Experience an evening of virtuosic brilliance with American pianist Jon Nakamatsu whose electrifying performances have captivated audiences worldwide for over three decades. Presented and fully seated on stage for an up-close and intimate audience experience in Centennial Hall. Now in his third decade of touring worldwide, Jon Nakamatsu continues to draw critical and public acclaim for his intensity, elegance and electrifying solo, concerto, and chamber music performances. Catapulted to international attention in 1997 as the Gold Medalist of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition—the only American to achieve this distinction since 1981—he subsequently developed a multi-faceted career encompassing recording, education, arts administration, and public speaking. From major symphony halls to intimate chamber performances, Jon Nakamatsu brings music to life in a way that feels both powerful and personal. Whether he’s playing Beethoven, Gershwin, or something in between, his performances are full of nuance and emotion.

Join Arizona Arts Live and the Office of the Provost for a lecture exploring community building as a collective practice with Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Presented live in Centennial Hall. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, and journalist Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is an acclaimed cultural critic and institution builder. He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Among his dozens of books are recent New York Times bestsellers Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow and The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song. He has also produced and hosted an array of documentary films. The Black Church (PBS) and Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO), which he executive produced, received Emmy nominations. Finding Your Roots, Gates’s groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series is now in its tenth season on PBS. Professor Gates has received countless awards and honors, including a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Chicago Tribune Literary Award for lifetime achievement, and the prestigious Gold Medal from the National Institute of Social Sciences, among many others. His filmmaking has received Emmy, Peabody, and NAACP Image Awards and an Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Award. Recently, he received the coveted Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. Professor Gates serves on the boards of many notable institutions, including the New York Public Library, the Aspen Institute, and the Brookings Institution, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.