Celebrity Series of Boston


The Celebrity Series of Boston is a non-profit performing arts presenter established in Boston, Massachusetts by Boston impresario Aaron Richmond in 1938 as Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series.
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History

Below is a partial list of performers by genre presented by the Celebrity Series of Boston since its founding:

Music performances

Pianists in Recital

Violinists in Recital

Cellists in Recital

Classical vocalists in Recital

Guitarists in Recital

Orchestras

Conductors

Chamber Ensembles

Jazz Performers

Miscellaneous Musical Performers

Dance Performances

Theatre/Spoken Word Performances

Boston debuts

Many nationally and internationally recognized artists have made their Boston debuts with the Celebrity Series. They include:
Each season from early fall to late spring, the Celebrity Series presents more than 50 multi-cultural and international artists and performing ensembles to audiences in the Greater Boston area. By utilizing a number of different performance venues throughout the Greater Boston area, each year the Celebrity Series bring audiences together to experience the world’s great emerging and established orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists, and leading artists in contemporary dance, jazz, world and folk music, and spoken word.
The Celebrity Series has operated under a number of organizational umbrellas. In 1938, Aaron Richmond founded Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series.
In 1953, it affiliated with Boston University and took the name, the Boston University Celebrity Series. In 1984, the Celebrity Series changed affiliations and moved its operations under the auspices of the Wang Center for the Performing Arts a not-for-profit institution. Then, in 1989, the Celebrity Series incorporated as an independent, non-profit institution with its own Board of Directors and an annual budget of over $3 million. After 18 years of operating with the title sponsorship support of Bank of Boston, BankBoston, FleetBoston Financial, and Bank of America, the Celebrity Series began operating under its incorporated name, Celebrity Series of Boston, in June 2007.

Leadership

Leadership of the Celebrity Series has remained consistent over its lifetime. In 1958, Aaron Richmond hired Walter Pierce as a Programming Associate. Pierce later became Executive Director and guided the Series from an impresario-style presenter to a fully staffed, not-for-profit organization. In 1986, Mr. Pierce hired Martha H. Jones as the Series' Director of Marketing. Jones later became General Manager, and, in 1996, when Mr. Pierce retired his full-time post, Martha Jones was appointed Executive Director. Ms. Jones retired in 2011. She was succeeded by Gary Dunning.
In 1971, the Celebrity Series merged with the Boston Opera Association. During this time, Walter Pierce worked closely with Harriet O’Brien, managing director of the Boston Opera Association, sponsors of the annual one-week Boston engagement of the Metropolitan Opera. Following Ms. O’Brien’s death, Mr. Pierce managed the Metropolitan Opera week in Boston until the company ceased touring.
In 1998, a gala concert in honor of Walter Pierce was staged at Boston's Symphony Hall. It was announced during the festivities that seat P-1 in Symphony Hall had been endowed in Pierce's name and that the Celebrity Series had formed the Walter Pierce Annual Performance Fund. Among the performers were pianist Dubravka Tomsic, who played Liszt's Mephisto Waltz; flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal with pianist John Steel Ritter, who played Beethoven's Three National Airs with Variations, Opus 107; William Bolcom and Joan Morris, who performed Billy Desmond and Walter Dore's song, "When Are You Going to Lead Me to the Altar, Walter?"; the Juilliard String Quartet, a trio of pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Isaac Stern, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and Nasha Thomas-Schmitt of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, who danced Alvin Ailey's solo piece "Cry.". At the dinner following the performance, soprano Leontyne Price sang an impromptu version of "This Little Light of Mine" for Pierce.

Programs

Arts for All!

Launched in the mid-1980s, Arts for All! encompasses four distinct initiatives: Neighborhood Arts, Artist Connections, Take Your Seat, and Public Performance Projects. Neighborhood Arts presents free concerts and school visits with professional Boston-affiliated artists in partnership with neighborhood venues in Back Bay, Cambridge, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roxbury, and the South End. Artist Connections encompasses master classes, lecture-demonstrations, talkbacks, open rehearsals, and interactive workshops from Celebrity Series’ subscription season artists. Take Your Seat provides complimentary and $10 tickets to Celebrity Series subscription season performances to partner school and community groups that serve primarily low-income youth and families. Approximately 2,000 of these tickets are offered every season, often complementing the Artist Connections experiences.
  • Free outdoor Public Performance Projects
Around 60,000 individuals attend Celebrity Series concerts each year. While audiences come from as far north as Maine and as far south as New Jersey, the majority come from the greater Boston metropolitan area. The Celebrity Series – through the Arts for All! program – attempts to ensure that its audience is ethnically diverse and includes people from all age groups and socio-economic backgrounds.

The Debut Series

Launched in 2012, The Debut Series presents classical musicians in the early stages of their careers in the intimate setting of Pickman Hall at Longy School of Music of Bard College.
A Partial List of Performers on the Debut Series

Stave Sessions

Stave Sessions is a music festival of new and genre expanding performers started by Celebrity Series in 2015. The festival was created to spotlight innovative and path-breaking contemporary music. Stave Sessions is a festival of discovery and experimentation. The series took place at 160 Massachusetts Avenue on the Berklee College of Music campus. In 2023, Stave Sessions moved to Somerville's Crystal Ballroom in Davis Square.
Partial List of Stave Sessions Performers

Past programs

AileyCamp Boston

AileyCamp Boston is a six-week, summer day camp that combines dance instruction with personal development workshops, creative communication classes and field trips. Founded in 2000 and based on a structural model provided by the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation as a template for camps across the country, the AileyCamp program is designed to help low-income students develop self-respect, confidence, discipline and imagination while fostering an appreciation for the joy of dance. The goal is not to train students to be professional dancers, but to challenge the participants and to strengthen their self-esteem. The camp celebrated its tenth anniversary at its closing performance on Thursday, August 6, 2009.

Boston Marquee

The Celebrity Series Boston Marquee series, which grew out of the Celebrity Series' Emerging Artists series, was inaugurated in the 2000-01 season. Boston Marquee sought to provide new creative opportunities for Boston artists and to offer new experiences for Boston audiences by commissioning new works, encouraging artistic collaborations and making resources available to artists. Among the artists who appeared on Boston Marquee are pianists Judith Gordon, Craig Smith, and Robert D. Levin, soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano Jan Curtis, dancer Julie Ince Thompson, the Boston Trio, Sol y Canto, the Nicola Hawkins Dance Company, Rebecca Rice Dance, violinist Stefan Jackiw and Emmanuel Music. Though Boston artists remain an important part of Celebrity Series presentations, the Boston Marquee series was suspended prior to the 2008-09 season.

Collaborations

The Celebrity Series regularly collaborates with other Boston-area arts organizations. Most often these collaborations take the form of co-presentations. Past and present collaborative partners include The Wang Center for the Performing Arts, World Music, Broadway in Boston, Dance Umbrella, the Boston Early Music Festival, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Handel and Haydn Society.