Emory University, as part of its mission, provides a dynamic, multidisciplinary environment for the study, creation and presentation of the arts. The university is home to a vibrant arts community that presents more than 300 events during the academic year.
Click here to visit the Arts at Emory site, or call the Box Office at 404-727-5050, for information regarding events, ticketing, special needs, parking and public transportation.
The Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts provides a place where teaching, learning and performance merge to create a vital arts presence for the community. The center opened in 2003, and houses a dance studio, theater lab and the 825-seat, state-of-the-art Cherry Logan Emerson Concert Hall. The centerpiece of the new hall is the elaborate and monumental Jaeckel Opus 45 Organ. Students, faculty and world-renowned guest artists combine their talents to create experiences that bring culture, beauty and provocative work to the community.
The collections of the Michael C. Carlos Museum span the globe and the centuries. Housed in a distinctive building by architect Michael Graves, the Carlos maintains the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast with objects from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East and the ancient Americas. The museum is also home to collections of 19th- and 20th-century sub-Saharan African art, and European and American works on paper from the Renaissance to the present day. It hosts traveling exhibitions, and works with Emory faculty to develop special exhibitions that draw on collections from around the world.
The Robert W. Woodruff Library hosts literary events, such as lectures by poets and writers. Guests have included Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts; Salman Rushdie, winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction and Emory Distinguished Writer in Residence; and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anthony Hecht.
The Schatten Gallery provides a creative venue for exhibitions of an educational nature. Through collaboration with outside cultural organizations as well as University scholars, programs and departments, the gallery provides an opportunity to show more visual aspects of a range of scholarly interests. It stages exhibitions in conjunction with lectures, symposia, conferences and cultural festivals on campus. Recent exhibitions include Indian folk arts, Jewish ceremonial objects and music of social change.
Oxford College, Emory’s original campus in Oxford, Georgia, is home to the Hugh and Gena Tarbutton Performing Arts Center. The campus offers theater, dance, music and studio arts events. Annual programs include the Porter Piano Series, Oxford Lyceum Concert and Lecture Series, and student performances.
Emory has more than 30 arts-related groups and ensembles that students can audition for or join. Some annual highlights are co-organized by administrators and students. These include “STIR: Student Arts Festival, ” each fall, and “Barenaked Voices: Annual Student A Cappella Celebration,” each spring.
The Art History Department offers courses in the art and architecture of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, 17th and 18th century Europe, modern and contemporary Europe and the United States, the ancient Americas, Africa, and the African Diaspora. In cooperation with the Carlos Museum, the department brings scholars and artists to campus through the Robert Lehman Art Lectures, the Lovis Corinth Lectureship and the Art History Endowed Lecture.
In the Creative Writing Program, students can approach the study of literature through their own writing, as well as by the more traditional method of critical analysis and reading. Students may also pursue personal interests and investigate specific genres, including poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, playwriting and screenwriting. The program sponsors the Creative Writing Reading Series, a special feature that brings prominent writers to campus for workshops and public readings during the academic year; writers who have participated include Kurt Vonnegut, Alice McDermott, Mary Karr and Eamon Grennan.
The Poetry Council raises awareness and promotes the sharing of poetry. Its most popular event, Poetry Matters, is an outdoor open-mic reading that invites the entire Emory community to share their own and others’ work. The council also sponsors an annual panel discussion about a selected theme or aspect of poetry.
The Emory Dance Program provides a curriculum that interweaves the practical and the theoretical to foster students’ creative, intellectual and communicative powers in the field of dance. Faculty embrace the tenets of modern dance, which value individualism, innovation and interdisciplinary approaches to the arts, and seek to develop skilled and expressive individuals who move and act with intelligence and sensitivity, think independently and value diversity. The Emory Dance Program offers master classes by local and national guest artists, such as Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and the Urban Bush Women Dance Company, Jose Limon Dance Company, Toronto Dance Theater, and David Dorfman Dance Company.
The Emory Dance Company gives students insight into the dedication involved in the creation and performance of dance, along with the opportunity to gain choreography and performance experience. Company performances include annual concerts of faculty works, as well as programs directed and choreographed by students. The group also commissions choreographic works and musical scores by guest artists.
The Department of Film Studies is an affiliate of the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. Courses explore such topics as the history of film, film theory, filmmaking, criticism and screenplay writing. Each semester, the department presents a series of 35mm feature films, called “Emory Cinematheque.” The series represents a joint effort by Film Studies and Emory College to provide international film programs.
The Department of Music offers a range of musical experiences in the classroom, performance hall and studio. Students receive individualized instruction from Atlanta's finest professional artists and performers, including members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Faculty teach courses in music theory, history, ethnomusicology, composition and performance practices. Students have the opportunity to participate in chorus, wind ensemble, orchestra, jazz, chamber music and non-Western music ensembles.
Emory presents a full calendar of student, faculty and professional musical events throughout the school year. The Emory Coca-Cola Artists-in-Residence Program and the Flora Glenn Candler Series bring performers of national and international stature to campus. Recent guests include the New York Philharmonic, jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, baritone Thomas Hampson, and Emory Quartet in Residence, the Vega String Quartet. The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta, in residence at Emory, presents chamber literature and new music.
The Department of Theater Studies is committed to teaching theater as an integral part of a liberal arts education. The program requires academically rigorous study as well as hands-on learning in the wide range of sub-disciplines of theater: literature and criticism, playwriting, performance, technology, design and administration. In-depth courses and laboratory projects allow students to develop more specialized knowledge and skill within the context of the broader liberal arts education, which opens the mind to larger questions of psychology, culture and history.
The department has a unique partnership with Theater Emory. Emory’s resident professional theater attracts artists from around the world, and is known for developing new work. The faculty use Theater Emory as a laboratory in which they work side-by-side with students and fellow professionals to explore the classics, new plays and workshops addressed to particular questions. The Playwriting Center of Theater Emory creates a platform for the development of new work. The center's program includes a biennial Brave New Works Series of development and readings of new scripts. It also commissions plays, and hosts playwrights-in-residence.
The Visual Arts Program presents exhibitions, courses, programs and lectures in drawing and painting, ceramics, sculpture, film and video, and photography. The program emphasizes the creation of work of a personal and exploratory nature. Student and professional works are exhibited in the Visual Arts Building, the Carlos Museum and other campus venues. Guest artists are engaged for lectures several times a year. The Visual Arts Program presented the Emory Chairs Project in 2003, a juried contemporary sculpture exhibition in which nationally and internationally recognized artists, along with Emory students and faculty, created chairs that were displayed around campus.
