Peter DeGennaro

Photo by Cleo Barnett

Peter DiGennaro

MA Arts Politics Class of 2016

BA Communications and Management, Bentley University

Peter DiGennaro is a musician, composer, producer, sound designer, writer, entrepreneur and arts educator hailing from New Haven, CT.  For over twenty years, he has composed extensively for theatre, film and dance, in addition to his own sound art and musical ventures.  

Working from a synesthetic approach, Peter has presented work at a wide range of venues both nationally and internationally, including The Merce Cunningham Studios, The Figment Festival, and CulturArt in Cape Verde, Africa.  As Director of Vesper Studios, he has provided a space for the sound and literary arts, for interdisciplinary collaborations, and for convening in community around matters of social justice and the arts.  

As the founding instructor of the year long Rock and Roll program at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, CT, as well as the founder and Program Director of its contemporary music intensive, NMS Summer Rocks!, he places a special emphasis on studentcentered, dialogic learning keyed into  cultural awareness, inquiry, agency and equity.  Building upon this work, his studies at NYU Arts Politics center around the proliferation and tort concerns of International Human Rights, especially relating to issues of self­representation and solidarity, as effected through formal Peace Education and interventionist art activist practices utilizing institution building, Arts Education and “Collective Leadership” modalities.  

Honored to be a part of this year’s Arts Politics cohort, Peter enjoys meditation, exercise and, of course, salted hot chocolate. He recently completed his latest collection of poems: Sinter.

What drew you to the MA Arts Politics program?

Having, for many years, instinctively programmed my teaching curriculum to a student­centered model with a focus on original thought, self­agency, innovative problem solving and cultural equity, I wanted to scale up my understanding and personal practice of social justice arts activism and its related issues of history, heritage and governance.  

The Arts Politics program offers the perfect venue and faculty for parsing out the logics and language of oppression, as well as the ethos and ethics of effective, socially conscious resistance. That I may supplement APP learning with studies in other departments, especially surrounding International Human Rights, Public Service and Non­Profit Management was a deal closer.