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.
Original 1938 logo of Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series
The Celebrity Series has operated under a number of organizational umbrellas. In 1938, Aaron Richmond founded Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series.
[2] In 1953, it affiliated with Boston University and took the name, the Boston University Celebrity Series.[3] 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.[4] Then, in 1989, the Celebrity Series incorporated as an independent, non-profit institution with its own Board of Directors[5] and an annual budget of over $3 million (now between $7 million and $9 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.[6]
Aaron Richmond: performing arts manager, pianist, impresario, and educator
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.[7][8][9][10] Ms. Jones retired in 2011. She was succeeded by Gary Dunning.[11]
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.".[12][13][14] At the dinner following the performance, soprano Leontyne Price sang an impromptu version of "This Little Light of Mine" for Pierce.[15]
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.[citation needed]
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.
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.
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.[16] The camp celebrated its tenth anniversary at its closing performance on Thursday, August 6, 2009.
The Celebrity Series Boston Marquee series, which grew out of the Celebrity Series' Emerging Artists series,[17] was inaugurated in the 2000-01 season.[18] 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.
^"Tickets Still Available for Lehman, Melchoir". Daily Boston Globe. October 17, 1938. This morning the single ticket sale for the first concert of the Aaron Richmond Celebrity Series I, the recital by Lotte Lehman and Lauritz Melchoir at Symphony Hall ... will go on sale at the box office.
^"Tickets Still Available for Lehman, Melchoir". Daily Boston Globe. October 17, 1938.
^"Aaron Richmond Directs BU Celebrity Series", Daily Boston Globe, Boston, MA, p. 10, March 30, 1953
^"Pierce Takes Helm at Wang Center". Daily Boston Globe. May 3, 1984. p. 1. the Boston University Celebrity Series, which Pierce has directed since 1965, will be the Wang Celebrity Series beginning with the 1984-85 season.
^Dyer, Richard (May 8, 1996). "Pierce retires as Celebrity Series head". Boston Globe.
^Knapp, Peter (May 11, 1996). "Boston's impresario steps back after 31 years at the top". Patriot Ledger.
^Pfeifer, Ellen (May 8, 1996). "Celebrity Series chief steps out of spotlight into retirement". Boston Herald.
^Dyer, Richard (October 20, 1996), "Jones is building a bridge to Celebrity Series' future", Boston Globe, Boston, MA, pp. M.2
^"From the circus to the Celebrity Series, Gary Dunning draws on a diverse record in the arts for his new leadership post", Boston Globe, Boston, MA, pp. G.4, April 8, 2011
^Dyer, Richard (April 27, 1998). "Celebrities fete series impresario". Boston Globe.
^Knapp, Peter (April 28, 1998). "Tomsic's performance highlight of tribute Music – Walter Pierce Tribute Concert, Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall, Boston". Patriot Ledger.
^Pfeifer, Ellen (April 28, 1998). "Music review; Musicians pay tribute to impresario". Boston Herald.
^Hatfield, Julie (April 28, 1998), "A movable, musical feast for Walter Pierce", Boston Globe, Boston, MA, pp. C.2
^Dezell, Maureen (January 22, 2000), "Ailey Plans Dance Camp for Kids", Boston Globe, Boston, MA, pp. F.8
^Dyer, Richard (January 8, 1993), "Ying launches series for rising stars", Boston Globe, Boston, MA, p. 35
^Dyer, Richard (January 15, 2001), "Gordon Opens Series Adeptly", Boston Globe, Boston, MA, pp. B.6
