Shenandoah Conservatory Launches 150th Anniversary with a Season Featuring Hundreds of Music, Theatre and Dance Performances

Shenandoah Conservatory celebrates Shenandoah University’s 150th anniversary with a landmark 2025/26 season of music, theatre and dance. Featuring hundreds of performances by world-class faculty, acclaimed guest artists and the next generation of performing arts visionaries, this milestone season promises bold artistry and unforgettable experiences.

Highlights of the season include the Performing Arts Live guest artist series featuring a special anniversary season kickoff performance by Broadway powerhouse Mandy Gonzalez (“Hamilton,” “In the Heights,” “Wicked”), fearless jazz star Lucía, the acclaimed Escher String Quartet, and Actors From The London Stage with a playful production of “As You Like It.”

Other guest artist programs include the World of the Piano series featuring virtuosos Silvan Negruțiu, Evren Ozel, Anton Nel and Olga Kern; and Shenandoah New Music showcasing the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet, the dynamic Balance Campaign, and the Ear Candy New Music Festival, collaborative concert series featuring the 2025/26 distinguished composer-in-residence and Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe.

Theatre and musical theatre productions promise dynamic storytelling, including “On the Town,” “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” and “Catch Me If You Can,” directed by Broadway veterans alongside Shenandoah’s celebrated faculty. Theatre lovers will also enjoy Molière’s “The Miser” (directed by guest artist Paul Mason Barnes), Thornton Wilder’s timeless “Our Town” and Stephen Adly Guirgis’s powerful “Our Lady of 121st Street.”

A signature event, “150 Years Young,” brings together the Symphony Orchestra and Conservatory Choir for a sweeping anniversary concert featuring a new commissioned work by alumnus Joel Puckett ’99 (Bachelor of Music in Composition).

Jazz and commercial music ensembles will light up the stage with big band classics, rock favorites, Latin grooves and the high-energy CONTEMPO Ensemble, now in its fourth year.

Dance fans will enjoy a diverse season of new works by faculty and guest artists, including “Reflections: Invited Choreographers Showcase” featuring Dana Tai Soon Burgess, Brandi Coleman and Doug Varone.

The opera season features Opera Up Close at Shenandoah’s new Collaboratory with “Labor Songs” and Juliet Palmer’s gripping a cappella opera “Sweat,” plus Engelbert Humperdinck’s beloved “Hansel & Gretel” with the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra.

As always, the season also includes a lineup of free recitals showcasing conservatory faculty as well as their friends and colleagues from across the globe.

Tickets for all performances are available online at ConservatoryPerforms.org. During regular box office hours (Tuesday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.), tickets are available in person at the Shenandoah Conservatory Box Office located in the Ohrstrom-Bryant Theatre lobby and over the phone at (540) 665-4569.

About Shenandoah Conservatory

Shenandoah Conservatory is part of Shenandoah University, a private, nationally recognized institution located in Winchester, Virginia. The university serves over 4,000 students across more than 200 areas of study and is committed to educating students for purposeful lives of professional achievement, personal fulfillment and committed citizenship.

One of the oldest and most distinguished performing arts conservatories in the country, Shenandoah Conservatory offers intensive, career-focused training in music, theatre, dance and performing arts leadership. With over 100 artist-faculty and more than 300 performances annually, students engage in hands-on learning in state-of-the-art facilities within a visionary, collaborative, vibrant, supportive, inclusive, and interdisciplinary arts community that equips them for professional success.

Students benefit from small class sizes, personal mentorship and a culture of collaboration that extends across the university and into the wider arts industry. From Broadway and other performing arts stages to classrooms, studios and communities around the world, Shenandoah Conservatory alumni lead and inspire through their craft.

At Shenandoah, students don’t just study the arts — they live them, performing, creating and leading with purpose from their very first semester.