Theater

Image credit: Justin Knight.
David Bowie's Blackstar performed by Maya Beiser with the Ambient Orchestra, 2017.

2018-19 MIT Sounding

Contemporary music with a global cast

The 2018–19 season of the innovative annual performance series MIT Sounding continues to blur musical boundaries. Curated by Evan Ziporyn, faculty director of the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), this season of MIT Sounding presents unique artists who push the envelope of their respective genres, creating new evolving music for the 21st century.

Read more about the 2018-19 season

Image credit: Justin Knight.
David Bowie's Blackstar performed by Maya Beiser with the Ambient Orchestra, 2017.

2017-18 MIT Sounding

Contemporary music with a global cast

The 2017–18 season of the innovative annual performance series MIT Sounding continues to blur the boundaries between contemporary and world music.

Curated by Evan Ziporyn, faculty director of the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), this season of MIT Sounding integrates the avant-garde sounds of ancient instruments and traditional practices with cutting-edge composition and technology to present various visions of a new, evolving music that defies genre.

 

A woman wears long black gloves with wires on them in front of a wall of crumpled paper.
Credit: Elizabeth Woodward

Media Lab

The Media Lab checks traditional disciplines at the door. Product designers, nanotechnologists, data-visualization experts, industry researchers and pioneers of computer interfaces work side by side to invent—and reinvent—how humans experience, and can be aided by, technology.

Rows of students singing and playing brass instruments.
MIT students perform at the 150th Convocation. Credit: Dominick Reuter.

Student Performance Groups

In addition to these faculty-led performance groups, MIT boasts hundreds of student interest groups in dance, film, literary arts, music, theater and other interdisciplinary forms. From a cappella singing to improvisational comedy, origami folding to Bhangra dancing, students can choose from a diverse and lively array of arts activities on campus.

Visit theater.mit.edu for more information about student-led theater groups.

For a complete list of student-led interest groups, visit the MIT Association of Student Activities (ASA).

A man looks into a miscroscope.
Image: Vik Muniz at MIT. Credit: L. Barry Hetherington.

Visiting Artists

The MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) Visiting Artists program is distinctive for its emphasis on the research and development phase of artistic work.  In addition to presenting new work, residencies embed artists in the ongoing research and teaching at MIT, where scientists and engineers are open to artists’ speculative and hands-on way of working.  The program hosts artists from a wide range of visual and performing arts disciplines each academic year, exposing students to the creative process and fostering cross-fertilization among disciplines.

The Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist Program, launched in Fall 2016, creates the opportunity for artists to shape new creative projects over a period of two years of sustained, in-depth research and development.

Visiting Artist Collaborations are supported by the Ida Ely Rubin Artists in Residence Fund, Abramowitz Memorial Lectureship Fund, and the Alan W. Katzenstein (1942) Memorial Fund.

Read more about the programs that CAST has sponsored in the 2012-14 Program Report (PDF), 2014-15 Program Report (PDF), 2015-16 Program Report (PDF), 2016-18 Program Report (PDF), 2019-20 Program Report (PDF), and 2021-22 Program Report (PDF).

"Don't You Know," an original song from Jacob's debut album 'In My Room'.
"Don't You Know," an original song from Jacob Collier's debut album 'In My Room'. Photo: courtesy of the artist.

2016-17

Contemporary music with a global cast

The 2016-17 season of innovative annual performance series MIT Sounding continues to blur the boundaries between contemporary and world music. Curated by Evan Ziporyn, Faculty Director of the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology, this season of Sounding integrates the avant-garde sounds of ancient instruments and traditional practices with cutting-edge composition and technology to present various visions of a new, evolving music that defies genre.