Individual tickets will be available for the Moss Arts Center’s 2018-19 performance season beginning at 10 a.m. on Aug. 7.

The new season features a vibrant blend of performances filled with diverse stories, fresh perspectives, legendary voices, and sights and sounds from around the world.

Marking the fifth anniversary of its opening this year, the center celebrates this milestone by punctuating its performance and exhibition offerings with inspiring experiences, including special events and new opportunities for the community and students to connect, learn, and engage.

The sultry essence of the tango springs to life for the season opener on Sept. 14, when the Paul Taylor Dance Company performs with Argentine pianist and Latin Grammy winner Pablo Ziegler. The season continues with a classical recital performance by musical master and violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman on Sept. 30. 

Perlman’s concert is part of a dynamic lineup of chamber music recital programs, including performances by the vibrant and adventurous Australian Chamber Orchestra and the 15-member ensemble Les Violons du Roy, who will be joined by star countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo.

This season’s orchestral offerings span time and place to celebrate legendary voices. The Ambient Orchestra and cellist Maya Beiser celebrate the legacy of musician, artist, and icon David Bowie, reimagining his final album, “Blackstar,” as a cello concerto, while the Czech National Symphony Orchestra brings its “Bernstein Centennial Celebration Tour” to honor famed composer Leonard Bernstein.

Another legendary performer will be honored during a special gala performance to celebrate the Moss Arts Center’s fifth anniversary. Opera singer Maria Callas’ exquisite voice and performances astounded audiences, and her death in 1977 devastated millions of fans, many of whom never had the chance to see her perform live. Using groundbreaking holographic technology, Callas will perform on the Moss Arts Center stage with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. “Callas in Concert” will feature fully remastered recordings of the famed soprano’s most iconic performances of Bellini, Bizet, Verdi, and Puccini, which come to life in this extraordinary melding of art and technology.

This season brings international flavor to time-honored melodies with the Beijing ensemble Sounds of China, Ireland’s leading traditional music group Danú, and Latin Grammy-winning El Septeto Santiaguero, an ensemble that has heated up dance floors around the world with traditional music from its native Santiago de Cuba. Legendary masters Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Meyer join forces to share their talents which, when combined, touch practically every geographical and stylistic corner of the musical world.

American roots take the stage with a strong lineup of boundary-broadening performances — from the music of Martha Redbone, which embraces folk, blues, gospel, soul, and traditional American Indian sounds, to the Turtle Island Quartet with special guest Cyrus Chestnut and jazz greats Fred Hersch, Kurt Elling, and Kate McGarry, who will set Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” to music.

Admire the power of movement with performances by artists who defy physics and give new perspectives on what it means to move. Los Angeles-based choreographer David Roussève brings his newest work reflecting on identity through the life of Billy Strayhorn, while Pilobolus presents an epic and inventive animation and shadow-theatre adventure developed in collaboration with “SpongeBob SquarePants” lead writer Steven Banks.

Great theatre comes in many forms and from many places this season. Theatre RE explores what is left when memory is gone in “The Nature of Forgetting” and the TEAM and National Theatre of Scotland provide a fierce poetic snapshot of two cultures linked by history with “Anything That Gives Off Light.” Experience the rise and fall of Eva Perón, one of the world’s most glamorous first ladies, in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic Broadway hit “Evita,” part of the center’s new “Broadway in Blacksburg” series.

The Moss Arts Center welcomes the start of the new academic year with country-pop singer and songwriter Cassadee Pope on Aug. 25. A Moss Arts Center Student Ambassadors’ Choice artist, Pope won season three of NBC’s singing competition series, “The Voice,” and released her first solo album, which reached number one on Billboard’s Top Country Albums Chart.

Explore the full list of events for the 2018-19 season.

All performances will be held in the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, located within the Moss Arts Center’s Street and Davis Performance Hall at 190 Alumni Mall. 

The Moss Arts Center’s galleries will feature a comprehensive overview of printmaking works by the influential American artist Jacob Lawrence (b.1917, d. 2000) in the exhibition “History, Labor, Life: The Prints of Jacob Lawrence,” opening on Aug. 23. A prominent 20th-century artist, Lawrence is renowned for his depiction of African-American life as well as epic narratives of African-American history.

Complementing the center’s season of performances and exhibitions are a collection of experiences designed to offer deeper connections with artists, ideas, and community members. These include matinee performances for area youth, meet-the-artist events and artist talks, workshops and master classes for Virginia Tech students, and pre-show performances in the Grand Lobby.

Tickets

Tickets for individual performances for the 2018-19 season can be purchased online; at the Moss Arts Center's box office from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; or by calling 540-231-5300.

Virginia Tech students can always attend any Moss Arts Center performance for only $10. In addition, the center offers free last-minute rush tickets for students who sign up for text notifications. To receive these notifications, text “arts” to 31996.

Subscriptions for the 2018-19 season are also available and offer discounted prices and priority seat selection. There are three ways to subscribe: the Premier Subscription includes all available performances at a 30 percent discount off adult ticket prices, the Gold Build Your Own Subscription allows for a 25 percent discount off the price of adult tickets for 15 or more performances, and the Silver Build Your Own Subscription offers a 20 percent discount on five to 14 performances.

Please note, the performance by Cassadee Pope and our "Broadway in Blacksburg" series performances are not eligible for sale in subscription packages and subscriber discounts do not apply. Subscriber discounts also do not apply to the 5th Anniversary Gala.

Share this story