(GLASSBORO, NJ) -- The Marie Rader Series at Rowan University continues its 2026-27 "Life & Liberty" season with an emphasis on singular African American musicians, choreographers and stories. Tickets for all performances are on sale now.
The Marie Rader Series is a curated, mission-driven program that uplifts the cultural landscape of the Greater Southern New Jersey Region. Because of the Marie Rader Series, performing arts lovers throughout New Jersey don't have to travel to New York or Philadelphia. Focused on artistic integrity and inclusion, the series provides public presentations, community outreach, and coaching for students that reflect the innovation and quality consistent with Rowan University’s overall standards of high achievement and transformation.
Fall kicks off with Sounds Like America, featuring renowned pianist and thought leader Lara Downes in live musical conversation with Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning singer, multi-instrumentalist, and cultural historian Rhiannon Giddens.
The season continues with Grammy Award-winning jazz artists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap, an exciting and family-friendly new work from Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater, and an original children’s theater adaptation of The Snowy Day and Other Stories by Ezra Jack Keats.
This season will complement the nationwide commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Through a range of programs for multi-generational audiences, it offers a year-long invitation to reflect on our shared histories and how they can help lead us toward envisioning a shared future.
Tickets for all performances are available for purchase online. Concessions will be available for purchase at all performances. Pfleeger Concert Hall is located on the campus of Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. It is a wheelchair accessible venue. For assistance contact Rowan University’s College of the Arts Box Office via [email protected] or 856-256-4545.
Friday, October 30, 2026 @ 7:30pm; Pfleeger Concert Hall. Sounds Like America with Lara Downes and Rhiannon Giddens. Tickets range from $10-$35. In a musical conversation developed for her NPR series, America in Pursuit, renowned pianist and thought leader Lara Downes presents a unique program of live music and conversation with Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning singer, multi-instrumentalist, and cultural historian Rhiannon Giddens. This concert and conversation will reflect on the roots and routes of American music, and the crossroads where traditions come together. Exploring our nation’s story through its music, Downes and Giddens share iconic songs from Amazing Grace to Paul Simon's American Tune, tracing our history and celebrating our shared hopes and struggles. This program, which also includes multimedia work produced via Downes' national initiative The Declaration Project, invites audiences to find common ground and shared purpose in imagining the possibilities of the American future. Closed Captioning is available at this performance in addition to their standard accommodations.
Sunday, January 31, 2027 @ 3:00pm; Pfleeger Concert Hall. Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap. Tickets range from $10-$35. Grammy Award-winning Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap take the stage in the convergence of two of jazz’s most legendary forces of nature. With a vast repertoire spanning the greatest periods and genres in American music, the duo crafts masterful performances and delivers captivating storytelling. Drawing from the canons of luminary composers such as Ellington, Porter, Sondheim, Legrand, Simon, and others, their virtuosic interpretations traverse the musical spectrum, from intimate ballads to soulful grooves, delivered with daring expression borne of their musical chemistry.
Saturday, February 20, 2027 @ 7:30pm and Sunday, February 21, 2027 @ 2:00pm; Pfleeger Concert Hall. American Street Dancer - Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater. Tickets range from $10-$35 - free for 12 and under. Well-known for painting rich tapestries of political, social, and economic history through movement, Rennie Harris weaves a vibrant blend of street and tap dance styles to highlight unique forms from across the United States, including Jitting (Detroit), Footwork (Chicago), and GQ (Philadelphia). American Street Dancer features a live hip-hop orchestra with a DJ, bucket players, and beatboxers, as well as an impressive line-up of acclaimed artists such as House of Jit, Creation Global, Akim Funk Buddha, DJ Razor Ramon, Ayodele Casel, and his company, Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater. Appropriate for all ages.
Sunday, March 14, 2027 @ 1:00pm & 4:00pm; Pfleeger Concert Hall. The Snowy Day and Other Stories by Ezra Jack Keats - a Childsplay Production. Tickets range from $20-$30 - free for 12 and under. The Snowy Day celebrates the magic and boundless possibilities of the first snowfall! Follow Peter and his friends as they romp and play, starting snowball fights and making snow angels in this imaginative musical play about the childhood joys and challenges of growing up. Using innovative shadow puppetry, Keats’ treasured characters come to life in this humorous and fun adaptation of Whistle for Willie, Goggles!, A Letter to Amy, and The Snowy Day. Author Ezra Jack Keats said of his experience writing The Snowy Day with a Black child as the hero, “None of the manuscripts I’d been illustrating featured any Black kids—except for ‘token Blacks’ in the background. My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along.” Runtime is approximately 50 minutes followed by a 10-minute Q&A with the cast. Closed Captioning is available at these performance in addition to their standard accommodations.
The series is made possible in part through generous support from the Henry M. Rowan Family Foundation via the Marie Rader Memorial Fund and through funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
