2003-04 YEAR IN REVIEW
A Year of Accomplishment and Promise for Student Art-Making at Harvard
ARTS FIRST [Harvard’s annual four-day festival] reminds us of something very, very important as we renew our great University, and that is this: as we narrate the study of criticism of the aesthetic, so we must also cultivate, nurture, and credit the creation of beauty.
- President Lawrence H. Summers,
Harvard Arts Medal Celebration Honoring Yo-Yo Ma ‘76,
Sanders Theatre, May 9, 2004
Dear Friends:
What do the American College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center, the American Choral Directors Association, the Grammy Awards, the Edinburgh Fringe Theater Festival and the New York Times Magazine have in common? All have highlighted extraordinary work by Harvard student artists during the past six months.
Harvard undergraduate dancers were among a select group to perform at the Kennedy Center gala in June; the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium’s performance of the Mozart Requiem was the featured event of the annual choral directors’ meeting in February; Han-Na Chang ’05 was nominated for a Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist with an Orchestra; an innovative student theater group premiered a new work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August; and recent graduate Jeff Sheng ‘02 had his photography featured in the New York Times Magazine this past April.
A banner year for the arts at Harvard? Well, no, not really. Those of us who live and breathe the arts at Harvard know that it was, in fact, just another in a series of great years for student art-making—a year in which Harvard students produced over 60 theatrical productions, 50 dance performances, close to 500 concerts, and numerous studio art shows in galleries across the campus.
This issue of Arts Spectrum takes a look back at the past year at the Office for the Arts. This was a year in which the OFA provided students with the opportunity to connect and —in some instances—work with major artists, including Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, Suzanne Farrell, Ed Zwick, Augusto Boal, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Betty Comden, Jim Hall, and many others. It was a year in which 2200 students participated in artistic projects sponsored by the OFA’s Grant Program. A year in which our dance, ceramics and theater support programs assisted literally thousands of students in their artistic development. A year in which students participated in arts policy and poetry workshops with Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Of course none of this happens in a vacuum, and if art is oftentimes about collaboration, so too is the business of supporting art-making. The OFA collaborated with over 60 organizations to provide students with opportunities during the past year, and we are grateful to all of them.
One cannot talk about the past year in the arts without commenting on a sense of enormous promise that one feels for the future of art-making at Harvard.
The undergraduate curriculum review—the first such review in more than 30 years—issued an interim report in April of ’04, which recommended that efforts be made ”to expand curricular opportunities for performances and the creative arts in Harvard College, and that the Faculty be receptive toward proposals for new tracks and new concentrations that focus on the practice and performance of the arts.” One important curricular dream is already being realized: the Music Department has approved a five-year joint program with the New England Conservatory, which will enable extraordinarily gifted undergraduate musicians to receive a Bachelor’s Degree from Harvard College, and a Master’s Degree from the Conservatory.
Equally important are plans to build a new dance center located in the Quadrangle Athletic Facility (QRAC) and to renovate the Hasty Pudding Theatre. The new dance facility, slated to be opened in September of ’05, will be home to Harvard’s 600 undergraduate dancers. As for the Hasty Pudding renovation, the College and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are committed to seeing the project completed within the next few years.
Finally, plans are underway for developing Harvard’s land in Allston, a virtually unprecedented opportunity, with close to 200 hundred acres. During the past year, President Lawrence H. Summers appointed four subcommittees to consider planning issues for Allston. Two of these, the Allston Life Task Force and the Task Force on Undergraduate Life, presented a range of options to support student art-making, including performance, gallery, rehearsal, storage and support spaces.
Whither the arts at Harvard? Only time will tell. But with so many gifted young student artists, the support of the Office for the Arts at Harvard, the interest of a great many faculty, and the leadership and vision of Harvard’s highest officials, there is reason for optimism.
Benedict H. Gross
Dean of Harvard College
Jack Megan
Director
Office for the Arts at Harvard
