Check out the dynamic arts performances and events that Holy Cross has lined up.
Spring 2023 Arts Events
- For directions to Holy Cross and arts venues on campus, please visit our Maps, Directions and Transportation and Parking site.
- All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Please visit the sponsoring department or program’s website for further information and updates about attending.
- See our Events Calendar for a complete listing of events taking place at Holy Cross.
- View past concerts and receive alerts for upcoming concerts on the Holy Cross Department of Music YouTube channel.
Saturday, January 26 | 4:00 p.m.
Cantor Gallery Exhibit Opening Lecture
Dr. William Purkis, Department of History, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
"Bringing the Holy Land Home: Crusaders, Relics, and the Transformation of Latin Christendom’s Sacred Material World"
Rehm Library
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Saturday, January 26 | 5:30 p.m
Opening Reception
Cantor Art Gallery
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Monday, January 30 | 12:15 p.m.
Gallery Talk
Amanda Luyster, Assistant Professor of Visual Arts and Guest Curator
“The Chertsey Tiles, Context and Reconstruction”
Cantor Art Gallery
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Thursday, February 2 | 7:30 p.m.
Faculty Reading: Leila Philip and Xu Xi
Media Lab
Prior Performing Arts Center
Xu Xi 許素細 (xuxiwriter.com) has authored fifteen books, including five novels, nine prose collections and one memoir and also edited five anthologies of Asian and Hong Kong literature. She is the current Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at Holy Cross. Follow her @xuxiwriter FB, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter.
Leila Philip (www.Leilaphilip.com) is the author of award-winning books of nonfiction. She writes widely across genres, publishing in poetry, essay, journalism and film. A Guggenheim Fellow, she is the author of Beaverland: How one Weird Rodent Made America, featured on NPR Science Friday. Follow her @leilaphilip Twitter & leilaphilip_author Instagram, FB.
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program
Monday, February 13 | 4:00 p.m.
Lecture
Media Lab
Prior Performing Arts Center
Dr. Chad Leahy, College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, University of Denver
Dr. Elizabeth Spragins, Assistant Professor, Spanish Department, College of the Holy Cross
“Bringing the Holy Land Home to Spain: Jerusalem and the National Imagination, 1095-2022”
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Thursday, February 16 | 12:30 p.m.
Chertsey Chamber Music
Beehive
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Thursday, February 16 | 7:30 p.m.
Vocation of the Writer Annual Lecture: Lawrence Joseph (Poetry)
Rehm Library
The grandson of Lebanese and Syrian Catholic immigrants, Lawrence Joseph is a poet and professor of law. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including So Where Are We? (2017) and Codes, Precepts, Biases, and Taboos: Poems 1973–1993 (2005). His debut, Shouting at No One (1983), won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. A Guggenheim Fellow, he has also received awards for his writing from the National Endowment for the Arts. His poetry has been widely anthologized, including in The Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006). He is also the author of the prose work Lawyerland: What Lawyers Talk About When They Talk About the Law (1997).
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture
February 9-11 and 16-18 | 7:30 p.m.
February 12 and 19 | 2:00 p.m.
Company
Book by George Furth
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
February 9-11 and 16-18 at 7:30 p.m.
Matinees February 12 and 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Luth Concert Hall
Prior Performing Arts Center
Directed by Meaghan Deiter
What do you do when all of your friends are married, but you are frightened of commitment and cynical about the married state? Company marked Stephen Sondheim’s movement away from old-fashioned Broadway shows, and he took the American musical theatre with him. Meaghan Deiter’s production keeps faith with the bracing modernism Sondheim and book writer George Furth brought to the stage more than half a century ago by setting this classic musical in contemporary America.
Tickets at hctheatreanddance.eventbrite.com
Sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance
February 21 & 27 | 12:15 p.m.
Student Presentations
Cantor Art Gallery
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Wednesday, February 22 | 8:00 p.m.
Chertsey Orchestra recital
Beehive
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Saturday, February 25 | 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Family Day
Cantor Art Gallery
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Saturday, February 25 | 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Arja Saraswati Puja
Featuring Sanggar Seni Citta Usadhi (Bali, Indonesia) and New Atlantic Chamber Gamelan (U.S.A.)
Boroughs Theatre
Prior Performing Arts Center
A contemporary Balinese performance piece: the story of the Goddess Saraswati, who descended from the heavens to bring knowledge and understanding to humankind. Arja Saraswati Puja tells the story of the powerful King Watugunung, who rules the Kundadwipa kingdom with Lord Brahma’s blessing. Unbeknownst to the king, his most beautiful wife, Dewi Shinta, is actually his own mother. When Dewi Shinta recognizes that she has committed a grave wrong by marrying her son, she sends him to heaven on a futile quest to locate and capture the divine goddess Nawangsasih to be her maidservant. But Dewi Nawangsasih’s husband, the great Lord Wisnu, does not wish to surrender his beloved partner, so he transforms into the mighty Rudramurti, mounts a fierce battle, and expels King Watugunung — defeated and unconscious — from the heavens. After several days, King Watugunung awakens with divine awareness and repents for his wrongdoings. Honoring this enlightenment, the Lord Brahma sends the Goddess Saraswati to light the earth with knowledge.
Tickets for 2:00 p.m. performance; Tickets for 7:30 p.m. performance
Sponsored by Arts Transcending Borders
Monday, February 27 | 5:00 p.m.
Moderated discussion with Manual Cinema about their production of Frankenstein
Seelos Theatre
Manual Cinema is an Emmy Award-winning performance collective, design studio, and film production company. In this piece, they stitch together the classic tale of Frankenstein with the biography of the original novel’s author, Mary Shelley, to create an unexpected story about the beauty and horror of creation. The real-life and fictional narratives of Shelley, Victor Frankenstein, and Frankenstein’s monster expose how family, community, and education shape personhood – or destroy it by their absence. Several classes of Montserrat students will be traveling to see Frankenstein at ArtsEmerson on Sunday, February 26. On February 27, the artists will come to Holy Cross for an interactive discussion on the behind-the-scenes work involved in the company’s stunning shadow puppetry interpretation. While the discussion will take Frankenstein as its main subject, all are welcome to attend, even if you did not see the performance. Holy Cross community members who took part in 2021 Zoom workshops with the company on their film No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks are especially invited to join!
Sponsored by Arts Transcending Borders
Tuesday, Feb 28 | 12:30 p.m.
Lunchtime concert: “Rhapsody in Blue”
Robert Gardner, piano
Matthew Jaskot, piano
Luth Concert Hall
Prior Performing Arts Center
This lunchtime concert features Brooks Scholar Robert Gardner ('26) performing George Gershwin's iconic work, Rhapsody in Blue, in a two piano version with Professor Matthew Jaskot. Blending elements of jazz, blues, and classical music, Rhapsody in Blue is one of the most recognizable compositions in music history. Gershwin's Three Preludes will also be performed as an appetizer to the main course. The concert will be roughly thirty minutes long. Come join us to hear this brilliant music and to celebrate the two brand new Steinway Ds housed in the Prior Performing Arts Center!
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Wednesday, March 1 | 8:00 p.m.
Holy Cross Wind Ensemble & Orchestra concert: “Darkness and Light”
https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
Luth Concert Hall
Prior Performing Arts Center
Join us for an unforgettable musical journey as the Holy Cross Orchestra and Wind Ensemble come together to present a concert celebrating the theme of darkness and light. The performance will feature works by Joseph Bologne, Chen Yi, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, and Haley Woodrow, as well as film music from “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Dark Knight.”
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Thursday, March 2 | 7:00pm
Vijay Gupta (violin) and Chester Englander (percussion)
A co-production between Music Worcester and the Prior Performing Arts Center
Luth Concert Hall
Prior Performing Arts Center
Hailed by The New Yorker as a “visionary violinist...one of the most radical thinkers in the unradical world of American classical music,” Vijay Gupta has performed as an international recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician for over 20 years. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Street Symphony, a community of musicians creating spaces of connection for people in reentry from homelessness, addiction and incarceration in Los Angeles. He is also a co-founder of the Skid Row Arts Alliance, a consortium dedicated to creating art for and with the homeless community. Chester Englander, who has been acclaimed for his “unnerving dexterity” (San Francisco Chronicle) and his “vivid” (The New York Times) performances, has a thriving career as a percussionist and concert cimbalom player with orchestras throughout the country. He recently played percussion on the recording of Reach For the Stars by will.i.am that was broadcast on Mars from the NASA Curiosity Rover.
Tickets here: General: $35 / Holy Cross faculty & staff: $10 (Code: hccampus on final page) / Students: $5
Sponsored by Arts Transcending Borders
Tuesday, March 14 | 7:00 p.m.
Holy Cross Chapel Artist Series
This concert has been cancelled in person. Please watch the pre-recording of the concert at 7 pm at this link https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
Marie Rubis Bauer, Director of Music/Cathedral Organist
Saint Cecilia Cathedral and Archdiocese of Omaha
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Tuesday, March 21 | 12:30 p.m.
Lunchtime Concert
Ari Kiiriiki, flute
Joe Cracolici, cello
The Beehive
Prior Performing Arts Center
This lunchtime concert features Brooks Scholars Ari Kiirikki ('25) and Joseph Cracolici ('23) performing solo repertoire and chamber music.
Sponsored by the Prior Performing Arts Center and the Department of Music
Tuesday, March 21 | 7:00 p.m.
An Evening with the Boston Lyric Opera
Prior Performing Arts Center
During this special evening with the Boston Lyric Opera, audience members will get an inside look into the New England premiere of the opera Omar through conversation and excerpts performed by Brianna J. Robinson, Fred C. VanNess, Jr., and Brendon Shapiro, alongside additional repertoire from the operatic tradition to which this striking new work adds.
Thursday, March 23 | 7:30 p.m.
Reading: Grace Talusan (Nonfiction)
Rehm Library
Grace Talusan is the author of The Body Papers, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. Her work has been supported by the NEA, Fulbright, US Artists, Brother Thomas Fund, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In 2023, she will be in residence at MASS MoCA and Vermont Studio Center, and will teach at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Brown University.
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program
Thursday, March 23 | 5:30 p.m.
Chertsey Chamber Singers concert
The Beehive
Prior Center for Performing Arts
Come join us for an exciting mini-concert of music inspired by the intersection of religion and culture demonstrated in the Chertsey Tile exhibit. Each musical selection is connected to Jerusalem, exploring broader themes of cross-cultural influences and outsider perspectives of people passing through. We will be singing music by the 9th-century Byzantine nun, Kassia, as well as a selection from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, a piece by Gesualdo, and a prayer for peace based on an ancient Sufi melody.
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Saturday, March 25 | All day
Symposium
Rehm Library
“Bringing the Holy Land Home: A Symposium”
A distinguished panel of national and international scholars will convene to present papers related to the exhibition. See the Cantor Gallery’s website for registration information.
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Tuesday, March 28 | 6:00 p.m.
"American Moor"
Film screening followed by moderated discussion with playwright Keith Hamilton Cobb
Booth Media Lab
Prior Performing Arts Center
"After American Moor, you may not see Shakespeare — and a lot of roles played by black actors — quite the same way" (The Washington Post). "This deep-from-the-heart spellbinder by Keith Hamilton Cobb is a blisteringly eloquent and penetrating meditation on the ever-urgent matter of race in America” (The Boston Globe).
An 85-minute solo play written and performed by Keith Hamilton Cobb, American Moor examines the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of William Shakespeare’s character Othello. Writes New York Review of Books, “The performance becomes by turns a working actor’s autobiography, an exploration of America’s relationship to Shakespeare, a performance of a radically reconceived Othello, and [a] clear-eyed account of an African-American man’s experience of the United States.”
Rewarding to those familiar with Shakespeare but also accessible to anyone with questions making art, representation, or how rules constrict the roles we play, American Moor is a heartbreaking, funny, provocative account of the stories we tell about race.
Sponsored by Arts Transcending Borders
Wednesday, March 29 | 1:00 p.m.
Chertsey Gregorian Chant recital
Chants from a Benedictine Monastery
Beehive
Prior Performing Arts Center
The Gregorian Chant class of Prof. Daniel DiCenso, directed by Laurence Rosania, Director of Music & Liturgy, will present "The Office of Nones" , a brief example of midday prayer sung in monasteries of the Middle Ages. The service itself -- based on the Benedictine Rule -- might have been something heard in 1250 at Chertsey Abbey around the time the tiles were created, giving us a link through music to this medieval masterpiece.
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Wednesday, March 29 | 7:30 p.m.
Reading: Sean Hewitt (Poetry/Literary Criticism/Memoir)
Rehm Library
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program and the Callahan Fund for Irish Studies
March 30-31 and April 1 | 7:30 p.m.
April 2 | 2:00 p.m.
Ride the Cyclone
Book and Music by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell
The Pit - O'Kane 37
In this hilarious and outlandish story, the lives of six teenagers from a Canadian chamber choir are cut short in a freak accident aboard a roller coaster. When they awake in limbo, a mechanical fortune teller invites each to tell a story to win a prize like no other – the chance to return to life. A funny, moving look at what makes a life well-lived! An Alternate College Theatre production, directed by Blake Sheridan.
Sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance
Saturday, April 1 | 4:00 p.m.
Holy Cross College Choir concert
https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Live-Stream available at https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
The College Choir will be performing sacred music inspired by the harp. Our program includes a rousing selection from Joseph Hadyn Creation: “Awake the Harp,” followed by César Franck’s heavenly Panis Angelicus, accompanied by the harp. The harp appears as the subject of the traditional hymn, Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal, in an arrangement of the Sacred Harp tune by Alice Parker, and Rollo Dilworth’s hopeful and buoyant arrangement of Little David, Play on Your Harp. Our program will culminate with the exquisite Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. At times transcendent, powerful, ethereal; Requiem contains breathtaking examples of the composer’s most gorgeous melodic writing and rich orchestral colors.
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Tuesday, April 4 | 12:30 p.m.
Lunchtime concert: Student Jazz Quartet
The Beehive
Prior Performing Arts CenterThis lunchtime concert features the Holy Cross Student Jazz Quartet led by vocalist and Brooks Scholar Rhiannon Hurst ('25).
Sponsored by the Prior Performing Arts Center and the Department of Music
Tuesday, April 4 | 4:00 p.m.
Gallery Talk
Meredith Fluke, Director Cantor Art Gallery
“Bringing the Chertsey Tiles to Holy Cross: What We’ve Learned”
Cantor Art Gallery
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
Tuesday, April 11 | 8:00 p.m
Brooks Scholar concert
Brooks Concert Hall
Thursday, April 13 | 7:30 p.m.
Reading: Madeleine Thien (Fiction)
Rehm Library
Madeleine Thien is the author of four books of fiction, including Do Not Say We Have Nothing and Dogs at the Perimeter. She has received Canada’s Giller Prize and the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and her books have been shortlisted for The Booker Prize, The Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Folio Prize, longlisted for a Carnegie Medal, and translated into more than 25 languages. Madeleine’s essays and stories can be found in The New Yorker, Granta, Brick, The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. She teaches writing and literature at Brooklyn College CUNY.
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program and the W.H. Jenks Chair of Contemporary Letters
Friday, April 14 | 8:00 p.m.
Holy Cross Chamber Singers concert: “Stars”
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Come join us for an evening of music about those great heavenly bodies: radiant, sparkling, luminous stars. We are thrilled to be joined by friends within the department and across campus to bring you musical expressions of what humans have felt for centuries looking up at the stars: humility, awe, hope, wonder. In the secular texts we will be sharing with you, the stars
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Saturday, April 15 | 4:00 p.m.
Rhiannon Hurst
Solo Jazz recital
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Tuesday, April 18 | 7:00 p.m.
Holy Cross Chapel Artist Series
https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
Gavin Klein ‘26, Organ Scholar
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Saturday, April 22 | 2:00 p.m.
Senior recital
Carina Gregori Asadourian, soprano
Brooks Concert Hall
April 20-22, 27-29 | 7:30 p.m.
April 23 and 30 | 2:00 p.m.
Rasa
Music by Shirish Korde
Libretto and direction by Lynn Kremer
Suggested by the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, with poems by Robert Bly
Luth Concert Hall
Prior Performing Arts Center
A remounting of Lynn Kremer and Shirish Korde’s extraordinary music-theatre piece, previously produced at Holy Cross in 1991 and 1998. Rasa is a large-scale multi-media production yet, as The American Record Guide has written, it is “remarkable in its beauty and subtlety . . . of considerable musical richness.” A young woman escapes her native India for America after her fiancé is killed, relocating first in Manhattan, then in the heartland, and each time reinventing her identity. This is a story of startling metamorphoses and unexpected resurrections. Tickets at hctheatreanddance.eventbrite.com beginning April 1.
Sponsored by the Department of Music and the Department of Theatre and Dance
Saturday, April 22 | 2:00 p.m.
Senior recital
Carina Gregori Asadourian, soprano
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Tuesday, April 25 | 8:00 p.m.
Jazz Ensemble concert
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Wednesday, April 26 | Time TBD
Academic Conference: Senior Artist Presentations
Cantor Art Gallery
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Department of Visual Arts and the Cantor Art Gallery
Wednesday, April 26 | 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
Dance Concert
Prior Performing Arts Center Luth Concert Hall
This eagerly awaited springtime event is a compendium of work by the students of Jimena Bermejo, Audra Carabetta, Jen Polin and Taylor Travassos-Lomba. The range of styles and esthetic approaches is dazzling. No admission charge.
Sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance
Wednesday, April 26 | 8:00 p.m.
Holy Cross Orchestra & Holy Cross Choirs
https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
Academic Conference Concert
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Wednesday, April 26 | Time TBD
Senior Concentration Seminar Exhibition Opening Reception
Cantor Art Gallery
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Department of Visual Arts and the Cantor Art Gallery
Friday, April 28 | 4:00 p.m.
End of Semester Student Recital
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Saturday, April 29 | 2:00 p.m.
Senior recital
https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
Mia Beviglia, piano
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Saturday, April 29 | 4:30 p.m.
Senior recital
Joseph Cracolici, cello
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Sunday, April 30 | 2:00 p.m.
Senior recital
Natasha Rollo, soprano
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Thursday, May 1 | 8:00 p.m.
Chamber Music Concert
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Tuesday, May 2 | 8:00 p.m.
Senior recital
https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
Anthony Cash, tenor
Brooks Concert Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Wednesday, May 3 | 8:00 p.m.
Holy Cross Wind Ensemble concert
https://linktr.ee/hcmusic
Luth Concert Hall
Prior Performing Arts Center
On May 3rd, the Wind Ensemble will perform an eclectic mix of music drawing from the traditional canon of Wind Ensemble music through more recent masterworks. The concert is open to the public and will be live streaming on the Holy Cross Music Department YouTube channel.
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Thursday, May 4 | 6:00 p.m.
Fifth Annual Gregorian Vespers
St. Joseph Memorial Chapel
For its fifth annual Gregorian Vespers, the combined Chant classes of Professor Daniel DiCenso will perform Gregorian Vespers under the direction of Laurence Rosania, Director of Liturgy and Music. Over 50 singers will bring to life this ancient and haunting music in the majestic acoustics of the Chapel, inviting the listener into an otherworldly realm of sound.
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Saturday, May 6 | 7:30 pm
Gamelan Gita Sari Concert
Boroughs Theatre
Prior Performing Arts Center
Sponsored by the Department of Music and the Department of Theatre and Dance