(BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ) -- The Wharton Performing Arts School (PAS) invites the public to the 2024 Annual Fall Festival & Suzuki Halloween Playdown on Friday, October 25, 2024 from 4:30pm-8:00pm at 60 Locust Avenue in Berkeley Heights. The festival, featuring free ice cream from the Scream Truck, drum circle, costume contest, games and more, will take place from 4:30pm-6:30pm on the Performing Arts School front lawn. The Fall Festival will be followed by the Suzuki Violin Playdown at 7:00pm in the Wharton Black Box Theater. The community is invited to wear their Halloween costumes and enjoy music performances, treats, and spooky festivities.

All are welcome to partake in this free family fun! The event is rain or shine. In the event of inclement weather, the festival will take place under the big top tent in the PAS parking lot.

Alongside this festive event, Wharton Arts aims to create meaningful connections and foster creativity in young people, as well as across generations, ensuring that everyone has access to an outstanding music and theater arts education. The depth and breadth of offerings, unmatched in the Garden State, transcends backgrounds and beliefs. Wharton Arts encompasses four distinct programs, each founded to advance music and performing arts education and engagement: the New Jersey Youth Chorus, New Jersey Youth Symphony, Paterson Music Project, and Performing Arts School. Join Wharton Arts this season for life-changing performing arts experiences through all its programs.

Wharton Arts’ mission is to offer accessible, high quality performing arts education that sparks personal growth and builds inclusive communities. Wharton Arts’ vision is for a transformative performing arts education in an inclusive community to be accessible for everyone.

Wharton Arts is New Jersey’s largest independent non-profit community performing arts education center serving nearly 2,000 students through a range of classes and ensembles. The 5 ensembles of the New Jersey Youth Chorus, an auditioned choral ensemble program for students in grades 3–12, encourage a love and appreciation of choral music while nurturing personal growth and creative development. The 15 ensembles of the New Jersey Youth Symphony, which serve over 500 students in grades 3–12 by audition, inspire young people to achieve musical excellence through high-level ensemble training and performance opportunities. Based in Paterson, the Paterson Music Project is an El Sistema-inspired program of Wharton Arts that uses music education as a vehicle for social action by empowering and inspiring young people to achieve their full potential through the community experience of ensemble learning and playing. From Pathways classes for young children to Lifelong Learning programs for adults, the Wharton Performing Arts School has a robust musical theater and drama program and offers both private and group classes for instruments and voice for all ages and all abilities. With the belief in the positive and unifying influence of music and that performing arts education should be accessible to all people regardless of their ability to pay, Wharton Arts offers need-based scholarships. Wharton Arts is located in Berkeley Heights, New Providence, and Paterson, NJ and reaches students from 12 counties. All of Wharton Arts’ extraordinary teaching artists, faculty members, and conductors hold degrees in their teaching specialty and have been vetted and trained to enable our students to achieve their personal best.