Nada Shalaby
Nada Shalaby was the 2015 Northwestern University Awardee of the Edes Foundation Prize.
Nada is a visual artist born in Cairo. Her practice is primarily
situated between installation, performance and social engagement. She is concerned with the interrogation of uncontested spaces, often involving constructs of language and cultural associations, that exist in the public sphere. She began work in social practice in 2009 with a storefront studio in Chicago’s West Roger’s Park neighborhood. In 2011, she founded a social practice residency program for young artists and co-founded the art space Doukan7002 in Chicago. She moved back to Egypt later that year and began teaching in the Department of the Arts at the American University in Cairo. She holds a Masters degree in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University.
Francisco Castillo Trigueros
Francisco Castillo Trigueros was the 2015 University of Chicago Awardee of the Edes Foundation Prize.
Francisco is a composer and performer of contemporary and electronic music from Mexico City residing in Chicago. As a composer he has received numerous distinctions such as the BMI Student Composer Award, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne Young Composer’s Forum Jury prize, two honorable mentions in the Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and four nominations for the Gaudeamus Music Prize. As a performer of electronic music, Francisco is part of Collect/Project, a trio with flutist Shanna Gutierrez, and vocalist Frauke Aulbert. He has also performed with ensembles and soloists such as Ensemble Dal Niente, the Spektral Quartet, Fonema Consort, Claire Chase, and Ryan Muncy, and with the prestigious Mexican dance company Delfos Danza Contemporanea.
Francisco recently received a Ph.D at the University of Chicago, where he served as Computer Music Studio Manager for three years, and is currently teaching Digital Music Composition at Columbia College Chicago, and Theory and Composition at the New Music School. His mentors include Augusta Read Thomas, Shulamit Ran, and Howard Sandroff, among others. Current projects include Xilitla, a large-scale multimedia song cycle funded by the Edes Prize, a new piece for harpist Ben Melsky, and the music for a videodance by Delfos Danza Contemporanea.
Jeffrey Levin
Jeffrey Levin was the 2015 DePaul University Awardee of the Edes Foundation Prize.
Jeffrey is a composer, sound designer, musician, and sound engineer based in Chicago IL. As a freelance artist Jeffrey has contributed original music, sound design, and music direction for over sixty productions for various theaters and performance venues in and outside of Chicago. He is an Artistic Associate of Profiles Theatre where he contributes all music and sound designs for the past five seasons. Other theaters Jeffrey has collaborated with includes Steppenwolf, About Face Theatre, Strawdog Theatre, Stage Left, TUTA, Step Up Productions, Dead Writers Theatre, Chicago Fringe Opera, Collaboraction, ChiArts High School, McGill University, and Columbia College. Awards and Recognitions that Jeffrey has received in addition to the Edes Foundation Prize includes two Equity Joseph Jefferson Award Nominations for In the Company of Men (Sound Design) and In God’s Hat (Original Music), both at Profiles Theatre. He was also winner of the Kleinman Composition Competition for his original work for Clarinet and Electronics. Jeffrey received his Masters of Music in Composition at DePaul University and Bachelors of Music in Composition at Columbia College Chicago.
Leonard Suryajaya
Leonard Suryajaya was the 2015 School of the Art Institute of Chicago Awardee of the Edes Foundation Prize.
Leonard, who is originally from North Sumatra, Indonesia, received dual bachelor’s degrees in Theatre Art and Creative Photography from California State University Fullerton in 2013.
He received his Master of Fine Arts in Photography at SAIC in May 2015. He has exhibited his work extensively, including at Expo Chicago, Mana Contemporary, Defibrillator Gallery, and the Irvine Fine Arts Center in Irvine, CA.
Influenced by the cultural milieu of inter-ethnic relations in Indonesia, Suryajaya’s work explores intricate and complicated layers of selfhood in the context of cultural background, intimacy, sexuality, and personal displacement. By utilizing photography, video, along with elements of performance and installation, and through the use of personal narrative and story telling, his work challenges and deconstructs the perspective we use to scrutinize and observe our roles in a transnational global world.
