Category: Music

Purdue University President Mung Chiang and Purdue Convocations will host an exclusive free Presidential Lecture Series event featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma on September 29, 2PM, at Elliott Hall of Music, moderated by PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown. The event explores culture’s role in society through stories and musical interludes. Due to high demand, additional tickets for this and other 2024-2025 Purdue Convocations events will be available starting August 26.

The 2024-2025 Convos Season includes the 29th West Lafayette Global Fest, award-winning jazz and chamber musicians, a curricular integration theatre residency, thought-provoking lectures, family-friendly engagements, and award-winning Broadway musicals and major attractions in Elliott Hall of Music including Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live in Concert, Dear Evan Hansen, TINA – The Tina Turner Musical, Hadestown, Pretty Woman: The Musical, and Chicago.

Renowned cellist, recording artist and humanitarian Yo-Yo Ma and PBS NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Brown will join Purdue University President Mung Chiang for a special Presidential Lecture Series conversation Sept. 29 in Elliott Hall of Music.

Melissa White, acclaimed violinist and Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, showcases her expressive playing and diverse engagements. With the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet, she promotes diversity in classical music. Meanwhile, pianist Pallavi Mahidhara, known for international acclaim and advocacy for mental health, collaborates with White and hosts “The Conscious Artist” podcast, exploring the intersection of music, mindfulness, and wellness.

Counterpoint is a collaboration in which this duo explores the dichotomy of their different perspectives and artistic practices, expanding their individual expressive capacity through a collective experience.

Blending traditional jazz with elements of hip-hop and soul, Lakecia’s music defies boundaries. Her magnetic stage presence and the fiery embrace of her saxophone have earned her global acclaim, sharing stages with legends like Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, and The Roots.

At Purdue Convocations, we take pride in showcasing incredible talent from various artistic fields. This year, we are overjoyed to see more than 40 of our past performers receiving well-deserved nominations for the prestigious Grammy Awards.

Emmet Cohen is one of his generation’s pivotal figures in music and the related arts. Leader of the Emmet Cohen Trio and creator of the Masters Legacy Series, he is an internationally acclaimed jazz artist, a dedicated educator, the winner of the 2019 American Pianists Awards, and a finalist in the 2011 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition.

Johnny Cash is one of the most important, influential, and respected artists in the history of recorded music. From the monumental live prison albums to his extraordinary series of commentaries on the American spirit and human condition to a mesmerizing canon of gospel recordings to his remarkable and unprecedented late-life artistic triumphs of will and wisdom, his impact on our culture is profound and continuing.

Dive into the musical innovation of Kronos Quartet, celebrating 50 years of groundbreaking string quartet performances. Explore their diverse collaborations and pioneering compositions, and gain insights from founder David Harrington in an exclusive pre-show interview.

If it wasn’t for Grandmaster Flash, who knows what hip-hop would be like today? Emerging from the South Bronx in the early 1970s, Grandmaster Flash is inarguably one of Hip Hop’s original innovators.

Hasta La Muerte is an enthralling new production rooted in the indigenous Mexican practice of celebrating Life and Death.