The Peabody Institute’s concert programming returns this month, with hundreds of free concerts, recitals, master classes, and lectures—and a new series of free pre-concert receptions—over the 2025-26 academic year. While Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall—one of the oldest continuously operational music theaters in the country—is under renovation, Peabody performances will take place on stages across the region as well as on the Mount Vernon campus, and many will be livestreamed online. 

The new pre-concert reception series begins with an event on October 22 at the Peggy and Yale Gordon Center for Performing Arts, ahead of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra concert with Marin Alsop conducting, and continues on October 30, when Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz Studies Sean Jones brings the Peabody Jazz Ensemble to the Creative Alliance.

Check out the full concert calendar for ticketing information, livestream links, and additional events around Baltimore, at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., and on campus. With so many different genres, styles, disciplines, and locations, there’s never been a better time to see Peabody perform!

It is wonderful to see the Peabody campus buzzing with the start of the fall semester. 

Over the summer, work continued in earnest on Peabody’s capital improvement initiative, one of the major components in our Building on the Breakthrough strategic plan. Our design team, Ennead, hosted a series of focus groups representing Peabody faculty, staff, and students, as well as colleagues at the university, to develop the program for the renovated towers. And we achieved another milestone in this project this summer with the selection of Whiting-Turner as our construction partner for the building renovations. Whiting-Turner brings an international reputation and deep experience with arts-related projects, as well as a long history of projects with Johns Hopkins University. 

In addition, following a careful review of acoustical firms, we have chosen Kirkegaard to partner with Ennead on all acoustical issues impacting the renovations. Kirkegaard has a long and storied history of concert hall design, and as recently as seven years ago, its founder, Larry Kirkegaard, consulted on a first phase of improvements to Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall that included expansion of the stage.  

This academic year also marks the final year in more than six decades that students will have called the residence towers, home. With the impending move of all student housing in just one year to the Waterloo Apartment complex, this summer a working committee was stood up specifically to address a myriad of details necessary to ensure a smooth transition. There will be much more to share on this in the months ahead.

Finally, other improvements made this summer include renovation of restrooms in Leakin Hall as well as considerable progress in work ongoing in Friedberg Hall, including new technical systems and acoustic upgrades, which are on track for expected completion by March 2026.

All in all, it is exciting to see significant progress towards the coming transformation of Peabody’s historic Mount Vernon campus.  

Sincerely,

Fred Bronstein, Dean

Thursday, September 18, through Sunday, September 21 

Chicago-based pianist and composer Julián Pujols Quall (BM ’23, Jazz) and ten other artists from around the world join 11 Baltimore-based artists for the 27th annual High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music, which combines these individual artists into ensembles for four nights of exploratory performance at the Baltimore Theatre Project; tickets are available online.

Friday, September 19, and Sunday, September 21

Claire Galloway (MM ’15 Voice) stars as Giulietta in Wilmington Concert Opera’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, composer Jacques Offenbach and librettist Jules Barbier’s imaginative adaptation of three stories by E.T.A. Hoffman, at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. The Friday performance is free and open to the public; a $20 donation is suggested for the family-friendly September 21 matinee. 

Saturday, September 20, and Sunday, September 21

Bozeman Symphony Music Director Norman Huynh (MM ’13, Conducting), also recently appointed music director of Oregon’s Britt Festival Orchestra, leads the Bozeman Symphony through Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances and Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto in D major at the Willson Auditorium; tickets available online. 

Saturday, September 27, 6:30 pm SAST

Jazz vocalist José James featured alto saxophonist and Jazz Studies undergraduate Ebban Dorsey on his 2023 On & On album tribute to Erykah Badu, reinventing the Badu songbook for a soulful jazz ensemble. Dorsey joins James’ group for a Badu set at the Joy of Jazz festival in Johannesburg, South Africa; tickets available online.

Wednesday, October 1, 12:30 and 6:30 pm CEST

Flautist and faculty artist Marina Piccinini joins Vienna Philharmonic harpist Anneleen Lenaerts and Austrian actress Barbara Petritsch for a serialized reading of Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, featuring performances of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clara Schumann, and Richard Strauss, at the Wiener Konzerthaus; tickets available online.

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Peabody Notes highlights select off-campus performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody events page.

Brutal Mirrors

Made possible by a Dean’s Excellence Accelerator Grant, faculty artist Felipe Lara’s double-album Brutal Mirrors (Kairos) captures 20 years of Lara’s work and performances by a few of his long-time collaborators, including the International Contemporary Ensemble, flautist Claire Chase, bassoonist Rebekah Heller, and clarinetist Joshua Rubin.

Pentalateral I

Sandbox Percussion—faculty artists Victor Caccese (BM ’11, Percussion), Terry Sweeney (BM ’13, Percussion), Ian Rosenbaum (BM ’08, Percussion), and Jonny Allen—first collaborated with composer Andy Akiho on the Grammy-nominated Seven Pillars. Pentalateral I, is the first single from Akiho and Sandbox’s latest collaboration.