MODfest 2026 Brings Visionary Opera and Up to date Photography to Vassar

For greater than 20 years, MODfest has been Vassar College’s annual reminder that experimental artwork doesn’t should be siloed—or small. Founded in 2002, the interdisciplinary pageant has grown right into a winter fixture that pulls collectively music, efficiency, movie, and visible artwork beneath a shared curatorial umbrella. This 12 months’s version, MODfest 2026: “Sounding the Visionary” (January 23–February 7), leans into that legacy with a program that appears directly, foregrounding artists who problem dominant narratives and reimagine how tradition will get made. All occasions are free and open to the general public.

The centerpiece of this 12 months’s pageant is the opera “Computing Venus,” an formidable work by composer Timothy Takach and librettist Caitlin Vincent that opens MODfest with three performances on the Martel Theater January 23-25. The opera traces the lifetime of Maria Mitchell, the Nineteenth-century astronomer who found a comet from her Nantucket rooftop and went on to grow to be considered one of Vassar’s first college members. More than a biographical portrait, “Computing Venus” situates Mitchell’s scientific achievements throughout the cultural resistance she confronted as a lady in a male-dominated area, drawing connections between music, science, and feminist inquiry. It’s a wise match for a pageant invested in how visionary considering pushes towards institutional limits.

On the visible arts facet, “Photography of Jeremy Dennis” brings a robust up to date perspective to the Palmer Gallery January 15 to February 15. Dennis, an enrolled member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation and founding father of Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, is understood for work that interrogates Indigenous id, land, and assimilation via staged and conceptual images. His photographs steadiness readability and symbolism, usually folding historical past into the current second. Chronogram readers could acknowledge his work: {a photograph} by Dennis appeared on the duvet of the journal’s March 2025 situation, underscoring his rising presence in regional and nationwide conversations round Indigenous artwork and cultural sovereignty.

Elsewhere, MODfest continues its custom of cross-disciplinary experimentation. “Rescoring Richter” pairs the avant-garde movies of Hans Richter with newly composed stay music, remodeling early Twentieth-century cinema via up to date sound practices. Faculty and visitor artists take the stage for the Honorary Adene and Richard Wilson Concert, whereas the ultimate weekend turns consideration to rising voices via a scholar composer symposium, site-specific sound installations throughout campus, and a stay listening occasion with student-run radio station WVKR.

Taken collectively, MODfest 2026 gives a snapshot of how establishments can assist formidable, forward-thinking work with out dropping sight of historical past. From an opera a few pioneering scientist to images that confronts the continuing realities of Indigenous life, this 12 months’s pageant invitations audiences to hear carefully—to the previous, to the current, and to what’s nonetheless taking form.

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