Featured Events
Below are examples of the variety of arts programs being offered across campus during the Spring 2026 semester. Please visit the departments' respective event pages for a full list of arts opportunities.
Joyce DiDonato & Time for Three | Emily — No Prisoner Be | Sunday, Feb. 1 | Green Music Center
Emily — No Prisoner Be is a 24-part song cycle composed by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts for Grammy Award-winning artists Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano) and Time for Three (string trio). The music feels at once familiar and new, brimming with energy and passion. Emily Dickinson’s poetry and Puts’ music feel as if they have always belonged together. With atmospheric lighting and strikingly simple staging, the performance draws audiences into Dickinson’s inner world.
Themes: theater, Emily Dickinson's poetry, vocal and string ensemble music
In Vivo: Within the Living | February 5 - March 14 | University Art Gallery
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 5 from 4-6 p.m.
In Vivo: Within the Living showcases the extraordinary application of art to medical science within the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Guest curated by former SSU Faculty member, Taryn Möller Nicoll, an enhanced range of viewers outside the medical community will be inspired by what art can do for medicine, science, and people. Directly aligned with national STEAM initiatives, this exhibition utilizes an expansive array of art-making techniques and technologies to merge fine art, illustration, graphic design, biological science, and the human experience in a way rarely witnessed by the public.
Themes: science, medicine, anatomy, biology, art, engineering
CONTRA-TIEMPO | joyUS JustUS | Thursday, March 5 | Green Music Center
CONTRA-TIEMPO is a bold, multilingual Los Angeles-based activist dance theater company that creates communities where all people move through the world with compassion, joy, and confidence. joyUS justUS, takes on joy as the ultimate expression of resistance. This evening-length experience reclaims the dominant, deficit-based narrative of people of color in this country as being underprivileged, voiceless, powerless, and victimized, and flips it on its head by embodying stories of joy collected from communities of color in South Los Angeles.
Themes: storytelling, collective histories of struggle and resistance, power of hope, dance theater, activism
Music Department Concerts & Events | Various Dates | Green Music Center
Performances throughout the semester by students, faculty, and guest artists, including SSU's Jazz Orchestra, Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Concert Choir and SonoVoce, Brass Ensemble, Concert Jazz Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra, Concert Band, Jewish Music Series, and more.
Amy Goodman | Neves-Evans Social Justice Lecture Series | Tuesday, April 15 | Green Music Center
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide. Goodman has also co-authored six New York Times bestsellers. Her latest one, Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America, looks back on the past two decades of Democracy Now! and the powerful movements and charismatic leaders who are re-shaping our world.
This event is to SSU students, faculty, and staff (ticket required). Faculty assigning classes to attend are strongly encouraged to have their students obtain their own tickets at the beginning of the spring semester. Log in with SSU credentials before navigating to the event to receive the free tickets.
Emmet Cohen presents Miles and Coltrane at 100 | Friday, April 10 | Green Music Center
In celebration of the centennial of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, pianist Emmet Cohen brings together an all-star quintet to explore the fundamental questions that shaped their artistry: Why are we here? What are we reaching for? Where does the music take us? Guided by the spirit of the infinite, Cohen continues the journey set forth by the architects of jazz — seeking deeper truths through sound. A dedicated champion of the musical community, Cohen believes in jazz as a living, evolving conversation — one that unites people across time and place.
Themes: jazz history, contemporary interpretations of historic compositions, connection
BFA Exhibition | April 16–May 16 | University Art Gallery
Opening reception: Thursday, April 16 from 4-6 p.m.
The BFA degree, offered by SSU’s Art Department, is distinguished from the BA degree by its rigor. It requires an additional year of focused study, including courses in art studio, art history, and art theory. Often considered the degree of choice for students wishing to pursue graduate or professional studies, the BFA program offers opportunities for advanced artistic growth within a studio-intensive environment. For both BFA students and their professors, this exhibition provides an opportunity to showcase a curated selection of their best work in a professional gallery context, alongside their peers.