Arts at Baruch College
This page last updated on: August 9, 2017
Visit Baruch’s Performing Arts Center website for a calendar of events.
For a college whose primary focus is on business and administration, the emphasis on the arts at Baruch is extraordinary.But the arts, of course, are big business, especially in New York, and the colleges emphasis on educational excellence implies attention to the full range of human endeavor.
Students regularly have the opportunity to attend first-rate concerts, theatrical productions, and gallery exhibitions at no charge via a Ticket Subsidy Program. Ticket subsidy compliments the curriculum by giving faculty the ability to assign a BPAC production to its class at no cost to the students. Additionally, ticket subsidy enables any student wishing to attend outside class to purchase a ticket for $10 ticket for any production. The Student Outreach Program cuts across the disciplines of all three Schools.
Academically, the college offers courses in Art, Music, and Theatre through the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, with specializations in bridge programs that link WSAS to ZSB and SPA, such as Management of Musical Enterprises and Arts Administration (with focus on either Art or Theatre). The Business Communication major includes a specialization in Graphic Communication. A well-equipped darkroom serves students taking Photography courses.
BPAC (Baruch Performing Arts Center) presents dozens of events each semester. The schedule as well as ticket buying information appears on BPAC’s website. The phone number is: 646-312-4085.
BPAC’s Venues:
Engelman Recital Hall – a beautifully appointed classic recital hall with 175 seats (Newman Vertical Campus B2 level); Rose Nagelberg Theater – a flexible black-box theater that seats 220 (Newman Vertical Campus B3 level); Mason Hall – a grand old-fashioned style hall that seats 1157 (17 Lexington Avenue, lobby); and Bernie West Theatre – a classic black box style that accommodates a maximum of 74 with fixed end-stage seating (17 Lexington Avenue, 9th floor).
The Aaron Silberman Concert Series features four or five concerts a year in Engelman Hall by outstanding chamber music ensembles.(See BPAC’s website for an up-to-date listing of concerts in the series.) Baruch’s ensemble-in-residence, the Alexander String Quartet, performs at least one concert each semester.
Each semester the Baruch College Choir performs a varied repertory in an end-of-semester free concert. Faculty and staff are invited sing with the chorus and to engage with our students through song. If you are interested in participating, please contact the Chorus’s director, Teresa Parker.
The Department of Fine and Performing Arts presents a student production each semester, directed by a member of the FPA faculty.
Artists-in-Residence
ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET
The Alexander String Quartet has been resident in WSAS for one week each semester for more than 30 years. The quartet attends a wide variety of classes to draw connections between music and other disciplines.For example, they demonstrate connections between narrative and musical forms in literature or writing classes, and, in history classes, explore ways in which music of the Romantic period might express that Zeitgeist; they investigate musical/mathematical relationships in math classes.To ask about bringing the ASQ to your classroom, contact the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at 646-312-4052.
HARMAN WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE
Each semester the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence teaches one writing-intensive workshop and presents an open reading and “conversation” with the Baruch community, creating a lively literary salon for students and faculty.
The Sidney Mishkin Gallery
(212) 660-6652
Founded in 1983, the Sidney Mishkin Gallery was renamed in 1991 in honor of the late Sidney Mishkin (class of 1934). The gallery has distinguished itself by presenting small, museum-quality exhibitions that highlight innovative scholarship, significant artists, and multicultural concerns. The exhibitions and programs organized at the Mishkin Gallery broaden and enrich the education of Baruch College students, while enhancing the cultural opportunities of the entire Baruch College community. An increasingly visible non-profit gallery in New York City, the Mishkin Gallery also provides a neighborhood museum for residents of Gramercy Park, Madison Square, and Park Avenue South. Mr. Mishkins donation of 10 major works of modern art established a standard of excellence for the Colleges permanent collection, which has expanded to include outstanding examples of twentieth-century photography and works on paper, in addition to paintings and sculpture
by European and American modernists.
Gallery tours for classes: The Mishkin Gallery provides gallery tours for Baruch classes from any department. The gallery director will work with faculty to provide a gallery talk relating the exhibition on view to the content of a specific course. To schedule a tour call 212-660-6652.
Gallery Director: Alaina Claire Feldman
Address: 135 East 22nd Street, 1st floor
Telephone: 212-802-2690
Hours: Monday-Friday, 12-5 pm; Thursday, 12-7 pm
Weissman Lectures on the Influence of the Arts on Society
The Weissman Lecture features members of the New York arts world exploring intersections between the arts and the worlds of business, government, and the general community. Featured speakers have included George Weissman (former CEO of Philip Morris and former President of Lincoln Center), Schuyler Chapin (then NYC Commissioner of Cultural Affairs), Cora Cahan (President of The New 42nd Street, Inc.), and Gordon J. Davis (former President of Lincoln Center).