Alumni to be Honored at Commencement

Nancy Stula '83, '85

Robert Brubaker '77

The director and curator of a Connecticut art museum will receive the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award during Commencement exercises on Sunday, and an acclaimed tenor will be presented with the Hartt Alumni Award.

Nancy Stula '83, '85, director and curator of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Conn., will be presented with the Distinguished Alumni Award during the main undergraduate Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 19. The Distinguished Alumni Award is presented annually to a University graduate who has made an exceptional impact on her/his profession, community, and the University.

The 2013 Hartt Alumni Award will be conferred on tenor Robert Brubaker '77 during The Hartt School’s diploma presentation ceremony in Lincoln Theater, immediately following Sunday’s main Commencement ceremony.


Nancy Stula '83, '85

Stula received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in visual communication design from the Hartford Art School in 1983 and a Bachelor of Arts in art history from the College of Arts and Sciences, summa cum laude, in 1985. She went on to earn a PhD in art history from Columbia University, where she specialized in the history of 19th-century American art.

Stula began her museum career in the Department of American Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1991. In 1994 she returned to her native Connecticut from New York City and began teaching at the University of Hartford as an adjunct professor in the Department of Art History. In 2003, Stula joined the Lyman Allyn Art Museum as curator and deputy director. In 2008 she was named interim director; she was named director the following year.

At the Lyman Allyn, Stula has overseen more than 13 exhibitions and has published in the field of American art.

She served as a trustee of the Hartford Art School from 2005 to 2009 and on the Connecticut State Artists Collection Advisory Committee from 2008 to 2009. Stula currently is on the board of the Connecticut Arts Alliance, an arts advocacy organization.


Robert Brubaker '77

Brubaker received a Bachelor of Music in 1977 from The Hartt School. Brubaker has established himself as a leading tenor in opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, praised for the clarity and power of his voice and the impact of his acting. He has appeared at The Metropolitan Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Opéra National de Paris, Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, and other major opera houses around the world.

As Opera News summed it up when writing about Brubaker's Golitsin in the new Andrei Serban production of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina at the Bastille, unveiled in December 2001, "Brubaker once again showed that, for sheer stamina in high-lying music, he has few rivals.”

Brubaker's recent engagements include the Kaiser in Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Deutsche Oper Berlin; Laca in Jenufa at the English National Opera; Boris in Katya Kabanova at the Theater an der Wien; Mephistopheles in the premiere of Busoni's Doktor Faust at Teatre de la Maestranza in Seville; a return to the Glyndebourne Festival for the world premiere of the new opera, Of Love and Other Demons, composed by Peter Eötvös; Herodes in Salome in Bologna; Alviano in Die Gezeichneten at Los Angeles Opera; a reprise of Don Ygnacio in Of Love and Other Demons at Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg; Loge in Das Rheingold at Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville; Mao Tse-Tung in Nixon in China at the Metropolitan Opera; the title role in Der König Kandaules for Vienna Volksoper; Captain in Wozzek at Santa Fe Opera; and the Witch in Hänsel und Gretel and Mime in the Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera.