AL FIRDAUS ENSEMBLE

Celebrate Prophet Muhammad’s birthday in Memorial Church with a performance by the renowned Al Firdaus Ensemble, along with the talented singers of the Stanford Talisman, and vocalist Abdallah AbuHashem.

Performance Nov. 15

Hosted by Office for Religious Life

ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET

The master musician, explainer, and audience fave Rob Kapilow returns to Stanford Live with three new programs. In his first of the season, Leoš Janáček’s “Intimate Letters” match the intimate setting of the Bing Concert Hall Studio with a performance by the Alexander String Quartet.

Performance Oct. 10

Hosted by Stanford Live

CARL ALLEN

Michael Galisatus directs the Stanford Jazz Orchestra’s program, featuring guest artist Carl Allen on drums. With over 200 recordings to his credit, the gifted Milwaukee-born, New York-based drummer, sideman, bandleader, entrepreneur and educator Carl Allen has provided soulful and syncopated support for nearly three decades.

Performance Nov. 28

Hosted by Department of Music, Associated Students of Stanford University

AMBIENT ORCHESTRA WITH MAYA BEISER

David Bowie’s Blackstar, conceived and adapted for orchestra by MIT professor, composer, clarinetist, and musician Evan Ziporyn, features Maya Beiser, described as a “cello rock star” by Rolling Stone.

Performance Nov. 7

Hosted by Stanford Live

EL ANATSUI

Internationally acclaimed artist, El Anatsui will be in conversation with Sylvester Ogbechie, professor of art history at UC Santa Barbara. Anatsui is known for large-scale sculptures composed of resources typically discarded that draw connections between consumption, waste and the environment. His work Uwa is part of the Cantor’s permanent collection and is on view in the Thomas K. Seligman gallery.

Conversation Oct. 17

Hosted by Cantor Arts Center

BEAM SPLITTER

Beam Splitter is a duo for amplified voice, trombone and occasional analog electronics. Utilizing the pure sounds of acoustic and closely amplified sound sources, the duo joins together two individual voices into a distinct dialog that delves beyond the borders of the corporeal elements of extended technique and sound.

Performance Dec. 6

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

JOHN LLOYD BRANCY

John Brancy, baritone, and Peter Dugan, piano, perform the program Armistice: The Journey Home as part of the long-running Shenson Recital Series. Inspired by the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, this program tells the story of men and women who must find their way back home, literally and figuratively. Brancy will also conduct a masterclass for Stanford voice students that is free and open to the public.

Performance Oct. 14
Masterclass Oct. 15

Hosted by Department of Music

CHANTICLEER

San Francisco’s own men’s choir, famous worldwide, brings its annual holiday celebration blend to Memorial Church. Since its 1978 founding in San Francisco by Louis Botto, Chanticleer has toured the world, winning bravos from the capitals of Europe to the greenways of Central Park, where the group has sung alongside the New York Philharmonic. It wouldn’t be December at Stanford without it.

Performance Dec. 12

Hosted by Stanford Live

SEONG-JIM CHO

When Seong-Jin Cho won the gold medal at the 2015 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, he became the first South Korean to do so and vaulted to rock-star status in his homeland. His next record even outsold albums by popular K-Pop bands. Since then, Cho, born in 1994, has persuaded even critics who distrust competitions that he is a major talent. For his Stanford Live debut, Cho has chosen works by Debussy and Chopin.

Performance Oct. 21

Hosted by Stanford Live

CIRCA

From Australia comes a world acclaimed circus with a human face. The 10 Circa Humans are all Homo sapiens—nary an elephant, dog or pony in sight. The absence of props (or for that matter costumes and sets) has no effect whatever on these extreme acrobats’ derring-do; daring they do, jumping and spinning, bouncing and leaping. Face it: You and the kids haven’t really seen a circus until you’ve watched it fly through space.

Performances Nov. 1 & 2

Hosted by Stanford Live

CZECH PHILHARMONIC

Both Native American music and African American spirituals influenced Anton Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony No. 9, performed by the composer’s national orchestra. In its maiden Bing outing, the Czech Philharmonic rounds out the program with the beyond-popular Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. Guest pianist Kirill Gerstein has ties to old world and new, having left Russia at age 14. Now a U.S. citizen, he’s based in Berlin. Music Director Semyon Bychkov conducts.

Performance Oct. 10

Hosted by Stanford Live

PALLE DAHLSTEDT

Palle Dahlstedt, Per Anders Nilsson, Tim Perkis, and Gino Robair present a concert to introduce their research project Systemic Improvisation. Systemic Improvisation refers to a class of musical improvisation systems, wherein virtual interacting agents transform the musical interactions between players. It is a new kind of musical interaction/situation/work and a continuation of Dahlstedt’s and Nilssons’s long-term research into technology-mediated musical creativity and performance.

Performance Oct. 9

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

DECODA

The musicians of Decoda—Carnegie Hall’s resident ensemble—are dynamic advocates for classical music. Its members comprise versatile musicians and entrepreneurs—including the St. Lawrence String Quartet’s own violinist Owen Dalby. Now in its fifth season, they provide engaging performances, interactive concerts and enlightening discussions serving the widest possible types of audiences.

Two performances Nov. 30

Hosted by Stanford Live

DELGRES

From Guadeloupe to Louisiana to the Mississippi Delta. The missing link of the Blues. Delgres, a 2018 Globalfest performer, makes music rooted in a historical moment: 1802, when slavery returned to Guadeloupe and some islanders escaped to New Orleans. It is from this perspective that Delgres—made up of Pascal Danaë (guitar and vocals), Rafgee (sousaphone), and Baptiste Brondy (drums and vocals)—revisits the blended songs, dances, and tears of the long-lost, drifting souls of New Orleans.

Performance Sept.  30

Hosted by Stanford Live

DUSTIN DONAHUE

Baritone Tyler Duncan and percussionist Dustin Donahue join the St. Lawrence String Quartet and other musicians for a unique take on Viennese composer Heinz Karl Gruber’s eloquently chaotic Frankenstein. Gruber’s version of this classic tale of man’s ill-fated quest to transcend biology (and mortality) is a true monster mash-up with bells and whistles.

Performance Nov. 3

Hosted by Stanford Live, Medicine & the Muse

DWAYNE DOPSIE AND THE ZYDECO HELLRAISERS

“America’s Hottest Accordion” winner, Dwayne (Dopsie) Rubin plays a unique, high energy style of zydeco. Though inspired by tradition, he has developed his own high energy style that defies existing stereotypes and blazes a refreshingly distinct path for 21st century zydeco music. This singer/songwriter and accordionist has performed all over the world since debuting his band, Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers, at age 19. Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers not only pump out incredible zydeco music, they also add a bit of rhythm and blues, funk, rock and roll, reggae and pop to their performances.

Two performances Dec. 7

Hosted by Stanford Live

PETER DUGAN

John Brancy, baritone, and Peter Dugan, piano, perform the program Armistice: The Journey Home as part of the long-running Shenson Recital Series. Inspired by the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, this program tells the story of men and women who must find their way back home, literally and figuratively.

Performance Oct. 14

Hosted by Department of Music

TYLER DUNCAN

Baritone Tyler Duncan and percussionist Dustin Donahue join the St. Lawrence String Quartet and other musicians for a unique take on Viennese composer Heinz Karl Gruber’s eloquently chaotic Frankenstein. Gruber’s version of this classic tale of man’s ill-fated quest to transcend biology (and mortality) is a true monster mash-up with bells and whistles.

Performance Nov. 3

Hosted by Stanford Live, Medicine & the Muse

INUA ELLAMS

Presidential Artist Inua Ellams is an internationally touring poet, playwright and performer who has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre and the BBC, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His fall 2018 residency is hosted by Stanford Live, which is presenting Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles in the Roble Studio Theater. Ellams’ play traverses African barbershops in Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos, Accra and London, where besides haircuts, customers and barbers take in and share confessions, wisdom, advice, and stories. Told by Ellams, who emigrated from Nigeria to London as a teenager, the work captures the way community and culture come to life in everyday gathering spaces.

Four performances Nov. 8-10

Hosted by Stanford Live

ESTONIAN PHILHARMONIC CHAMBER CHOIR

Among the foremost interpreters of the work of Arvo Pärt, the Grammy-winning Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir brings his Fratres, Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Adam’s Lament among other works that capture his expressive genius for the elegiac and the sublime.

Performance Nov. 14

Hosted by Stanford Live

NEIL GAIMAN

One of the most celebrated writers of our time, Neil Gaiman’s popular and critically acclaimed books bend genres while reaching audiences of all ages. Gaiman’s best-selling works range from the groundbreaking Sandman graphic novels, to  fantasy novel-turned-television-series American Gods, to beloved children’s literature such as Coraline and The Graveyard Book. At this reading and conversation event, Gaiman will share some of his latest work, explore the cultural role of  ancient and modern myths, and discuss his own ranging literary imagination, where childhood’s loss of innocence plays out on a mythic scale.

Conversation Nov. 15

Hosted by Stanford Live, Stanford Storytelling Project, Stanford Speaker’s Bureau

DIANA GAMEROS

Deeply versatile in expression, Berkeley-based Diana Gameros hypnotizes with solo guitar and a voice that is “at once strong and breathy—in an instant, wounded and boldly searching” (NPR). Singing mostly in Spanish, she creates authentic, inspiring music at the borderlands between cultures, languages, and genres. From the age of 13, Gameros has resided in the United States, and for much of that time, she was an undocumented immigrant. Now with legal status, she writes a love letter to her homeland with 13 standout renditions of classic Mexican songs on her album Arrullo.

Performance Oct. 13

Hosted by Stanford Live

JARED GRIMES

Jazz at Lincoln Center founder and director Wynton Marsalis conceived his composition Spaces as an “animal ballet,” played by his own Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and starring two extraordinary dancers: Lil Buck, creator of a novel dance vocabulary combining aspects of tap and ballet, and Jared Grimes, a Broadway dance maker and tapper, winner of the 2014 Astaire Award. Noted choreographer Damian Woetzel helped meld dance, music, and bestiary into a seamless, captivating show.

Performance Sept. 26

Hosted by Stanford Live

TORD GUSTAVSEN TRIO

For his soon to be released album The Other Side, jazz pianist and composer Tord Gustavsen returns to the piano trio setting, expanding its repertoire with bluesy new compositions and unique arrangements of J.S. Bach chorales and traditional Scandinavian hymns. Joining him are bassist Sigurd Hole and his long-standing collaborator, drummer Jarle Vespestad. The elements of Gustavsen’s work reflect a paradoxical blend of simplicity, quietude, and sensuality built on the hymns of his youth, a Nordic kind of blues, and an instinct for composition. After nearly a decade of creativity, he brings to his piano trio a new perspective that moves his music forward.

Performances Sept. 28

Hosted by Stanford Live

RYAN HADDAD

Do you have a high sex drive? Ryan does. He also has cerebral palsy. No, those things are not mutually exclusive. Join writer/performer Ryan J. Haddad on a roller coaster through New York’s gay dating scene, where the highs are high and the lows are lonely. Directed by Laura Savia, Hi, Are You Single? is an examination of intimacy, rejection, and judgment. But also Grindr, fabulous drag queens, and go-go dancers. Please bring an attractive male friend with you.

Performances Oct. 18 & 19

Hosted by Stanford Live

SAM HARNETT AND CHRIS HOFF

Sam Harnett and Chris Hoff are co-creators of “The World According to Sound,” a brief feature (and a podcast) that airs on NPR’s All Things Considered and weekly on individual public radio stations. Harnett and Hoff have turned it into a live performance where they set up a ring of speakers, pass out eye masks, turn out the lights, and take the sounds from their show and move them all around the audience. You will hear bridges and ants and the gurgle of mud pots. The sounds will transport you inside another person’s head and back in time a hundred years to the streets of Berlin. There will be a musical performance by a washing machine, a sonorous tennis match, and a disturbing howl Marco Polo heard centuries ago while crossing the Gobi Desert.

Performance Nov. 26

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

LYNN HARRELL

The great classical cellist Lynn Harrell will present a masterclass, teaching Stanford student cellists in an informal, public format. At 7:00 p.m. on the same day, the documentary film Lynn Harrell: A Cellist’s Life, directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Ty Kim ’86 will be screened at Bing Concert Hall, followed by a Q&A with Harrell and Kim.

Masterclass and screening Oct. 29

Hosted by The Office of the Provost, Stanford Arts, Department of Music

ZAKARIA HASHEMI

Zakaria Hashemi is an acclaimed director, novelist, documentary filmmaker for television and the lead actor in Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror. He discusses his book With Open Eyes (2004), a memoir-like novel describing his experiences as a filmmaker intimately involved in the Iran-Iraq war. Hashemi was discovered by Farough Farrokzad and introduced to Golestan; their collaboration has continued for the last half century. This event is in Farsi.

Talk Oct. 11

Hosted by Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies

I'M WITH HER

I’m With Her is a three-woman folk trio featuring Sara Watkins (violin), Sarah Jarosz (banjo, mandolin, and guitar), and Aoife O’Donovan (guitar). Since the band’s formation in 2014, they’ve garnered acclaim for their unique blend of instrumental interplay combined with melodies “…that could be sweetly ethereal, or as tightly in tandem as country… or as hearty as mountain gospel.” (New York Times). They are a band of extraordinary chemistry, who together create bittersweet and beautiful songs about love, loss, and life’s ups and downs.

Performance Oct. 10

Hosted by Stanford Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXfvxMGpu-o

IMA

IMA is the sound project of Nava Dunkelman and Amma Ateria, marching forth with fearless percussion, stark electronics and filmic poetic vocals. Deconstructing and dissolving heavy music through restraint and release, IMA strives for a balance between meticulous detailed precision of instrumentation, with the chaos of densities driven to brinks of breakage situated by beautification in between. IMA has been presented in residency at The Stone, New York City (2016), and San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (2016).

Performance Nov. 13

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA

Jazz at Lincoln Center founder and director Wynton Marsalis conceived his composition Spaces as an “animal ballet,” played by his own Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and starring two extraordinary dancers: Lil Buck, creator of a novel dance vocabulary combining aspects of tap and ballet, and Jared Grimes, a Broadway dance maker and tapper, winner of the 2014 Astaire Award. Noted choreographer Damian Woetzel helped meld dance, music, and bestiary into a seamless, captivating show.

Performance Sept. 26

Hosted by Stanford Live

GISH JEN

The Lane Lecture Series presents Gish Jen. Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Jen received a Lannan Award in Literature in 1998, and a Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award in 2003. Her most recent book is a work of nonfiction entitled The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap (2017). She is currently at work on a new novel.

Reading Nov. 5
Colloquium Nov. 6

Hosted by Creative Writing Program

KAHLIL JOSEPH

Presidential Artist Kahlil Joseph is a visual artist and filmmaker, co-founder of the Underground Museum in Los Angeles and creator of BLKNWS. His yearlong residency in 2018-19 is hosted by the Cantor in collaboration with the Institute for Diversity in the Arts. Joseph is on campus this fall installing BLKNWS, a two-channel video projection, at the Cantor, the dining hall in Lagunitas and at Harmony House. Roundtable discussions with faculty, students and experts across disciplines will examine issues related to BLKNWS, such as what it means for it to be an artwork, a business, a media platform and a teaching opportunity all at the same time; and to discuss possible new delivery systems for alternative forms of art and news.

Ongoing 2018-19

Hosted by Cantor, Institute for Diversity in the Arts

ROB KAPILOW

The master musician, explainer and audience fave Rob Kapilow returns to campus in the fall for a panel discussion about the profound human experiences of life, love and loss followed by two of three music programs for the year. In Kapilow’s first program, Leoš Janáček’s “Intimate Letters” match the intimate setting of the Bing Concert Hall Studio with a performance by the Alexander String Quartet. For the second program, Kapilow goes show biz with an expansive look at the work of legendary Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Follies, Into the Woods). His third program will be in the spring.

Discussion Oct. 9
Program 1 Oct. 10
Program 2 Oct. 11

Hosted by Stanford Live

HADI KHORSANDI

Hadi Khorsandi is a UK-based, exiled Iranian satirist and poet. He published “Asghar Agha” weekly for 30 years. He is the recipient of several awards and continues to perform comedy shows in Europe and the United States. His new book The Fake Diaries of Alam is a spoof on The Diaries of Alam, one of the best-selling Iranian books in recent years by the powerful court minister Asadollah Alam about his relationship with the Shah. Khorsandi will read excerpts from the book with anecdotes and jokes. This event is in Farsi.

Reading Oct. 25

Hosted by Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies

TY KIM

The documentary film Lynn Harrell: A Cellist’s Life, directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Ty Kim ’86 will be screened at Bing Concert Hall, followed by a Q&A with Harrell and Kim.

Screening Oct. 29

Hosted by The Office of the Provost, Stanford Arts, Department of Music

ELIZABETH KING

Elizabeth King combines figurative sculpture with stop-frame animation in works that blur the boundary between actual and virtual object. Intimate in scale and made to solicit close looking, her work reflects her interest in the history of the puppet, the automaton and literature’s host of legends in which the artificial figure comes to life. Her talk will touch on the mind/body riddle, the science of emotion, the human/machine interface, and what the direct gaze means in an increasingly mediated world.

Talk Nov. 15

Hosted by Department of Art and Art History

KRONOS QUARTET

As a direct protest to the 2017 Executive Orders limiting travel to the United States by people from largely Muslim-majority countries, San Francisco’s Grammy Award–winning Kronos Quartet premieres a new program featuring music from the original seven “banned” countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen—among others. Kronos’ Music for Change: The Banned Countries highlights a rich diversity of artistic voices, including works composed specifically for the performance, new collaborations, and signature works from Kronos’ extensive repertoire.

Performance Oct. 20

Hosted by Persian Student Association, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Center for African Studies, Continuing Studies, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Department of Music, Stanford Live, Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, Stanford Global Studies Division, Center for East Asian Studies, CREEES Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, Department of Religious Studies, History Department, Department of Anthropology

DOHEE LEE

Born on Jeju Island in South Korea, Dohee Lee studied Korean dance, music, percussion and vocals at the master level. Lee’s work focuses on integration of traditional forms and contemporary arts through music, movement, images, costumes and installations. This workshop expands participants’ vocabularies with feelings, energies, memories and stories to create new art.

Workshop Oct. 2

Hosted by Undergraduate Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, African and African American Studies, Institute for Diversity in the Arts

LIL BUCK

Jazz at Lincoln Center founder and director Wynton Marsalis conceived his composition Spaces as an “animal ballet,” played by his own Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and starring two extraordinary dancers: Lil Buck, creator of a novel dance vocabulary combining aspects of tap and ballet, and Jared Grimes, a Broadway dance maker and tapper, winner of the 2014 Astaire Award. Noted choreographer Damian Woetzel helped meld dance, music, and bestiary into a seamless, captivating show.

Performance Sept. 26

Hosted by Stanford Live

SHAHRIAR MANDANIPOUR

Shahriar Mandanipour discusses his new book Moon Brow, about a young soldier who reemerges from the Iran-Iraq war missing a limb and most of his memory. He is haunted by the vision of a mysterious woman whose face he cannot see. Mandanipour is one of the most accomplished writers of contemporary Iranian literature, the author of nine volumes of fiction, one nonfiction book, and more than 100 essays in literary theory, literature and art criticism, creative writing, censorship and social commentary.

Discussion Oct. 16

Hosted by Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

ANTHONY MANZO

The acclaimed St. Lawrence String Quartet, a beloved linchpin of Stanford and Stanford Live, presents its Sundays with the St. Lawrence series, a matinee array of chamber outings in many modes. Oct. 14th’s concert features pianist Anne-Marie McDermott and bassist Anthony Manzo in the Mendelssohn Sextet.

Performance Oct. 14

Hosted by Stanford Live, Department of Music

WYNTON MARSALIS

Musician, composer and bandleader Wynton Marsalis joins Stanford Professor of Education Adam Banks for a conversation about jazz, the relationship between the arts and community, and the irrepressible spirit of New Orleans. The following night, Stanford Live presents his composition Spaces, an “animal ballet,” played by his own Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and starring two extraordinary dancers: Lil Buck, creator of a novel dance vocabulary combining aspects of tap and ballet, and Jared Grimes, a Broadway dance maker and tapper, winner of the 2014 Astaire Award. Noted choreographer Damian Woetzel helped meld dance, music, and bestiary into a seamless, captivating show.

Conversation Sept. 25
Performance Sept. 26

Hosted by Stanford Live

ANNE-MARIE MCDERMOTT

The acclaimed St. Lawrence String Quartet, a beloved linchpin of Stanford and Stanford Live, presents its Sundays with the St. Lawrence series, a matinee array of chamber outings in many modes. Oct. 14th’s concert features pianist Anne-Marie McDermott and bassist Anthony Manzo in the Mendelssohn Sextet.

Performance Oct. 14

Hosted by Stanford Live, Department of Music

ALEXA MEADE

Martin Gardner was considered one of the pre-eminent magicians of the 20th century, an expert on Lewis Carroll, a champion puzzler, and the creator of recreational mathematics. Every year dozens of mathematicians, artists and magicians gather from around the country for a Celebration of Mind to play, perform, and provoke the pleasures of perception and illusion, all in the spirit of Gardner. This year, the Celebration of Mind is being held at Stanford, and one of the movers and shakers behind these Celebrations is artist Alexa Meade. Meade paints on people, turning them into living, breathing portraits. She creates the illusion of a world where 2D and 3D have become one and has many examples of mathematically inspired work building on ideas of illusion, patterns, and self-reference.

Celebration Oct. 20

Hosted by Stanford Continuing Studies

MIRAMAR

In most of Latin America, if you’re by the sea, there is bound to be a place called Miramar very close by. Miramar, the group—Rei Alvarez, Marlysse Simmons Argandoña and Laura Ann Singh—aims to capture that poetry through their music. Using a somewhat traditional instrumentation that includes organ, piano, guitar, bass, percussion and an occasional string quartet the group’s arrangements distill the essence of the golden age of boleros while adding touches that reveal the band’s scope and diversity. At the Bing, they’ll pay tribute to Sylvia Rexach, the Puerto Rican composer and bandleader from the 1940s and ’50s

Performance Dec. 1

Hosted by Stanford Live

PER ANDERS NILSSON

Palle Dahlstedt, Per Anders Nilsson, Tim Perkis, and Gino Robair present a concert to introduce their research project Systemic Improvisation. Systemic Improvisation refers to a class of musical improvisation systems, wherein virtual interacting agents transform the musical interactions between players. It is a new kind of musical interaction/situation/work and a continuation of Dahlstedt’s and Nilssons’s long-term research into technology-mediated musical creativity and performance.

Performance Oct. 9

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

PARISSA

The recipient of the 11th Bita Prize for Persian Arts is the acclaimed singer Parissa, for a life dedicated to preserving the best of Iranian classical music and elevating the role of women in this tradition. Parissa is a master vocalist of classical Persian music (radif) who continues to play a singular role in promoting, preserving and elevating the best in classical Persian music. She has dedicated her support—by example and action—to the rights of women musicians to create, train, perform and contribute to a rich legacy of music. Her exemplary role as the embodiment of the dignity of an artist, undaunted by the commercial market or power, makes her yet another impressive and indispensable addition to the list of Bita Prize recipients.

Celebration Nov. 9

Hosted by Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, Bita Daryabari Endowment in Persian Letters

KATE PARSONS

As part of the Media Inventors Speakers Series, video artist and educator Kate Parsons and VR veteran Ben Vance explore art and design through emerging technology at FLOAT, a collaborative entity focusing on the intersection of art and interactivity. They will share tips on how their team creates evocative, nuanced art experiences using cutting-edge VR technology.

Seminar Oct. 16

Hosted by Brown Institute for Media Innovation

PENINSULA SYMPHONY

Peninsula Symphony returns to the Bing Concert Hall for this annual concert conducted by Mitchell Sardou Klein with the Stanford Symphonic Chorus and music director Stephen Sano.

Performances Nov. 16 & 18

Hosted by Department of Music

TIM PERKIS

Palle Dahlstedt, Per Anders Nilsson, Tim Perkis, and Gino Robair present a concert to introduce their research project Systemic Improvisation. Systemic Improvisation refers to a class of musical improvisation systems, wherein virtual interacting agents transform the musical interactions between players. It is a new kind of musical interaction/situation/work and a continuation of Dahlstedt’s and Nilssons’s long-term research into technology-mediated musical creativity and performance.

Performance Oct. 9

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

PHILHARMONIA BAROQUE ORCHESTRA AND CHORALE

One of the Bay Area’s treasures, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra plays classical jewels on period instruments. The first of two fall performances, the Oct. 3 program includes works by Mozart alongside the Philharmonia Chorale. On Dec. 5, guest conductor Patrick Dupre Quigley, who presides over his own Seraphic Fire ensemble, leads the holiday celebration, which includes two Bach cantatas: 61, in a light mood, and 140, more straitlaced. Also in the plans for the evening are works from Vivaldi, Monteverdi and Purcell. Guest voices are soprano Margot Rood, countertenor Reginald Mobley, tenor Steven Soph, and baritone Steven Eddy.

Performance Oct. 3
Performance Dec. 5

Hosted by Stanford Live

GREGORY PORTER

Two-time Grammy winner Gregory Porter sings the timeless songs of his greatest influence, Nat “King” Cole, in fresh arrangements by fellow Grammy winner Vince Mendoza that recreate the orchestral setting of Porter’s latest Blue Note album Nat “King” Cole & Me. Accompanying Porter will be conductor Mike Galisatus, leading a swingin’ jazz orchestra of Bay Area musicians.

Performance Dec. 15

Hosted by Stanford Live

PUCK QUARTET

The Puck Quartet, drawing inspiration from its mischievous Shakespearean namesake, seeks to bring a capricious spirit and evocative language to music. Formed by chance in 2013 at Purchase College Conservatory of Music, the members discovered a shared passion and sense of humor in their approach to chamber music and have been performing together ever since. This fall, the quartet brings its take on interactive performances to the St. Lawrence String Quartet’s Emerging String Quartet Program, an intensive community outreach residency aimed at exploring new ways of reaching non-traditional audiences.

Performances Oct. 3 & 5

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

DIANNE REAVES

A holiday visit from a five-time Grammy-winning jazz legend is well worth celebrating. Dianne Reeves brings music from her album, Christmas Time is Here, to the Bing, and she’s the whole package. Choosing from a menu that includes “The Little Drummer Boy,” “Carol of the Bells,” “Christmas Waltz,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Let It Snow,” Reeves gifts standards with her own distinctive musicianship, timeless elegance and Christmas cheer.

Performance Dec. 14

Hosted by Stanford Live

SILAS RIENER

In conjunction with the Contact Warhol: Photography without End exhibition at the Cantor, join us for an evening exploring the rich collaboration between the artists Andy Warhol and Merce Cunningham. A screening of the film of Cunningham’s dance piece RainForest (1968), which incorporated Warhol’s “Silver Clouds,” helium-inflated mylar balloons that work as reflective mirrors and climate barometers on stage, will be followed by a performance demonstration by former Merce Cunningham Dance Company member Silas Riener. A panel organized and led by Professor Peggy Phelan, the Denning Family Director of the Stanford Arts Institute and exhibition co-curator, will follow.

Performance demonstration Oct. 22

Hosted by Cantor Arts Center, Stanford Live

GINO ROBAIR

Palle Dahlstedt, Per Anders Nilsson, Tim Perkis, and Gino Robair present a concert to introduce their research project Systemic Improvisation. Systemic Improvisation refers to a class of musical improvisation systems, wherein virtual interacting agents transform the musical interactions between players. It is a new kind of musical interaction/situation/work and a continuation of Dahlstedt’s and Nilssons’s long-term research into technology-mediated musical creativity and performance.

Performance Oct. 9

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

SAN FRANCISCO CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ALL-STARS

Stanford Continuing Studies presents a musical celebration of a Bay Area treasure and Stanford lecturer, violinist Robin Sharp, who will join forces with San Francisco Chamber Orchestra All-Stars Wendy Sharp (violin), Jenny Douglass and Ben Simon (violas) and Eric Gaenslen and Margaret Edmondson (celli) for an evening of seldom-heard chamber music masterpieces. The centerpiece of the evening will be Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s brilliant sextet, Souvenir de Florence, composed—by a happy coincidence—when he was fifty years old. This program will feature a short presentation by host Ben Simon as well as a discussion of the music to be presented.

Performance Oct. 6

Hosted by Continuing Studies

JORDI SAVALL

Stanford Live presents The Routes of Slavery by the distinguished Catalan composer, viola da gambist and musical historian Jordi Savall. Savall gathers a global array of dancers, singers and musicians to pay homage to the music of Europe, Africa and the Americas in a stunning exploration of humanity, spiritual resistance and community in the face of slavery’s unimaginable cruelty.

Performance Nov. 4

Hosted by Stanford Live

NITIN SAWHNEY

Presidential Artist Nitin Sawhney is an award-winning musician, producer, composer, conductor and DJ who has scored for and performed with Paul McCartney, Sting, The London Symphony Orchestra, Anoushka Shankar and Nelson Mandela, among others, and is a recent recipient of Ivor Novello’s Lifetime Achievement Award. His extended campus visit, hosted by Stanford Live, kicked off this fall with a music performance featuring Aref Durvesh on tabla and vocalist Eva Stone at Bing Concert Hall; the U.S. premiere of Dystopian Dream, a theatrical realization of a concept originated by Sawhney in collaboration with international hip-hop duo Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez at Memorial Auditorium; and a DJ set for this year’s student-only Party on the Edge at the Cantor. Sawhney will return in the spring for more activities as part of his yearlong residency.

Music performance Sept. 29
Two Dystopian Dream performances Oct. 4 & 5
Party on the Edge DJ set Oct. 5

Hosted by Stanford Live

SHUDDHABRATA SENGUPTA

Shuddhabrata Sengupta, well renowned artist and writer, and member of Raqs Media Collective presents Kinetic Contemplation at the Cantor. Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi & Shuddhabrata Sengupta) makes contemporary art, edits books, curates exhibitions and stages situations.

Happening Nov. 8

Hosted by Center for South Asia, Cantor Arts Center

SIDEBAND

Sideband is an electroacoustic ensemble, comprised of composer-performers dedicated to exploring the potential of the laptop orchestra. It strives to inspire composers, performers and audience members to reevaluate the role of computers in music by designing instruments and compositions which utilize the unique capacities of networked electronic ensembles. Through the use of individual speakers, Sideband turns each member into a discrete sound source, recovering the acoustic presence of multiple instruments from the normally flattened world of electronic music. Ranging from solos and duos to sextets and beyond, Sideband is an evolving project that inspires composers, performers and audience members to reevaluate the role of computers in music.

Performance Nov. 1

Hosted by Department of Music, CCRMA

SONOS HANDBELL ENSEMBLE

Christmas simply rings with bell music. It’s always seemed to go with the holiday, and Sonos Handbell Ensemble goes right along with it, concertizing worldwide. Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and the Young Musicians Choral Orchestra will join in this tintinnabulating tribute to the holiday and rise to the artists’ impeccably exacting standards as they celebrate this season of joy.

Performance Dec. 16

Hosted by Stanford Live

STANZIN DORJA GYA

Film screening of the documentary The Shepherdess of the Glaciers (La Bergère des Glaces) followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Stanzin Dorjai Gya. On a rock-strewn mountain in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, lives shepherdess Tsering. Her flock of 250 sheep and cashmere goats are her only companions, except for the troubling presence of wolves and a snow leopard; her only link to the outside world is a small transistor radio. This film presents an intimate portrait of a disappearing way of life – one marked by challenges and isolation, but also beauty and spiritual grace.

Screening and discussion Oct. 9

Hosted by Tibetan Studies Initiative

NICK THUNE

Nick Thune’s absurdist view and deadpan wit have distinguished his unique style of storytelling mixed with one-liners. The Seattle-born comedian and actor has appeared on The Tonight Show, Conan, and Late Night. He performs comedy to sold out crowds around the world, and has been featured at the prestigious Montreal Comedy Festival, South By Southwest, Bonnaroo, The Moontower Comedy Festival, The Dublin Comedy Festival, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and many more. Nick has also had his own Comedy Central Presents special and released a comedy album, titled Thick Noon, with Comedy Central Records.

Two performances Sept. 29

Hosted by Stanford Live

KERRY TRIBE

Presidential Artist Kerry Tribe is a visual artist working primarily in film, video and installation, whose work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, MoMA, Tate Modern and SFMoMA. During her yearlong residency, hosted by Stanford Arts Institute, Tribe will give a public lecture about her work in the fall; teach “Art in the Age of Neuroscience” winter quarter; and teach “Practice and Critique” spring quarter.

Hosted by Stanford Arts Institute

GAVIN TUREK

Gavin Turek serves up disco shimmer, house music unz, and electro-pop catchiness. Her latest track, “Birdie Bees,” is a funky R&B number with head-bobbing beats. She’s like Donna Summer in her ability to belt and coo and hit high silky sweet notes or lower sultry tones, but she’s got Beyonce’s on-point moves (she was a professional dancer before switching gears to singing and songwriting), and Diana Ross’s fabulous hair and ‘70s-era fashion sense.

Performance Oct. 12

Hosted by Stanford Live, Stanford Concert Network

BEN VANCE

As part of the Media Inventors Speakers Series, video artist and educator Kate Parsons and VR veteran Ben Vance explore art and design through emerging technology at FLOAT, a collaborative entity focusing on the intersection of art and interactivity. They will share tips on how their team creates evocative, nuanced art experiences using cutting-edge VR technology.

Seminar Oct. 16

Hosted by Brown Institute for Media Innovation

URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD

An outdoor sculpture by Ursula von Rydingsvard was installed at Stanford Denning House, home of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, in September. Von Rydingsvard will visit campus in October for a formal dedication of the artwork and to speak with students.

Ongoing

Hosted by Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program

WANG RAMIREZ

The U.S. premiere of Dystopian Dream, a theatrical realization of a concept originated by composer Nitin Sawhney, is a collaboration with international hip-hop duo Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez. Uniting Wang Ramirez’s extremely physical dance language with Sawhney’s iconic music and singer Eva Stone, the production will take the audience on a journey through parallel universes and unreal dreams.

Performances Oct. 4 & 5

Hosted by Stanford Live

PAULA WEST

Called by JazzTimes “the finest jazz-cabaret singer around,” the beloved Bay Area jazz vocalist Paula West offers a program of Bob Dylan and other American standards. The almost vibrato-less vocal sound and warm affection for the repertoire she has acquired make West a distinctive singer.

Two performances Dec. 8

Hosted by Stanford Live

MARVIN K. WHITE

As part of “Conjure Art 101: Performances of Ritual, Spirituality and Decolonial Black Feminist Magic,” Marvin K. White will be giving a demonstrative lecture. White is the inaugural Public Theologian in Residence (’17-’18) at First Church Berkeley and author of four poetry collections. He is an ordained deacon at City of Refuge UCC, and is currently a co-facilitator of the “Faith Leaders Round Table” at The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society.

Lecture Nov. 13

Hosted by Institute for Diversity in the Arts, African and African American Studies, Dance Division, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity

KIYAN WILLIAMS

Kiyan Williams is a multidisciplinary artist who unearths counterhegemonic notions of identity, history, and sociality. They often work with dirt and earth as material and metaphor to explore Black queer subjectivity, abjection, diaspora, and earth-based healing practices. Together we will explore live performance sculpture.

Performance Oct. 19

Hosted by Institute for Diversity in the Arts, Earth Systems Program, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity

JOHN LLOYD YOUNG

John Lloyd Young, the multiple award winner from Broadway’s Jersey Boys, comes to the Bing Studio with music from the ‘50s and ‘60s all in the authentic style of rock ‘n’ roll, doo-wop and R&B. For his role as Frankie Valli, Young won the Lead Actor Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World Awards—becoming the only American actor in history to win all four leading actor awards for a Broadway debut. He re-created his award-winning Broadway turn onscreen for director Clint Eastwood in the film adaptation of Jersey Boys, which premiered in 2014.

Two performances Oct. 27

Hosted by Stanford Live