The Lewis Arts Complex will be overtaken by a public electronic music installation exhibition, featuring the works of students from Princeton University’s electronic music course taught by Tom Morrison. Stop by anytime between 2-4PM!

EPSG:4326

House of Sound

Princeton University

Students in Projects in Instrumental Performance: Chamber Music (MPP 213) perform a chamber music concert, featuring works by W.F. Bach, Schoenfeld, Scherwenka and Schubert.

Mpp213 Final Chamber Music Concert

MPP 214 students present works by Les Six. Including music by Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre.

MPP214 Presents: From Café to Concert Hall: Songs of Les Six

Jazz at Princeton‘s Creative Large Ensemble, directed by Darcy James Argue, presents a varied program of large ensemble jazz from the 1930s to the present day.

Princeton Creative Large Ensemble Fall Concert

Shakespeare and Beyond

Jazz Small Groups A & Z present a program of music encompassing both the historical and the modern expressions of this great American art form.

Jazz Small Groups a & Z

African Music Ensembles Presents: Dugu

Princeton University Orchestra and Glee Club Concert

String quartet JACK perform two concerts—each with a different program—over two consecutive nights, featuring new works by Princeton University faculty and graduate student composers.

JACK Quartet (1/2)

Princeton University performance faculty, distinguished guest artists and supremely talented students presents a Sunday afternoon of mixed chamber works by “Les Six” — a group of “Les Six” of six composers who lived and worked in Montparnasse in the 1920s.. Though not a member of Les Six, Camille Saint-Saëns will initiate the program with his hypnotic Fantaisie taking us back in time to France at the start of the 20th century.

Richardson Chamber Players

Continuing with our ongoing exploration of multiple centuries of music, Early Music Princeton (EMP) honors Firestone Library’s exhibit “In the Company of Good Books: Shakespeare to Morrison,” with a tribute to Shakespeare. Vocal and instrumental works featuring the bard’s texts and composers he may have listened to, as well as those that may have passed him by, EMP presents music by Holborne, Dowland, Percy, Weelkes, Morley, Telemann (a programmatic nod to Cervantes and “Don Quixote”), and more…

The Princeton Pianists Ensemble presents its fall 2023 concert, “Aurora.” We’ll be exclusively performing our own, brand-new arrangements of music spanning four centuries, including arrangements of pieces by Mozart and Debussy and of songs from the Lord of the Rings, ET, and Mario franchises, just to name a few. “Aurora” is also a great opportunity to visit Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall, one of the jewels of Princeton’s campus and history. All are welcome to attend!

Princeton Pianists Ensemble Presents: Aurora

Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice as a critically acclaimed saxophonist and composer by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of Black music. Jones has been awarded the Van Lier Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Artist-in-Residence and commission, Western Front residency and commission, French-American Jazz Exchange Award, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation Award, and a Fromm Music Foundation commission from Harvard University. Jones has received acclaim for not only his studio albums featuring music and images evocative of Black Futurism, but also for his commissioned work as a composer throughout the United States and Canada.

Composer Colloquium: Darius Jones

“Oncology wards, more than anywhere else I know, are music-less places,” wrote Suleika Jaouad as part of Life, Interrupted, the Emmy award-winning New York Times column and video series she wrote while hospitalized for leukemia shortly after graduating from Princeton University in 2010. Jon Batiste changed that by bringing his band to visit her oncology ward, “its inhabitants rejoicing in a temporary timeout, losing themselves to the beauty and healing power of music.” Now married, the New York Times bestselling author and multiple Grammy Award-winning musician together launch a new season of our “Healing with Music” series with a conversation, permeated by live performance of works meaningful to Suleika’s recovery, about music’s role through illness and how they have managed to convert isolation into art. The event will explore both silence — the moments when the impulse is not to create but to hide — and the beauty that can be mined from those music-less places. Join us in celebrating music’s sustaining magic with a couple that has inspired hundreds of thousands of people through their commitment to the healing power of art.

Suleika Jaouad, Writer Jon Batiste, Musician

PSK’s second Mixtape concert for the academic year, in which various artists and ensembles perform new works by Princeton University graduate student composers. New works by Ellie Cherry, Bobby Ge, Travis Laplante, James Moore, and Gemma Peacocke.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents Mixtape 2

Pianomania follows Stefan Knüpfer, a piano tuner from Steinway, and his famous clients Lang Lang, Brendel, Buchbinder, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard as they search for the perfect pitch. Juggling the demands of the pianist, the piano, and the piece requires boundless enthusiasm and endless patience. This documentary is a humorous and surprisingly suspenseful peek into the heated clash of wills between a genius craftsman and the renowned pianists who rely on his talent.

Pianomania Documentary Screening

Princeton Garden Theatre

Award-winning violinist Miranda Cuckson works with talented Princeton University students in a free workshop, sponsored by the Donna Weng Friedman ’80 Masterclass Series. A concert of solo violin pieces commissioned specially for Ms. Cuckson will be held after the masterclass.

A Masterclass with Miranda Cuckson, Violinist

Sinfonia concludes the semester with a program that explores themes of light, celebration, and seasonal festivities.  One special treat will be the opportunity to hear flute faculty Dr. Sarah Shin perform Mozart’s Flute Concerto in G Major, a work that she recently recorded for Sony. Two undergraduate singers, Sarah Lekaj ’25 and Claire Dignazio ’25, share Offenbach’s sensual “Barcarolle” from The Tales of Hoffman. The program features Carl Nielsen’s radiant Helios Overture and the world premiere March of Dusk by music certificate student and member of Sinfonia, Adrian Thananopavarn ’24. Sinfonia will also pay tribute to the season with a medley Chanukah music and favorite selections from The Nutcracker.

Sinfonia Concert

Breathe in sound and silence through guided meditation as you listen to music more viscerally than ever before, meditating to the playing of harpsichordist Jean Rondeau, guided by Matthew Weiner, Associate Dean in the Princeton University Office of Religious Life. This is a FREE, unticketed opportunity to indulge in attentive, focused, and mindful listening.

Live Music Meditation: Jean Rondeau, Harpsichord

Whatever your preconceptions of the harpsichord may be, Jean Rondeau will undoubtedly shatter them all as he takes us to Parnassus, the mythological mountain home of the Muses. Leading the charge of a new generation of keyboardists (including as a founding member of the Jupiter Ensemble, which made a rousing debut in our 2022-23 season), he makes his inaugural PUC appearance with a program exploring the stunning range of the harpsichord. Through works spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—much of it originally written for the piano—this “champion of his instrument” (Le Temps) asks us to consider what piano repertoire might illuminate about the harpsichord, and what the harpsichord might reveal about music composed for the piano. As he explains is, “my idea was never to take some piano pieces and find a way to make them work on the harpsichord…my idea was more to build something around musical languages which are common to both instruments.” Sit onstage with this trailblazing artist as you get to know this music and this instrument in a completely new way.

Jean Rondeau, Harpsichord

It’s Friendsgiving Season! What better way to add to your music-loving friend Liszt than getting to know your fellow audience members by experiencing harpsichordist Jean Rondeau’s magic before enjoying organized rounds of 8-minute “speed friending” sessions over some locally-catered snacks on the historic Princeton University campus!

Do-re-meet: Find Your Friends

Internationally acclaimed pianist John Perry works with talented Princeton University students in a free workshop, sponsored by the Donna Weng Friedman ’80 Masterclass Series.

A Masterclass with John Perry, Pianist

The Yale Glee Club visits the Princeton University Glee Club in the annual “Football Concert” — a choral face-off tradition that is over a century old, taking place the weekend before the Princeton-Yale football game.

Yale at Princeton the Football Concert

Kunio Hara is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of South Carolina. His research interests include operas of Giacomo Puccini, musical representations of nostalgia, animated films of Studio Ghibli, and music in postwar Japan. He has published articles on Puccini’s operas as well as on Tōru Takemitsu’s instrumental music in journals including Journal of the Society of American Music, Music & Politics, Studi pucciniani, and Music and the Moving Image. His most recent essay, “The Racial Politics of Madama Butterfly and Turandot,” is included in Puccini in Context edited by Alexandra Wilson and published by Cambridge University Press. He has given public talks on Madama Butterfly for the Metropolitan Opera, the Boston Lyric Opera, the Atlanta Opera, and Portland Opera. He is also the author of Joe Hisaishi’s Soundtrack for “My Neighbor Totoro” published by Bloomsbury Academic as part of their 33 1/3 Japan series.

Musicology Colloquium: Kunio Hara

Describing themselves as “your friendly neighborhood string quartets with above average amounts of beard,” the Grammy Award-nominated Danish String Quartet combines a down-to-earth sensibility with an astounding unity of sound that has placed them firmly within the ranks of the world’s finest string quartets. The three Danes and one Norwegian return for their third appearance on our series with a program that showcases their uncanny ability to combine finesse and spontaneity – blurring the line between classical repertoire and folk tunes by bringing a sense of urgency and purity to every note they play. By pairing arrangements of Scandinavian folk music with the court dance that inspired Purcell’s kaleidoscopic variations, the gypsy-inflected spirit of one of Haydn’s first quartet masterpieces, and the musical tribute Shostakovich created in memory of his first wife, the ensemble will remind us of the humanity at the core of all music-making.

Danish String Quartet

In advance of Princeton University" class="css-u850">Princeton University Concerts’ “Healing with Music” event The Beat Goes On: Healing from Cancer through Music with writer and Princeton University alumna Suleika Jaouad and musician Jon Batiste, dive into Jaouad‘s NY Times bestselling book Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted through this book club presented in partnership with the Princeton Public Library

"Between Two Kingdoms" by Suleika Jaouad Book Club

Princeton Public Library

Make the most of the last days before Halloween. This year’s Sinfonia concert program will set the tone with enchanted and haunted landscapes. Alongside familiar symphonic titles, including The Moldau and Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain, cme hear Liadov’s ethereal and mystical “The Enchanted Lake” and the major melodies from John Powell’s film score to How to Train Your Dragon.  Costumes are not required but welcome!

Halloween with Sinfonia

Please join us for a performance by Princeton University’s top jazz small group opening for the debut performance of the Princeton University faculty jazz quintet.

PU Faculty Jazz Quintet and Jazz Small Group I

Clara Latham is Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Eugene Lang College. Her research focuses on the relationship between sound, technology, and labor. She is a 2023 – 2024 member of the Institute for Advanced Studies, where she is working on a book about early twentieth century commercial music technologies in the United States, showing how electronic musical instruments shaped musical labor in this period. Recent articles have appeared in the Journal of Musicology, the Opera Quarterly, and Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture.

Musicology Colloquium: Clara Latham

The Princeton Laptop Orchestra presents a collaboration between the Music Department and CHAOS Lab – “Thermal Music”. What if temperature were a parameter of a live performance just like light and sound? And what if temperature were used as an input for control of sound? Come see what happens at this event, in which PLOrk debuts new robotic heaters designed as part of a research project between composer Jeff Snyder from the Music Department and designer Forrest Meggars from the School of Architecture and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Pieces include a seance-inspired performance composed by professor of music Juri Seo and a group-composed piece using thermodynamic score generated by swirling water of different temperatures. Forrest Meggars gives a brief interlude to contemplate what it means to heat or cool someone, and how experiential learning about heating and cooling can help change our current paradigms that cause climate change and fail to make comfortable climates.

Plork: Thermal Music

princeton university music department

Natacha Diels, noted composer and assistant professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania, will give a presentation of her work and influences.

Composition Colloquium: Natacha Diels

Journey back to the 18th century as we travel from the London of Henry Purcell to the Rome of Arcangelo Corelli and indulge in the glamorous spirit of the era’s music. Our guides—young virtuoso baroque violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte and harpsichordist Justin Taylor, colleagues in famed ensemble Le Concert—will treat us to forgotten gems they have unearthed from old libraries, transcriptions of the most popular opera arias from the period, and masterpieces that continue to resonate to this day. In the spirit of musical performances of the time, you will sit onstage alongside the duo as they spin the magic that has garnered international critical acclaim—including the prestigious Diapason d’Or in 2019.

Théotime Langlois de Swarte, Violin Justin Taylor, Harpsichord

Two sets of music in the course of one evening. First, Princeton University composition alumnus and current lecturer Tom Morrison presents a new work ‘Train Dreams.’ Then, PSK’s first Mixtape concert for the academic year, in which various artists and ensembles perform new works by Princeton University graduate student composers. This Mixtape will feature new works by Francisco del Pino and Nina Shekhar.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents Tom Morrison: Train Dreams’ Mixtape 1

“Overcoming Obstacles” — A relaxed performance curated for kids ages 3-6 and their families. Music can be fun, but sometimes it’s really hard to play or come up with a musical idea! In this program, we explore the music of Niccolò (KNEE-CO-LOW) Paganini (PA-GA-KNEE-KNEE) who overcame obstacles to make some amazing music!

CMS Kids

Lewis Arts Complex

The multiple Grammy Award-winning Chanticleer choir — named after the clear-singing rooster in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales — heralds in the dawn of our 130th Concert Classics series with five centuries of vocal music, from classics to spirituals to jazz. One of the most prolific recording and touring ensembles in the world, the “orchestra of voices” holds an honored place within the American Classical Music Hall of Fame and Billboard magazine’s “Top 10 Best-Selling Classical Artists.” Its twelve members finally make their Princeton University Concerts debut with a program that invites us to reconsider the sounds all around us and to imagine what our planet might be like without them—reminding us that music both inhabits and transcends our humanity. The program incorporates two exciting new works: a piece written specially for the occasion by the group’s composer-in-residence Ayanna Woods, and a new arrangement of Princeton alumna Majel Connery’s (Class of 2001) song cycle The Rivers are our Brothers. “The goal,” Connery explains, “is to give nature a voice. I wanted to allow these vibrant things to speak on their own behalf.”

Chanticleer Vocal Ensemble

Breathe in sound and silence through guided meditation as you listen to music more viscerally than ever before, meditating as the GRAMMY® Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer sings surrounding you. Meditation instruction will be provided by Matthew Weiner, Associate Dean in the Princeton University Office of Religious Life. This is a FREE, unticketed opportunity to indulge in attentive, focused, and mindful listening.

Live Music Meditation: Chanticleer Vocal Ensemble

Lend your voice to this community-wide musical celebration as you sing alongside members of the Chanticleer choir, filling the beautiful Princeton University Chapel with song.

Community Chamber Jam: Sing Alongside Chanticleer

Princeton University Chapel

Princeton Sound Kitchen presents cellist Nick Photinos, performing new works by Princeton University graduate student composers Ellie Cherry, Francisco del Pino, kennedy taylor dixon, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Lucy McKnight, and Nathan Schram.

Princeton Sound Kitchen presents Nick Photinos

Looking for someone too-hot-to-Handel? Meet other music-loving singles* in your age group by participating in 8-minute speed dates while enjoying catered appetizers on the historic Princeton University campus! Everyone will then head over to the concert hall to be dazzled by the Nordic band Dreamers’ Circus. Dating may be a circus these days — but perhaps you’ll meet your dream partner!

Do-re-meet: Pre-concert Speed Dating

“Two Danes and a Swede walked into a pub…no, not the opening line of a joke; rather, the beginning of a musical collaboration that has produced some of the most exciting new music to emanate from Scandinavia,” asserts Folk Radio. One of those Danes is none other than violinist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen of the Danish String Quartet, appearing on our Concert Classics Series later this fall. With astounding acrobatics on violin, accordion/piano and the cittern (a relative of the mandolin), the young trio performs original, genre-bending compositions that blend vibrant Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic folk traditions with influences from jazz, classical, and pop music spheres—pushing the Nordic sound into an imaginative new realm. “The name Dreamers’ Circus is based on associations,” explains Sørensen. “Think of the vivid colors we associate with childhood memories of the Circus. Remember the magic of entering the tent as a child — the way our senses were engaged. In our music, we always strive to invoke a place of freedom, somewhere for our imagination to play in and a space for dreaming.”

Dreamers' Circus

The Princeton University Orchestra presents its first program of the 2023-24 season, including Mykola Lysenko’s Elegie, Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. Director Michael Pratt conducts.

Princeton University Orchestra

A Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. is a music historian, pianist, composer, and Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. An honorary member of the American Musicological Society, he’s currently the Visiting Dean’s Distinguished Chair in Music at McGill University.

Musicology Colloquium: Guthrie Ramsey

Becca Stevens is one of our generation’s greatest songwriters who has written and toured with artists such as David Crosby, Snarky Puppy, Brad Mehldau, Jacob Collier, Chris Thile, and Louis Cole. She’ll be opening a window to her songwriting process and leading exercises with the audience.

Colloquium with Becca Stevens

 Djandjoba or “The Big Gathering” is the final performance of the Timbuktu Grooves Festival celebrating the vibrant sounds and rhythms of the African continent and its diaspora. This concert transports listeners spiritually to West Africa by the calming sound of the kora, an ancient 21-string African harp, with a duet performed by master griots Wassa Kouyate from Mali and Flatie Dembele from Burkina Faso. The program will also highlight contemporary African music played by Sō Percussion, Dafra Kura band from Burkina Faso, and the Princeton University Afrobeat Ensemble.

Timbuktu Grooves Festival: Djandjoba

As part of the Timbuktu Grooves Festival, McCarter Theatre Center presents a concert highlighting Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara, wielding her electric guitar to write songs that blend Wassoulou folk music, spiritually centered Afropop, and desert blues. Singing mostly in Bambara, the national language of Mali, Diawara sings about migration, African identity, motherhood, and the struggle of African women. A veteran of the screen and stage, she debuted as an actress in the ‘90s, appearing in films such as Cheick Oumar Sissoko’s La Genèse and the Oscar-nominated Timbuktu. Since her 2011 debut LPFatou, she’s collaborated with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Bobby Womack, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz), who co-produced her latest album London Ko. In 2019 she became the first Malian artist to perform at the Grammys, where she was nominated for “Best World Music Album” for her 2018 record Fenfo (Something to Say).

Timbuktu Grooves Festival: Fatoumata Diawara

Olivier Tarpaga‘s humanist piece Once the Dust Settles Flowers Bloom is the first of three concerts in the Timbuktu Grooves Festival celebrating the vibrant sounds and rhythms of the African continent and its diaspora. The piece sheds light on refugees of Burkina Faso and the Sahel region, who were displaced after fleeing from the shadow of jihadists. Seven dancers and five musicians from Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Morocco and France will channel the strength and beauty of this displaced population. This performance will begin with a brief moderated conversation with Olivier Tarpaga.

Timbuktu Grooves Festival: Once the Dust Settles Flowers Bloom

“Almost everything we might wish to know about the sound of medieval music is lost to us,” warns Daniel Leech-Wilkinson. Through the double medium of discursive speculation and live performance, Sarah Kay and Concordian Dawn set out in this lecture-performance not to know medieval song – we agree that is not possible – but to relive some of its affective realities, which we locate not in the objective worlds of time, place, or historical circumstance, but in dynamic interactions between body and world inflected by imagination. The sounds of this song are conjured not just by birds and fountains, but by celestial beasts and alluring sirens. Some of these sung texts represent the singing subject captivated by beauty, others struggling between life and death, others at the limits of a dream world, or ecstatic with joy.

Medieval Song and the Sounding of World, Body, and Imagination

David Rothenberg will drop a hydrophone in the Institute pond, which will then be transmitted to speakers above ground. He will then improvise with the sounds of plants and insects in the pond.

Pond Music: Interspecies Improvisation

 Institute for Advanced Studies

The Music Mentoring Program would like to welcome you all back to campus for the new school year! Please join us in the Woolworth Lobby for food and friends and learn more about how to be apart of the Music Mentoring Program! For more information, please visit our website: https://music.princeton.edu/music-mentoring-program/

Music Mentoring Program Welcome Event

Clarinet, violin, and percussion trio F-PLUS, perform new works by Princeton University graduate student composers Kennedy Taylor Dixon, Bobby Ge, Zoë Gorman, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Tom Morrison, and Gemma Peacocke.

F-plus

A relaxed performance curated for neurodiverse audience ages 3-6 exploring the theme of identity through the music of Antonin Dvořák!

A relaxed performance curated for neurodiverse audience ages 3-6 exploring the theme of identity through the music of Antonin Dvořák!

Featuring host Rami Vamos and CMS Artists, this inclusive concert experience is adapted for neurodiverse audiences, including children with autism or other special needs. The performance is presented in a judgment-free environment, and is less formal and more supportive of sensory, communication, movement, and learning needs.

CMS Kids Family Concert

A two-day symposium on musical instruments as tools of experimentation and as audible embodiments of theoretical ideas about music across cultures and historical periods.

Instruments of Global Music Theory Conference

The Overcoat (1926), directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, will be screened as part of Gogolalia a workshop on Gogol,  sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.  Live piano accompaniment by Andrew Lovett (Department of Music).

The Overcoat

Radio City Music Hall

Certificate Recital: Vian Wagatsuma, Piano

Concert-going in Dublin in the 18th century was very much part of the social life in the Irish capital. Given that Ireland was on the periphery of Europe, it could well be imagined how Dublin, in particular, was unlikely to be a place on the itinerary of internationally renowned musicians. It is therefore surprising how active musical life in Dublin was, and how many musicians of extraordinary artistic achievement did visit the city including Geminiani, Arne, and the protean Handel. The musical riches of 18th century Dublin will be surveyed in a concert entitled “Beyond the Fanlight” presented by Early Music Princeton on May 12th, 2023. The performers for this entertainment are Mezzo-soprano Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, harpsichordist and organist Kerry Heimann, and John Burkhalter, narrator and player of English and small flutes.

Beyond the Fanlight: Musick in Georgian Dublin

Woolworth Center

Amelia and Lana will perform six duets along with solo pieces for their Junior Recital for the Music Performance Certificate. The program features works from Fauré, Purcell, Chausson, and more!

Amelia and Lana's Junior Voice Recital

Amelia and Lana’s Junior Voice Recital

Join the Princeton Flute Studio for an evening of flute music featuring Yevgeny Morozov, pianist! The recital is free and open to the public. The students will be performing works by Hindemith, Enesco, Burton, Telemann, and more.

Princeton Flute Studio Recital

Students in the Vocal Consort certificate program perform a final recital in the Princeton University Chapel.

Vocal Consort

Corinna Brueckner ’23 (Voice) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Corinna Brueckner, Voice

Taplin Auditorium

As pioneers in the art of collaborative piano, the Princeton Pianists Ensemble (PPE) challenges the solo nature of piano performance. Four hands on one piano, ten hands on five pianos, and everything in between–either they’ve done it or they will do it. Their mission is nothing less than to make beautiful music accessible to all and to spread it across Princeton and the world. PPE is made up of music-lovers of all stripes, from budding composers to crazy computer coders, from the occasional philosopher to international piano prizewinners.

Since it was founded in 2012, PPE has grown at a stunning pace. Aside from performing, the ensemble outputs dozens of original arrangements and compositions each year, which has opened up an entire new library of music for multiple pianos. PPE is thrilled to present Eclipse, and they hope you will be able to join them for an exciting night of music!

Princeton Pianists Ensemble Presents: Eclipse

As pioneers in the art of collaborative piano, the Princeton Pianists Ensemble (PPE) challenges the solo nature of piano performance. Four hands on one piano, ten hands on five pianos, and everything in between–either they’ve done it or they will do it. Their mission is nothing less than to make beautiful music accessible to all and to spread it across Princeton and the world. PPE is made up of music-lovers of all stripes, from budding composers to crazy computer coders, from the occasional philosopher to international piano prizewinners.

Rachel Hsu ’23 (Violin) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Rachel Hsu, Violin

Final recital for the Vocal Performance Certificate featuring works by Mozart, Haydn, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Britten and more.

Students in Jazz at Princeton’s Small Groups perform a spring concert. 

Small Group A, directed by Rudresh Mahanthappa, will be playing music by Michael Dease, Claudio Roditi, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and more.  Small Group Z, directed by Ted Chubb, will be performing music by Wayne Shorter, Tadd Dameron, Sonny Clark, James Williams, and more.

Jazz Small Groups A and Z

Princeton Swara presents: A Night of Indian Classical Music. We are so excited to perform for you on Saturday, May 6th in Woolworth’s McAlpin Hall. The concert is open to all; no tickets required.

Princeton Swara End of Year Showcase

In collaboration with Maestro Michael Pratt, Opus will perform two works for chamber orchestra: Strauss’s Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings and movements from Beethoven “Pastorale” Symphony.

About Opus:
Founded in 2014 by Edward Leung ’16 and Jisoo Kim ’16, Opus (formerly Opus 21) is dedicated to bringing an extensive repertory of chamber music to Princeton University and beyond. Consisting of undergraduate piano, guitar, string, wind, and brass players, Opus presents innovative programming, embracing both traditional and contemporary repertoire. Committed to new music, members of Opus were invited to perform the North American premiere of composer Sam Wu’s “dolphin song” at the 2015 APAP|NYC, the world’s largest networking forum and marketplace for performing arts professionals. Most recently, Opus was the featured artist at the 2020 Helsingborg Music Festival in Sweden, giving multiple concerts at prestigious venues. As cultural ambassadors, Opus strives to broaden the public’s interest in chamber music and collaborate with other peer institutions and conservatories. Upcoming performances feature collaborations with Columbia University.

Opus Presents: Synergie

Please join the Playhouse Ensembles for their spring “Story Time” concert in the Lewis Art Complex’s Wallace Theater! Featuring compositions and arrangements by current members of the ensemble, a Princeton alum, and two world premieres composed collaboratively through workshops held this spring, it’s sure to be a special evening! 

The program includes original works by Halle Mitchell ’23, Aaron Ventresca ’24, Val Vigoda ’87, Kenyon Duncan, and Jim Papoulis, along with freshly commissioned arrangements that reimagine songs from Princess and the Frog, Dear Evan Hansen, Merrily We Roll Along, Shuffle Along, Into the Woods, and more—don’t miss it!

The Playhouse Ensembles Present: Story Time

Richard Qiu ’23 (Piano) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Richard Qiu, Piano

Sinfonia concludes the season with two musical reflections of Irish culture and a fun nod to Cinco de Mayo. As the first symphony by a woman performed by a major symphony orchestra in the U.S., Amy Beach’s Symphony in E minor opened the door for countless women composers. She boldly incorporated Gaelic melodies and quotations from her own music into the symphony. Princeton sophomore Toussaint Santicola Jones also turned to Irish myth as the inspiration for his new piece, Naked, Upon the Road to Tara. Leonora Carrington’s The Red Horses of Sidhe, a work in Princeton University Art Museum’s collection, served as his starting point. Sinfonia will also present the “Tango” and “Guaracha” from Morton Gould’s jazz-tinged Latin-American Symphonette.

Sinfonia Spring Concert

Richardson Auditorium

International vocalist, Erini, accompanied by oud master, Ara Dinkjian, present an intimate duo concert of Asia Minor standards, dedicated to commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Smyrna Catastrophe and the Population Exchange. Erini’s vision for this concert is to pay tribute to her great-grandparents’ legacy who were refugees from Smyrna whilst shedding a light on the richness of the Asia Minor musical heritage.

The concert is a musical narrative of the Hellenic presence in Asia Minor and tells the story of the Smyrna Catastrophe through the power of the Anatolian-Greek song tradition. The joyful existence of the Greeks in Anatolia prior to the Catastrophe is exalted by love songs such as “Menexedes kai Zoumpoulia” and “Apo xeno topo”. Depicting the tragic Catastrophe itself and reflecting the despair of the refugees is the song “Giati Pouli M’ Den Kelaidis” which epitomises the powerlessness of the refugees who have lost their homes, livelihood, and relatives. Characteristic of the Population Exchange when the Anatolian-Greeks tried to acclimatize to Greece but were faced with alienation, discrimination, and trauma is the song “Ti Se Mellei Esenane”. A highlight of the concert is Erini’s performance of “Smyrneiko Minore”, one of the first Greek songs ever recorded in the United States by the iconic Marika Papagika, marking the beginning of the strong and long-standing presence of Hellenism in this country. Erini hopes that by performing this music and introducing the story of these refugees on a global scale, she will preserve this unique cultural heritage for future generations.

Concert: Erini Featuring Ara Dinkjian: A Musical Chronicle Of Asia Minor

Frist Campus Center

Justin Yeo ’23 (Piano) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Justin Yeo, Piano

Come experience La Vie en Cello’s take on the world of animated music! Look forward to a wide selection of arrangements from members past and present, spanning from the works of Joe Hisaishi to various selections from American animated films.

La Vie en Cello is Princeton University’s acclaimed cello ensemble. Formed in 2015, La Vie en Cello performs a wide range of music in the Princeton community, from pop standards to classical favorites. This cello choir is an in-demand group that plays in a large variety of settings, ranging from the lively atmosphere of an “arch-play” to the formality of an art gala. Their unique blend of musical styles and large range of repertoire has enabled a wide array of projects that will continue to grow alongside the group. Members of La Vie span all of the undergraduate class years at Princeton; though unique in their aspirations, studies, and interests, they are united through their mutual love of music and, of course, the cello!

Animated! La Vie en Cello Spring Concert 2023

Jamie Feder ’23 (Voice, Mezzo-soprano) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Jamie Feder, Voice

Students from the MPP 216 class will be presenting a final concert, featuring student conductors.

Final Concert: MPP 216 Techniques of Conducting

Students in Jazz at Princeton’s Small Groups perform a spring concert. Small Group 1, directed by Miles Okazaki, and Small Group X, directed by Matthew Parrish will play selections that are a mixture of classic jazz repertoire and contemporary compositions.

Jazz Small Groups 1 and X

Founded in 2014 by Edward Leung ’16 and Jisoo Kim ’16, Opus (formerly Opus 21) is dedicated to bringing an extensive repertory of chamber music to Princeton University and beyond. Consisting of undergraduate piano, guitar, string, wind, and brass players, Opus presents innovative programming, embracing both traditional and contemporary repertoire. Committed to new music, members of Opus were invited to perform the North American premiere of composer Sam Wu’s “dolphin song” at the 2015 APAP|NYC, the world’s largest networking forum and marketplace for performing arts professionals. Most recently, Opus was the featured artist at the 2020 Helsingborg Music Festival in Sweden, giving multiple concerts at prestigious venues. As cultural ambassadors, Opus strives to broaden the public’s interest in chamber music and collaborate with other peer institutions and conservatories. Upcoming performances feature collaborations with Columbia University.

Opus Presents: Reflections

Adrian Rogers ’23 (Violin) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Adrian Rogers, Violin

Jeremy Cha ’23 (Cello) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Jeremy Cha, Cello

Nicholas Allen ’23 (Voice) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Nicholas Allen, Voice

Join our Saturday Morning Arts community—composed of Trenton and Princeton University young artists—for our annual spring showcase. The program will feature performances by Trenton Youth Dancers, Orchestra, Singers, and Theater.

Saturday Morning Arts Spring Showcase

Students from the MPP 214 class will be presenting a recital of art songs and poetry from black composers from the 19th century through present-day. The class has been studying the development of art songs written by composers of African descent from the United States, Haiti, Britain, Canada, and Africa. They have learned about the collaborative functions between the singer, poet, and pianist in the performance of art songs. This recital and presentation will spotlight many composers who may have been neglected or unknown in the canon of art song.

Recital and Presentation: MPP 214 - Exploring Art Songs of the African Diaspora

Despite extensive sales and popularity in the 1970s, Karen and Richard Carpenter were widely treated as a campy joke. In this talk, Caryl Flinn examines camp features initially tied to their act and considers how Todd Haynes’s underground film Superstar —that focused on Karen’s struggle with anorexia using Barbie dolls–helped inaugurate a more affectionate and appreciative understanding of camp.

Caryl Flinn is the author of five books: Strains of Utopia; The New German Cinema; Music and Cinema; Brass Diva; The Sound of Music and the forthcoming Alan Rudolph’s Trouble in Mind.  Her work on film music and sound has appeared in dozens of anthologies and in journals such as Camera Obscurer and JCMS. She is a Professor of Film, TV and Media at the University of Michigan.

A talk by Caryl Flinn: Music, Camp, and the Case of The Carpenters

Jimmy Waltman ’23 (Jazz Voice) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Jimmy Waltman, Jazz Voice

After 12 appearances on our series since 1979, 9 GRAMMY awards, and more than 30 celebrated recordings, the legendary Emerson String Quartet returns one last time as they make the final tour of their venerated 47-year career. Their program embodies the bittersweet nature of this occasion: pairing Shostakovich’s tragic final string quartet with one of the most life-affirming works in all of music history, Mendelssohn’s treasured string octet. Joining them for an encore performance on our series of this beloved octet are the Emerson’s protégés, the Calidore String Quartet. Come be a part of this momentous celebration as we experience this symbolic passing of the baton—or bow, as it were—from one generation to the next as we close our 129th Concert Classics series, both marking a historic moment and looking to the future.

Emerson & Calidore String Quartets

This performance of Felix Kindermann’s Choir Piece, featuring Princeton University graduate student composer Natalie Dietterich’s a cappella score for 16 singers Composition for Separated Musicians, occupies the entire space of The Forum. The audience becomes part of the work, finding themselves inside the sculpture, surrounded by the singers and embedded in the sound.

Princeton Sound Kitchen presents Felix Kindermann and Natalie Dietterich

Princeton University Steel Band performs with special guests, Tiger Chunes.

Princeton University Steel Band with Tiger Chunes

The Slavic Department and the Program in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies present a one hour recital with pianist Francine Kay featuring works by Dvořák, Suk, Kaprálová, Silvestrov and Chopin. Admission is free, but the audience is requested to donate to humanitarian relief for Ukraine.

Music From Eastern Europe

The Princeton University Orchestra presents its final program of the 2022-23 season, including Strauss’ monumental tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). Director Michael Pratt conducts.

Abigail Nishiwaki ’23 (Violin) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Abigail Nishiwaki, Violin

The Princeton University Glee Club, directed by Gabriel Crouch, joins forces with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for a special event featuring works by Anton Bruckner and Princeton University Professor Steven Mackey.

Princeton University Glee Club & New Jersey Symphony

Katherine Forbes ’23 (Piano) performs a senior recital.

Certificate Recital: Katherine Forbes, Piano

Jazz Vocal Collective’s spring concert celebrates life, love, and culture through diverse musical styles and composers. In addition to original compositions and arrangements,  our  concert will feature compositions by Gershwin, Alvaro Carrillo, Herbie Hancock, James Moody, Rubén Blades, and more.

JAZZ VOCAL COLLECTIVE (JVC) is a small jazz ensemble that features solo voice and a rhythm section (e.g. piano, guitar, bass, and drums) and horns to create a collaborative musical experience. In JVC, students are responsible for selecting repertoire, creating and notating their own musical arrangements of jazz standards and popular songs, and developing and performing those arrangements in class throughout the semester.

Jazz Vocal Collective Spring Concert

Jazz at Princeton presents the 2023 Princeton University Jazz Festival in a one-day event Saturday, April 15. Featured performances include Small Group X, Small Group A, Bird Calls, and many special guests, leading up to the headlining event with the Creative Large Ensemble.

Jazz Festival 2023

As the headliner of Jazz Festival 2023, Jazz at Princeton‘s Creative Large Ensemble, directed by Darcy James Argue, presents their final concert of the year with special guest artist Rufus Reid.

To learn more about the full Jazz Festival 2023 and the outdoor performances taking place on the Richardson Lawn from 12:00 to 6:30 PM.

Jazz Creative Large Ensemble

Looking for that too-hot-to-Handel concert date? Meet other music-loving LGBTQ+ singles as you enjoy refreshments and ice-breaker activities before sitting together in Richardson Auditorium to experience the legendary jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant live in an hour-long concert.

Do-Re-Meet: LGBTQ Single Mingle & Concert

30 years ago, the late author and Princeton University Professor Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature—the first native-born American to receive that honor since John Steinbeck. Princeton University Concerts joins the Princeton University Library and the McCarter Theatre Center in a campus-wide celebration of this anniversary by commissioning MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist and composer Cecile McLorin Salvant to create a brand-new work inspired by Morrison’s archives, which are housed at the university and will be on display at Firestone Library in a much-anticipated exhibition in the spring. This tribute to the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the author’s legacy will be a rare glimpse into previously unknown aspects of her creative life and practice, as expressed through an equally rare, genre-defying artist— “one of the greatest jazz singers of her generation, although that label sells her short.”

Princeton University Music Department

Dec 14, 2023

House of Sound

Dec 13, 2023

Mpp213 Final Chamber Music Concert

Dec 11, 2023

MPP214 Presents: From Café to Concert Hall: Songs of Les Six

Dec 9, 2023

Princeton Creative Large Ensemble Fall Concert

Dec 6, 2023

Shakespeare and Beyond

Princeton University Music Department

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