Thank you to everyone who attended, participated and performed in the 2024 Festival of the Arts! Join us next year: April 24-30, 2025.
The Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts celebrates the abundant creativity of Brandeis students, faculty and staff, joined by distinguished guest artists.
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The Festival of the Arts is produced by Brandeis Arts Engagement.
We are proud to participate in the Card to Culture program, a collaboration between the Mass Cultural Council, the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) Nutrition Program, and the Massachusetts Health Connector, by broadening accessibility to cultural programming by offering free admission to the Festival of the Arts performances, exhibitions, and other programs. Check out the complete list of participating organizations offering EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare discounts.
Founded in 1952 by Leonard Bernstein to celebrate the first graduating class of Brandeis, the Festival of the Arts is a campuswide event overseen by the Arts Engagement staff of the Division of Creative Arts. It is made possible by the generous support of Elaine Reuben ’63, the Mass Cultural Council, and the Aaron Foundation Visiting Artist Fund for Theater, Music, and Fine Arts.
Inclusion
The Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts welcomes and encourages the participation of people of all communities, generations and life experiences. We value a diversity of lived experiences and perspectives and recognize that our experiences and perspectives are shaped by multiple and intersecting social identities.
We encourage an exchange of learning among faculty, practitioners, students, staff and audience members. We support continuous reflection and learning about the arts.
Land acknowledgment
We acknowledge that Brandeis University occupies Massachusett, Nipmuc, and Pawtucket homelands and territories. We recognize that the very existence of our university in Waltham has been facilitated by the dispossession, enslavement, and dispersal of Native communities by settler colonialism. Some of the most devastating policies in the history of U.S. colonialism, like the allotment of Native lands and termination of Native sovereignty, were tested first in New England, in the Massachusetts Enfranchisement and Allotment Act of 1868.
We also recognize that we must repair our relationships with local Native communities and with the land. On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we affirm that we want to hear Native narratives, build relationships with local communities and organizations, respect Native sovereignty and cultural rights—all with a sense of humility and sincere gratitude.