The University of Massachusetts Amherst Fine Arts Center’s 2024-2025 season includes quite a few notable offerings, including “a one-timeGrateful Dead keyboardist, two of the greatest artists in world music, jazz celebrations of the lives and work of two internationally celebrated, UMass-associated artist-scholars, and one of the world’s most celebrated classical music ensembles,” according to the Fine Arts Center.
Starting the season off strong on Sept. 12 is a speaking event featuring interdisciplinary artist Yanira Castro, presenting her public art project titled “Exhibition = Liberation.” Castro describes her project as one that invites audience members to “contemplate and confront questions related to decolonization, natural and political history and community.”
Throughout the fall season, audiences will be able to witness performances from world-renowned artists such as Portuguese fado singer Mariza, on Oct. 8;satirist Fran Lebowitz, engaging in a “State of the Union conversation”on Oct. 10;five-time Grammy winner and Afropop legend AngéliqueKidjo on Nov. 14;stage and screen favorites Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp on Jan. 31; and a pairing ofthe Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Bruce Liu on March 4.
A standout performanceoccurring in the coming seasonis the Max Roach Centennial Celebration featuring Makaya McCraven, which will be held on Oct. 25. “This show will be honoring the lives and works of jazz drummer and bandleader Max Roach and writer James Baldwin,” according to a release by the FAC. “Roach was one of the artist-scholars who, as a member of the UMass faculty, put the university on the map as a world center of jazz performance and education.”
This performance will feature Makaya McCraven, anAmherst native and one of the most in-demand drummersin jazz today. McCraven will be leading an all-star band in tribute to Roach, which will anchor a weeklong celebration organized jointly by the Fine Arts Center, the College of Humanities & Fine Arts, the Dept. of Music and Dance and the W.E.B. Du Bois Dept. of Afro-American Studies.
“In both the performing arts and the visual arts, the Fine Arts Center has crafted a 2024-2025 season filled with powerful works with women artists leading the way that inspire us to go higher and forge connections across differences. Our performing arts schedule brims with voices that demand to be heard,” said FAC Director Jamilla Deria. “Our visual arts exhibitions bring forth visionary artists who challenge assumptions and broaden perspectives, reminding us of our collective capacity to reimagine our shared world. We hope every lover of the arts in the region will join us for an uplifting season as we link arms to celebrate the transformative power of art and the unstoppable force of human imagination.”
The season will also be launching new partnerships with on- and off-campus performance venues including the Mullins Center, The Drake and Amherst Cinema. Acts that will be performing at these venues include artist-activists Bia Ferreria on Sept. 24 and No-No Boy on Nov. 19 at The Drake;Boston’s Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys on Oct. 27 at the Mullins Center;and a screening of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” with live commentary by the director,John Cameron Mitchell on April 11 at Amherst Cinema.
Other standout performances ofthe season include the Holyoke-based chamber ensemble Victory Players, performing Puerto Ricanmusic and dance on Sept. 14, a screening of the 1931 film “Frankenstein” along with a live performance of the original score by the Greenfield-based Pioneer Valley Symphony on Oct. 18.
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The season will closeMay 9 with a performance by singer-songwriter-pianist Bruce Hornsby and the inventive chamber quartet yMusic.
Tickets for most events are sold through the Fine Arts Center Box Office. Tickets for the Dropkick Murphys at the Mullins Center have been on sale since May through the Mullins Center Box Office.
UMass Amherst journalism student Paige Hanson is Features intern for the Gazette and Recorder.
