Fever Pitch is more than a performance—it is a celebration, a ritual, and a bold vision for a just and sustainable world.

At its heart is Taína Asili, a dynamic singer, composer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator carrying on the tradition of her Puerto Rican ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice.

She is celebrated by NPR, Rolling Stone, Billboard and Democracy Now! for her soulful, genre-blending music echoing calls for love and liberation. For the past 30 years she has offered energetic performances at diverse venues nationwide – from iconic stages such as Carnegie Hall, to renowned festivals like San Francisco Pride, to historic events like The Women’s March on Washingtons – inspiring audiences to dance to the rhythm of rebellion. 

The liberation themes in Asili’s work are deeply rooted in her involvement in local and national activism, collaborating with numerous organizations throughout the years. As U.S. Coordinator for One Billion Rising and Board Chair of Soul Fire Farm, Taína’s artistic and activist work sits at the intersection of racial, gender, food, and climate justice.

Her Resiliencia album embodies this mission, drawing from interviews with women of color across the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico—stories of resilience in the face of cancer, hurricanes, migration, and sexual violence. This project extended into an award-winning documentary series, offering a powerful musical and visual exploration of these lived experiences.

Additionally, during her residency with the Social Justice Portal Project, Asili created The Justice Suite, a multimedia trilogy of music and video interventions addressing abolition, climate justice, and economic democracy. 

Fever Pitch, Asili’s latest interdisciplinary production, unites decades of her original work into a one-hour spectacle designed to ignite climate justice action on local, national, and global scales.

Dr. Ana Isabel Baptista is the Director, Tishman Environment and Design Center and an Associate Professor in the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management graduate program at The New School University.

Dr. Baptista works on environmental justice policies, climate mitigation, renewable energy policies, environmental planning, zero waste systems, cumulative impacts analysis, and goods movement mitigation strategies.

Dr. Baptista was appointed to the Fourth New York City Panel on Climate Change, where she co-chairs the Equity Workgroup. She serves on the Executive Advisory Council of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH). She is an Associate Editor for the Environmental Justice Journal and the Journal of Climate Resilience and Climate Justice.

Dr. Baptista is an active member of the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform and the Moving Forward Network. She is currently the principal investigator for the National Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship program housed at the Tishman Center.

Dr. Baptista serves on the Board of Trustees for the Victoria Foundation, GAIA, the Ironbound Community Corp., and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance. Dr. Baptista is also an appointed member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) Carbon Management Workgroup. Read the WHEJAC. 

Daniel R. Tishman is Chairman and President Northlight foundation.  Dan is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Montefiore Medicine and as a member of the boards of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, among others. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Planning from Evergreen State College and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Studies from Lesley College.

Joel Towers is the 10th appointed President of The New School. Prior, Towers was a University Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design at Parsons School of Design in The School of Constructed Environments. He is also the Co-Director of The Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School. His work focuses on sustainability, resilience, and the development of policy and design-based solutions to climate change and the construction of healthy environments. 

In 2009 President Towers was appointed Executive Dean of Parsons School of Design, serving as head of the college for a decade. Under his leadership, Parsons completed major curricular reforms, launched new graduate and undergraduate programs, and built an integrated 26,000 sq. ft. cross-disciplinary Making Center facility. With the intent to expand the school’s reach and research capabilities, he supported multiple industry leading design and research labs and expanded the ranks of full-time faculty.

Today the school is one of the most internationally diverse in the United States with nearly half of the undergraduate student body coming from other countries. Under President-elect Towers’ leadership, Parsons consistently ranked as the top school for Art and Design in the United States, a position it continues to hold today.  

President Towers joined Parsons in 2004 as a member of the full-time faculty and the first Director of Sustainable Design and Urban Ecology. In 2006 he was named Associate Provost for Environmental Studies and founded The New School’s Tishman Environment and Design Center, which fosters the integration of bold design, policy, and social justice approaches to environmental issues to advance just and sustainable outcomes in collaboration with communities.

From 2007-2009 he was the founding Dean of The School of Design Strategies and Associate Dean of Parsons. In 2019 President-elect Towers was appointed by Mayor de Blasio  to co-chair of The New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC). Climate change presents urgent, immediate, and long-term challenges to New York City. To confront these challenges and build a more resilient and equitable future for all New Yorkers, the NPCC was created by local law in 2012 to regularly assess the current state of the science on climate change and provide actionable policy-relevant recommendations for adaptation and mitigation to the Mayor and City Council. The panel recently completed its most recent report, NPCC4.