All upcoming Courses

Celebrate memorable music from the stage and screen as conductor Melodia Mae Rinaldi leads the ensemble in arrangements of the hits you know and love. No audition is required, and the song list includes The Wiz, Rent, Into the Woods, The Sound of Music, and more classics from Vaudeville and Broadway. Rehearsals culminate in a free performance for invited guests.

Jazz crosses lines of race, class, geography, politics, religion, and genre. In this three-part lecture series, explore the origins and proliferation of jazz, from its beginnings in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Kansas City to its most recent appearances in Europe and Asia. Musicology professor Anna Harwell Celenza shares recordings of blues, Dixieland, swing, bebop, cool jazz, and fusion to reveal what makes jazz vital to America’s multifaceted identity as she demonstrates how jazz has never stopped changing.

Georgia O’Keeffe, a pioneering American modernist, became renowned for her bold paintings of flowers, bones, New York skyscrapers, and the New Mexico desert. Her partnership with photographer Alfred Stieglitz helped shape her artistic identity and public recognition. Art historian Joseph Paul Cassar follows her path from early training to her breakthrough at Gallery 291, her Lake George period, travels to Palo Duro Canyon and Hawaii, and her final move to New Mexico, offering a critical study of her major works and legacy. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

In a fascinating four-part series, curators and historians from the National Air and Space Museum trace the history of flight, from humanity’s early aspirations for aerial transit, to 12 breathtaking seconds at Kitty Hawk, to the advances that came with global combat, and how jet engines and digital technology are opening a new future for aviation. This session focuses on commercial aviation.

The World’s Fairs of the 1930s offered visions of a world in flux—attempting to chart a future at a moment when nothing felt stable. As the Great Depression reshaped daily life and global tensions mounted, fairs in Chicago, Paris, and New York became spectacular stages where nations expressed optimism, power, and unease through architecture, technology, and performance. In a 3-part series, art historian Jennie Hirsh examines this trio of landmark fairs, revealing how they transformed crisis into dazzling displays that captured both the aspirations and anxieties of their era. This session focuses on the World's Fair of Chicago 1933–1934.

In a fascinating four-part series, curators and historians from the National Air and Space Museum trace the history of flight, from humanity’s early aspirations for aerial transit, to 12 breathtaking seconds at Kitty Hawk, to the advances that came with global combat, and how jet engines and digital technology are opening a new future for aviation. This session focuses on flight in the digital age.

The American War of Independence freed the 13 British colonies in North America from Crown rule and set the stage for the United States’ bold experiment in self-government. Drawing on primary sources, historian Christopher Hamner continues exploring the pivotal turning points and strategic choices that shaped the course and the conclusion of the war in a fall series. This session focuses on the Battle of Saratoga.

The storyline of Paris can be followed along the banks of its iconic River Seine. On both the Right Bank and the Left, evidence of the city's 2,000-year history, the figures who shaped it across the centuries, and the artistic and architectural movements that originated here can be seen. In a 2-part series, journey with freelance travel writer Barbara Noe Kennedy as you discover intriguing sites, historical aspects, and art in this virtual exploration using maps, photos, and videos. This session focuses on the Right Bank of Paris.

European classical composers developed a brief but passionate fascination with American jazz in the early 20th century. In a four-session course, pianist and speaker Rachel Franklin uses live demonstrations and archival film to trace jazz’s roots and its electrifying impact on Paris before and after World War I, inspiring Ravel, Milhaud, and Stravinsky. She follows jazz’s role as a symbol of freedom for Shostakovich, Krenek, and Walton, concluding in the U.S. with Copland, Gershwin, and others who were inspired by jazz while struggling to come to terms with its identity as a complex, home-grown African American artform.

The storyline of Paris can be followed along the banks of its iconic River Seine. On both the Right Bank and the Left, evidence of the city's 2,000-year history, the figures who shaped it across the centuries, and the artistic and architectural movements that originated here can be seen. In a 2-part series, journey with freelance travel writer Barbara Noe Kennedy as you discover intriguing sites, historical aspects, and art in this virtual exploration using maps, photos, and videos. This session focuses on the Left Bank of Paris.