The Arts
Past Events
Update: this event has been canceled due to the pending storm.
James Osborn, conductor
This event is open to the public.
Do you know someone who has been meaning to visit The Loeb but hasn’t made it happen yet? Or someone who thinks art isn’t for them, and you’d like to convince them otherwise? Please join us for our third annual Bring a Friend Day, and enjoy the museum and special activities—together. The day’s offerings include art-making, engaging mini-tours, and light refreshments.
Free and open to the public.
Alcée Chriss III is widely regarded as one of the leading young organists of our time.
Free and open to the public.
Poet Gold leads an evening of spoken word, music, and conversation, followed by a book signing.
Rose B. Simpson is a powerful voice in contemporary art who works in various media, including—but not limited to—sculpture, performance, and poetry. Her monumental sculpture Seed is the latest permanent addition to Vassar’s campus art collection, and the first by an Indigenous artist.
Free and open to the public.
A screening of Everything Everywhere All at Once followed by a Q&A with producer Jon Read ’09.
This event is free and open to the public.
Professor of Chinese Studies Liang Luo examines how the White Snake legend is being reimagined through contemporary opera, film, and theater as a framework for digital-age minority activism.
MODfest takes to the airwaves as WVKR spotlights original radio art by Vassar’s electronic music students. This special broadcast showcases the craft and sonic imagination of Vassar’s emerging artists.
MODfest 2026
Campus comes to life in a new guise with sound installations created by Vassar’s electronic music students.
Celebrate the creativity and stylistic breadth of Vassar’s emerging composers. This interactive event offers audiences a unique opportunity to engage directly with the compositional process, from first sparks to finished scores, featuring live performances and open discussion in a collaborative workshop.
MODfest 2026
Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre performs works created by faculty, students, and guest choreographers, selected from the current repertory.
MODfest 2026
This talk examines how Black artists transform AI from a tool of command and control into a medium for intergenerational dialogue and alternative worlding.
This event is free and open to the public.
An evening of new compositions featuring boldly expressive works by MODfest cofounder Richard Wilson and premieres by new faculty Alan Hankers and Celeste Oram, highlighting electronic-influenced textures and interdisciplinary explorations of music, language, and cultural history.
MODfest 2026
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays this winter and spring. Each date will feature a different hands-on art activity inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children ages 5 and up.
Free and open to the public.
Rescoring Richter is a multimedia project pairing contemporary sound artists with Hans Richter’s 1920s avant-garde films to create new scores, documented through short films and live performances that reveal and reanimate his revolutionary cinematic imagery.
MODfest 2026
Music department students perform for internationally renowned soprano Amy Burton and composer and pianist John Musto in a master class, featuring Musto’s musical works.
MODfest 2026
The Loeb welcomes acclaimed Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña for an artist talk in conjunction with the closing of Chronostasia: Select Acquisitions 2020–2025.
Free and open to the public.
7:30 p.m. on Friday, and 2:00 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday
Note: The performance on Jan 25 has been canceled due to weather.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live.
MODfest 2026
Vassar is taking student play submissions for its 2025–26 Playwriting Awards (due Jan 19, 2026); winners can earn $1,000 and a staged reading.
Jeremy Dennis (b. 1990) is a contemporary fine art photographer, an enrolled Tribal Member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation in Southampton, New York, and lead artist and founder of the nonprofit Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio Inc. on the Shinnecock Reservation. His work centers Indigenous identity, culture, and the legacies of colonial assimilation.
Vassar students put on a performance of this English Baroque opera for this one-night-only free event. Directed by Anthony Orsi.
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays this fall. Each date will feature different hands-on art activities inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children 5 and up.
This annual Advent service at the Vassar College Chapel features readings, choral anthems, and congregational carols, culminating in a candle lighting ceremony. Vassar College Choir, Chamber Singers, and Treble Chorus, and Cappella Festiva Chamber Choir will perform.
This event is open to the public.
Eduardo Navega, director
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
James Osborn, director
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Thursday, December 4 and Friday, December 5 at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, December 6 at 2:00 p.m.
Artist, writer, and publisher Paul Chan will give a lecture entitled “Content: a Postmortem,” on Monday, December 1st. The lecture will begin at 6:00 p.m. and will take place in Taylor Hall, Room 102.
Drew Minter, conductor
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Eduardo Navega, conductor
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre presents three exciting performances of all-new ballet, contemporary, jazz, and modern dance works.
The Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. Ari Isaacman-Beck, violin, Carlos Rubio, violin, Adriana Linares, viola, Jesús Morales, cello
This event is open to the public.
Tracing a path through the voices of nature, this program reflects on our search for peace, hope, and humanity. Christine Howlett, conductor, Susan Brown, piano, and Elizabeth Handman, viola.
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Christopher Rothko speaks about his father, artist Mark Rothko’s work and the family’s caretaking of his legacy on the occasion of a special opportunity to view two early Rothkos side-by-side at the Loeb Art Center this year.
Free and open to the public
The Film Department will be screening Nickel Boys and there will be a Q&A with the filmmakers RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes afterwards.
James Osborn, conductor
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays this fall. Each date will feature different hands-on art activities inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children 5 and up.
Christine Howlett, conductor
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Baye and Asa will perform their recent work Suck it Up. The program will also feature their dance film Second Seed. A Q&A session with the artists will immediately follow the performance.
Join us for the Pride and Prejudice Film Festival in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. The first screening is on Friday, November 7, 2025 from 7–9 p.m. See the full schedule. This event is free and open to the public.
Professor Rosalind Galt of King’s College, London will be giving a giving a Dean’s Lecture on “Imperfect Archives.”
Oct. 30: 8:00 p.m.
Oct. 31–Nov. 1: 7:00 p.m.
This year marks the 650th anniversary of Giovanni Boccaccio’s passing. We explore his legacy in a interdisciplinary panel of Vassar faculty, followed by a keynote speech by Grace Delmolino (University of California, Davis) titled: “Boccaccio and Consent.” No reservation required
Campus community only, please
Artist Lyle Ashton Harris will give a lecture which will explore the intersections between his practice in photography and collage, examining ideas of gender, sexuality, and belonging.
This event is open to the public.
A Screening of Jennifer Reeves’ The Gloria of Your Imagination followed by a Q&A with the director.
A new schedule for this concert will be announced at a later date.
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays. Each date will feature different hands-on art activities inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children 5 and up.
Eduardo Navega, conductor
This event is open to the public.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Elana Herzog is an installation artist and sculptor who uses material culture to consider aspects of ephemerality, entropy, pleasure, and pain, focusing on the global migration of culture and technology as seen through the lens of textiles. Herzog will give a talk on her work titled “Being Always in Relation.”
This event is open to the public.
A recital of works by Mozart, Chopin, Robert Schumann, György Ligeti, Unsuk Chin and Hans Abrahamsen evoking experiences of day and night. Performed by Thomas Sauer, piano, Adjunct Artist in Music.
This event is open to the public.
ALANA Fest is one of the Jeh Vincent Johnson ALANA Cultural Center’s core events, and it makes visible, celebrates, and builds community with students of color at Vassar.
This event is open to the public.