Beijing-born, and now UK-based, Xuefei Yang is regarded as one of the world’s finest classical guitarists. Ever since her enchanting Valentine’s Day recital in 2008, Performing Arts Series patrons have asked when she would return to Middlebury. Audiences will surely feel the three-year wait was worthwhile when they enjoy this beautiful concert of works by Bach, Regondi, Brouwer, Chopin, and Albéniz.

Master balafon player Balla Kouyaté will perform music from the griot tradition of Mali on Friday, February 17, 2012, at 8:00 p.m.at the Mahaney Center for the Arts Concert Hall. His ensemble World Vision, fresh from a performance at the Kennedy Center, will join him with acoustic guitar, tama (talking drum), djembé/banjo, electric bass guitar, and vocals.

DCM's newest piece will explore some of the roots of American dance forms: swing, contact improvisation, hip-hop, and modern dance. Artistic Director Tiffany Rhynard leads an accomplished group of dancers and choreographers in performances on January 27 and 28.

This sensationally gifted musician returns to Middlebury after a 2-year wait to perform works by Bach, Mozart, Liszt, as well as Rachmaninoff’s first piano sonata.

The community is invited to ring in the holidays at Mead Chapel on December 11, with the 40^th annual service of Lessons and Carols for Advent and Christmas. The popular event includes Bible readings and carols for choir, organ, and congregation, modeled after the long-standing British tradition.

Middlebury College students will explore the musics of Uganda in a free public concert on December 6. Directed by Dr. Damascus Kafumbe, the ensemble will present an hour-long program of instrumental, song, and dance.

Dutch mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn and the world’s most in-demand collaborative pianist, Julius Drake, will perform together at the Mahaney Center for the Arts on December 2. Their concert program will include songs by Schumann, Mahler, and Eisler.

The Middlebury College Department of Theatre and Dance present a play by Nick Dear, directed by Richard Romagnoli. Based on the life of 18th century painter and engraver William Hogarth, this bawdy comedy uncovers the dark underbelly of 1700s London.

Middlebury College senior Jeremy Cline ’11.5 presents his thesis dance work November 18-19. A joint major in dance and religion, Cline focuses his work on elements of ritual performance and investigates the nature of our relationships with spirit.

Russian piano sensation Alexander Melnikov makes his Middlebury College Performing Arts Series solo debut with a program of  Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87, a tour de force set of works in every major and minor key.

An eclectic group of some of Vermont’s finest performers will take to the Concert Hall stage at Middlebury College’s Mahaney Center for the Arts for a collaborative performance on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 8:00 PM.

The Middlebury College Performing Arts Series presents this acclaimed Viennese string quartet in a concert of Mozart, Webern and Schubert. The concert is presented free and open to the public, thanks to the generous support of the Institute for Clinical Science and Art.

Big Love, an emotionally extravagant comedy by OBIE Award-winning playwright Charles Mee, opens the 2011-2012 theatre season with performances October 27-29 at Wright Theatre. Loosely inspired by Aeschylus’ The Suppliants, Big Love takes us on a whimsical journey from Greece to Italy, when 50 Greek brides are betrothed against their will to their American cousins.

The College community bids farewell to the wooden sculpture "So Inclined" with a public lecture by artist Patrick Dougherty on October 28. The enchanting, community-created, sculptural project has stood outside the Mahaney Center for the Arts for the past four years. Dougherty will discuss his world-wide projects and commissions since that time.

British pianist Paul Lewis is internationally recognized as one of the leading pianists of his generation. This concert is the third in a series of five concerts in his worldwide Schubert project, performing all of the composer's mature piano works from the Wandererfantasie onwards.

Middlebury and Amherst College jazz groups make music together on October 10 at the Mahaney Center for the Arts. The concert echoes a landmark collaboration between jazz greats Count Basie and Duke Ellington, 50 years ago.

From composer Su Lian Tan and librettist Anne Babson comes this bold new experiment in opera, featuring an accomplished international group of artistic collaborators: Brenda Patterson, soprano; Miriam Gordon Stewart, soprano; Meridian Arts Ensemble; video set designer Tim Bartlett ’98, and a host of others.

The Off-Broadway powerhouse PTP/NYC bring two shows to Middlebury College’s Mahaney Center for the Arts. Both evenings of theatre are encore presentations from the company’s landmark 25^th anniversary season this summer in New York City.

Audiences are in for a treat as the 2011-2012 arts season at Middlebury College launches in September. The year will feature over 300 plays, exhibitions, concerts, dance performances, films special events, and more. Middlebury students and faculty showcase their diverse work alongside first-class artists visiting from around the world.

Hans Hielscher, the brilliant carillonneur and organist from Wiesbaden, Germany, pays a midsummer visit to Middlebury College to perform in two concerts at Mead Memorial Chapel: a carillon concert on Friday, July 29 at 7:00 PM (the “peals”), and an organ recital on Saturday, July 30 at 7:30 PM (the “pipes”).

The beautiful sounds of ringing bells will fill the air again this summer, as the 26^th annual Middlebury College Carillon Series treats audiences to free performances on Friday evenings at 7:00 P.M. in and around Mead Memorial Chapel.

The first of its kind, this community-wide Festival will further the appreciation of the music, life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach by providing College and community audiences with three days of performances and interest sessions May 6-8, 2011.

At ceremonies at the Kennedy Center on April 23, senior Carlie Crawford won the Barbizon Award for Excellence in Costume Design, and sophomore Daniel Sauermilch won the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play.

Get ready for unique sights and sounds as double physics/music major Hannah Waite '11 performs original music and speaks about the unusual instrument she designed and built herself.

On April 22, the MCO gives a free public performance including two world premieres by Middlebury College seniors: Piano Concerto No. 1 by Nicholas Tkach ’11, and Requiem for Choir and Orchestra by Noah Silverstein ’11.

The Middlebury College Community Chorus and Women's Glee Club offer a joint concert to welcome the spring and summer seasons on Sunday, May 1 in Mead Chapel. Admission is free.

An audience favorite and a frequent guest on the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series, Paul Lewis plays the second in a series of five Schubert concert programs: 12 Waltzes, Four Impromptus, Hungarian Melody in B Minor, and Sonata No. 18 in G Major.

Howard Barker's hard-hitting drama recounts the politics and history of 16^th century Britain through a distinctly contemporary lens. The Middlebury production will explore issues of violence, sexuality, and power with the energy of a punk rock show.

Alena Giesche, Catherine Miller, Christian Morel, and Heather Pynne will create a collaborative evening of work centered on the theme of relationships, with each choreographer bringing her or his own unique insight to the topic.

With performances that convey “heroic power and Olympian vision” (Los Angeles Times), as well as “splendor, drama, passion, poetry, and subtlety” (Boston Globe), this encore artist on the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series will perform works by Beethoven and Chopin.

Award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl's dreamlike retelling of the Orpheus myth asks: what would any of us do with a second chance? Directed by Alex Draper '88, with actors Gillian Durkee ’12, Willy McKay ’11, Dustin Schwartz ’11, and others.

A group of 40 students and faculty from Middlebury's Theatre Program recently spent a Saturday in New York City to see two amazing productions: "The Diary of a Madman," starring Geoffrey Rush, and "Beautiful Burnout," by Frantic Assembly/The National Theatre of Scotland.

Having gained an enviable reputation as one of the leading quartets of the new generation, this acclaimed chamber music ensemble performs a repertoire that plays to its strengths: Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132, and Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G Major.

In reaction to dance competition reality shows that evaluate who is qualified to dance, Big Action Performance Ensemble (Big APE) presents Everyone Can Dance, a community-based performance project celebrating the contagious allure of movement and the dynamic capabilities of the human body, March 18 and 19.

From Ireland’s national theatre comes an original, gripping drama from playwright and director Mark O’Rowe. In Terminus, a young woman looking for love, a mother seeking atonement, and a serial killer are all ripped from their daily lives and thrown into a fantastical world.

Acclaimed young cellist Sophie Shao returns to Middlebury with violinist Carmit Zori and pianist Shai Wosner to perform a vivid piano trio program featuring works by Schubert, Ravel, and Brahms.

On Thursday, members of the Museum community gathered to watch as Associate Curator of Ancient Art Pieter Broucke and the Museum staff opened a crate containing a Roman imperial period bust from the third century C.E. Watch a slideshow>>

Curtis Institute of Music graduate Nathan Laube rings in the 40th anniversary of Mead Chapel’s magnificent Gress-Miles Organ. Concertgoers can also enjoy a behind-the-scenes organ tour led by Emory Fanning.

Widely celebrated for his considered and profound interpretations of the classical repertoire, Paul Lewis is recognized internationally as one of today’s most distinctive and poetic pianists. He is a favorite artist of Middlebury audiences.

The 2011 Dance Company of Middlebury presents “Culture, Cash, and Community: To Have or Have Not,” on January 21 and 22 at the Mahaney Center for the Arts. The Company will then head out on tour to New Orleans.

Multiple award-winning Armenian pianist Nareh Arghamanyan graces the Concert Hall stage on January 21, performing works by Rameau, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt.

Dael Orlandersmith is a nationally-renowned poet, actor, and playwright whose play Yellowman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. As part of her Winter Term residency at Middlebury, she offers a staged reading of two short scripts on Thursday, January 13: Rave and Man of Water.

Vermont cartoonist Tim Newcomb helps tell the story of a Middlebury student whose vision for a giant mural on the back of Wright Memorial Theatre came to life this fall.

Fanning fêtes 40 years of performing professionally with a free concert with the Jupiter String Quartet and Cellist Dieuwke Davydov on Friday, November 12 in Mead Chapel.

In conjunction with the Department of Theatre and Dance's upcoming production of Hecuba, the Department of Classics hosts a symposium October 29–30 centering on Euripides' gripping tragedy.

Saturday, Oct. 16: The Friends of the Arts Museum (FOAM) celebrate 40 years of membership and support with a festive gala night on October 16, 2011.  Highlights of the night: the Jubilee Jazz Band, a delicious buffet, voting on a new work of art, and a groovy 70s dance party!

Saturday, 10/9/10: Filmmaker, former Fulbright Scholar, and Middlebury honorary degree recipient Ngawang Choephel introduces his award-winning documentary and recounts his creative journey that began in 1995, before he was imprisoned for seven years by the Chinese government on an accusation of espionage.

First-year students enjoyed an Evening at the Mahaney Center for the Arts on September 3, during Orientation Week.  Festive food, jazz music, an old-time photo booth, museum exhibitions, dancing, and even a flashmob performance by Big Action Performance Ensemble made the night a smash!

Highlights include Diana Fanning with the Jupiter Quartet; 40 Years of Collecting Artwork for the Museum; a concert honoring 40 years of the Gress-Miles Organ in Mead Chapel, and more.