The season includes a groundbreaking series of performances as part of The Met’s highly anticipated exhibition Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now. Other highlights include Johnny Gandelsman in the American Wing; a commissioned processional opera for The Met Cloisters; a commission by Joseph Keckler in the Petrie Court; and rare Renaissance repertoire in the recently reopened European Paintings galleries
(New York, September 10, 2024)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the 2024–25 MetLiveArts season, which will include world premiere performances and commissions created specifically for the Museum’s galleries at both The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters as well as concerts in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. The 2024–25 season will include the largest number of in-gallery, site-specific performances of any previous MetLiveArts season.
“The Met’s Live Arts program invites audiences to engage with our collection and exhibitions through vividly powerful and innovative performances,” said Max Hollein, the Museum’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “The rich season ahead features an extraordinary array of commissions and new works, reflecting The Met’s dedication to artists and the collaborative process, and to championing a diverse spectrum of voices and perspectives.”
The new MetLiveArts season begins November 8 and 9, when, as part of his This Is America project, violinist Johnny Gandelsman will present a mammoth two-day marathon of new works performed every hour on the hour in various galleries of the American Wing while the Museum is open to the public. The fall season will continue with a groundbreaking series of performances that are part of the exhibition Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now (opening on November 17). In January, The Met Cloisters will be the location for the world premiere of composers Paola Prestini and Magos Herrera’s processional opera Primero Sueño, directed by Louisa Proske (The Mother of Us All, MetLiveArts 2020), based on the poem of the same name by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
“This season, MetLiveArts pushes beyond the established boundaries of Museum-based performance in dramatic and significant ways,” said Limor Tomer, The Met’s Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang General Manager of Live Arts. “We are constructing a performance venue inside a dedicated gallery in a special exhibition, weaving live arts straight into the exhibition’s fabric—a first for The Met. And our slate of performers promises to expand canons, question histories, and welcome audiences who don’t yet consider The Met their cultural home.”
Performances will be both ticketed and free with Museum admission and take place in person at The Met as well as online on The Met’s website. The Museum’s popular Date Night at The Met evenings, held every Friday and Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m., will continue to feature live music by ETHEL & Friends and occasional pop-up performances throughout the galleries.
MetLiveArts 2024–25 Performance Details
Johnny Gandelsman: This Is America
Friday, November 8, and Saturday, November 9, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m., various galleries in the American Wing
In response to the trauma of COVID-19, political polarization, entrenched racism, and many other issues, violinist Johnny Gandelsman poured his creative and intellectual prowess into a massive project that he named This Is America. For this ongoing commissioning project, which currently comprises three full albums, This Is America asks composers to harness their experiences from those fraught times into new works for solo violin—and out of the confusion and chaos emerged themes of joy, friendship, gratitude, and love.
Four years later, Gandelsman brings his commissioned works to the American Wing galleries for a performance that spans two marathon days to celebrate the wing’s 100th anniversary.
Free with Museum admission.
First come first serve; seating is limited.
The “Performance Pyramid” in Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now
Most Fridays throughout the run of the exhibition, 3 and 7 p.m.
In a first for The Met, performance will be an integral part of an exhibition—in the form of a dedicated gallery in Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now. Organized in collaboration with MetLiveArts, the “Performance Pyramid” will both present a documentary history of Black performance art animated by ancient Egyptian themes and serve as the locus for live performances on select Fridays throughout the run of the exhibition.
November 15 (available only to Members of The Met): Rashida Bumbray
November 22: Kaneza Schaal
December 6: Kamau Amu Patton
December 13: Luke Stewart
December 20: Clifford Owens
January 10: Steffani Jemison
January 17: Karon Davis
January 24: Rashid Johnson
January 31: Zekkereya El-magharbel
February 7: Sidra Bell
February 14: M. Lamar
Other artists and collaborators to be confirmed
Sight into Sound Series: Siena and the Birth of Painting
Sunday, December 8, 2 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
At the dawn of the Italian Renaissance, Siena was the site of phenomenal artistic innovation and activity. Sienese artists—including Duccio, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini—played a pivotal role in defining Western painting. Over 500 years later, Richard Wagner revolutionized opera composition in much the same way. Twelve years after he read Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, written just 100 years before the Sienese painting revolution, he began working on a libretto inspired by this tale of the quest for the Holy Grail. This eventually became his final composition, the opera Parsifal.
Featuring art from the exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350.
Individual tickets start at $35 ($30 + $5 fee).
Series tickets start at $85 ($75 + $10 fee).
Skylark Vocal Ensemble: Winter’s Night
Saturday, December 14, 3 p.m.
The Fuentidueña Chapel at The Met Cloisters
Three-time Grammy nominees Skylark Vocal Ensemble make their MetLiveArts debut with an acclaimed holiday-season program spanning half-century of music, performed in the 12th-century Fuentidueña Chapel at The Met Cloisters.
Featuring Hugo Distler's Chorale Variations on "Lo, how a rose e'er blooming" and works by Allegri, Howells, Villette, Warlock, Tavener, and more.
Tickets start at $85 ($80 + $5 ticket fee).
Primero Sueño (World Premiere)
Thursday, January 23–Sunday, January 26, 7 p.m.
Various Galleries at The Met Cloisters
A processional opera by Paola Prestini and Magos Herrera
Directed by Louisa Proske
Co-commissioned and co-produced by MetLiveArts and VisionIntoArt
Composer Paola Prestini, soloist/co-composer Magos Herrera, and director Louisa Proske will bring the poetry of “New Spain’s” most influential and revered scholar, theologian, and writer, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — often recognized as the first published feminist of the Americas—to life. Based on Sor Juana’s landmark 1692 poem Primero Sueño, this site-specific opera will feature Herrera as Sor Juana; the award-winning German vocal ensemble Sjaella as a chorus of nuns who embody the vivid images of Sor Juana’s poem (which range from birds and pyramids to characters of Greek mythology); and multi-instrumentalists Celso Duarte (a specialist in Mexican jarocho harp) and Luca Tarantino (theorbo and Spanish guitar), who will expand the musical language.
Sor Juana’s Primero Sueño, translated to “First Dream” is considered one of the greatest literary works of the Hispanic Baroque. The intimate and highly symbolic text follows Sor Juana’s consciousness as she gains knowledge while her soul dreams and wakes. Primero Sueño will be a profound meditation on the limits of human knowledge, an expression of Sor Juana’s voracious interest in the world around her, a passionate plea for women’s right to intellectual pursuit, and a raucous celebration of being alive and being awake. The opera will feature a libretto in Spanish, and Proske will stage Sor Juana‘s soul journey as a thrilling physical procession through some of the most evocative spaces at The Met Cloisters.
Connecting 17th-century Mexico with today’s emergent technologies, the characters will be wearing specially designed electronic escudos de monja—painted badges that Jeronymite nuns (like Sor Juana) traditionally wore on their chest. These reimagined escudos, created in collaboration with design technologists and engineers, will function as amplifiers, light sources, and projection surfaces, allowing audiences to experience aspects of Sor Juana’s private life. Mexican artist David Herrera will design props and masks that evoke the mythologies of both indigenous Mexican cultures and Ancient Greece.
Tickets start at $120 ($115 + $5 fee).
Electric Root: Let Love Lead, A Celebration of Black Music
Friday, February 14, 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
In anticipation of the spring 2025 reopening of The Met's Arts of Africa Galleries in the reenvisioned Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the vibrant New York City collective Electric Root will perform an unforgettable tribute to the enduring legacy of Black music. They’ll celebrate the profound power of this music to lift spirits, evoke joy, and inspire resilience. Join us for a performance that honors the soul of Black music, a living testament to love, hope, and the unbreakable ties that bind us across time and space.
Tickets start at $35 ($30 + $5 fee).
The Future Is Female: Sarah Cahill
Saturday, March 8, 2–8 p.m.
European Paintings Galleries
Pianist Sarah Cahill will investigate and recontextualize our understanding of woman’s contributions to the piano canon in an all-day marathon featuring 500 years of new music by women from around the globe. The Future Is Female, a program featuring more than 70 compositions, will be performed in The Met's European Paintings galleries. Featured composers include Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Maria de Alvear, Galina Ustvolskaya, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Florence Price, Hannah Kendall, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Kui Dong, Meredith Monk, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Tania León, Fannie Charles Dillon, and others.
Free with Museum admission.
First come first serve; seating is limited.
Sight and Sound Series: Schumann and Friedrich: Nature in Music and Art
Sunday, April 13, 2 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
As the German Romantic movement took hold in the early 19th century, artists of all types began examining the relationship between nature and the human soul. Painter Caspar David Friedrich, widely considered the most important German artist of the era, portrayed nature as a setting for profound spiritual and emotional encounters. His compatriot, the renowned composer Robert Schumann, also took inspiration from the natural world. Upon moving to Düsseldorf, along the Rhine River, he wrote his buoyant Third Symphony, which he titled the Rhenish.
Featuring art from the exhibition Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature.
Individual tickets start at $35 ($30 + $5 fee).
Series tickets start at $85 ($75 + $10 fee).
Sight and Sounds Series: Fauré, Sargent, and Paris
Sunday, May 18, 2 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Artist John Singer Sargent was 18 when his family moved to Paris, and within only a few years he was making a name for himself amid “painters’ row” in the Left Bank, becoming one of the best-known portrait artists in France by age 23. He soon moved to the more cosmopolitan Right Bank, where he painted the infamous “Madame X” and took steady commissions from wealthy patrons. Meanwhile, Gabriel Fauré was hitting a turning point in his career in Paris; several of his works were premiered at the Société nationale de musique, and he eventually became head of the Paris Conservatoire. Both artists successfully melded the end of Romanticism with the dawn of Modernism.
Individual tickets start at $35 ($30 + $5 fee).
Series tickets start at $85 ($75 + $10 fee).
TENET: Rosettes
Saturday, April 25
The Met’s European Paintings Galleries
The acclaimed New York early-music ensemble TENET Vocal Artists will perform a tour through Renaissance Europe’s song tradition, featuring voices and lutes in various combinations.
Free with Museum admission.
Joseph Keckler: A Good Night in the Trauma Garden
Friday, May 9, and Saturday, May 10, 7:30 p.m.
Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court
Joseph Keckler is equally at home on the screen, page, and stage—and now he's reconsidering The Met’s Petrie Court with a newly commissioned music/theater work. Part site-specific concert, part impressionistic essay, A Good Night in the Trauma Garden positions The Met’s Petrie Court as a space of blended times and mythologies, populated by gods and monsters with heroes, hybrids, and historical figures, and imbued with moments of human suffering and sacrifice. The evening-length work weaves together original compositions with narrative vignettes that meditate on lives and deaths in New York City, the slipperiness of reality in contemporary America, and a perennial longing for the arrival of a god.
Free with Museum admission.
Faraj Abyad
Thursday, May 15, 7:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Over the last decade, Syrian composer Faraj Abyad has redefined classical Arabic music, fusing Arabic poetry past and present with his own signature style. For this performance, Abyad and his orchestra will present the works that the Museum has commissioned from him, including his 2021 project The Loyalty of the Poet and new settings of poetry inscribed on the walls of the Damascus Room (Gallery 461).
Tickets start at $35 ($30 + $5 fee).
Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass’s Complete String Quartets
Wednesday, May 21–Friday, May 23, 7 p.m.
The Fuentidueña Chapel at The Met Cloisters
Minimalist pioneer Philip Glass's string quartets span more than 50 years of styles, collaborations, and inspirations. Whether composed to accompany Samuel Beckett or Mick Jagger, inspired by literature, art, or film, these mesmerizing quartets trace the unstoppable progression of Glass's trailblazing voice.
In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the acclaimed New York City string quartet Brooklyn Rider, the quartet will play Glass's complete string quartets for the first time in their hometown, deepening their rich, decade-and-a-half collaboration with the groundbreaking composer.
Single tickets start at $70 ($65 + $5 fee).
Series tickets start at $160 ($150 + $10 fee).
Virtual Discussions
Herman Cornejo and Catalyst Quartet
Monday, October 7, 6 p.m.
Virtual (via Zoom)
To celebrate American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Herman Cornejo’s 25th anniversary with the company, Cornejo will join the Catalyst Quartet, The Met’s 2022–23 Quartet in Residence, for a live discussion in conjunction with the virtual premiere of their May 2023 performance at The Met, Impacto: The Global Influence of Latinx Composers with Herman Cornejo.
Presented in Spanish, with English captions.
Presented as part of The Met’s celebration of Hispanic and Latine Heritage Month.
Program Credits
Johnny Gandelsman's This Is America
These performances are made possible by the Clara Lloyd-Smith Weber Fund.
Live Arts in the Performance Pyramid, as part of Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now
The Performance Pyramid performances in Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now are made possible by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, and the Adrienne Arsht Fund for Resilience through Art.
Skylark Vocal Ensemble: Winter’s Night
This performance is made possible by the estate of Katherine Walter Stein.
Primero Sueño
These performances are made possible in part by The Patterson Fund.
Additional support is provided by the Frank and Lydia Bergen Foundation.
Faraj Abyad
This performance is made possible by the Adrienne Arsht Fund for Resilience through Art.
Brooklyn Rider Plays the Complete Philip Glass String Quartets
This performance is made possible by the Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund.
Free with Museum Admission performances
MetLiveArts' Free with Museum Admission programming is made possible by an anonymous donor.
Exhibition Credits
Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature
The exhibition is made possible by Marina Kellen French and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Janice H. Levin Fund, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Barbara A. Wolfe, an Anonymous Foundation, and Trevor and Alexis Traina.
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now
The exhibition is made possible by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.
Additional support is provided by The Hayden Family Foundation, Allison and Larry Berg, The Holly Peterson Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Performance Pyramid performances are made possible by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, and the Adrienne Arsht Fund for Resilience through Art.
Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350
The exhibition is made possible by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Alice Cary Brown and W.L. Lyons Brown, the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, and the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.
Additional support is provided by Laura and John Arnold, a gift in memory of Regina Jaglom Wachter, The Huo Family Foundation, The Richard and Natalie Jacoff Foundation, Inc., the Robert Lehman Foundation, Trevor and Alexis Traina, and the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation, and the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The National Gallery, London.
The American Wing at 100
The American Wing at 100 is made possible by the Jane Parsons Klein Fund.
Additional support is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
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September 10, 2024
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