Welcome to our season!
Peter Sellars, Director
"Mourning through Music"
A conversation interwoven with live music by violinist Keir GoGwilt, moderated by Ara Guzelimian.
Princeton University Concerts Debut
When
Wednesday, December 3, 2025 | 7:30PM
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Where
Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall
Tickets
General: $27 | Student: $11 | Princeton University Student: Free through Passport to the Arts.
The prices listed are inclusive of all processing fees.
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Throughout his career, Peter Sellars has — be it in opera, theater, teaching or the director’s innumerable talks and interviews — demonstrated how whatever is at hand might serve to make ourselves more alive. Tragedy serves. Comedy serves. History serves. Spirituality serves. Human relationships serve. In all cases, the messier, the more revelatory. Art, meant for the moment, is always for Sellars about healing."
—The Los Angeles Times
Music & Healing
About the Event
“It’s not an accident that most of the greatest art comes from the most painful periods in human history,” asserts director Peter Sellars. Internationally renowned for his groundbreaking interpretations of opera and theater on some of the world’s most prestigious stages, from the Metropolitan Opera to the Salzburg Festival, he has dedicated his career to exploring the profound intersection of art and the human spirit. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and one of the most visionary voices in contemporary performance, Peter Sellars joins Ara Guzelimian—Artistic and Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival and former Dean and Provost of The Juilliard School—for an intimate conversation interwoven with live music by violinist Keir Gogwilt. Together, they explore the art that has emerged from Sellars’s darkest life moments and his belief in music’s transformative power to guide others through grief and mourning.
PARTICIPATE IN THE CONVERSATION
Peter Sellars and Ara Guzelimian want to hear from you! Please submit your questions or reflections related to the topic of mourning through music/the arts using the form below. Select questions/comments will be posed anonymously live at the event:
Read More About Event
“It’s not an accident that most of the greatest art comes from the most painful periods in human history,” asserts director Peter Sellars. Internationally renowned for his groundbreaking interpretations of opera and theater on some of the world’s most prestigious stages, from the Metropolitan Opera to the Salzburg Festival, he has dedicated his career to exploring the profound intersection of art and the human spirit. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and one of the most visionary voices in contemporary performance, Peter Sellars joins Ara Guzelimian—Artistic and Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival and former Dean and Provost of The Juilliard School—for an intimate conversation interwoven with live music by violinist Keir Gogwilt. Together, they explore the art that has emerged from Sellars’s darkest life moments and his belief in music’s transformative power to guide others through grief and mourning.
PARTICIPATE IN THE CONVERSATION
Peter Sellars and Ara Guzelimian want to hear from you! Please submit your questions or reflections related to the topic of mourning through music/the arts using the form below. Select questions/comments will be posed anonymously live at the event:
Program
- Mourning through Music
A conversation with Peter Sellars interwoven with live music by Keir GoGwilt, moderated by Ara Guzelimian.
- J.S. Bach
Sarabande from Partita No. 1 in B Minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1002
Performed by Keir GoGwilt - George Frideric Handel
“As with rosy steps the morn” from Theodora, HWV 68:
Performed by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson - J.S. Bach
Schulmmert ein, ihr matten Augen from Ich habe genug, BWV 82
Performed by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
- Keir GoGwilt/Jackie Kay
Darling
Performed by Keir GoGwilt to poetry recited by Jackie Kay
