The Department of Music presents the second UMBC Create Music Festival, an event that reimagines music education festivals for equity and 21st century music learning, with the collaboration of the BSO OrchKids program, Sister Cities Voices, and two Baltimore area public school large ensembles. Students will work with teaching artists, including Emmy-nominated composer and genre-bending violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, Chicago-based vocal theater ensemble Artemisia Trio, composer Alysia Lee, and UMBC music faculty and alumnus James Dorsey ’05.

The Baltimore Classical Guitar Society presents Made in Baltimore, featuring new works for classical guitar written by local composers commissioned by BCGS. For the 2024–2025 season, the awardees are Zhishu Chang, Zac Fick-Cambria, Antonio Sanz Escallón, and UMBC student Jack McGrath, who will write ensemble works inspired by Charm City.

The Shriver Hall Concert Series presents charismatic rising stars the Ivalas Quartet in a program of three works traversing the musical heavens. Osvaldo Golijov took inspiration for his poignant Tenebrae from a planetarium visit with his son. Sparked by a lecture on physics, Eleanor Alberga’s rich and spellbinding quartet explores the ideas of swirling particles and stargazing from outer space. Finally, the group infuses one of Beethoven’s final works with “tremendous heart and beauty” (The Strad).

The Baltimore Classical Guitar Society presents classical guitarist David Russell, who is world renowned for his superb musicianship and inspired artistry, having earned the highest praise from audiences and critics alike. Russell appears regularly at prestigious halls in main cities such as New York, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Madrid, Toronto, and Rome. Russell received a Grammy award for his CD “Aire Latino” in the category of best instrumental soloist in classical music.