From the Festival Staff

On what would have been her father Johnny Cash’s 87th birthday, Rosanne Cash was warmly welcomed with applause at the 9th annual Visionary Leadership Award luncheon. She was humbled and inspired by the praise and insight of past VLA winners and New Haven female leaders presented through video before she took the stage.

Moderator Butch Rovan, Faculty Director of the Brown University Arts Initiative, composer, media artist and performer, opened the conversation by asking Cash’s opinion on how music enables activism. “Music is activism,” she answered. “All art is political.” Cash shared her...

Meet our new Community Engagement Manager, Aleta Stanton, in this second half of our interview in which she talks of how her 35 years of teaching experience has shaped her life. Her passion and open perspective continue to inspire as she shares how theater translates to everyday life.

Aleta Staton, past project manager, artist services and community programs associate at our festival, is stepping up as our new Community Engagement Manager. Besides working as an educator for 35 years, she has also worked in arts administration, business management, and staff supervision. We are excited to have...

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas is excited to introduce our new year-round Community Engagement Manager. As a part of our dynamic team, the candidate needed to be a hard-working individual who values the diverse arts and culture within our global and local community. The Louise Endel Community Engagement Manager is expected to oversee the design, management, and evaluation of audience engagement programs. They must work to extend the values of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas to wider populations and broaden community relationships. The Community Engagement Manager will...

Join us in celebrating singer-songwriter and activist Rosanne Cash as the recipient of our 9th annual Visionary Leadership Award on Tuesday, February 26th. The Award Luncheon and Conversation will help raise money for the exciting programs to come to the Festival this June. Since 2010, the award has been given to a Visionary Leader whose trailblazing work is impacting the world, in honor of Festival co-Founder Jean M. Handley.

Buy tickets here!

Rosanne Cash’s latest album, She Remembers Everything, touches on love, loss, and dream-chasing, but does not hold back on heavy themes of mortality,...

Join us at our annual Visionary Leadership Award Luncheon and Conversation on Tuesday, February 26th. The Award Luncheon raises money toward the dynamic and inspiring programs presented at the Festival in June. Established nine years ago in honor of Festival co-Founder Jean M. Handley, the award is given to a Visionary Leader whose trailblazing work is impacting the world. This year’s award is presented to Rosanne Cash, singer-songwriter, activist, and anti-gun violence advocate.

Buy tickets here!

Finding herself bombarded by constant news of violence, Rosanne Cash shares her feelings of shock...

At the 2017 Golden Globes, Donald Glover made the proclamation that the Atlanta rap trio Migos was “The Beatles of our generation.” It was an ambitious statement, one that made audiences question what three Atlanta rappers have in common with Liverpool legends. It all comes down to one word, Beatlemania, a musical phenomena that eclipsed the concept of fame itself.

With the arrival of John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, music and the celebration of it changed forever. Fans of The Beatles introduced us to an excitement music had yet to see; venues were overrun, women...

Claudia Rankine sits on stage. She has just won the 8th annual Visionary Leadership Award. Speaking calmly, taking pauses only to let her words resonate more clearly, Rankine discusses her award winning poetic novel, Citizen. “If I were more imaginative I would have made Black Panther,” laughed Rankine. Her responses to the age old questions, “are your experiences real?” Rankine composed Citizen socially. Every moment she described is obviously real. Through dinner parties and social speaking events, Citizen came to light. The crowd never waivered throughout her talk. Laughter only occurred...

In 2015, Martin Bresnick picked up Harold Bloom’s The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime to reconnect with old friends: writer Herman Melville and poet Walt Whitman, whose collected works had long influenced his career as a composer, educator, and weaver of musical worlds.

But the book’s affecting first three chapters, dedicated to Whitman, Melville, and poet Emily Dickinson, awakened something deep within him. These figures had created a foundation for a secular, democratic way of looking at the world. And even from their place in the past, they cried out for a...

Isolation. Violence. Community. (Be)longing.

Creative Team Aaron Jafferis and Byron Au Yong are bringing New Haven a powerful piece of theatrical composition with the show (Be)longing, performing on the Long Wharf Theatre stage Saturday, June 17 and Sunday, June 18 at 2pm each day. (Be)longing reflects on gun violence, large-scale tragedies and their impact on society. Going hand in hand with the performances are the Activate (Be)longing events taking place throughout the month of June in order to engage the public in discussion and build connections.

The concept of (Be)longing was born when...

“We need to remind ourselves of what it means to be in the moment and not distracted by all the various distractions of the modern age, and what it means to be together and to be human and to be engaged; a group of people coming together to make sound is one of the defining structures of our species,” career musician Taylor Ho Bynum said as he stressed the need for creative music spaces within communities.

This June, in order to create spaces in New Haven that foster the education and composition of creative music, Bynum will be conducting a Creative Music Play-In on the New Haven Green on...