Upcoming Events

Drawing inspiration from archival exhibition catalogs of the Shiraz Festival in the Penn Libraries collections, this concert features music by contemporary Iranian composers. Throughout its run from 1967 to 1977, the Shiraz Festival was host to an array of contemporary classical and avant garde composers from Europe and the United States. Among them were Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Olivier Messiaen, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, David Tudor, and Morton Feldman.

Yun Emily Wang is Assistant Professor of Music at Duke University, where she also holds a secondary appointment in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. In this talk, she will present her paper that draws on fieldwork from 2013 to 2018 (the pivotal years during which Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalized same-sex marriage) and traces how a group of queer Taiwanese immigrants listen to and for multiple incommensurable sexual modernities in Toronto.

Huda Fakhreddine is associate professor of Arabic literature in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. In this lecture, part of the Penn Music Colloquium Series, Dr. Fakhreddine will discuss the celebrated Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, the celebrated Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum is one of the most successful re-animators of the Arabic qas̩īda in the twentieth century.

In this concert, Trefoil, “a hearty trio of medieval minstrels” (Philadelphia Inquirer) active since the start of the current millennium, will present songs from the Pennsylvania Chansonniere by Machaut and his contemporaries. With its trademark combination of voices and medieval plucked strings, Trefoil will bring these meta-texts alive in “otherworldly harmonies” (New York Times) with “subtlety, blend and nuance” (NPR) for the modern listener.

For this concert, Penn Symphony Orchestra will perform the works of Brahms, Tragic overture and Haydn variations along with Mendelssohn's Symphony no. 4 ("Italian").

Penn Chorale is an ensemble that sings a variety of choral music, concentrating on music composed in the 21st and late 20th centuries.  Penn Chorale is conducted by Elizabeth Braden. Rehearsals are Thursdays from 6-8 pm and there is one concert per semester. More information.

Among its many performance opportunities, the Music Department offers students who are both advanced performers and are interested in the academic study of music the chance to participate in the Marian Anderson Performance Program. Open to music majors and minors who successfully audition, this program allows select undergraduate students to merge their academic and performance instruction to become well-rounded musicians.

Join us in celebrating live music and improvisation with an evening of eclectic jazz performances. The talented young musicians of the Penn Jazz Ensembles will perform and improvise on music ranging from 1920's traditional jazz to new music composed and arranged by the student performers.

Now under the direction of Paul Bryan, distinguished educator, conductor, and performer, the Penn Wind Ensemble has been actively performing on the Penn campus for over 30 years. Comprised of musicians from the entire Penn community, the Penn Wind Ensemble performs a wide range of repertoire drawing on newly composed works for wind band as well as on works from the core wind repertoire.

One of the largest active flute choirs in the United States, Penn Flutes includes flutists from the ranks of Penn undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff, as well as members of the surrounding community. Repertoire spans a variety of genres from the Renaissance through Modern eras, and select members may be offered the opportunity to perform on piccolo as well as bass and alto flutes.