Arizona Arts Signature Series 2021 is launching this fall at the University of Arizona. With this series, Arizona Arts will showcase the division’s most compelling, engaging arts events on and off campus.
“With the Signature Series, we are putting our mark on the arts in Southern Arizona,” said Andrew Schulz, vice president for the arts.
Arizona Arts became the University’s newest division in 2019, creating a unified gateway to the unique visual and performing arts assets, experiences, and educational programs on campus. The division brings together the highly regarded academic programs of the College of Fine Arts with world-renowned offerings from Arizona Arts Live, Arizona Arts in Schools, the Center of Creative Photography, and the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
Arizona Arts typically offers over 700 events a year, many free to the public.
“You no longer have to wonder where to start,” Schulz said. “Our Signature Series affords an access point to see the diversity of programming offered by the division. Our hope is that the art lovers on campus, in the community and in Southern Arizona will sample these outstanding programs and then investigate all of the offerings throughout the year.”
The series is the latest in a number of developments in the division, including the launch of the new Arizona Arts website, which features art stories, art experiences and a calendar of events.
Freedom Must Be Lived 
Music + Festival 
Premium Blend 
What’s Up Docs? 
Signature Series 
Judy Pfaff 
Kronos Quartet with Sam Green 
The Art of Food
Arizona Arts launches ‘Signature Series’
Freedom Must Be Lived: Marion Palfi’s America
Center for Creative Photography
Through Jan. 2, 2022 | Phoenix Art Museum
This exhibition surveys the career of Marion Palfi (1907–1978), who produced one of the most important visual documents of American injustice of the 20th century. Freedom Must Be Lived: Marion Palfi’s America, 1940-1978, examines poverty, civil rights, systemic racism and more. The exhibition features over 100 prints and archival materials drawn exclusively from CCP’s archives, many of which have never been exhibited or published. The exhibition was curated by CCP’s Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography, Dr. Audrey Sands. On view in the Doris and John Norton Gallery for the Center of Creative Photography at the Phoenix Art Museum.
> The Center for Creative Photography is hosting the CCP Open House on Sept. 23 from noon to 7p. Free to the public. Visitors can explore Photojournalism 20/20 in the new Baker Interdisciplinary Gallery and enjoy grab-and-go food and art activities. There will also be a pop-up installation during the Open House featuring projections of images submitted by the public responding to the theme of “PLACE.” Submit images.
Music + Festival 2021
Fred Fox School of Music
Oct. 8-10 | Crowder Hall, Holsclaw Hall
The Music + Festival, now in its 14th year, will focus on the groundbreaking career of Nadia Boulanger and her students. Boulanger (1887-1979) was a conductor, organist and one of the most influential teachers of musical composition of the 20th century. She taught composers from around the world, including Philip Glass, Thea Musgrave, Quincy Jones, Astor Piazzolla, Mary Lou Prince, and many others. There will be a symposium, concerts, guest speakers, and more.
Learn More | Purchase tickets at the door.
The Art of Food
From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation
University of Arizona Museum of Art
Oct. 24-March 20, 2022 | UAMA Galleries
The UAMA unveils an exhibition fitting for Tucson, the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in the United States. The Art of Food offers something for every palette, with modern and contemporary works by artists including Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Enrique Chagoya and Lorna Simpson curated from the renowned collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation. Explore why food is such a powerful and persistent subject in art throughout time. These timely themes will leave visitors with something to chew on.
Learn More | Purchase tickets at the door.
> The exhibition opens with a free Community Day on Oct. 24 with food demonstrations and activities from 12-4p.
Kronos Quartet with Sam Green
Arizona Arts Live
Nov. 11 | Centennial Hall
Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Sam Green, in collaboration with Emmy Award®-winning writer Joe Bini, takes the stage with the legendary classical-music group Kronos Quartet to create a “live documentary” that unfolds the quartet’s groundbreaking, continent-spanning, multi-decade career. A Thousand Thoughts is a meditation on music itself – the act of listening closely, the experience of feeling music deeply, and the power music has to change the world.
> View the 2021/22 Arizona Arts Live season on sale now.
Premium Blend
School of Dance
Nov. 10-11, 16-21 | Stevie Eller Dance Theatre
UA Dance will honor veterans on campus with this year’s Premium Blend. With choreography by Autumn Eckman, “Gold Jackets” pays reverence to brotherhood, defined by fellowship, alliance, and honor. Pieces by Marquez Johnson and Hayley Meier, shot on camera, will appear in large format, cinematic images. Choreography by faculty members Tamara Dyke-Compton, Michael Williams, and Chris Compton — some new, some back by popular demand – will welcome our live audiences back into the theatre.
> Premium Blend begins the 2021/22 season; fall ticket packages go on sale on Oct. 1. Single tickets, Oct. 15.
VASE Lecture with Judy Pfaff
School of Art
Nov. 18 | CCP Lecture Hall
A pioneer of installation-art and contributor to the Pattern and Decoration Movement, Judy Pfaff has created work that spans disciplines from painting to printmaking, sculpture to installation. Pfaff will lecture as part of the Visiting Artists and Scholars series. Her pieces reside in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and many others. She’s received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center and the MacArthur Foundation Award.
Learn More | Admission is free.
What’s Up, Docs?
School of Theatre, Film & Television
Dec. 14 | TBA
The School of Theatre, Film & Television presents a showcase of outstanding new short documentary films created by BA and BFA students with diverse subjects and styles, exploring topics that are current, newsworthy, poignant, funny, and sublime.
> The 2021/22 TFTV theatre season begins with Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods in October. Single tickets are now on sale.
Arizona Arts launches Signature Series 2021
Image Credits:
Freedom Must Be Lived. Marion Palfi. Chicago School Boycott, 1963-64 (from the series “That May Affect Their Hearts and Minds,” 1963-64), 1963-1964, © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents, Marion Palfi Archive/Gift of the Menninger Foundation and Martin Magner, The Center for Creative Photography
Music + Festival. The Arizona Wind Quintet: Marissa Olegario, bassoon; Jackie Glazier, clarinet; Sara Fraker, oboe; Johanna Lundy, horn; and Brian Luce, flute.
Premium Blend. UA Dance students performing Gold Jackets by Autumn Eckman. Photo: Ed Flores.
What’s Up Docs? Screenshot from the 2020 showcase.
Judy Pfaff. Portrait by Grace Roselli, 2019.
Kronos Quartet with Sam Green. A performance of Sam Green and Joe Bini’s “A Thousand Thoughts,” featuring the Kronos Quartet, at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio. Courtesy of Sam Green
The Art of Food.Sherrie Wolf, Histrionic Beauty Suite: Cherries/Mountain, edition 1/30, 2015, Photogravure and hand colored etching, Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer | Image: Aaron Wessling Photography