Hailed as a “musical visionary” and “America’s most wired composer,” inventor, composer, professor, and Faculty Director of the MIT Media Lab Tod Machover will deliver the address for the Peabody Conservatory’s 2026 Graduation ceremonies on Wednesday, May 20. Machover will attend both the morning ceremony for undergraduates and the afternoon ceremony for graduate students, and will receive the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music and Dance in America, the highest honor bestowed by the Peabody Institute.

This year marks the Peabody Conservatory’s 144th Graduation exercises, at which 95 Bachelor of Music degrees, nine Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, 120 Master of Music degrees, eight Master of Arts degrees, 27 Graduate Performance Diplomas, one Artist Diploma, and 30 Doctor of Musical Arts degrees are scheduled to be conferred. The Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award will be presented to Voice Professor William Sharp. Graduating students Olina Kilbury and Caitlin Glastonbury have been selected as the student speakers for the undergraduate and graduate ceremonies, respectively.

In-person attendance is ticketed and reserved for graduates and their families and guests, but both ceremonies are available to view via livestream. And the Graduation Concert on Tuesday evening, May 19, is free and open to the public.

Hopkins Alumni Event: The Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall & Pre-Show Reception

Join alumni and friends on Friday, May 29 to experience the New York premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Symphony No. 5, “Liberty,” and a world-class performance of Beethoven’s powerful Symphony No. 7, plus a pre-show reception with fellow Johns Hopkins alumni. Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist and Peabody Institute Professor and Director of the Graduate Conducting Program Marin Alsop leads The Philadelphia Orchestra in this major highlight of the United in Sound: America at 250 festival, joined by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.

Two Peabody milestones are top of mind as we close out the 2025-26 academic year. Looking back to just a few weeks ago, we reopened a renovated Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, complete with new systems, lighting, acoustic enhancements, and restorative cosmetic work that has truly added new life to Friedberg. The reimagining and revitalization of this historic space was fully on display through a wonderful opening concert by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Joseph Young. And what better way to show off the results than to hear our PSO dig into two highlights of the orchestral repertoire, Richard Strauss’s Don Juan and Respighi’s Pines of Rome? Complete with a full house, it was just a great evening.

For another milestone, we look forward later this month to the Peabody Conservatory’s 144th Graduation exercises, at which we will confer degrees on nearly 300 graduates, from bachelor’s degrees through our Doctors of Musical Arts. Tod Machover, composer, AI pioneer, and Faculty Director of the MIT Media Lab, is our graduation speaker and 2026 George Peabody Medal recipient. The breadth and depth of Machover’s career, including his work in participatory opera, his role at the Lab, his genuinely groundbreaking and prescient work at the intersection of music and technology, along with an overall and broad impact on the American music scene, make him an ideal recipient for the Peabody Medal, Peabody’s highest honor. Today, Peabody’s own innovative and expanding tech-based arts training programs are built upon the foundation created by Tod Machover and other early leaders in the field, and Machover continues to provide inspiration, especially in the fast-evolving relationship between AI and the creative process. We are honored to welcome to campus this true pioneer and thought leader as we celebrate the wonderful accomplishments of our graduates and their exciting journeys that lie ahead.

Sincerely,

Fred Bronstein, Dean

Saturday and Sunday, May 2 and 3

Sound Scene, a free and interactive sound and multisensory arts festival in Washington, D.C., features both regional and international artists. Faculty artist Lyn Goeringer’s installation “Holding Still; Still Holding,” an audiovisual diary that reflects on Superfund sites around Baltimore, is included in the exhibition, and faculty artist Wendel Patrick performs “Duality,” a new solo piece exploring his relationship with his twin brother who passed away at birth, at noon on both days. The free festival takes place at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and general registration is recommended. 

Sunday, May 3, 6:30 pm EDT

The Peabody Dance Ensemble travels to New York for Ascension, featuring guest alumni and companies including the SBCC Dance Company and the acclaimed Jennifer Muller/The Works. The PDE, featuring current fourth-year undergraduates, performs original works and repertory pieces by Bernard Brown, MaryAnn Chavez, Jennifer Muller, and Tracy Kofford; faculty artists danah bella and Kelly Hirina; and alumni Sophia Perone (BFA ’24, Dance) and Harry Sukonik (BFA ’23, Dance), who is a company member of Jennifer Muller/The Works. Ascension takes place at the Peridance Center in the East Village, and free tickets can be reserved online.

Tuesday, May 12, through Saturday, May 16

Angel’s Bone, the intense 2016 opera by faculty composer Du Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek that was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music, receives its UK premiere in this English National Opera-produced collaboration between Manchester’s Factory International and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the in-the-round Aviva Studios. Helmed by Tony-nominated director Kip Williams, Angel’s Bone has four performances this month prior to a London production in October, and tickets can be purchased online.

Sunday, May 17, through Monday, May 25

The weeklong Rhine Guitar Festival and Academy features workshops, masterclasses, and concerts at venues around Koblenz, Germany. Programming highlights include a May 21 solo recital by faculty artist Manuel Barrueco, and Meng Su (PC ’09, GPD ’11, MM ’16, AD ’18, Guitar), a former Barrueco student, joining the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie on May 22; tickets available online.

Sunday, May 24, 7:30 pm GMT

Composer, bassoonist, improviser, and performance artist Joy Guidry (BM ’18, Bassoon), fresh off an April performance in the Vanhaerents Art Collection in Brussels as part of the BRDCST festival, briefly tours Europe, including this stop at Café OTO, London’s exploratory home for creative new music. Tickets are 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.

Alkebulan

Faculty artists Sean Jones, Fran Vielma, and Warren Wolf appear on faculty trombonist Javier Nero Jazz Orchestra’s new Alkebulan (Outside in Music), a musical journey through the African Diaspora. Featuring eight new Nero originals and his own kinetic arrangement of “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II, Alkebulan is available to buy or stream online.

Let Freedom Swing

Recorded live during a 2004 concert, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis’ Let Freedom Swing (Blue Engine Records) celebrates the orators who gave voice to the struggle for freedom, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Václav Havel, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Nelson Mandela. The album includes “Day of Affirmation (Robert F. Kennedy),” written by Distinguished Visiting Faculty Darin Atwater in collaboration with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Let Freedom Swing is available to stream or purchase online.

Johns Hopkins has a 150-year history of pioneers, discovery, and impact. The First-to-Next series pairs present-day Hopkins trailblazers with earlier greats who paved the way for their work. Hear from piano student Dora Chen about how lessons from the legendary pianist Leon Fleisher guide her playing today.