Judges and winners of College of Arts and Architectures 2025 Arts Business Idea Competition. From left, Luke Gall (judge), Orest Luzeckyj (2nd place), Jennie Ryan-Gisewhite (3rd place), Sa’ida Bronner (1st place), Luke Kranyak (4th place), Jonathan Gangi (judge) and Heather Bhandari (judge).
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The four winners of the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s 2025 Arts Business Idea Competition, held in late March, represent different majors and include a student from Penn State Abington.
Open to undergraduate and graduate students from any major and any Penn State campus, the competition is the college’s annual showcase of arts entrepreneurship that asks students to present an arts-based business plan that could earn entrants up to $5,000 to develop the concept.
The competition is organized and hosted by the College of Arts and Architecture’s Arts Entrepreneurship Program, which recently celebrated the launch of a new minor designed specifically for Arts and Architecture majors.
1st Place ($5,000): Sa’ida Bronner
Bronner, a fourth-year student majoring in integrative arts with a focus on music technology and arts entrepreneurship, is the owner of Sa’ida Sound, a professional sound recording and editing service that offers access to high-quality media content creation.
Sa’ida Sound serves the State College community through professional, reliable service that fosters connection between creators and consumers. The studio caters to a local market of businesses and individual creators, while the remote audio editing service operates nationwide.
2nd Place ($3,500): Orest Luzeckyj
Luzeckyj, a third-year student at Penn State Abington majoring in business (marketing management) with a minor in art, is the owner of Orest Luzeckyj Artwork.
The mission of his business is to create high-quality artworks that inspire creativity, enrich lives and provide enjoyment for all.
The products are original artworks created through the medium of woodcut printmaking, featuring unique monster designs that belong to a larger series. Each design is printed in limited, numbered small batches and every print is signed and numbered by hand.
3rd Place ($1,500): Jennie Ryan-Gisewhite
Ryan-Gisewhite is a graduate student in landscape architecture and the owner of Susquehanna Land Studio.
With a mission of providing sustainable place-driven landscape architectural services to private and public clients, Susquehanna Land Studio is one of the few professional landscape architectural service providers in west-central Pennsylvania that focuses on native plant solutions and natural systems-guided design.
Susquehanna Land Studio provides services to private homeowners, commercial businesses, post-industrial sites and municipalities looking for environmentally sensitive landscape architectural design. The studio also provides visualization and design services to help clients understand concepts and market to their stakeholders.
4th Place ($1,000): Luke Kranyak
Kranyak, a fourth-year student majoring in music with a concentration in saxophone performance, is the founder of Luke Kranyak LLC, a business that offers performance and entertainment services, private instruction, and audio and visual recording services.
The mission of the business is to create and capture lasting musical experiences to encourage self-growth, musical excellence and professional development.
Jonathan Gangi, associate professor of music and director of the Arts Entrepreneurship Program, said the competition is a key part of the program, which aims to help students build a sustainable arts career based upon their interests, passions and goals.
“The competition is an incredible opportunity for students to present their arts businesses to a panel of judges, receive mentorship, and earn startup funds to help grow their ventures and ultimately to help them create sustainable careers in the arts,” Gangi said.
Judges for the competition included Gangi and Arts and Architecture alumni Luke Gall (2014, bachelor of music education), co-founder of “Ultimate Drill Book,” and Heather Bhandari (1999, master of fine arts in visual arts), an independent curator and programming director for the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
