This spring, TCNJ’s Center for the Arts proudly presents another dynamic season of signature events across our three on-campus venues, offering the college and surrounding communities a rich and diverse range of artistic experiences.
From socially engaged visual art and faculty-led musical performances to celebrated stage and screen compositions, choral masterworks, and literary conversation, this season highlights the many ways art can inform, inspire, and connect us. Together, these events reflect TCNJ’s commitment to creativity, collaboration, and meaningful artistic expression.
The season kicks off on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 4 pm with an opening panel and reception for Unraveling Threads: Climate Labor, and the Clothes We Wear, a solo exhibition featuring work by Minnesota-based artist Rachel Breen organized with TCNJ Professor Kathleen Webber. Through her textile installations and assemblages, Breen has worked to cultivate deeper understandings of labor rights, solidarity, and collective power, often through the lens of the international garment industry. The exhibition will be available for viewing in TCNJ Art Gallery through March 8.
The season continues on Friday, Feb. 6 at 7:30 pm with a new installment of the TCNJ Faculty Artist Recital series featuring Joshua Kovach on clarinet and Kathy Mitchell on saxophone. The program opens with a transcription of Ginastera’s vibrant Tres Danzas Argentinas before moving through works by international voices and contemporary composers. Highlights include Hungarian clarinetist Béla Kovács’evocative Hommage à Manuel de Falla, Jamaican-born British composer Eleanor Alberga’s Duo from her ballet Dancing with the Shadow, Andrián Pertout’s jazz-inspired Riesenschritte, and Victor Morosco’s Blue Caprice, weaving together classical tradition with global and jazz influences. This event is ticketed.
Moving into April, TCNJ Lyric Theatre presents a night of celebration for Tony Award-winning composer Marc Shaiman featuring Broadway guest artist and Tony Award nominee Kerry Butler on Wednesday, April 15, 7:30 pm. The program includes some of Shaiman’s well-known compositions from “Hairspray,” “Smash,” “Some Like It Hot,” and other Broadway musicals. Butler, known for her roles in “Hairspray,” “Xanadu,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” and “Mean Girls,” joins Lyric Theatre for an evening of song and dance directed by Nathan Brewer with choreography by Dani Juraga and music direction by Peter de Mets. This event is ticketed.
Next up in this season’s lineup, the TCNJ Choirs are thrilled to work with Visiting Artists in Residence Symphony in C, a Young Professionals Orchestra based in Camden, to present Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor on Friday, April 24 at 7:30 pm. Surrounded by mystery and composed during the final months of Mozart’s life, Requiem in D Minor is an emotionally charged composition with brilliant phrasing, melody, and instrumentation. The performance features the combined TCNJ Choirs, TCNJ undergraduate voice majors as soloists, and Symphony in C under the direction of Professor of Music John Leonard. This event is ticketed.
Rounding out the spring season is an intimate poetry reading and Q&A session with New York Time’s Best Selling Author Ross Gay on Saturday, April 25, 2 pm. This event is part of The Joy Symposium, a day-long celebration of the 2025-26 Joy Project initiative centered on exploring, understanding, and sharing JOY through creative, cross-disciplinary practice. In his book “Inciting Joy,” Gay reflects on how joy emerges not in the absence of sorrow but through connection, care, and community, even amidst hardship and injustice. As he told NPR, “we should all take joy a lot more seriously because joy is the ember and the fire behind social movements and survival.” This event is ticketed.
“We are excited to welcome our college community and neighbors to campus for our spring season,” said Pamela Barnett Halladay, dean of the School of the Arts and Communication. “As the arts and culture hub for TCNJ, we’ve created a spring lineup that will engage, inspire and connect audiences. We hope to see you this spring.”
For the latest information about these events, to purchase tickets, and to view more events, please visit https://tcnjcenterforthearts.tcnj.edu/calendar/.
– Riley Eisenbeil ’24