News Release

Paul Eliasson, a luthier and Johns Hopkins University senior, has been awarded the university's Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts for 2009.

Eliasson's $1,500 prize will be presented at a special luncheon in May. Seniors Njeri Osbourne, a composer/singer, and Brigitte Warner, who excels in drawing cartoons, will receive the President's Commendation for Achievement in the Arts.

The Sudler Prize is awarded to a graduating senior from the university's schools of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Nursing or the Peabody Conservatory, or a fourth-year medical student, who, in the opinion of a committee, has demonstrated excellence and the highest standards of proficiency in performance, execution or composition in music, theater, dance, fiction, poetry, painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, film or video.

Eliasson, who will earn a bachelor's degree in political science in May, was recognized for his guitar-making, submitting six guitars he had designed and made. The Sudler Prize Committee was struck by the marriage of art and design exemplified in the instruments submitted, each of which was quite different from the other, but each visually stunning. He is the son of Orn and Nadia Eliasson of Ellicott City, Md., and attended River Hill High School in Clarksville, Md. The President's Commendation for Achievement in the Arts recognizes graduating seniors at the university's Homewood campus who, while demonstrating artistic excellence, have also used art in service to the Homewood campus community. This year, the award was given to two outstanding applicants.

Osbourne impressed the Sudler Prize Committee with the extent of her leadership and involvement in the Johns Hopkins musical community, both as a performer and as founder of the Vivaz Performing Arts Company. She will earn a bachelor's degree in Writing Seminars, Africana studies, Latin American studies, and political science in May. Osbourne's hometown is Kingston, Jamaica, where she attended high school at Campion College. She is the daughter of Devon and Karen Osbourne.

Warner impressed the committee not only with the extensive portfolio of cartoons that she presented, but with her highly effective service as Cartoons, Etc., editor of the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, the student newspaper. Warner will earn a bachelor's degree in May from the Writing Seminars. She is the daughter of John and Amy Warner of Northville, Mich., where she attended Northville High School.