February ushers in music and arts festivals across Emory

Jan. 29, 2024

A new semester at Emory has started, and while the weather may be at its coldest, the opportunities to experience the arts on campus are just heating up. Emory hosts multiple arts festivals in February, centering on jazz, music composition and new theater works. There are also a variety of concerts, lectures, readings and film screenings to enjoy, so see what Emory has to offer this month.

Groove to Jazz Fest and CompFest

Emory hosts two annual on-campus music festivals this month. Jazz Fest, a three-day festival presented by the Emory Jazz Studies program, kicks off the month with events from Thursday, Feb. 1, through Saturday, Feb. 3.

Guitarist Bobby Broom will give a lecture and demonstration on Thursday, Feb. 1, at 2:30 p.m. in Emerson Concert Hall of the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. No registration or tickets are required. Then, on Friday, Feb. 2, head back to Emerson Concert Hall at 8 p.m. to enjoy a concert featuring Broom and the Gary Motley Trio. Tickets are required for this event.

On Saturday, Feb. 3, attend a Jazz Clinic in Tharp Rehearsal Hall at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. The clinic includes pianist Gary Motley, bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Kobie Watkins. No tickets are required, and the free event starts at 11:30 a.m.

Jazz Fest concludes with a concert featuring the Emory Big Band on Saturday, Feb. 3, at 8 p.m. in Emerson Concert Hall. The event is free, but tickets are required.

The following weekend, the Music Composition Program hosts CompFest, a composition festival featuring legendary composer Annea Lockwood, from Thursday, Feb. 8, through Sunday, Feb. 11. This year’s theme is “Ecologies of Sound.”

On Thursday, Feb. 8, head to Ackerman Hall at the Michael C. Carlos Museum for a Creativity Conversation with composer and sound artist Annea Lockwood, pianist Laura Barger and Emory faculty composer Katherine Young. The event starts at 5 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Then, on Saturday, Feb. 10, witness the topics of that discussion in action with the Ecologies of Sound concert, starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Performing Arts Studio. The event is free and open to the public. For a full list of CompFest events, and to read more about the visiting artists, visit the CompFest website.

Gain new perspectives with the Carlos Museum

The Michael C. Carlos Museum hosts a variety of lectures and artist talks this February that you won’t want to miss.

On Wednesday, Feb. 7, at 7:30 p.m., the museum presents the Nix-Mann Endowed Lecture, titled “Sounds Wild and Broken: Listening Beyond the Surface,” given by David Haskell, professor of biology and environmental studies at the University of the South. Focused on how listening can open us to the interconnections from which life is made, the lecture is held in conjunction with Music at Emory’s CompFest and “Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies, Imploding Stars,” on view from Feb. 3-May 19.

At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 13, join Ruth Allen, curator of Greek and Roman Art, for a Gallery Talk in the “Recasting Antiquity: Whistler, Tanagra, and the Female Form” exhibition.

The museum hosts an artist talk and reception with Eglė Budvytytė at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 22, where Budvytytė discusses her video installation, “Songs from the Compost,” where she combines dance, composition, music and video.

Finally, the Carlos Museum closes out the month with two lectures. First, “Navigating Power” at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, focuses on second-century Indian Buddhist monk Nāgārjuna, who is famed for his philosophical treatises on emptiness. The program is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

On Thursday, Feb. 29, make the most of February’s bonus day and head to the “London Models: Whistler and the Misses Pettigrew” lecture in Ackerman Hall at 7:30 p.m. This illustrated lecture discusses the three Pettigrew sisters, professional London models who posed for many leading Victorian painters. The program is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Examine AI through film with Emory Cinematheque

The Emory Film and Media Department is back this semester with a new series of film screenings for Emory Cinematheque. The spring screenings focus on “A.I. and Film,” curated by associate professor Gregory Zinman.

The use of AI was a central bargaining point in Hollywood’s recent writers’ and actors’ guild strikes and remains a hotly debated topic. This series examines the provocative ways that artificial intelligence has been depicted in film — an issue that cinema has been wrestling with for decades, stretching all the way back to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927).

AI takes on many forms in cinema: insane supercomputers, killer androids, confused clones and disembodied lovers. These sentient beings are not only intelligent machines, but also often fully embodied humanoids, like clones, cyborgs, copies and droids. AI in movies is deliberately similar to humans in one way or another; their appearance and manner only complicate their status as “other.”

All Cinematheque screenings are on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. in White Hall, Room 208, and will be followed by a postscreening Q&A.

The films featured in February include “Ex Machina” on Feb. 7, “Her” on Feb. 14, “Momentum” and“Demon Seed” on Feb. 21 and “Another Body” on Feb. 28.

For more information, including a full list of films being screened this spring, visit the Emory Cinematheque website.

Tune into a bevy of other concerts

If Jazz Fest or CompFest don’t fit into your schedule, plenty of other concerts are happening around campus.

The Schwartz Center for Performing Arts presents two concerts this month as part of the 2023-24 Flora Glenn Candler Concert Series. On Thursday, Feb. 8, the nationally renowned St. Olaf Choir will perform in Emerson Concert Hall as part of its winter tour. The concert starts at 8 p.m., and tickets must be purchased in advance.

The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta (ECMSA) presents a number of concerts, including two on Friday, Feb. 9: a Cooke Noontime performance by The Three Graces, happening in the Schwartz Center’s Emerson Concert Hall, and at 7 p.m., a pajama concert celebrating the Chinese New Year in Ackerman Hall of the Michael C. Carlos Museum.

ECMSA’s ever-popular annual Bach Bowl returns on Sunday, Feb. 11, at 4 p.m. The one-hour, free concert before the Super Bowl features organist Alan Morrison and takes place in Emerson Concert Hall.

On Wednesday, Feb. 14, the Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra performs a free concert featuring the region’s finest high school-aged musicians. No tickets are required and the event starts at 8 p.m. in Emerson Concert Hall.

On Friday, Feb. 16, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine will perform in Emerson Concert Hall of the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at 8 p.m. Tickets must be purchased in advance.

Theodosia Roussos, the 2023-24 Emory Arts Fellow, performs “Building Temples” on Sunday, Feb. 18, at 2 p.m. The program of music and movement featuring the work of four contemporary women composers takes place in the Performing Arts Studio. A talk-back will be held after the performance.

Emory’s own Wind Ensemble gives its first concert of 2024 on Friday, Feb. 23, at 8 p.m. The concert takes place at Emerson Concert Hall and is free and open to the public.

On Saturday, Feb. 24, Emory artist affiliate Alexandra Shatalova Prior, along with a cohort of musicians, gives an oboe recital at 8 p.m. in Emerson Concert Hall.

On Sunday, Feb. 25, ECMSA presents another Family Series performance with Atlanta’s Young Artists concert, showcasing some of the area’s finest pre-college musicians. The event is free and starts at 4 p.m. in Ackerman Hall of the Michael C. Carlos Museum.

Finally, on February 27, The Merian Ensemble performs “Listen: Works by Women 2024,” a chamber concert featuring works by historic and modern female composers including Gipps, Beach, Schwob and others. The event is free and open to the public and takes place in Emerson Concert Hall at 8 p.m.

See cutting-edge performances with the Brave New Works Festival

This February, the Playwriting Center of Theater Emory presents Brave New Works, a biennial festival dedicated to developing new works of theater from Saturday, Feb. 17, through Saturday, March 2.

On Saturday, Feb. 17, the festival kicks off with a Panel Discussion on the New Play Development Process featuring Moses H. McGavin, playwright of “Shoot the Duck”; Amber Bradshaw, dramaturg; and directors Samantha Provenzano and Addae Moon. The event takes place at 5 p.m. in the Theater Lab of the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. The event is free, but tickets must be reserved in advance.

Then, at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 24, the Playwriting Center of Theater Emory produces a staged reading of “Felicity” by Emory junior Dylan Malloy. The reading, happening in the Theater Lab, is free, but tickets must be reserved in advance.

Learn more about dance and creative writing

At 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 13, Friends of Emory Dance presents its annual lecture, “Dancing Around Race — Cultivating Racial Equity and Absolute Belonging.” The lecture, given by Gerald Casel, a dance artist, equity advocate and antiracist educator, is free and open to the public. No tickets are required for this event, happening in the Dance Studio at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.

Later in the month, the Emory Creative Writing program hosts guest poets Jennifer Grotz and Michael Dumanis, who will present together at two public events. On Wednesday, Feb. 21, at 6:30 p.m., enjoy a poetry reading. Then, at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 22, enjoy a colloquium. Both events are free and open to the public.

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