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  • SOLD OUT – ‘TIS THE SEASON: A Holiday Concert

    Tickets for this event are SOLD OUT. An evening of seasonal music for choir, orchestra, and handbells performed in the majestic and festive atmosphere of Wilson Hall. The concert is conducted by Professor Michael Gillette and Dr. David M. Tripold and features the Colts Neck Reformed Church Exultation Ringers conducted by Maggie Tripold.

  • Urinetown

    Urinetown
    March 4 – 8; March 10 – 12, 2015
    Lauren K. Woods Theatre

    From an American town in the early 20th century, we flash forward to a future dystopia where a severe water shortage has made public pay-per-use toilets a legal necessity. Urinetown was a hit Broadway musical in the early 21st century, running for two and a half years. It won Tony Awards for its composer and lyricists Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis and Mr. Kotis also won for the book of the musical.  The show is a satirical take on social change (the police are represented by Officers Lockstock and Barrel), corporate greed (the pay toilets are run by “Urine Good Company”), and Broadway musicals themselves. One of the show’s characters – its hero Bobby Strong – was included as one of the 100 Greatest Roles in Musical Theatre.

  • Something’s Happening Here Spring Showcase

    A musical cavalcade featuring the Monmouth University Chamber and Concert Choirs, Chamber Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, student bands and soloists. The concert is conducted by Professor Michael Gillette, Professor Bryan Jenners and Dr. David M. Tripold.

  • Bolshoi Ballet: The Pharaoh’s Daughter

    Music Cesare
    Pugni

    Libretto Jean-Henry
    Saint-Georges and Marius Petipa

    Choreography, sets and costumes Pierre Lacotte

    Cast Svetlana
    Zakharova (Aspicia), Ruslan Skvortsov (Lord Wilson) and Nina Kaptsova (Ramze,
    Aspicia’s slave)

    Young Englishman Lord
    Wilson is travelling through Egypt when a powerful storm breaks out. He is
    forced to take shelter in the nearest pyramid, where the daughter of one of
    Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs lies entombed. Lord Wilson falls asleep and
    begins to dream that the princess has come to life.      

    The plot of this lavish
    production is loosely based on Théophile Gauthier’s novel  Le Roman de la Momie. French choreographer
    Pierre Lacotte was exclusively commissioned in 2000 by the Bolshoi Theatre to
    resurrect Marius Petipa’s mighty Egyptian fresco, and he succeeded brilliantly
    in giving new life to this forgotten masterpiece. With its exotic setting,
    impressive parades, spectacular variations and crowd scenes, this grand 19th    ‐century Orientalist fantasy is one of the most
    remarkable productions in the Bolshoi’s repertoire. The main roles are here
    danced by Bolshoi principals Svetlana Zakharova, Nina Kaptsova and Ruslan
    Skvortsov.

    Running
    time     2h30

  • Visiting Writer: Melissa Febos

    Melissa Febos is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, WHIP SMART (St. Martin’s Press 2010), whose “electrifying prose and unremitting honesty” Kirkus Reviews said, “expertly captures grace within depravity.” Among other places, she has been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Anderson Cooper Live, CNN, The Atlantic and Tin House online, Guernica, and New York magazine.  Her writing has been published and anthologized widely, in venues including Glamour, Kenyon Review, Post Road, Hunger Mountain, Salon, Dissent, The Brooklyn Rail, New York Times, Bitch Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, The Rumpus, The Beauty Anthology, The Moment Anthology, and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York.  For seven years, she has co-curated and hosted the popular Mixer Reading and Music Series in Manhattan, and is the recipient of an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She has taught writing at Purchase College, The New School, NYU, Sarah Lawrence, Utica College, and the Institute of American Indian Arts, among other places, and is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Nonfiction at Monmouth University. Selected by Lia Purpura as the winner of the 2013 Prairie Schooner Creative Nonfiction Contest, she is the recipient of a 2013 Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Artist Grant, a 2012 Bread Loaf Nonfiction Fellowship, a 2014 Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellowship, and MacDowell Colony fellowships in 2010, 2011, and 2014. The daughter of a sea captain and a psychotherapist, she was raised on Cape Cod, and lives in Brooklyn.

    Free and Open to the Public

  • Nine for IX: Venus Vs.

    A look at Venus Williams’ victory off the court in her fight for financial equality in the earnings allocated to men vs. women tennis champions. Nine for IX is a series of documentary films which originally aired on ESPN celebrating the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. Four of the episodes will be screened during the year.

  • Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea

    There’s simply no better way to start the holiday season than to spend this special evening with Conductor Father Alphonse Stephenson as he provides humorous and personal anecdotes amidst a program of holiday classics and carols performed flawlessly by his 42-piece orchestra and distinguished vocalists. This well-established Christmas tradition is celebrating its 24th year at Monmouth University. Be sure to get your tickets early for this annual sell out!

  • Jason Isbell

    A former member of the
    Southern rock outfit Drive by Truckers, Jason Isbell’s solo career has seemed
    effortless, from Sirens of the Ditch (2007) to Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
    (2009), through Here We Rest (2011) and last year’s Live From Alabama. He writes
    open -hearted songs full of storm and drama, bursting with personal truths, and
    echoing with the southern sound of his Alabama upbringing. Embracing his
    newfound sobriety, Isbell next produced an album of haunting atonement and
    redemption, the sparse and impressive Southeastern, which was a critical
    success and commercial breakthrough.

  • Fifty Years of ‘Makin’ This Guitar Talk: A Bruce Springsteen Forum

    Please Note that tickets including lunch are no longer available. You will still be able to purchase lunch separately at the Student Center during the forum or go off campus on your own.

    As a young child in the 1950s, Bruce Springsteen saw Elvis Presley perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, turned towards his mother and said, “I wanna be just…like…that.” It wasn’t until he was a teenager in 1964, however, during the first summer after the British Invasion began to transform U.S. popular culture, that Springsteen took his first serious steps towards a life in music. According to Peter Ames Carlin’s biography BRUCE, that summer he used money earned from painting his aunt’s house to purchase an $18 acoustic guitar, a copy of 100 Greatest American Folk Songs and then “committed himself to mastering the instrument.” Fifty years have passed since that fateful summer, and Bruce Springsteen is now one of popular music’s most beloved, significant and enduring artists.

    The Friends and Monmouth University will sponsor a unique Springsteen-themed forum entitled in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s first major steps towards becoming a professional musician.
    The structure of the forum will be centered around a series of moderated panel discussions on various Springsteen-related topics, allowing the audience to hear from and interact with a variety of authors and scholars. As of this writing, the confirmed panelists who will be in attendance are:

    Jim Beviglia, Author, Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs

    Kenneth Campbell, Monmouth University, Author, “Bruce Springsteen, Songs From The Rising, Introduction” to published in Western Civilization in a Global Context: The Modern – Sources and Documents.

    Jonathan D. Cohen, University of Virginia, Managing Editor, BOSS: The Bi-Annual Online Journal of Springsteen Studies

    Donna M. Dolphin, Monmouth University, Contributor, Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream and Associate Producer, Asbury Park Musical Memories Part 1

    Stan Goldstein, Co-Author, Rock & Roll Tour of the Jersey Shore and Blogger, NJ.com

    Jean Mikle, Co-Author, Rock & Roll Tour of the Jersey Shore and Contributor, Asbury Park Press

    Marianne Murawski, Stockton College, Contributor, Bruce Springsteen and the American Soul

    Christopher Phillips    , Editor/Publisher, Backstreets Magazine & Backstreets.com and Co-Editor, Talk About A Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen

    Shawn Poole, Contributor, Backstreets Magazine & Backstreets.com

    Holly Cara Price, Contributor, Huffington Post and BruceSpringsteen.net

    Linda K. Randall, Author, Finding Grace in the Concert Hall: Community & Meaning Among Springsteen Fans

    Barry Schneier, Photographer, Monmouth University Exhibition – Glory Bound – Photographs by Barry Schneier

    Special Group Panel of Authors and Co-Publishers of the forthcoming anthology Trouble In The Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen – Jamez Chang, Jen Conley, Mark Krajnak, James Petersen and Chuck Regan

    William I. Wolff, Rowan University, Contributor, BOSS: The Bi-Annual Online Journal of Springsteen Studies

    Azzan Yadin-Israel, Rutgers University, Course Designer/Instructor, Bruce Springsteen’s Theology

    Panel topics, as well as more authors and scholars, will be announced as they are confirmed. Topics currently under consideration include “Bruce Springsteen’s Evolving Relationship With His Audience(s),” “Springsteen’s Best Songs,” “Springsteen & Live Performance,” “Springsteen & Media Through the Years,” etc.

    Panel topics, as well as more authors and scholars, will be announced as they are confirmed. Topics currently under consideration include “Bruce Springsteen’s Evolving Relationship With His Audience(s),” “Springsteen’s Best Songs,” “Springsteen & Live Performance,” “Springsteen & Media Through the Years,” etc.

    Among our confirmed panel moderators is broadcaster Tom Cunningham, creator and host of the long-running weekly Springsteen-themed radio program The Bruce Brunch on 105.7 The Hawk (WCHR-FM.)

    There will be time and space allotted for authors’ book sales/signings.

    The day’s agenda also will include several live performances of Springsteen’s music by students from Monmouth University and Asbury Park, NJ’s Lakehouse Music Academy.

    All ticket-sale proceeds will benefit Monmouth University and Friends of
    The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection.

     

  • Mavis Staples with Nicole Atkins

    There are few living musicians who can lay claim to being the voice of America’s conscience, and even fewer who continue to make vital music. For six decades Mavis Staples has been the solid rock of American music. Alongside the family group she is so identified with, the Staple Singers, Mavis has managed to transform herself as she goes, yet never alter.

    From the delta-inflected gospel sound she helped create in the 1950s (“Uncloudy Day”), to the engaged protest of the civil rights era (“Freedom Highway”), and then, amazingly, on pop radio in the 1970s with a series of chart hits (“I’ll Take You There,” “Respect Yourself,” “Lets Do It Again”)–through all these, Mavis carried on, her warm embrace of a voice the only constant.
     
    On their second collaboration, the Grammy-nominated 2013 album “One True Vine,” the legendary singer and her producer, Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy, have crafted a gospel album for the 21st century. On the record, Mavis gives voice to something new in her repertoire, something deeper and more resonant with our times.  Where her Stax-era hits spoke for a growing black social consciousness, and her seventies collaborations with The Band gave spiritual weight to the rediscovery of traditional American music, Jeff Tweedy has crafted a pulpit from which Mavis lends her voice to a search for grace.
     
    Staples is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and a National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient.  VH1 named her one of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll, and Rolling Stone listed her as one of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.  Her previous album, the Tweedy-produced “You Are Not Alone,” won the Grammy Award for Best Americana Album in 2011, adding a remarkable new chapter to an already historic career.

    Opening for Staples is a songwriter and performer who represents an exciting new voice in millennial music — in addition to being the Jersey Shore music scene’s most acclaimed breakout artist in a generation. Nicole Atkins grabbed the industry’s attention several seasons back with her major-label debut album Neptune City, a nationwide TV commercial for American Express, and a musicologist’s dexterity that found her sharing stages comfortably and confidently with everyone from Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds to Monmouth professor Marc Muller’s Dead On Live project. Having reaffirmed her indie roots with her latest release Slow Phaser, Atkins is creating some strong and innovative new music — and she’ll be sharing it, along with the expected surprise interpretations of her many and varied influences, in a solo acoustic setting on the Pollak stage.