Prior Performing Arts Center

Luthier Talk and Soundkammer Performance: Dan Hunt with Charles Ketter & Nynez Lopez
2025-06-28 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
An Afternoon with DRH Guitars

Room of Wonders artist Dan Hunt and Charles Ketter of the Plectrum Club will perform on and talk about 5 different guitars made by Dan Hunt of DRH Guitars.
Charles Ketter, a gifted multi-instrumentalist, who began with guitar at age 6, studied arrangement and composition at Berklee College of Music. He performs on his 7 stringed DRH custom guitar and sings as a solo act or as the duo with Dan Hunt, called The Plectrum Club since 2021.
Dan Hunt is a luthier and musician participating in Room of Wonders with his hand-built classical guitar. He will be showing a few of his other masterpieces, including a custom acoustic & a Selmer style and accompanying Charles. He has played guitar since childhood as well, and performs currently with bands We & The Dawg, Jubilee Gardens and Eldon James & The One Eyed Cat, as well as many bands over the years. He enjoys playing in the Plectrum Club with Charles as he is free to stretch out and find new voicings on his DRH creation that he built with the same hands.
Charles and Dan, both guitar teachers, will be joined by Dan’s guitar student-turned-vocalist Nynez Lopez.

Details

Saturday, June 2812-2 p.m.
Gallery open 12-5 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery3rd Floor, The Prior Performing Arts Center

Artist Talk & Fabric Painting Workshop: Caelum Lam
2025-07-09 15:00 - 16:00 | Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Caelum Lam

Artist Talk & Fabric Painting Workshop

Customize your own textiles in this fabric painting workshop from Room of Wonders artist Caelum Lam. Free and open to the public for patrons ages 10 and up, read more about this amazing opportunity below:

Bring Your Own Textile

Patrons are encouraged to bring their own fabric items from home to paint on including clothing, bags, apparel accessories, towels, pillowcases, or anything made of fabric. Lightly colored items that are made of cotton or T-shirt-like materials are recommended for the best application. Plain white cotton fabric square patches will be provided.

Details

Wednesday, July 93-4 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery3rd Floor, The Prior Performing Arts Center

Room of Wonders Closing Reception
2025-07-17 17:00 - 19:00 | Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Cantor Art Gallery

Room of Wonders: A Worcester Wunderkammer

Closing Reception

Join us at the Cantor Art Gallery to celebrate the closing of Room of Wonders, the inaugural exhibition in a new annual summer series spotlighting the Worcester arts community.
Curated by Birgit Straehle, a longtime creative force in the city, the exhibition brings together nearly 30 artists with ties to Worcester in a vibrant, contemporary take on the Wunderkammer (a “cabinet of curiosity”) filled with works that span visual art, spoken word, sound, fashion, and handcrafted instruments.
This special evening offers a final opportunity to experience the richness and diversity of local talent in a uniquely Worcester setting. Light refreshments will be served. All are welcome!

Details

Thursday, July 175-7 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery3rd Floor, The Prior Performing Arts Center

A Midsummer Night's Dream (abridged)
2025-08-07 16:00 | Boroughs Theatre (Prior Performing Arts Center), 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Co-presented by Holy Cross Scholarship in Action & Clark University’s Office of Global Engagement

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Reserve Seats

Shakespeare’s classic play comes to The Prior in this abridged co-presentation from Holy Cross’ Scholarship in Action & Clark University’s Office of Global Engagement, directed by Martha Douglas-Osmundson starring students of the Clark University-Hefei University of Technology Summer 2025 Program.

General admission seating. Free entry, reservation required. Refreshments and talkback to follow.

Details

Aug 7, 20254 p.m.

Price

Free entry, reservation required

Venue

Boroughs TheatreThe Prior Performing Arts Center

The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War: Fashion, Citizenship, and Nationalism (1954–1975)
2025-08-26 - 2025-12-19 | Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Cantor Art Gallery

The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War

Fashion, Citizenship, and Nationalism (1954–1975)

The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War explores the significance of Vietnam’s national costume—the áo dài—during the Vietnam War.
Honoring the 50th anniversary of a conflict, the legacies of which continue to haunt us to this day, the exhibition highlights the contributions of Vietnamese women to politics, society, and culture. Artifacts trace the history of the áo dài as a practical item of clothing and important symbol of Vietnamese heritage and identity in Vietnam, among Vietnamese Americans, and on the global stage—thus showing how a national costume can be both traditional and modern fashion with meanings that change over time and space.
Co-curated by Professors Ann Marie Leshkowich (Anthropology, College of the Holy Cross), Martina Nguyen (History, Baruch College, City University of New York), and Tuong Vu (Political Science, University of Oregon).

Exhibition Events

Panel: Fashion, Politics, and Cultural Identity: The Vietnamese Áo DàiThursday, September 11 | 4:30 p.m.Rehm Library (Smith Hall)

Opening Reception: The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of WarThursday, September 11 | 6 p.m.Cantor Art Gallery

Film Screening: Journey from the FallFriday, September 12 | 5 p.m.Rehm Library (Smith Hall)

Living Threads: Community, Culture and the Áo DàiThursday, October 23 | 4 p.m.The Beehive at The Prior

Concert: The Odyssey–from Vietnam to AmericaTuesday, November 4 | 7:30 p.m.Luth Concert Hall in The Prior

Workshop: The Politics of National Costume in AsiaFriday & Saturday, November 7 & 8Rehm Library (Smith Hall)

Details

August 26-December 19, 2025

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery3rd Floor, The Prior Performing Arts Center

Outdoor Film Screening | Pakachoag: Where the River Bends
2025-09-03 19:30 | OUTDOOR FILM SCREENING – Patterson Amphitheatre at The Prior –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Outdoor Film Screening

Pakachoag: Where The River Bends

The Native American Identity of Holy Cross Campus

Telling a Native American story of the land where Holy Cross now resides, Pakachoag: Where the River Bends is a documentary produced by faculty, staff, and students at The College of Holy Cross about the transformation of this area over the last 400 years.
The film takes viewers on a tour of key sites on Pakachoag Hill (now commonly known as College Hill or Mt. Saint James) and discusses them through a Native American perspective and through the stories they tell of environmental change. It covers Nipmuc relations with colonial settlers and the Jesuit community from the 1500s to today.
We are particularly excited to show this film on the exterior of The Prior Performing Arts Center in the Patterson Amphitheatre, whose site is featured at the start of the film. There was a time when all Holy Cross students knew of Pakachoag, but that knowledge has been lost. This film seeks to revive a widespread knowledge of the indigenous identity and significance of Pakachoag Hill and today’s larger Worcester region.

Details

September 3, 20257:30 p.m.

Price

Free entry

Venue

Building Exterior located in the Patterson AmphitheatrePrior Performing Arts Center

Brooks Scholar Robert Gardner, piano | South American Soundscapes
2025-09-08 12:00 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Brooks Concert Hall, 1 College St., Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Brooks Scholar Robert Gardner, piano

South American Soundscapes: Guastavino, Ginastera, Piazzolla

This recital is the capstone of a transformative year studying in the bustling, vibrant city of Buenos Aires. Come experience Guastavino’s chacarera rhythms, Ginastera’s nostalgic modernism, and Piazzolla’s gripping tangos — with interpretations informed by immersion in the diverse and majestic landscape of Argentina.

Details

September 8, 202512 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Brooks Concert Hall

Panel: Fashion, Politics, and Cultural Identity: The Vietnamese Áo Dài
2025-09-11 16:30 | Rehm Library in Smith Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Cantor Art Gallery

Fashion, Politics, and Cultural Identity: The Vietnamese Áo Dài

Join us for this panel discussion about the role of Vietnam’s national costume—the áo dài—in individual and national expression across Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora.
This panel features co-curators Prof. Ann Marie Leshkowich, Prof. Martina Thucnhi Nguyen (Baruch College), and Prof. Tuong Vu (University of Oregon), along with fashion designers Si Hoang and Thai Nguyen.

Details

September 11, 20254:30 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Rehm Library (Smith Hall)

Opening Reception: The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War
2025-09-11 18:00 | Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Cantor Art Gallery

Opening Reception

The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War

Join us for the opening reception for current exhibition The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War at the Cantor Art Gallery, featuring Vietnamese appetizers and a cash bar.
Free entry, open to the public.

Details

September 11, 20256 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Cantor Art Gallery3rd Floor in The Prior

Bala Brass Quintet
2025-09-11 19:30 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Bala Brass Quintet

The award-winning Bala Chamber Brass presents a program from across the Americas, featuring two new works for brass quintet by Holy Cross faculty composers Chris Arrell and Matthew Jaskot.
Other pieces include Canadian composer Morley Calvert’s Suite from the Monteregian Hills, Four Sketches by American composer Anthony Plog, and an arrangement of the Colombian folk dance, Otro Buchipluma.

Details

September 11, 20257:30 p.m.

Price

Free entry

Venue

Luth Concert HallPrior Performing Arts Center

Film Screening: Journey from the Fall
2025-09-12 17:00 | Rehm Library in Smith Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Cantor Art Gallery

Film Screening: Journey from the Fall

Join us as Vietnamese American actress Kieu Chinh speaks with fashion designer Thai Nguyen about her trajectory as an actress and her work in the public eye on notable projects such as HBO’s miniseries The Sympathizer and the 1993 film The Joy Luck Club.
The conversation will be followed by a screening of the drama Journey from the Fall (2006), which traces the struggles of one family after the Fall of Saigon in 1975.

Details

September 12, 20255 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Rehm Library (Smith Hall)

Ilya Vidrin and Company presents All(Most)
2025-09-12 18:00 | DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE – Boroughs Theatre –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Theatre & Dance

Ilya Vidrin and Company presents All(Most)

Reserve Tickets

Ilya Vidrin and Company presents All(Most), a new piece weaving together live music and dance to probe the fragile spaces of human connection.
Drawing inspiration from attachment theory and the shifting patterns of interpersonal dynamics, the work unravels how closeness, distance, and longing play out between bodies and sound. The original score—inspired by fragments of J. Brahms’ Cello Sonata—becomes both anchor and instigator, echoing the tensions between security and uncertainty, desire and anxiety.
At once intimate and expansive, All(Most) invites audiences into a world where relationships are constantly forming, fracturing, and reforming—where nothing is fixed, but everything is felt.
Creative TeamArtistic Direction + Choreography: Ilya VidrinRehearsal Direction: Dara CapleyMusicians: Eric Seligman and Mel HsuDancers: Hannah Franz, Myles Kercher, Alexis Tsiramanes, and Cassie Wang

Details

September 12, 20256 p.m.

Price

Free entry, registration required.

Venue

Boroughs TheatrePrior Performing Arts Center

Traditional Irish Music Concert
2025-09-15 12:00 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – The Beehive –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Traditional Irish Music Concert

Diarmuid Ó Meachair, accordion
John Hannigan, accordion
Nathan Gourley, guitar

Pop-up concert of Traditional Irish Music – Experience the lively spirit of Irish music at a traditional Irish music pop-up concert!
Join us for an energetic performance featuring traditional jigs and reels. Whether you’re a fan of Irish culture or just curious, this free event offers a unique opportunity to experience live Irish music—right here on campus.
Don’t miss the chance to tap your feet! All are welcome!

Details

September 15, 202512 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

The BeehivePrior Performing Arts Center

Hanif Abdurraqib
2025-09-16 18:00 | PRIOR PRESENTS – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Prior Presents 2025–26

Hanif Abdurraqib

Reserve Tickets

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in journals including Muzzle, Vinyl and PEN American. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.
Abdurraqib’s first full length poetry collection, 2016’s The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a book of the year for 2017 by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas Press in February 2019, which became a New York Times Bestseller and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize.
His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he released the book A Little Devil In America with Random House. Placing as a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, it also won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Gordon Burn Prize.
His most recent book is There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (Random House, 2024), a New York Times Bestseller and longlisted for the National Book Award in nonfiction. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Abdurraqib was also named a Windham-Campbell Prize recipient in 2024.
Join us this September to experience this public lecture from Hanif Abdurraqib in the Luth Concert Hall at The Prior.

Details

Sep 16, 20256 p.m.

Price

Free entry, reservation required.

Venue

Luth Concert Hall
The Prior Performing Arts Center

“Omnivorous in his influences and prolific in his output, Abdurraqib is forging a new form of cultural criticism, one that is informed by lived experience and offers incisive social and artistic critiques.”
MacArthur Foundation

Explore More

Lunchtime Concert Series: Nate Murray ‘26, piano
2025-09-24 12:00 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – The Beehive –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Nate Murray ‘26, piano

Lunchtime Concert Series

This program will feature solo piano music by Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, and Alexander Scriabin.
Throughout this program, we will examine the history of each piece, the striking similarities between two etudes written over 60 years apart from each other, and the expansion of the early Romantic period into the late.

Details

September 24, 202512 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

The BeehivePrior Performing Arts Center

Somos Worcester Somos Americanos: Connecting Worcester's Latino History to the National Story
2025-09-24 18:00 | HOLY CROSS COMMUNITY – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Somos Worcester Somos Americanos: Connecting Worcester's Latino History to the National Story

Dr. Tey Marianna Nunn of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino

Reserve Tickets

Doors Open 5:30 p.m.Program begins 6 p.m.
About The Latino History Project of Worcester
Established in 2014, the Latino History Project of Worcester (LHPW) is a multi-year initiative that documents the Latino experience in Worcester, including the untold history of Latino individuals, institutions, cultures, economy, and daily life. Its mission to collect, share, and celebrate the Latino experience in Worcester drives a community-centered effort to demonstrate the central role that Latinos played in Worcester and the nation’s larger history.
The LHPW’s growing collection of recorded oral history interviews, photographs, artifacts, and written sources will benefit future researchers, Worcester community members, and students of all ages. For over a decade, the project has hosted community events to examine a wide range of topics, from the fights for bilingual education, fair housing, and police reform, to the role of religion and spirituality in the lives of the Latino community. The project opened its first major exhibit at the Museum of Worcester in 2024. Digital exhibits, archives, and a print catalog documenting Worcester’s Latino history will soon follow.
This year’s main event to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month will feature a discussion of the project and the larger effort to move Latino stories from the margins to the center of American history.

About The Guest Speaker
We are honored to host Dr. Tey Marianna Nunn as guest speaker. Tey Marianna Nunn is the Associate Director for Content and Interpretation for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino (NMAL). In this capacity she oversees the museum’s Education, Curatorial, Collections, Digital, and Audience Engagement Teams.

Her past positions include Director of the Smithsonian in American’ Women’s History Initiative (AWHI), Director and Chief Curator of the Art Museum and Visual Arts Program at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Curator of Contemporary Hispano and Latino collections at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Nunn received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico, where her research focused on Spanish Colonial, Contemporary Latin American, and Chicana/o and Latina/o history and art history.
Nunn is also an accomplished curator and award-winning author. Her Book, Sin Nombre: Hispana and Hispano Artists of the New Deal Era, helped to reposition Latinos in Art Historical studies. She is active in issues concerning Latinos and representation in museums and has served on the Boards of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM)and the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS). In 1994, Nunn was one of the selected participants in the very first IUPLR Latino Museum Studies Program at the Smithsonian.

Details

Sep 24, 2025Doors Open 5:30 p.m.Program begins 6 p.m.

Price

Free entry, registration required.

Venue

Luth Concert HallPrior Performing Arts Center

Jane Marsching | Visiting Artist Lecture: The Urban Tree Oracle
2025-09-24 18:00 | DEPARTMENT OF VISUAL ARTS – Rehm Library in Smith Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Visual Arts

Jane Marsching

The Urban Tree Oracle

Jane Marsching is a multi-media artist dedicated to fostering wonder and connections with our environment. Her latest project, The Urban Tree Oracle, invites us to explore the vital relationships we share with urban trees, enhancing our awareness of their role in climate resilience. The lecture will include a video screening of a performance by Jimena Bermejo, Professor of Practice in the Department of Theater and Dance.
Jane Marsching has exhibited her work nationally and has received grants from notable organizations such as Creative Capital and Artadia. She is the co-editor of the book Far Field: Digital Culture, Climate Change, and the Poles, and the co-founder Platform2: Art and Activism, an experimental forum dedicated to exploring creative practices at the intersection of social issues that activated engagement in our local communities around climate activism, citizen science, and water ecologies. She is Professor and Director of the Sustainability Minor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and the founder of the MassArt Resilient Pigment Library in 2021.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Environmental Studies, Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, The Prior Presents Series, and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture.
This event is free and open to the public.

Details

September 24, 20256 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Rehm Library (Smith Hall)

Papermoon Puppet Theatre | Puno, Sewing Memories
2025-09-25 19:30 - 2025-09-26 19:30 | PRIOR PRESENTS – Boroughs Theatre –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Prior Presents 2025–26

Papermoon Puppet Theatre

Puno, Sewing Memories

Purchase Tickets

Please be advised that this program may contain thematic elements unsuitable for children ages 12 and under.
How do we experience loss? How can we hold and appreciate what has been left to us? Papermoon Puppet Theatre Company’s Puno, Sewing Memories is a story of Tala, a young girl who is coping with her father’s passing and learning about life and death.
Papermoon Puppet Theatre believes that anything can come alive: every creature, every object, and every single thing in the world holds life somewhere inside of it. Called “a staple of the global arts festival circuit” by The New York Times, Papermoon Puppet Theatre tells stories ranging from myth to the birth of modern Indonesia with astonishing modernist puppets.
Founded in April 2006 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia by Co-Artistic Director Maria Tri Sulistyani, Papermoon Puppet Theatre has created and toured internationally with over 30 puppet performances and visual art installations and exhibitions.

Details

Sep 25, 20257:30 p.m.

Sep 26, 20257:30 p.m.

Price

$39 | $55

Venue

Boroughs TheatreThe Prior Performing Arts Center

“Papermoon Puppet Theatre has become a staple of the global arts festival circuit, with enigmatic, modernist puppets that tell stories from myth to the birth of modern Indonesia.
Words are few for these puppets with moon-shaped faces who, like mimes, express everything in evocative, poignant gestures.”
The New York Times

Explore More

Pamela Z: Lecture-Demonstration
2025-09-30 17:30 | DEPARTMENTS OF MUSIC AND COMPUTER SCIENCE – Booth Media Lab –, 1 College St, Worcester, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Pamela Z: Lecture-Demonstration

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist working primarily with voice, live electronics, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live looping, her performances combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and custom-designed wireless instruments that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. In addition to her solo work, she has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Julia Bullock with SF Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic New Music Group. Her interdisciplinary performances have been presented at venues including The Kitchen (NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), REDCAT (LA), and MCA (Chicago), and her installations have been presented at such exhibition spaces as MoMA (NY), the Whitney (NY), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), and the Krannert Art Museum (IL). She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, and the MIT McDermott Award, as well as further distinctions from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, United States Artists, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Pamela Z’s five-day residency as a Distinguished Visiting Practitioner will feature a range of campus engagements, including a lecture-demonstration and a recital, both free and open to the public. The residency is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, with additional support from the Departments of Music, Mathematics and Computer Science, and the Prior Performing Arts Center.

Details

Sep 30, 20255:30 p.m.

Price

Free entry

Venue

Booth Media LabThe Prior Performing Arts Center

In addition to this Lecture-Demonstration event, please join us for Z’s public performance at The Prior on October 2:
Pamela Z: RecitalThursday, October 2, 8pmLuth Concert HallPrior Performing Arts CenterFree

“Z’s body of work definitely deserves curatorial attention, but it has already proved that it can evolve, having adapted to changing hardware and software technologies through the years. Have faith that, afforded a modicum of care, it will both endure and continue to amaze.”
Giacomo Fiore
Contributor, San Francisco Classical Voice

Explore More

Pamela Z: Recital
2025-10-02 20:00 | DEPARTMENTS OF MUSIC AND COMPUTER SCIENCE – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Pamela Z: Recital

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist working primarily with voice, live electronics, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live looping, her performances combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and custom-designed wireless instruments that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. In addition to her solo work, she has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Julia Bullock with SF Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic New Music Group. Her interdisciplinary performances have been presented at venues including The Kitchen (NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), REDCAT (LA), and MCA (Chicago), and her installations have been presented at such exhibition spaces as MoMA (NY), the Whitney (NY), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), and the Krannert Art Museum (IL). She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, and the MIT McDermott Award, as well as further distinctions from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, United States Artists, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Pamela Z’s five-day residency as a Distinguished Visiting Practitioner will feature a range of campus engagements, including a lecture-demonstration and a recital, both free and open to the public. The residency is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, with additional support from the Departments of Music, Mathematics and Computer Science, and the Prior Performing Arts Center.

Details

Oct 2, 20258 p.m.

Price

Free entry

Venue

Luth Concert HallThe Prior Performing Arts Center

In addition to this recital, please join us for Z’s Lecture-Demonstration at The Prior:
Pamela Z Lecture-DemonstrationTuesday, September 30 @ 5:30pmBooth Media Lab and BeehivePrior Performing Arts CenterFree entry

“Z’s body of work definitely deserves curatorial attention, but it has already proved that it can evolve, having adapted to changing hardware and software technologies through the years. Have faith that, afforded a modicum of care, it will both endure and continue to amaze.”
Giacomo Fiore
Contributor, San Francisco Classical Voice

Explore More

Irish Music & Song with Liz Knowles*
2025-10-03 19:30 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Brooks Concert Hall, 1 College St., Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Irish Music & Song with Liz Knowles

*Funded by The Patrick E. Moriarty, M.D. ’57 Visiting Scholars Program
Join us for this collaboration of music & song with Liz Knowles, fiddle; Diarmuid Ó Meachair, accordion & voice; John Hannagan Brooks Scholar, fiddle and accordion; and Ulysses Loken, piano.

Details

October 3, 20257:30 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Brooks Concert Hall

Holy Cross Chapel Artist Series: Ezequiel Menendez
2025-10-07 19:00 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – St. Joseph Memorial Chapel –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Dr. Ezequiel Menendez

Holy Cross Chapel Artist Series

Dr. Ezequiel Menendez, Artist-in-Residence and Organ Professor at the College of the Holy Cross, will perform a captivating recital titled Passacaglias: Past and Present.
The program will center on the timeless Passacaglia in C minor by J.S. Bach, one of the most celebrated works in the organ repertoire, and will explore the evolution of the form through selections from both historical and contemporary composers.

Details

October 7, 20257 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

St. Joseph Memorial Chapel

Mike Monaghan & Friends
2025-10-09 20:00 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Mike Monaghan & Friends

Renowned jazz musician Mike Monaghan and his friends, Ben Cook, Marshall Wood, Marty Richards, John Wilkins will perform an exciting evening of jazz improvisation.

Details

October 9, 20258 p.m.

Price

Free entry

Venue

Luth Concert HallPrior Performing Arts Center

Osvaldo Golijov | Creation
2025-10-20 19:30 | PRIOR PRESENTS – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Prior Presents 2025–26

Osvaldo Golijov

Creation

Reserve Tickets

Reservations limited to students, faculty and staff of College of the Holy Cross. Sign-in required for all reservations.
From Grammy- and MacArthur-winner Osvaldo Golijov, The Prior’s Composer-in-Residence, comes a thrilling new work-in-progress on the creation of the universe and the story of life.
At this special sneak peek, audiences will hear selections performed by three of Golijov’s closest collaborators, each of whom embody entire cosmogonies in their music-making: Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor, who harvests endless melodies from the remote past; legendary percussionist Cyro Baptista, who channels the rhythmic universes of Africa and Brazil; and electronic artist Jeremy Flower, whose music speaks of the future.
PROGRAMPrologueElements of CreationDiscussion

Details

Oct 20, 20257:30 p.m.

Price

Free entry, reservation required.

Venue

Luth Concert HallThe Prior Performing Arts Center

“That is the magic of music. This idea of a melody that rephrases itself in the air is a high calling for a composer. It can be how you unveil that melody.”
Osvaldo Golijov
Composer-In-Residence, The Prior Performing Arts Center

Living Threads: Community, Culture and the Áo Dài
2025-10-23 16:00 | Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Cantor Art Gallery

Living Threads: Community, Culture and the Áo Dài

Celebrate Culture, Creativity & Community!
Step out in style and join us for an unforgettable afternoon filled with food, art, and Polaroids — come dressed to impress!
Explore The Vietnamese Áo Dài in a Time of War through guided gallery tours, then make your mark on our Living Áo Dài with a hands-on fabric art project led by artist, community organizer, and Holy Cross alumnus John Vo.
Enjoy delicious Vietnamese bites and connect in a vibrant dialogue celebrating the Vietnamese American community of Holy Cross and Worcester, MA.
Presented in collaboration with the Division of Justice, Equity, Belonging and Identity; A.S.I.A.; and Holy Cross EMBODY Fashion Club.
Free entry, open to the public.

A Two-Part Event
4-4:30 p.m. | Guided gallery tours in the Cantor Art Gallery
4:30-6 p.m. | Community art-making event, Polaroid station, and refreshments in The Beehive in The Prior

Details

October 23, 20254 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Cantor Art Gallery3rd Floor in The Prior

Holy Cross Wind Ensemble | Living Landscapes
2025-10-24 19:30 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Holy Cross Wind Ensemble

Living Landscapes

Join the Holy Cross Wind Ensemble for an exploration of the relationship between global cultures and their natural environments! This program brings the listener to the radiant landscapes of the Arctic, with its varied indigenous peoples, its midnight suns and ceaseless nights. Then, experience a work inspired by Japanese folklore, blending authentic kitsune folksongs with alto and soprano recorders, unique keyboard-percussion effects, and a thrilling clash of mischievous yako and benevolent zenko spirits.
We invite you for a musical reflection on the interplay between humanity and nature: how exactly does one influence the other?

Details

October 24, 20257:30 p.m.

Price

Free entry

Venue

Luth Concert HallPrior Performing Arts Center

A Century of Piano Music: Sofia Gubaidulina Tribute | Liudmila Georgievskaya, piano
2025-10-25 19:30 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Luth Concert Hall –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

A Century of Piano Music: Sofia Gubaidulina Tribute

Liudmila Georgievskaya, piano

This program invites listeners into a rich tapestry of twentieth-century piano music where echoes of the Baroque tradition inspire new, individual voices.
It opens with the shimmering, impressionistic landscapes of Debussy’s Préludes, whose titles are placed at the end of each piece to reflect his unique poetic approach. Bach’s enduring influence is celebrated in Busoni’s immortal piano transcription of the Chaconne from the Second Violin Partita, a work that became an instant staple of the repertoire. Gubaidulina passionately reimagines the continuous variation form in her 1962 Chaconne. Throughout her life, she felt a profound affinity with Bach, especially in their shared fascination with number, numerical symbolism, and his chorales—elements that resonate strikingly and form the very foundation of her own Chaconne. Together, these works chart a lineage of innovation—composers who, like Debussy and Gubaidulina, forged unconventional paths of timbral and structural exploration.
The journey culminates in Ralf Yusuf Gawlick’s Mysterium doloris quintae (Tropen-Kreuz), a meditation on the crucifixion that takes shape as a musical cruciform. Quotations from Bach, Mozart, and children’s songs from around the world intersect within an aural cross that binds Christ’s suffering to the pain of all innocents. Bach’s Mache dich, mein Herze, rein and the Crucifixus stand at its core, while Mozart’s K.414 Andante and Contessa perdono introduce moments of purity, mercy, and forgiveness. Suspended between recitations of the Ave Maria plainchant, the work collapses past and present, revealing Golgotha as an ever-present reality wherever innocence suffers. In this cruciform, suffering is transformed into a space where grace, mercy, and hope break through, embodying Christ’s words: “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them. For such is the kingdom of heaven.”

Details

October 25, 20257:30 p.m.

Price

Free entry

Venue

Luth Concert Hall

Rasa String Quartet: Chamber Music Masterclass*
2025-10-28 15:30 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Brooks Concert Hall, 1 College St., Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Rasa String Quartet

Chamber Music Masterclass

*Funded by The Patrick E. Moriarty, M.D. ’57 Visiting Scholars Program
Join us for this Chamber Music Masterclass from the Rasa String Quartet during their visiting artist residency with the Holy Cross Department of Music, free and open to the public.
The Rasa String Quartet explores the musical space where classical and folk traditions intersect and influence one another. Formed in 2019, the Boston-based ensemble brings together violinists Emma Powell and Maura Shawn Scanlin, violist Kiyoshi Hayashi, and cellist Mina Kim, who are graduates of the New England Conservatory, the Shepherd School of Music, and Yale University.
The quartet has earned top prizes at competitions including Chamber Music in Yellow Springs, Plowman Chamber Music Competition, MTNA Chamber Music Competition, and the Associazione Europea di Musica e Comunicazione (Italy). They’ve also served as ensemble-in-residence at Phillips Exeter Academy. Rasa has collaborated with renowned folk artists like Celtic harpist Maeve Gilchrist, Irish fiddler Liz Carroll, and singer-songwriter Judy Collins, and have performed across the U.S. and abroad at events like the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, Celebrity Series of Boston, Newport Classical, Rockport Music, Jordan Hall, and the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival.
Their love of teaching has led to educational residencies at Bowdoin College, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, UMass Dartmouth, and Boston Music Project, among others. By exploring the connection between music and storytelling at the heart of folk traditions, Rasa delivers fresh, engaging performances that blend classical elegance with folk charm, celebrate global musical roots, and highlight underrepresented composers. In Sanskrit, the term rasa refers to the indescribable power of art to move, inspire, and connect us—a quality Rasa String Quartet strives to embody in every performance.
Find out more at rasastringquartet.com

Details

October 28, 20253:30 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Brooks Concert Hall

Rasa String Quartet | Soundtrack to a Nightmare*
2025-10-28 20:00 | DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Brooks Concert Hall, 1 College St., Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Music

Rasa String Quartet

Soundtrack to a Nightmare

*Funded by The Patrick E. Moriarty, M.D. ’57 Visiting Scholars Program
This Halloween-inspired program follows the arc of a classic horror movie – from eerie atmospheres and unsettling beauty to blood-chilling terror and otherworldly transformation.
Featuring Schubert’s feverish Death and the Maiden, Mozart’s ominous Dissonance Quartet, haunting tracks from Radiohead, and iconic Halloween hits, this spine-tingling journey blends classical drama, cinematic suspense, and supernatural flair!

Details

October 28, 20258 p.m.

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Brooks Concert Hall

Six Characters in Search of an Author
2025-10-30 - 2025-11-09 | DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE – Boroughs Theatre –, 1 College St, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Department of Theatre & Dance

Six Characters in Search of an Author

By Luigi Pirandello
Translated by Edward Storer
Directed by Steve Vineberg

Buy Tickets: Oct 30 - Nov 9

In this production from the Holy Cross Department of Theatre & Dance, a theatre company preparing their latest production is disrupted by the appearance of six figures who claim to be characters abandoned by their author. They beg the director and actors to dramatize their story, with results that are comic, heartbreaking, haunting and ultimately mysterious.
Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 play challenges the assumptions of realism: can we really replicate human relationships, with all their contradictions and complexity, on the stage? Six Characters in Search of an Author is a modern classic that continues to exert a profound influence on theatre and film more than a century after it was first produced.

EVENING PRESENTATIONS

October 30 @ 7:30 p.m.October 31 @ 7:30 p.m.November 1 @ 7:30 p.m.November 6 @ 7:30 p.m.November 7 @ 7:30 p.m.November 8 @ 7:30 p.m.

MATINEE PRESENTATIONS

November 2 @ 2 p.m.November 9 @ 2 p.m.

Details

October 30-31 @ 7:30 p.m.Nov 1, 6-8 @ 7:30 p.m.November 2 and 9 @ 2 p.m.

Price

$15 Public | $10 Holy Cross Community

Venue

Boroughs TheatreThe Prior Performing Arts Center

Explore More
