Get Involved: Arts
Harvard College Opera boasts a vibrant and diverse arts season! In addition to the Mainstage, HCO organizes regular programmed recitals, hosts a guest artist series with world-class professionals across disciplines, performs in Harvard’s annual ARTS FIRST festival, collaborations with other student arts groups, and puts on informal recitals for musicians of all backgrounds and levels. These opportunities bring together students across disciplines and provides additional performance opportunities year-round.
Explore the many performing and learning opportunities available within Harvard College Opera’s Arts Season below.
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As part of its mission to provide high-quality public performance opportunities to undergraduates outside of the winter mainstage, Harvard College Opera puts on several programmed recitals throughout the year. These recitals uniquely highlight vocalists, instrumentalists, accompanists, and other musicians of various backgrounds and experience levels to explore solo and small-ensemble performance outside of the mainstage production and engage more broadly with the vibrant Harvard art scene.
All of our formal recitals are programmed by our team of Recital Coordinators under the leadership of our Artistic Director, and each recital features instrumentalists, vocalists, and pianists (as both soloists and accompanists). Our programmed recital season typically includes each of the following: a Fall, Winter, Spring, First-Year Showcase, and Instrumentalist recital.
Explore our Season to see specific programmed HCO recitals past, present, and planned.
If you would like to participate in a programmed HCO recital, please reach out to our recital team at harvardcollegeopera@gmail.comat any time — even if there is no upcoming recital visible on our website, expressing interest allows us to add you to contact you directly at the next opportunity.
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Our Guest Artist Series provides undergraduates of all backgrounds the opportunity to work with world-class experts in their artistic fields. We aim to feature all varieties vocalists, instrumentalists, directors, musicians, music educators, arts administrators, theatre technicians, and myriad other professionals drawing from across all industries and disciplines within the arts.
Past invited artists have included:
Matthew Aucoin (HCO ’12) – composer, conductor, pianist, writer
Anthony Roth Costanzo – countertenor, actor, and producer
Drew Forde (@ThatViolaKid) – violist and content creator
Simone Porter – violinist
Sumi Jo – lyric coloratura soprano
Erin Morley – lyric coloratura soprano
Golda Schultz – lyric dramatic soprano
Lawrence Brownlee – bel canto tenor
Morris Robinson – bass
Lucas Meachem – baritone
Liv Redpath – mezzo
John Holland – violinist
We often collaborate with other student organizations to bring artists to campus, and we welcome any and all suggestions for guest artists to invite or industry areas to target.
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Produced by the Office for the Arts at Harvard, ARTS FEST is an annual festival celebrating the arts community at Harvard. HCO is regularly invited to provide opportunities for our performers to showcase their talents and passion for the arts.
HCO typically stages some form of recital, concert, or other performance exceeding the scale of our seasonal programmed recitals . In recent years, these concerts have incorporated semi-staged opera scenes, including our 2025 Don Giovanni finale scene, our 2024 La Cenerentola and The Magic Flute, our 2021 virtual performance of Va Pensiero, and our 2022 orchestra- and chorus-accompanied scenes concert and orchestral collaboration with THUD.
Like our recitals, the HCO ARTS FEST Festival performance is open to participants of all backgrounds: our most recent performance, for example, vocal soloists and ensemble performers, choral singers, orchestra members, and several conductors and rehearsal pianists.
If you would like to be a part of the upcoming HCO ARTS FEST Concert or propose a collaboration on behalf of another performance group, reach out to our Artistic Director and Orchestra Liaison at harvardcollegeopera@gmail.com.
Interested?
See our Season pages for more.
Spring 2023 (Details TBD)
As part of HCO’s inaugural Senior Recital Series, pianist and outgoing Harvard College Opera Recital Chair and Music Director Benjamin T. Rossen will present a recital of piano works from across multiple genres and styles.
Spring 2023 (Details TBD)
As part of HCO’s inaugural Senior Recital Series, tenor and outgoing Harvard College Opera President James Rose will present a recital of vocal works from across multiple genres and styles.
Spring 2023 (Details TBA)
Harvard College Opera will present a showcase featuring our wonderful first-year performers! The concert will include vocal and instrumental works by classical composers.
Spring 2023 (Details TBD)
Harvard College Opera will present a recital of vocal and instrumental works.
Fall 2023 (Details TBD)
Harvard College Opera will present a recital in collaboration with the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Fall 2023 (Details TBD)
Learning From Performers presents visiting artists in conversations and workshops. Harvard College Opera will present a workshop and conversation with guest artist(s) to be announced this fall, featuring performances from HCO undergraduate performers.
![Notes & Phrases: An Art Song Recital [Rescheduled]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5692cfbcdc5cb46e49da738b/1649446901746-JV4FBRB4L3ADHMCHYIKQ/time+to+travel+the+world+%28Facebook+Post%29.png)
Fall 2023 (Details TBD)
Harvard College Opera will present a recital including vocal and instrumental works inspired by or connected to poetry and the written word.
Saturday, April 30 @ 11:45 am. | Harvard Science Center Plaza, 1 Oxford Street Cambridge, MA 02138.
Beginning with an instrumental overture performed in collaboration with THUD (The Harvard Undergraduate Drummers), undergraduate and graduate singers and instrumentalists from HCO will present four scenes from the operatic repertory, closing with a finale number for orchestra and chorus.
This event is generously sponsored by the Office for the Arts at Harvard.
Friday, April 1 at 7:00PM. | The Signet Society. 46 Dunster St, Cambridge, MA
Harvard College Opera will present a showcase featuring our wonderful first-year performers! The concert will include vocal and instrumental works by classical composers. The performance will be held at the Signet Society and is free and open to the Harvard community.
Thursday through Saturday, March 10–12, 2022 at 7:30 pm. Tickets and livestream available from Lowell House Opera here.
Alumnus Benjamin P. Wenzelberg ’21 is music director, composer and librettist. Other HCO members include Arhan Kumar ’23, Alexander Chen ’22, and Sydney Penny ’22 in the cast, and Benjamin T. Rossen ’24 and Catherine Deskur ’24 in the orchestra.
See LHO website for more details.
Performances run Wednesday, February 2 through Sunday, February 6. Show page HERE
Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), marks Harvard College Opera’s triumphant return to the Agassiz Mainstage after the 2020-2021 virtual season. Sung in Italian with English supertitles. All performances are family friendly. Performance recordings, as well as cast, staff, and orchestra credits available at the show page above.
This opera produced with the generous support of the Office for the Arts at Harvard and the staff at the.
Wednesday, November 3 @ 6:30 pm. | RSVP HERE
To Lifted Voices, a recital underscoring the contributions of artists of color to the world of classical music. The performances are inspired by and engage with Tomashi Jackson's exhibition Brown II at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a collection of work exploring the legal, social, contemporary, and historical movements flowing from the 1955 Brown v. Board of Education ("Brown II") decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. Please join us in person for an evening of music-making to honor icons of liberty, resilience, and social justice in classical music.
This event was envisioned and produced in collaboration with the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Runs November 23 through December 16. More information available from the Metropolitan Opera here.
Eurydice, composed by Matt Aucoin (’12), premieres at the Metropolitan Opera following a first successful run with the LA Opera in 2020.
Wednesday, November 3 @ 6:30 pm. | RSVP HERE
To Lifted Voices, a recital underscoring the contributions of artists of color to the world of classical music. The performances are inspired by and engage with Tomashi Jackson's exhibition Brown II at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a collection of work exploring the legal, social, contemporary, and historical movements flowing from the 1955 Brown v. Board of Education ("Brown II") decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. Please join us in person for an evening of music-making to honor icons of liberty, resilience, and social justice in classical music.
This event was envisioned and produced in collaboration with the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Tuesday, October 12th @ 4 pm. | Calendar
Location: Paine Hall, 3 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Learning From Performers presents visiting artists in conversations and workshops. Join us for a workshop on piano accompaniment and vocal technique with composer / pianist Matt Aucoin and operatic soprano Erin Morley featuring performances from HCO undergraduate singers Benjamin P. Wenzelberg ’21 and Isabella Meyer ’24 and pianists Benjamin T. Rossen ’24 and April Chen ’23.
This event is in partnership with Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and the Music Department.
Friday, October 1, 2021 at 7:30pm (meet at 6:45pm) | FREE tickets can be reserved here.
Please email harvardcollegeopera@gmail.com if you plan on attending the outing together so we can plan around you. We will depart as a group from the Harvard Square T-Station (Starbucks entrance) at 6:45pm on Friday. Please bring either physical proof of vaccination or results of a recent PCR test. There is also an optional group dinner at Source Restaurant in Harvard Square following the performance.
More information about Cavalleria Rusticana from the Boston Lyric Opera here.
This outing is generously supported by the Office for the Arts at Harvard.