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Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts Slifka Programs in Art and Peace Building |
With pioneering vision, Brandeis University established a School of Creative Arts when the University was founded in 1948. Since then, our dedication to the arts has grown in ambition, scope, and innovation. 
Today, Brandeis offers a distinguished array of undergraduate, post-baccalaureate, graduate, and doctoral degrees. We are home to a Department of Music comprised of prominent performers, composers, and musicologists, a Department of Theatre Arts known for outstanding acting and production designs, and a Department of Fine Arts acclaimed for studio disciplines and art history scholarship. Each year, more than three hundred professional and student arts events take place on our campus. The cutting-edge Brandeis Theater Company presents a five-play season featuring professional actors and students at the Spingold Theater Center. The University’s innovative Rose Art Museum houses one of New England's largest collections of modern and contemporary art. The internationally renowned Lydian String Quartet is in residence at Slosberg Music Center, also home to student ensembles and professional concerts showcasing World Music and Greater Boston's finest musical performers. In the Brandeis tradition of social justice, the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life sponsors arts programs that help build peaceful coexistence, while Music Unites US teaches diverse cultures to area school children. The Women's Studies Research Center explores the creative and sociological achievements of women artists. 
During its history, Brandeis has been visited by many of the greatest artists of their time, including Aaron Copland, Marc Chagall, Langston Hughes, Martha Graham, Lillian Hellman, Edward Albee, Philip Glass, Barbra Streisand, Beverly Sills, Bobby McFerrin, and Steven Spielberg. The 2006-07 academic year saw visits from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thomas L. Friedman '75, H'88; acting legends Patricia Neal and Roy Scheider; Emmy winner Marta Kaufmann '78 (co-creator of Friends); writer and producer Marshall Herskovitz '73 (Traffic, The Last Samurai); Amazones: the Master Women Drummers of Guinea; and visual artists John Armleder and Claire Rojas. The University's commitment to the arts culminates each spring in the annual Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts, founded in 1952 by legendary composer and Brandeis faculty member. The Festival's original mission statement established the creative philosophy of the Brandeis: "The art of an era is a reflection of the society in which it is produced. Through the highest achievement of humankind -- creative endeavor -- the thoughts and expression which characterize each generation are revealed and transformed." | ||
