daiss’ former student and colleague, was likewise inspired by Art of Observation to develop the session for Rochester faculty-physicians, called Cura te ipsum (Latin for “heal thyself,” and a play on the word curate).

“I think the 5QP perfectly parallels my experience within the doctor-patient relationship,” she says. “Having the time to appreciate details and draw parallels to what we’ve seen before gives me more space to pause and not rush to conclusions. Practicing that with art helps me be more mindful in practicing that with patients.”

For the fourth question of the 5QP—“What information would confirm your hypotheses?”—Rodrigues peeled off the sticky note to reveal the title, artist, and year: Bread and Butter, painted by Dutch artist Albert Neuhuys at the turn of the twentieth century. She added that George Eastman, one of Rochester’s most notable philanthropists, kept this painting on prominent display in his East Avenue mansion.

“He and his mother were very close,” said Rodrigues, referring to Eastman. “That might help us think about why he chose this for his home.” This prompted a flurry of comments.

“So it is a mother and children!”

“They look just like her.”

“How else,” Rodrigues asked the group, “does this context support or resolve uncertainties in your conjectures?”

“I feel better for this little family that they have access to butter!”

“And I feel better that she isn’t cutting into that table.”

“Unless it’s from IKEA,” someone added, eliciting laughter from the others.

This stage of the 5QP provides the critical background and research that, coupled with careful observation, leads to diagnostic accuracy. Likewise, the invitation to suggest multiple interpretations parallels the medical practice of differential diagnosis.

The final question (“What did you observe about yourself?”) encourages participants to reflect on their experience with the 5QP and what they learned about themselves individually as well as members of a group.

For William DiPasquale ’24M (MD), a resident in anesthesiology at the Medical Center, this has become an ongoing—and extremely valuable—process in learning how to take care of patients, especially those nearing the end of life.

“My first semester of medical school was challenging. We were studying intensely and working daily in the anatomy lab. I struggled to come to terms with the human reality of death and dying, and wasn’t sure how to process those emotions,” he explains. “I reached out to Susie [Daiss], and she invited me to re-engage in the Art of Observation process.”

Dipasquale adds, “The Memorial Art Gallery became a space where I could go, find inspiration, have moments of reflection, and process things I was learning and doing in class. Sharing these reflections helped me find a personal sense of peace, to harness my emotions in a positive way. Now I’m much more comfortable engaging with patients who are actively dying, largely thanks to this long-term reflective process. It’s already shaping my career.”