The Arts
Past Events
Lunchtime recital series by members of the Vassar College Chamber Music Program.
Emmet Chilton-Sugerman and Clara Ross
An evening of arias and art songs featuring Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and more. Assisted by Susan Brown, piano; with Clarissa Longoria, soprano, and piano quintet.
Join us for our 20-30 minute lunchtime recital series by members of the Vassar College Chamber Music Program. Four Thursdays in April in a relaxed atmosphere outside the Bridge Cafe.
Love songs and duets based on music and text from Iberian, Latin American, and Ladino traditions. Featuring Courtenay Budd, soprano, Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano, and Miriam Charney, piano.
We present Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria RV 589 for treble voices with orchestra in Skinner Hall. After intermission, we move to the Chapel for contemporary choral works and a light installation by Rick Jones. Christine Howlett, conductor.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Premiere of Shavon Lloyd’s Earth Songs, with light installation by Rick Jones. Cappella Festiva Ensembles, and the Boys and Girls Club Choir of Poughkeepsie. Christine Howlett, director.
What is a “chapter” and what work does it perform in prose narrative? In this lecture, Dames (Theodore Kahan Professor of Humanities at Columbia University) will present work from his book-in-progress, The Chapter: A History of Segmented Life.
Two original plays presented by students from the playwriting course in Drama.
Campus community only, please.
A multimedia lecture by musicologist Sophie Fetthauer, PhD of the HfMT University of Hamburg, Germany on the little-known story of how over 400 Jewish refugee musicians were integrated into the cafés, nightclubs, and ballrooms of the “Paris of the East.”
Anna Elashvili, violin, along with faculty Yves Dharamraj, cello, and Thomas Sauer, piano. A composer not often chosen for such an exposé, Maurice Ravel often found himself going against the grain.
This afternoon program features works by Brown, Chaminade, Martin, Griffes, and Quantz. Assisted by James Fitzwilliam, piano.
Featuring the music of Bach, Schubert, Fauré, Copland and Duke. Assisted by Jon Fuller.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright will give a talk and Q&A to the campus and public. The event is free, but reservations are required.
Beller, an Associate Professor of English at Tulane University and a regular contributor to the New Yorker, will read from his book Lost in the Game: A Book About Basketball.
Noah Kalina has taken a picture of himself daily since 2000 for his series Everyday, which has amassed over 40 million views. He will discuss his photography career and matters of composition, concept, and duration.
A Matthew Vassar Lecture, panel discussion, and workshops by syndicated Black cartoonist and children’s book illustrator Jerry Craft, who will discuss his graphic novel New Kid—and how the text has been weaponized and banned from some libraries and classrooms across the country.
Opening Reception: Sunday, March 5, 2:00 p.m. Sponsored by the College’s Department of Education, this show highlights young children’s interest in the visual arts and encourages their use of the arts to express themselves.
From Mozart and Mendelssohn to Bartok and Prokofiev, this afternoon program will explore a range of classical pieces that have been inspired by folk music and dance traditions. Assisted by James Fitzwilliam, piano; with Magda Sharff, accordion, Emma Zuang, piano, Susanna Osborne, cello, and Finn Smith, bouzouki.
Eduardo Navega, conductor.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Join PHOCUS, Vassar’s only student photography organization, for a guest lecture by a multidisciplinary artist who will speak about their work involving photography, community, and issues of labor, class, queerness, and representation. Q&A to follow.
An inventive retelling of a Jacobean drama, Jen Silverman’s sharp, subversive fable debates how much our souls are worth when hope is hard to come by. Directed by Claire McHarg. Senior project members: Kelly Hatfield, Louise Ambler, Jack Francis, Emma Skinner, Rose Trammell, Presley Wheeler. Free and open to the public, reservations required.
A talk by Ricardo Montez, Associate Professor of Performance Studies at the New School.
A Dialogue on Art and Disability with Tatlock Fellow Finnegan Shannon and Gordon Hall, Assistant Professor of Art.
James Osborn, conductor.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
An evening of student artwork, poetry, and performances at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Refreshments will be served.
Kitamura’s most recent novel is Intimacies—one of The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2021 and one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2021.
Join visiting artists and members of our campus and local communities for a conversation about Indigenous arts, land acknowledgments, and more.
Welcome to Indian Country is an evening-length celebration of Native culture through music and storytelling. A world-class, five-piece musical ensemble is joined by storyteller and Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest. Together they weave new compositions and songs with witty, wise, and poignant poetry and satire to honor the elders and ancestors.
Audio
Hailed as a ‘personable polymath’ in the London Times, Bill Barclay ’03 is a director, composer, writer, and producer. He joins us to discuss his work Le Chevalier, a full-length play detailing Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ true friendships with Mozart and Marie Antoinette, and his unknown contribution to the abolishment of slavery.
Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre performs works selected from the current repertory by faculty, students, and guest choreographers, including a special appearance by the Heidi Latsky Dance Company. Tickets are free but must be reserved.
From Requiem to Solace: Artwork Inspired by the Ashokan Reservoir. Artist Kate McGloughlin will speak about how the devastation endured by her ancestors during the creation of the Ashokan Reservoir influences and inspires her work. Sponsored by Late Night at the Loeb and the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education.
Aki Sasamoto works in sculpture, performance, video, and more. In her installation/performance works, Sasamoto moves and talks inside the careful arrangements of sculpturally altered objects, activating bizarre emotions behind daily life.
A Library exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of Jean Toomer’s novel Cane. Curated by students in ENGL 319 during the fall 2022 semester.
Digital scores can change in real time during a performance, allowing for exciting and spontaneous interaction and improvisation. This workshop will explore this emerging performance practice using the software Indra, culminating in a conducted group improvisation. Participants should bring an instrument and a Mac laptop. A student-only event. Registration required.
Honoring the founders of MODfest, we celebrate the “meanings and measures” of modern musical works: Richard Wilson’s Avuncularities (2022) for solo trombone and Perplexities (2022) for oboe and English horn, violin, viola, and cello; and Serenity (2021) for solo piano by Jonathan Chenette.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Vassar College’s Muslim Students Association (MSA) presents excerpts from the new play Wedding Scraps by Arshia Iqbal ’23, a senior thesis project that serves as a funny peek into the world of diasporic Desi kids and their collective efforts to find home.
Sketching Loss and Remembrance: An Art Workshop. Work alongside Kate McGloughlin in creating your own original work using India ink. Art supplies provided free of charge. Please email creativearts@vassar.edu to reserve a spot, space is limited.
The Palmer Gallery exhibit Imploding Meaning: Tale-less Tales About Absolutely Nothing and Everything In Between features the work of M. Pettee Olsen, Michael Oatman, Rosanne Walsh, and Monica Church—all of whom will be speaking at this event.
An exhibit of artwork by Kate McGloughlin depicts the beauty and sorrow inherent in the Ashokan Reservoir. Kate’s family lost both land and community to reservoir construction. There will also be an artist talk in the second week of the festival during Late Night at the Loeb. This exhibit is sponsored by the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education.
Join us in kicking off this year’s festival with exciting exhibitions in three different gallery spaces on campus. Enjoy refreshments in the Loeb and Palmer Galleries to celebrate the wide range of visual art offerings for MODfest 2023.
The Palmer Gallery exhibit Imploding Meaning: Tale-less Tales About Absolutely Nothing and Everything In Between features the work of M. Pettee Olsen, Michael Oatman, Rosanne Walsh, and Monica Church.
This rotation of the Loeb’s In the Spotlight will feature a small selection of prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs depicting water in New York State
How do artists help us see or shape the past and future? Works ranging from Matthew Vassar’s initial bequest in 1864 to the Loeb’s most recent gifts and acquisitions will cluster in visual dialogues thematizing past, present, and future as categories in constant states of flux and transformation.
A Palmer Gallery exhibit featuring M. Pettee Olsen, Michael Oatman, Rosanne Walsh, and Monica Church. Though each artist’s approach is different, a through-line in their work is an embodied open-ness to interpretation, evoking experience and invoking a call to simply behold the work and the world.
This illustrated lecture by a Wesleyan University professor of art history and East Asian studies will focus on visual narratives spun by the Kumano nuns in early modern Japan for fundraising purposes and the paintings they used, called sankei mandara or “pilgrimage mandalas.”
Explore the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center while listening to music sung by the Vassar College Women’s Chorus and Choir at 6:30 p.m.
A lecture by Mark S. Cladis of Brown University, presented by the Vassar English Department in celebration of Professor Paul Kane’s long service.
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 Women’s Chorus, and Cappella Festiva Ensembles will perform.
This is an in-person event that was recorded.
