Arts Across Campus

The performing and visual arts are integral to a liberal arts education. The arts inspire us and fire the imagination. They teach us creative problem solving, and how to meet challenges with flexibility, invention, and vision.

At the University of the South, we have multiple dedicated exhibition and performance spaces and series across campus, weaving the arts into life and study across the college. In addition to our designated spaces, our campus overall is regularly ranked as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.

All of campus is designed to inspire, and all of campus is a stage.

Arts Across Campus Locations
Click on the map below to find the full campus map with venue names.

Upcoming Events

DIALOGUES AT SAS: ART GALLERY RECEPTION

Gallery Opening

Saturday, September 24, 2022
2:30pm-4:30pm CDT
St. Andrew's-Sewanee Gallery, Simmonds Hall

The SAS Gallery is pleased to present the work of three SAS faculty members in a joint exhibition, "Dialogues".

Talk by Dr. Jiwei Xiao

Dr. Jiwei Xiao, who formerly taught Chinese at Sewanee, will deliver a talk entitled "What is a detail?: Reading Chinese Fiction as World Literature" on Monday, September 26 at 4:30PM at Gailor Auditorium. In addition to the lecture, Dr. Xiao will be at the Tower Room upstairs in McClurg at noon for a discussion over lunch.

Monday, September 26 at 4:30PM
Gailor Auditorium

Reading: Memoirist and Novelist Justin Taylor

Reading

Thursday, September 29
4:30pm CDT
Gailor Auditorium

Memoirist and novelist Justin Taylor is the Director of the Sewanee School of Letters, and, as a Brown Foundation Fellow, is currently teaching The Beginning Narrative Nonfiction Workshop for Sewanee's Creative Writing Program. He will read from his work this evening in the Gailor Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Haines Lecture

Haines Lecture: Natasha Trethewey

Poet Natasha Trethewey will be the 2022 Haines Lecturer at the University of the South. The event will take place at 4:30PM on October 25, 2022, in Convocation Hall, on the campus of the University of the South. The event is free and open to the public; masks may be required. Learn more.
The livestream will be on the Sewanee English and Creative Writing Youtube Channel.

Sense and Sensibility

Sense & Sensibility adapted by Kate Hamill from the Jane Austen Novel

October 26-30, 2022

Tennessee Williams Center

Contact: Sarah Lacy Hamilty slhamilt@sewanee.edu

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Current Exhibitions

In the University Art Gallery

The University Art Gallery is delighted to present Nathalie Miebach’s Stay Healthy and Strong.

Beginning with numbers, Miebach tells stories. Meteorological data from extreme weather events, data about Covid-19 deaths and infection rates, and anecdotal information from news reports and social media are painstakingly translated into delicate, complex, colorful objects and musical scores.

Miebach’s work asks us to consider the representation and interpretation of data. It makes overwhelming events intimate and personal, and asks us to connect numbers with experience. Climate change and its devastating impact on communities, Covid-19 and our distance from our loved ones, are made visible. Aesthetics is used to further the understanding of complex scientific systems.

Faced with Miebach’s careful objects, we are invited to slow down. We explore reported numbers anew, and consider our own responses to data. How does the abundance of scientific data facilitate or complicate resilience in the face of global threats? How ought we understand and use the information we have?

Stay Healthy and Strong is on view in the University Art Gallery from August 24 through October 9. Please join us! Miebach will present her work in conversation in Guerry Auditorium at 5 p.m. on September 14, 2022. Reception to follow.

churrs, chakks, rrrs

Featuring: Caroline Allison, Patrick DeGuira and Brady Haston
“churrs, chakks, rrrrrs” is a reference to a poem by exhibiting artist Patrick DeGuira that accompanies his mixed media photograph of the lifeless body of a brown thrasher encountered on a trail near his home. Like the other pieces in this show, his written piece and the installation serve as a meditation on nature and its articulate language that has so much to say to humans if the time is taken to listen

Carlos Gallery, Visual Art Building 105 Kennerly Road
Sept. 1-Oct. 22, 2022 M-F 8 AM–5 PM, Sat 1-5 PM

Their Sewanee: A Photography Exhibit at Stirling's

Thursday, September 22
4:00pm-6:00pm CDT
Stirling's Coffee House
This collection of work by Qiyu (George) Meng and Maria Mattingly is an exploration of experience and emotional attachment united by time and place. Through photography, Meng and Mattingly aim to offer a perspective of Sewanee that oscillates between intimate details and a broader grasp of what it can mean to live in a time marked by fear and uncertainty. This collection of work is defined by the simultaneous fragility and permanence of joy and how relationships between people, places, and spaces are interwoven into a community.

Performances and Events Highlights

Keep An Eye On

Art Forum

Art Forum is an organization dedicated to promoting the visual arts and facilitating artistic opportunities at the University of the South. We offer a creative space for students to promote art within a positive community. In doing so, we foster a stronger Sewanee community and appreciation for the arts.

Arts Amplified

At the University of the South, the arts model interdisciplinarity and collaboration. Special events like gallery walks and Arts Amplified events bring distinct disciplines in the arts together for inspiration and learning, and give our students and faculty multiple and diverse opportunities to experiment, collaborate, show their work, hone their skills, and reach audiences - all across campus.

Arts Fellows Scholarship

Students with exceptional promise in performing or studio arts can apply for Fellowship in the Arts. They are awarded to candidates with interests and accomplishments in visual studies, art history, film, dance, theatre, or music. Students selected for these fellowships will have the opportunity to dive more deeply into the life of the arts at Sewanee. Incoming students are invited to apply after they are admitted to Sewanee. These stackable fellowships, valued at $2,000, are renewable for four years. For more information, please email your admission counselor.

Dynamics

Dynamics seeks to bring together the performing arts at Sewanee by mixing student-choreographed dances with vocal and instrumental pieces. Student performers are invited to try on new styles and concepts with the goal of simply being creative.

Guarisco Scholarship

The Guarisco Scholarship is endowed for Seniors who are pursuing a major in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, and who have demonstrated extraordinary promise in Art or Art History. The scholarship includes tuition as well as research funds for summer travel or an internship leading up to and during the final year as an undergraduate.

Live Music Sound Nation

Live Music Sound Nation is a contemporary instrumental multi-media ensemble, focusing on the production and performance of modern rock and film score shows. Using a highly collaborative approach, the next generation of talented musicians and artists rehearse music and prepare visual displays for arena-style rock and movie concerts. We use the latest in sound, lighting effects, and design as we perform the compositions of the great musical artists of the modern day.

Performing Arts Series

The Sewanee Performing Arts Series features a wide variety of performances throughout the academic year.

Some of the recent solo and ensemble performers have included:

American Spiritual Ensemble
Grammy nominated PUBLIQuartet
Aaron Diehl
Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal
Vienna Boys Choir
Olivier Latry
American Shakespeare Center
Chanticleer
Rooftop Records

Performances take place throughout the academic year and are made available to students at no cost.

Perpetual Motion

Perpetual Motion (PMo) is a student-led dance organization designed to give students an opportunity to perform and to expose the Sewanee community to a variety of unique styles of dance. Through diversity and inclusion, we strive to recruit dancers of all levels and expose them to a variety of dance genres. To fulfill our mission, we will work with other dance organizations on campus as well as the Dance Program to reach as many students as possible.

Sewanee Praise

Sewanee Praise ministers the Gospel in song to the campus and surrounding communities. The choir’s diverse membership is made up of students, faculty, and community members from various backgrounds and experiences. Its repertory covers spirituals, traditional and contemporary gospel, contemporary Christian, and praise and worship. Sewanee Praise performs two concerts—one each semester—as well as other campus events and regional tours.

Sewanee Symphony Orchestra

The Sewanee Symphony Orchestra (SSO) presents a full range of the symphonic repertory and includes a wide variety of musical styles and genres. As a key component of the liberal arts environment, the orchestra not only collaborates with other music ensembles but also often participates in campus-wide interdisciplinary projects. Sewanee's orchestra is a vivid reflection of our community. It is common for students to play alongside their professors, University administrators, and community members.

University Choir

The University Choir plays an important role in Sewanee's musical life, singing at weekly services in All Saints' Chapel, monthly evensongs, and other campus events. A highlight of each year is the annual Festival of Lessons and Carols. This service regularly attracts 3,000 visitors to campus and has been featured in Southern Living and Garden and Gun. As an active touring ensemble, the choir has performed extensively throughout the United States and England.

University Jazz Ensemble

The University Jazz Ensemble started as a small ensemble and has grown into a 17-to-19 piece big band that covers the repertory of large ensemble jazz ranging from Duke Ellington and Count Basie to big band arrangements of popular songs by the Beatles and the Jackson 5. The Jazz Ensemble focuses on developing student jazz musicians by providing an opportunity for a challenging ensemble experience while encouraging performers to explore jazz improvisation. The Jazz Ensemble offers two performances on campus each school year, and also plays in local venues as requested.

The William Ralston Listening Library

The William Ralston Listening Library and Archive is located on the second floor of duPont Library at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. The state-of-the-art facility offers an unparalleled teaching and learning resource and was created in memory of beloved Sewanee professor Father William Ralston, C’51. The Library houses his world-class collection of recordings inside what many reviewers and audiophiles consider to be the best publicly available sound playback system in the world. Years in the planning and decades in the dreaming, the Ralston Listening Library exists to bring a stunning, life-changing sonic and aesthetic experience to students and visitors of all ages. In the best spirit of Father Ralston, the Library's mission is entirely philanthropic, designed to spread a love and appreciation for great music and audio to those who would not otherwise have access or knowledge of such things.