The Ciompi’s second program of the season is an all-Mozart affair, beginning with one of the composer’s “Haydn” quartets. The ensemble join a frequent collaborator, gifted clarinetist Allan Ware, to ...

The Telegraph of London called the Pacifica Quartet’s playing “nothing short of phenomenal, with new dimensions of interpretative depth and a subtle fusion of intensity and clarity.” After delighting Durham ...

  Trisha Brown has serious avant-garde and postmodern dance bona fides: she was a founding member of the experimental Judson Dance Theater before striking off on her own in the late ...

The New York Times calls Antonio Sanchez “one of the standout jazz drummers on the contemporary scene, a polyrhythmic ace attuned to the subtlest dynamic fluctuations.” Jazz fans have known ...

The 6 PM presentation of Trisha Brown Dance Company performing In Plain Site at the Nasher Museum of Art has sold out. There are tickets available for all other showings ...

ACCUMULATIONS: Exploring the Legacies of Trisha Brown Saturday, October 29, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM Nasher Museum of Art Auditorium, 2001 Campus Drive, Durham Free & open to the public Join ...

Trisha Brown has serious avant-garde and postmodern dance bona fides: she was a founding member of the experimental Judson Dance Theater before striking off on her own in the late 1960s ...

One night in 1943, mere days before he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to his death at Auschwitz, Viennese composer Marcel Tyberg played a radiant and deeply moving ...

Ian Bostridge Book Talk The celebrated English tenor Ian Bostridge will talk about his most recent book, Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession (Faber 2014/Knopf 2015). This session will be ...

The celebrated English tenor Ian Bostridge sings “as if from inside the music, as if he has found a way to produce pure, disembodied emotion,” declares the Los Angeles Times. This ...

In recent seasons the Belcea Quartet has become a regular presence and an audience favorite at Duke Performances. The reason is clear: even after two decades together, raves The Guardian, ...

Chamber Music Master Class The afternoon of their Chamber Arts Series performance, the Belcea Quartet will lead a chamber music master class with Duke student musicians in Baldwin Auditorium. Saturday, October ...

Blonde Redhead was born through a chance meeting between Japanese frontwoman Kazu Makino and Italian twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace in New York City in 1993. Since then, they’ve ...

Zakir Hussain is a peerless genius of the tabla, the rhythmic heart of Indian classical music. The New York Times calls him “a fearsome technician but also a whimsical inventor, ...

The Mivos follow their instrumental performance by welcoming to the stage the legendary spoken-word artist Saul Williams. The performer whom CNN calls “hip-hop’s poet laureate” developed his voice in the ...

The Mivos Quartet are the most compelling ambassadors new music could ask for. “This vital young New York string quartet embraces toothy modernism with punk-rock verve,” wrote The New York ...

MartyrLoserKing: A Conversation with Saul Williams & Mark Anthony Neal Iconic spoken word artist Saul Williams will speak with Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University, about Williams’ ...

Simone Dinnerstein first vaulted into prominence when her self-financed recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations became an unexpected sensation. A decade later, she is in high demand by concert presenters from ...

The Civilians, practitioners of investigative theater, create their work like researchers of the national consciousness. They build their kaleidoscopic shows out of hundreds of conversations about life’s most vital questions ...

The New York Times praises Billy Hart as “a drummer of earthy enlightenment, conversant in every branch of modern jazz but forever connected to its root.” That root comes from ...

The Dover Quartet shot to prominence after taking first prize at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition. The Chicago Tribune hails their “expert musicianship, razor-sharp ensemble, deep musical feeling, ...

No one else sounds like Aaron Neville. His falsetto is instantly recognizable, whether in the second line jazz and funk of his beloved New Orleans as one of the Neville ...

The Ciompi begin their season with their venerable tradition of playing a quartet by Haydn, the father of that form. His Quartet No. 39 surprisingly ends with a fugue, a ...

ALERT: Moving Black Twig Pickers at Music in the Gardens Indoors to Motorco Music Hall. Heavy lightning & thunderstorms are forecast for tonight at showtime. As a result, we have ...

“This rootsy North Carolinian may be the most buzzed-about new songwriter in folkdom,” wrote The Boston Globe about Carrboro’s Jonathan Byrd. “He displays John Prine’s gift for stark little songs that ...

William Tyler is the guitarist every musician wants in their band: he’s played with everyone from Lambchop to Silver Jews to Hiss Golden Messenger. He’s also released two singular instrumental ...

Following cancellation due to rain on Wednesday, June 29, Duke Performances’ presentation of Mount Moriah has been re-scheduled for Thursday, July 7 at 7 PM. All ticket holders will be ...

Bluegrass mandolinist and singer Sierra Hull’s breakout album Weighted Mind went right to the top of Billboard’s bluegrass charts at the start of this year. The Chicago Tribune praised Hull’s “crystalline ...

A tour de force of expert jazz and tap dancing, this once-in-a-lifetime session, co-presented with the American Dance Festival, brings together living legends Savion Glover and Jack DeJohnette. Glover, the ...

Please note: Since heavy lightning and thunderstorms are anticipated for Wednesday, June 15 (80% probability), we have moved the concert with Skylar Gudasz out of the Duke Gardens and over to Motorco Music ...

After a stint in the GRAMMY-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, singer and cellist Leyla McCalla has developed a sound all her own on two acclaimed solo records: her Langston Hughes tribute ...

The No BS! Brass Band draws from all over the American brass tradition. One minute, they sound like a New Orleans second line, the next like Mingus-style free jazz, the ...

One of America’s finest concert pianists, Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth, and expressiveness. Celebrated for his “fluid, often tempestuous performances” (New York Times), Goode’s prodigious gifts ...

For the twenty-four singers in the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, perhaps the finest professional choir in the world today, choral singing is a long and proud part of their Baltic ...

Kirill Gerstein, declares the Boston Globe, is “on the fast track to a major career, and he deserves to be.” After high-level training in Russia and the United States — ...

The Emerson String Quartet have been lauded as “the one indispensible quartet” (Newsday). In their forty-year career they have made unparalleled contributions to American chamber music, amassed thirty recordings, nine ...

In light of impending inclement weather, Duke Performances is canceling the presentation of Rez Abbasi Invocation feat. Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa. We are planning to reschedule the concert with the Invocation ...

A Conversation with Wu Man & Jennifer Chang A conversation with Wu Man and Jennifer Chang, Chapel Hill-based gu zheng musician and educator, on Wu Man’s career, featuring a pipa demonstration by Wu Man ...

The acclaimed Shanghai Quartet and pipa (Chinese lute) virtuoso Wu Man unite to perform new works by contemporary Chinese composers for string quartet and pipa. Called “wonderfully ferocious and illuminating” ...

In a special performance, Britain’s Orlando Consort accompany a screening of the landmark Carl Theodor Dreyer silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928) with the music of Dufay, Binchois, ...

Talking Music: A Conversation with Edgar Meyer Acclaimed bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, praised by The New Yorker as “the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled history of his instrument,” arrives in Durham ...

The Ciompi Quartet conclude their celebration of fifty years in residence at Duke University by welcoming former students back to campus — and to the stage — for a Duke ...

Bang-on-a-Can co-founder Michael Gordon, one of America’s most adventurous composers, writes music characterized by “vigor and hypnotic intensity” (The New York Times). Mantra Percussion and The Rushes Ensemble come to ...

The Piano Recital Series closes with three-time GRAMMY-winning concert pianist Murray Perahia. As the protégé of Vladimir Horowitz, Perahia developed a sound that is at once stately and incendiary, taking ...

The eight-member GRAMMY-winning a cappella vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth explore the expressive power and range of the human voice in the Vocal Ensemble Series’ closing concert. Formed by Williams College ...

**The date for ‘Jerry Douglas presents Earls of Leicester’ in Duke Performances’ 2016/17 printed brochure is inaccurate. The concert will take place on Saturday, February 18, 2017 as listed above.** Dobro ...

Conrad Tao will read new works for piano by Duke graduate composers Eren Gümrükçüoglu and Sid Richardson. Conrad Tao began his musical career as a wunderkind. As a pre-teenager he appeared as ...

Five years ago, The New York Times declared that Kirill Gerstein was “emerging as one of the most respected pianists of his generation.” That emergence is now complete, with the ...

Conrad Tao began his musical career as a wunderkind. As a pre-teenager he appeared as both a violin and piano soloist with dozens of top-tier orchestras, and later received eight ...

Dublin’s The Gloaming are a five-piece ensemble featuring some of the world’s great Celtic musicians, including singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and Martin Hayes, “one of the best fiddlers on the ...

Talking Music: A Conversation with Kassé Mady Diabaté Duke Professor Laurent Dubois, a distinguished historian of the Black Atlantic and author of the recently released book The Banjo: America’s African Instrument, ...

Talking Music: A Conversation with Kassé Mady Diabaté Duke Professor Laurent Dubois, a distinguished historian of the Black Atlantic and author of the recently released book The Banjo: America’s African Instrument, ...

Duke Performances’ presentation of Samuel Beckett Trilogy: ‘Not I,’ ‘Footfalls’ & ‘Rockaby’ featuring Lisa Dwan on Friday, April 1 & Saturday, April 2, 2016 has been CANCELLED; Duke Performances is not planning ...

Cellist Paul Watkins of the acclaimed Emerson String Quartet will hold a chamber music master class with Duke student musicians. The Emerson String Quartet have been lauded as “the one indispensible quartet” (Newsday). In their forty-year ...

Deviant Septet, the new music ensemble which Time Out New York called “exceedingly fun,” are now in their second year of residency at Duke. Last season, they brought down the ...

Born and raised in Ankara, pianist and composer Fazıl Say is one of the most distinctive artists to emerge from Turkey in the last twenty years. His works blend folk ...

Twenty years into its extraordinary run, eighth blackbird is still “one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet" (Chicago Tribune).

Artist-in-Residence Events: Fazıl Say • Fazıl Say: Music & Culture in Turkey • Turkish pianist and composer Fazıl Say speaks with Erdağ Göknar, Director of the Duke Middle East Studies Center, about music ...

In light of impending inclement weather, Duke Performances has cancelled the presentation of Rez Abbasi Invocation feat. Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa on Friday, January 22. We are planning to reschedule ...

Artist-in-Residence Events: Jennifer Koh • Jennifer Koh performs Beethoven Violin Concerto as a featured guest of the Duke Symphony Orchestra •  Wednesday, March 2, 8 PM Baldwin Auditorium Free & open ...

Due to poor weather and hazardous driving conditions, Duke Performances has cancelled the presentation of Thymos Quartet featuring Christoph Eschenbach. We are not currently planning to reschedule this concert. Ticket holders should check ...

Peter Rowan “is to country and bluegrass what Willie Nelson is to Country and Western: so deep in the traditions that the music seeps out of his pores” (San Francisco ...

Acclaimed and adventurous artists Jennifer Koh (violin) and Shai Wosner (piano) come together for a performance of Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin. The New York Times declared that “Mr. Wosner’s singing tone and ...

Born to Puerto Rican parents, raised in the Bronx, and now a resident of New Orleans, Alynda Lee Segarra fronts Hurray for the Riff Raff, a five-piece band that is ...

Hailed by The Washington Post for their “expressive power and spontaneous grace,” the nine-voice men’s choir Cantus was founded in 1995 when its members were students at St. Olaf College ...

Ailey II, the young company of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, has been a showcase for talented emerging dancers and choreographers since 1974. Praised by The New Yorker for their ...

Filter Theatre is quickly gaining a reputation as one of London’s boldest and most inventive young Shakespeare ensembles. The Daily Telegraph praises their “work that dazzles the eye, enchants the ...

In 2010, seven of New York City’s most sought-after and versatile instrumentalists connected over a shared love for Stravinsky’s magnificent L’Histoire du Soldat, and Deviant Septet was born. Scored for ...

HIP-HOP & THE REVOLUTION: A CONVERSATION ON HIP-HOP & GLOBAL ACTIVISM WITH BLITZ THE AMBASSADOR & ANGEL DOZIER Ghanaian-born, Brooklyn-based rapper Blitz the Ambassador will speak with Angel Dozier, director ...

The GRAMMY-winning Parker Quartet brings “pinpoint precision and a spectacular sense of urgency” (Boston Globe) to their broad repertoire and multitude of musical collaborations. Recently appointed Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University’s ...

Ghanaian-American rapper Blitz the Ambassador makes no bones about his mission. He blends elements of Ghanaian highlife with the fiercest and most socially engaged ’90s hip-hop, drawing inspiration from the ...

Legendary singer and political activist Joan Baez has had a remarkable fifty-seven year career in music. She has been honored with a GRAMMY lifetime achievement award, inducted into the GRAMMY ...

The recent emergence of the Denmark- and Norway-based Danish String Quartet has brought a fresh voice to the world of chamber music. Having played together since the age of fifteen, ...

The Arditti Quartet is the only chamber ensemble ever to receive the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, the “Nobel Prize of Music,” usually awarded to individuals; Eliot Fisk was called "one of the most brilliant, intelligent, and gifted artists of our time" by his mentor, the guitarist Andrés Segovia.

TALKING DANCE: A CONVERSATION WITH KYLE ABRAHAM AND JODEE NIMERICHTER Kyle Abraham, MacArthur Award winner and artistic director of Abraham.In.Motion, will speak with Jodee Nimerichter, Director of the American Dance ...

**TWO PUBLIC CONVERSATIONS WITH GROUNDBREAKING HIP-HOP ARTIST TALIB KWELI** TALKING MUSIC: TALIB KWELI & 9TH WONDER GRAMMY-winning producer, DJ, and Duke professor 9th Wonder leads this discussion with groundbreaking Brooklyn-based hip-hop artist ...

Twenty-eight-year-old Russian-born pianist Igor Levit has experienced a meteoric rise over the last twelve months. His debut recording for Sony Classical boldly tackled the final three Beethoven sonatas, a rare ...

Miami-based singer Cécile McLorin Salvant is a rising star, possessed of a remarkable voice and critically acclaimed for her authoritative live performances. In the two short years since releasing her ...

Abraham.In.Motion is the company of director and choreographer Kyle Abraham. A modern renaissance man, Abraham trained as a classical cellist and visual artist before turning his focus to contemporary dance. ...

Celebrated jazz musician Christian McBride is a great virtuoso of the bass, and part of an exclusive lineage of bassist-bandleaders.

The Ciompi Quartet are joined by members of Kyo-Shin-An Arts for a concert encompassing works by Eastern and Western composers. Opening the concert is Debussy’s Quartet in G Minor, op. 10, ...

Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt both have thriving solo careers; when they appear together, the result is truly dynamic. Their long-standing partnership brings them to Duke Performances for a program ...

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the unclassifiable, outrageous, and universally acclaimed animated film The Triplets of Belleville, composer Benoît Charest leads the nine-piece Le Terrible Orchestre de Belleville in a ...

The Ciompi finish their season with a panoramic view of Beethoven’s seminal string quartets.

Three great American songwriters share the stage for an intimate presentation of their finest songs. Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins, and Anaïs Mitchell have each spent the last decade developing some ...

Duke Performances’ presentation of Savion Glover and Jack DeJohnette on Saturday, October 10, 2015 has been CANCELLED; Duke Performances is not planning to reschedule the engagement. Ticket holders for this ...

Duke Performances ushers in the holiday season with British rock ’n’ roll legend Nick Lowe and Nashville-based surf rockers Los Straitjackets. Lowe, who achieved breakthrough success in the late ’70s ...

Established by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1498, the Vienna Boys’ Choir is not just the world’s most famous youth choir, but also one of Europe’s longest-running cultural ...

Eric Ruske (horn), Jennifer Frautschi (violin), and Gloria Chien (piano) come to Baldwin Auditorium with a program of rare and moving repertoire for horn trio. The New York Times raved ...

A LIFE IN JAZZ: ABDULLAH IBRAHIM Duke professor and acclaimed poet Nathaniel Mackey talks with South African jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim about his wide-ranging career in music. Ibrahim plays with his ensemble Ekaya on ...

Iconic songwriter Rosanne Cash visits Duke Performances backed by a full band, for an evening-length performance of songs from her recent GRAMMY Award-winning album The River & The Thread. With ...

Since signing his first record deal under the patronage of Duke Ellington in 1964, South African jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim has made a staggering fifty-two albums as pianist and bandleader ...

Valentina Lisitsa has a unique story among contemporary concert pianists. Born and trained in Kiev, she got her start as Hilary Hahn’s accompanist, then found global acclaim when her YouTube ...

A MASTERCLASS WITH CUARTETO CASALS Characterized by “intense focus and a striking unanimity of gesture” (The New York Times), Cuarteto Casals is the first Spanish string quartet to achieve a genuinely international ...

Five years ago, The New York Times declared that Kirill Gerstein was “emerging as one of the most respected pianists of his generation.” That emergence is now complete, with the ...

Characterized by “intense focus and a striking unanimity of gesture” (The New York Times), Cuarteto Casals is the first Spanish string quartet to achieve a genuinely international profile. They visit ...

**The 5 PM set with the Anat Cohen Quartet at 21c is now sold out. There are still tickets available for the 7:30 PM with the Quartet.** Anat Cohen “has ...

#BLACKMOVEMENTMATTERS: DANCE, HIP-HOP AND SOCIAL JUSTICE Rennie Harris, founder and artistic director of hip-hop dance company Rennie Harris Puremovement, chats with Thomas DeFrantz, chair of the Department of African and African American ...

Stephin Merritt has been called “a contrarian pop genius” (The New York Times). With his intricate lyrics and distinctive languid bass voice, Merritt is a true original of the musical ...

Rennie Harris is one of the great veterans of hip-hop dance, having broken down barriers between the vocabulary of the street and the vocabulary of the concert hall for nearly ...

In 2015, the young Iranian-American virtuoso Mahan Esfahani became the first harpsichordist to record for Deutsche Grammophon in more than three decades, with the venerable label calling him “a dynamic, daring musician who thinks way beyond the conventional boundaries of his instrument.”

Hailing from Jeréz de la Frontera on the western coast of Andalusia, dancer and choreographer Patricia Ibañez is a luminary of contemporary flamenco. Over a twenty-year career she has shared ...

Note: Because of Ticketmaster’s exclusive agreement with DPAC, our presentation of the Buena Vista Social Club is excluded from Pick-Four discounts. However, the purchase of a Duke Performances’ Pick-Four package comes ...

Two of the world’s cutting-edge new music ensembles — the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and Theatre of Voices — join forces at Duke for one monumental performance. ACME, who ...

Over the course of twenty years, the Brentano String Quartet have built a broad discography encompassing the central European canon and new music alike, earning a reputation as one of ...

Imani Winds, a quintet lauded as “strikingly virtuosic and immaculately tight” by the Boston Music Intelligencer, come to Baldwin Auditorium as part of a University-wide celebration of historian John Hope ...

Daniil Trifonov has arrived as the unquestioned next superstar of classical piano.

The Fairfield Four & The McCrary Sisters show scheduled for 8PM on Thursday, October 1 at the Carolina Theatre has been cancelled. Unfortunate and unanticipated circumstances have prevented the groups from performing in ...

In 1992, five erstwhile members of St. Thomas’ Boys Choir in Leipzig — where Bach himself once served as music director — decided to continue their musical partnership into adulthood. ...

British actor Julian Sands is a veteran of stage, film, and television, perhaps best known for his breakout role as the romantic lead in the 1985 Merchant Ivory film A ...

The brand-new Montrose Trio, featuring Martin Beaver and Clive Greensmith of the recently-retired Tokyo Quartet alongside pianist Jon Kimura Parker, continues the legacy of the Tokyo and channels its expertise ...

In the Ciompi Quartet’s tradition of opening each season with a work by Haydn, father of the string quartet, the Ciompi begin their 50th Anniversary Season with the Quartet in ...

FROM THE ARCHIVES: HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER & WILLIAM GEDNEY M.C. Taylor, leader of the band Hiss Golden Messenger, and Jim Findlay, stage director and designer, are joined by photographer and William ...

ANA TIJOUX: HIP-HOP & POLITICS IN CHILE French-Chilean MC Ana Tijoux speaks with David Garcia, Associate Professor of Music at UNC-Chapel Hill, about the politics and realities of contemporary Latin America, including her native Chile, ...

Hiss Golden Messenger is the indie folk project of Durham-based musical omnivore M.C. Taylor. “At once firmly steeped in tradition and immediately accessible” (NPR), Hiss Golden Messenger calls up a ...

French-Chilean MC Ana Tijoux is one of today’s most compelling voices, working at the intersection of hip-hop, jazz, and Latin music. The daughter of Chilean parents who lived in exile ...

Latin jazz giant and pianist Chucho Valdés visits Page Auditorium to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his groundbreaking Havana-based ten-piece band Irakere. A five-time GRAMMY winner, three-time Latin GRAMMY winner, ...

The Piano Recital Series begins with the pianist, scholar, and New York City cultural linchpin Jonathan Biss. Biss, a longtime participant at the storied Marlboro Music Festival, brings analytical and stylistic ...

The Ciompi Quartet present an all-Viennese program, opening with the early romantic “Rosamunde” Quartet of Schubert, filled with restless melancholy. Webern’s lush, tonal Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement) is followed by ...