Arts

Music

Music offerings at Emory include courses in music and culture, theory and composition, Western music history and literature, as well as a variety of instrumental and choral ensembles that are open to all students, faculty, and staff of Emory College and the graduate and professional schools of the University. Auditions are held at the beginning of each academic year and students are encouraged to participate on a credit basis. Music ensembles perform in the Cherry Logan Emerson Concert Hall located in the newly opened 90,000-square-foot Schwartz Center for Performing Arts and in the Performing Arts Studio located in the Burlington Road Building.

Private lessons are offered in all media, including piano, organ, voice, strings, winds, percussion, composition, Carnatic voice, and sitar. No private lesson fees are assessed to music majors. Non-majors may take lessons for credit or no credit; additional fees apply. Many of the artist affiliates on the Emory faculty are members of:

• Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
• Atlanta Opera Orchestra
• Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta
• Thamyris
• and other professional groups in the metropolitan area

Local, national, and international artists visit the campus regularly for concerts, master classes, and symposia, providing a wealth of concert opportunities at which students hear a wide variety of professional performances. Past performers include:

• Thomas Hampson
• Beaux Arts Trio
• Prague Chamber Orchestra
• Frederica von Stade
• Chanticleer
• Dave Brubeck
• Wynton Marsalis

Interested individuals are encouraged to contact the Department of Music for audition and enrollment information.

University Chorus

Numbering between one and two hundred singers, the Emory University Chorus is devoted to the performance of important works of the choral repertoire. Recent performances have included:

• the requiems of Duruflé and Brahms
• the Chichester Psalms of Leonard Bernstein
• Duke Ellington’s Sacred Service
• Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana

Membership is open to students from all University disciplines as well as Emory faculty and staff. No audition required.

Emory Concert Choir

Emory’s select mixed vocal chamber ensemble performs both a cappella and accompanied works from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Recent performances have included:

• J. S. Bach’s Magnificat
• St. John Passion
• the Byrd Mass for Five Voices
• the Poulenc Gloria

The Concert Choir performs throughout the United States and often tours overseas. Along with the University Chorus, the Concert Choir performs each year in Emory’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, a seventy year-old tradition that is a highlight of the Atlanta Christmas season.

Women’s Chorale

An ensemble that specializes in repertoire for women’s voices. Female singers from any division of the University and from all levels of vocal experience are welcome.

Emory Symphony Orchestra

The Emory Symphony Orchestra presents dynamic and varied performances of repertoire embracing music from the Baroque to the twenty-first century, often combining forces with the Emory choirs to feature masterworks of the rich symphonic-choral tradition. Selected by audition, the orchestra draws its membership from all disciplines across campus. In addition to collaborations with faculty and distinguished guest artists, one concert each year features as guest soloist the winner of the music department’s Student Concerto Competition.

Emory Wind Ensemble

The Emory Wind Ensemble is a select group of instrumentalists performing high quality literature for winds and percussion. Programming represents a wide variety of wind band media, styles, and genres over several centuries of composition. The Wind Ensemble performs two concerts each semester on the Emory campus, regularly participates in premieres and the commissioning of new works, and recently released a compact disc recording, Diversions.

Emory Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combos

The Jazz Ensemble is a standard seventeen-piece jazz band that offers a variety of performance opportunities on and off campus. Its repertoire includes early jazz, big band, swing, and contemporary jazz styles. The jazz combos are open to any instrumentation and are intended to teach varying styles of improvisation using standard tunes.

Early Music Ensemble

The Early Music Ensemble specializes in medieval and Renaissance instrumental music. Membership is open to Emory students, faculty, staff, and community members.

Chamber Ensembles

Various groups, including quartets, quintets, and septets of different instrumentation for which an audition is required.

Guitar Ensemble

A classical guitar ensemble that studies and performs music for guitar duos, trios, and quartets. Audition required.

World Music Ensembles

Ensembles may include South Indian classical music, North Indian classical music, Central Javanese gamelan, West Javanese gamelan, Indonesian angklung, and Korean percussion. No audition necessary.

Professional Artists in Residence

Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta

The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta brings together some of the finest musicians in Atlanta, who are dedicated to performing the most exciting music from the chamber repertoire. With a core membership of seven performers, the group represents a diverse repertoire, ranging from duos to large ensemble works with a variety of instrumentation. Additional performers, as demanded by the season’s repertoire, are drawn from Atlanta’s outstanding musicians. Visiting artists have included:

• cellist Yo-Yo Ma
• Lark String Quartet
• violinist William Preucil

The Vega Quartet

As the Emory Coca-Cola Artists-in-Residence, the members of the Vega String Quartet offer performances on the Music at Emory concert series, programs in the ECMSA Family and Noontime series at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, “Performers Up Close” discussions for the Department of Music, and outreach to select Atlanta school children.

Theater

Students interested in theater have a wide range of opportunities at Emory. Courses in acting, directing, playwriting, theater administration, design, history, dramatic literature and criticism, and stagecraft are offered by the Department of Theater Studies. Students may major or minor in theater studies. Many students meet general education requirements through theater studies courses.

Theater Emory, the professional company in residence at Emory, provides undergraduates a unique opportunity to perform with professional actors and to work and train in design, research, direction and every aspect of production with experienced professionals. Our faculty are working artists who collaborate with students and professionals from Atlanta’s theater community.

Theater Emory is open to all Emory students, regardless of their major. Workstudy positions are available at Theater Emory and the Department of Theater Studies. Other opportunities for experience are available through student-run organizations, including:

• Ad Hoc Productions, which produces musical theater
• Starving Artist Productions, which performs classical and experimental drama
• Rathskellar, an improvisational comedy troupe
• AHANA, which presents multicultural and multidisciplinary performance
• Alpha Psi Omega, the national honor society

The city of Atlanta is one of the liveliest centers of professional theater in the country.

Questions about activities at Theater Emory can be addressed to 404.727.0524; the Department of Theater Studies can be contacted at 404.727.6463, or visit the web at www.theater.emory.edu.

Visual Arts

The Visual Arts Program of the Department of Art History is housed in the Visual Arts Building. It offers courses in drawing, painting, film, video, sculpture, and ceramics. Visual Arts offers a minor and a joint major with Art History. The renovated and expanded studio building includes a state-of-the-art gallery, which exhibits internationally recognized contemporary art as well as faculty and student work.

There are also a number of exhibition possibilities for students all across the campus, and visiting artists and lecturers are a regular feature of programming. Advanced courses may be taken at cooperating institutions in the Atlanta area through the cross-registration process.

For more information, students can contact the Visual Arts Program at 404.727.6315 or visit the website visualarts.emory.edu.

Michael C. Carlos Museum

The Michael C. Carlos Museum houses a permanent collection of more than 16,000 pieces as well as temporary special exhibitions from nationally and internationally renowned institutions and private collections. Students are invited to attend the many lectures, workshops, films, and performances held throughout the year.

Dance

The course offerings in the dance program are diverse and rich, simultaneously stimulating mind and body. Students develop skills in the technical, creative, and theoretical areas of dance, with the option to major or minor in dance through the Department of Theater and Dance. Emphasis is placed on performance and choreography, based on the primary tenets of modern dance, which value individualism, innovation, and interdisciplinary approaches to the arts. The dance program includes courses in:

• Improvisation
• Choreography
• History of Western Concert Dance
• Movement Fundamentals
• Fitness for Dancers
• Alexander Technique
• Dance Pedagogy
• Concert Production Workshop
• Contemporary Issues in Dance
• Labanotation
• Dance Repertory
• Dances and Dance Forms
• Dance Literacy
• Introduction to Dance

The program also offers a variety of rotating interdisciplinary arts courses and individualized student projects in dance such as internships with nonprofit dance companies and interdisciplinary movement studies. Students receive quality training in modern, ballet, and jazz styles. Technique classes are accompanied by some of the finest dance musicians in the Atlanta community. The program regularly hosts master classes by local and national guest artists.

The main focus of the Emory Dance Company is to provide an in-depth study of a choreographic work from the beginning stages of the creative process to the completed concert performance. Through this process students gain an awareness of the dedication involved in the making and performance of a dance. Students have the opportunity to investigate movement concepts, choreograph, and perform while gaining experience in technical concert production. Auditions for new company members are held every semester, with commitments and responsibilities tailored to meet students’ individual needs. The Emory Dance Company regularly commissions choreographic works and musical scores by local and national guest artists. Performances include annual concerts of faculty work as well as programs directed and choreographed by students. The Emory Dance Company produces two major concerts yearly with additional performances in other venues in the Emory community. Each spring selected members of the Emory Dance Company study and perform at the regional American College Dance Festival event. Additional performing opportunities in dance are available through the Emory Dance on Tour course, and a variety of student dance organizations including the African, Hispanic, Asian, Native American (AHANA) student dance organizations.

Creative Writing

Writers learn from other writers, and the Creative Writing Program works to foster a community of writers among its students, faculty, and others at Emory. The Reading Series brings four writers of exceptional reputation each year to read and meet informally with students. Past series participants have included Adrienne Rich, Kurt Vonnegut, Yusef Komunyakaa, and David Henry Hwang. A “majors reading” each spring showcases graduating seniors, and Creative Writing majors take part in other readings of student work year-round sponsored by the Stipe Society and other groups. Students and faculty also participate in Arts Week events celebrating writing, including “Poetry Matters!,” a marathon outdoor reading of poetry. Student winners of annual writing contests are recognized each year at a special Awards Night reading.

Music & Movie Lending

The Music and Media Library offers many recent, popular or in-demand movies and CDs to check out.

Audio Visual Equipment Lending

Portable equipment may rented or borrowed from the Classroom Technologies audio visual equipment pool to support presentations, lectures, student activities and special class projects.

Writing Center

Emory Scholars Program

This program offers Emory Scholars a range of opportunities to connect scholarship with service, including summer internships, study abroad, and volunteer opportunities. Whether individually or in groups, scholars also can become involved in the metro Atlanta arts community by attending ticketed cultural events. Scholars may be reimbursed for a maximum of five events per semester, up to $20 per ticket.

For more information please visit the website or call 404.727.9297.