Past Events

Join us at 7 PM at McNally Jackson Seaport for an evening celebrating the launch of the new Sensorium Ex book and audiobook by Brenda Shaughnessy, as well as the album release, during Disability Pride Month. Bringing together the project's creative collaborators for readings, conversation, and live performance, the event offers a unique opportunity to explore the work's evolution across opera and technology.

For artists, the most powerful creative act may be building the conditions for their work to exist. They must not only nurture their imagination, but build practices that are both sustainable and sovereign. From collective care to enterprise design, creators and advocates explore the structures, strategies, and solidarity that make a creative life livable and allow our creative ecosystems to thrive.

As the world debates the impacts of AI on creativity, some artists are proving that the tool can be used to experiment, craft, and collaborate. From poetry to opera to classical collaboration, discover how artificial intelligence can serve as a powerful partner to expand the boundaries of human expression, sound, and story in three live demos.

This cornerstone Festival series promises a captivating journey through the world of classical music in one of its most intimate and accessible forms.

An afternoon of exciting presentations and performances from leading innovators in the world of AI. Featuring Paola Prestini, Robin Coops, Harry Yeff (Reeps100) + Patricia Auchterlonie, Jennifer Walshe + EXAUDI + Dadabots and more.

The Festival Orchestra leads audiences through Mahler’s “Titan,” a symphony celebrated for its darkly humorous funeral march and triumphant finale. Opening this program is Paul Wiancko’s new violin concerto, co-commissioned by Spoleto and written for renowned violinist Livia Sohn.

The Juilliard Orchestra, led by JoAnn Falletta, will present the world premiere performance of 'My Brilliant Friend: The Story of a New Name.' The piece – based on the novel My Brilliant Friend – was commissioned by the Juilliard School.

Paola Prestini's 'Code' will be featured alongside Jessie Montgomery's 'Rounds' and Mozart's 'Requiem' in a program featuring pianist Awadagin Pratt, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dayton Philharmonic Chorus, led by conductor Keitaro Harada.

In an intimate session, Jad Abumrad and Prestini move beyond the final performance to examine the architecture of their collaboration, Port(al). The piece functions as a "musical séance," a site-specific choral theater work that reawakens the ghosts of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a site that for a hundred years was both an engine of social progress and also the center of Ameria’s war-making effort

At 10am, Paola Prestini will be speaking in a panel discussion "How Education Builds Decision-Making Power" with Lorena Ochoa, Magos Herrera, Matiana Sanz De SanaMaria, and Rebeca Garza Bueron.

Paola Prestini and Sxip Shirey's radio opera, 'No One is Forgotten' will be performed live by Kathleen Chalfant, Eve Gigliotti, Amelia Workman, featuring cellist Jeffrey Zeigler. Originally commissioned by Dallas Opera, Eve Gigliotti and Emitha/Lexicon Classics.

The world premiere of Prestini's 'My Brilliant Friend: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay', is bookended by works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Villa-Lobos, and Haydn’s Overture to L’isola disabitata and Symphony No. 45, “Farewell.”

Beth Morrison Projects presents BMP: SONGBOOK, a live performance and multi-faceted celebration marking two decades of trailblazing innovation in American opera. Over two unforgettable evenings, BMP: SONGBOOK brings together extraordinary artists who helped shape BMP’s legacy, performing highlights from some of our most iconic productions.

'Primero Sueño' travels to CDMX, where it will be presented within the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City, the important government locus that ensures the proper development of the debates, discussions, and votes of the Plenary, and guarantees that the provisions of the Constitution and the law prevail in legislative work.

'Primero Sueño' will be expanded into a new large-scale, immersive processional performance. Thousands of audience members will parade alongside the opera's cast, joined by local community choirs, creating a collective meditation that will resonate throughout the city's streets and squares. The procession will culminate in the Zócalo and the Atrium of the Cathedral of Puebla, where the Bishop of Puebla had prohibited Sor Juana from continuing her creative life as a writer, arguing that women should prioritize obedience and avoid intellectual vanity.

The world premiere screening of the documentary made around Prestini's 'Con Alma' will take place at the Mexico Now Festival in New York, venue to be confirmed. The film is a musical and cinematic ode that charts isolation to liberation. Magos Herrera and Paola Prestini, together with some of the most outstanding musicians in the international contemporary scene, create an iconic album during the most devastating pandemic of our time; aiming to leave a blueprint of their experience and reaching out to collectively heal through the power of music

Based on the Novel by Ernest Hemingway, Produced by Beth Morrison Projects in a Columbus partnership between the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Opera Columbus we proudly present The Old Man and the Sea at Mershon Auditorium on October 10 and 12, 2025.

Paola Prestini's 'Houses of Zodiac' will close out Death of Classical's Angel’s Share 2025 season. The work is being transformed into an immersive site-specific experience featuring Jeffrey Zeigler, Georgina Pazcoguin, Dai Matsuoka, and Maria Popova.