The year begins to slow with the arrival of autumn, but the same cannot be said for the local arts scene. Over the next few months, brand-new seasons of cultural programming begin again at both small and large venues all across Baltimore, bringing with them fresh exhibitions, plays, performances, and much more—altogether showcasing the bona fide abundance of our local creative community.

Make the most of your fall by attending a few of the events featured in our October issue’s Fall Arts Preview. But don’t stop there—there are so many incredible offerings this time of year, we couldn’t fit all of them in. Long live the local arts!

10/2-5: NEW/NEXT FILM FESTIVAL
Even in the land of John Waters, we still can’t believe that we’re a city of two film festivals (see MdFF writeup below). Now in its third year, this already beloved Baltimore Public Media production presents four days of all things cinema at The Charles Theatre, including appearances by local film folks like comedian-turned-actor Stavros Halkias.

10/3-11/2: INTERIOR ARCHITECTURES
Curated by Baltimore Beat arts-and-culture editor Teri Henderson at Current space on Howard Street, this new exhibition explores the ways in which we construct our inner lives, featuring the drawing-based artworks of Vinnie Hager and the sculptural paintings of Emma Childs, as well as collaborative works by these two up-and-coming local artists.

10/3-5: NOBODY IS EVER MISSING
Including both highly trained and self-taught musicians, Baltimore’s Mind On Fire collective is shaping the future of classical music. See for yourself during this bold new opera, based on the 2014 novel of the same name, with three open-air, pay-what-you-can performances taking place at sunset on the Stony Run Trail.

10/4: OTTOBAR’S 28TH BIRTHDAY BASH
After nearly three decades, this Remington rock club has cemented itself as royalty of the local music scene. Celebrate their reign with this free, all-ages festival at the Inner Harbor Amphitheater. From noon to 8 p.m., catch live music from multiple Baltimore bands, plus food trucks and a flea market.

10/4-5: OPEN STUDIO TOUR
For one weekend, get a behind-the-scenes look inside the studios of some of Baltimore’s most talented artists. Over the past 37 years, this citywide event has grown into a time-honored tradition, offering glimpses into the working lives of our local painters, sculptors, collage artists, ceramicists, photographers, and more.

10/4-9/6/2026: FANTASTIC REALITIES
The American Visionary Art Museum is known for its collection of wild, whimsical, wonderful artworks. Now, they’re digging even deeper into that specialty, with this new exhibition exploring extraordinary, otherworldly creations—everything from pastel spirit portals to soap-carved sci-fi universes—that suspend both space and time.

10/10: ART IN OVERDRIVE
A decade ago, the Motor House appeared in the old Load of Fun building and quickly became a pillar of the Station North Arts District, hosting everything from art exhibits and music performances to open mics for poetry and comedy. Toast their anniversary during this jam-packed celebration of the neighborhood’s creative community.

10/10-12: SUBSCAPE
There’s no shortage of great DIY music in Baltimore, but this second-annual festival brings much of it under one roof during this free, all-ages showcase. Across three days at a trio of local venues—Metro, Mobtown Ballroom, Ema’s Corner—catch more than 60 acts under the underground umbrella, from punk and metal to indie and experimental.

10/25: THE WALTERS GALA & PARTY
Every fall, The Walters Art Museum’s annual gala is one of the most haute happenings in the city’s cultural sphere. Help support the Mount Vernon institution’s commitment to free admission with fine dining throughout its hallowed halls, with more affordable tickets also available for the Sculpture Court after-party. (Similarly, catch the Baltimore Museum of Art’s BMA Ball on November 22.)

10/26: END IT’S WRONG SIDE OF HEAVEN RELEASE SHOW
If you haven’t heard, Baltimore is having a bit of a hardcore music moment (see our October 2025 cover story on Turnstile) and this five-piece band is one of the reasons why. See them perform their new album, Wrong Side of Heaven, out now via Flatspot Records, during this Sunday night show at Baltimore Soundstage.

10/31-11/1: CHOCOLATE-COVERED ROCKY HORROR
For 10 years, this African-American shadow-cast (aka a theatrical troupe that performs as a live accompaniment to a film screening) has delighted local audiences with its rollicking rendition of the cult-classic Rocky Horror Picture Show. At Center Stage, experience all the excitement, which also includes a costume contest and audience participation.

11/1: DEAD COMPOSERS SOCIETY
Dan Rodricks seems to be everywhere these days. From his new Substack column to his recent run as a playwright, the former Baltimore Sun columnist is now teaming up with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for an afternoon kids’ concert full of sonic storytelling. Bring the little ones for this collaboration that’s sure to spark the imagination.

11/2-4/5/26: AMERICAN SUBLIME
Amy Sherald might be based in New York now, but after years of living, learning, and working in this city, not to mention repping it around the world, she’ll always be Baltimore to us. The most comprehensive collection of her paintings to date, this massive traveling exhibition, soon to be on view at the BMA, helps recognize Sherald as one of the most iconic American artists of this century.

11/5-9: MARYLAND FILM FEST
We’re still adjusting to some of Baltimore’s biggest arts festivals changing their long-held dates (looking at you, Artscape). But no matter when it happens, we’re happy that this once-spring, now-fall ritual is returning. Enjoy five days of film, filmmaker Q&As, food, music, and after-parties at the Parkway Theatre in Station North.

11/7-12/12: SUBMERSIVE PRODUCTIONS
This “collaborative artworks” company wears its name well. For the past decade, it’s taken viewers on immersive explorations through site-specific, sensory-rich, theatrical experiences. In this namesake exhibition at the Creative Alliance, relive those moments through costumes and props, video installations, and interactive performances.

11/8: TERMITE
For one night only at The Peale, soak in this movie premiere from gifted Baltimore cinematographer Kirby Griffin. The short documentary film captures the story of lifelong Cherry Hill resident “Termite” Kin Lane Brown, who, over the decades, has helped her neighbors navigate hardship, along the way becoming a hero of her community.

11/9: ROOTED AND RISING
To honor 25 seasons of the Full Circle Dance Company, head to the Baltimore Museum of Art for two brand-new dances from the city’s preeminent modern dance troupe: To Come Full Circle, honoring the ensemble’s artistic family, and She Did That!, inspired by the stories of female ancestors.

11/11-15: DIFFUSION FESTIVAL
Every September, the city’s annual High Zero Festival presents an eclectic array of musical performances, deemed the East Coast’s don’t-miss showcase of experimental music. But if you didn’t make it this year, fear not—you can still catch this exhibition of electronic and acoustic music from the same organizers, taking place at the innovative Voxel theater.

11/16: ASTRONAUT SYMPHONY
Scott and Alisha Patterson are the brains behind this one-of-a-kind band, which typically finds itself performing multi-sensory, sci-fi space operas in venues across Baltimore—a true embodiment of the city’s creative DIY ethos. Witness their otherworldly sound during two evening sets at the Keystone Korner.

11/30-1/4/2026: DECEIVED
From Agatha Christie to Sherlock Holmes, no one does a mystery like Everyman Theatre. At this downtown playhouse, sit on the edge of your seat during this gripping adaptation of the famous psychological thriller Gaslight, where a web of manipulation forces a young woman to doubt her own sanity.

TO 2/26: THE DAILY HUSTLE
It’s a good thing this powerful exhibition will be up for a while at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. We’re going to want to go back several times to soak up the images of I. Henry Phillips Sr., a pioneering photographer for the city’s Afro-American newspaper. Curated by his grandson, Webster Phillips, the collection depicts Black Baltimoreans at work, emphasizing their grace, style, and strength throughout the everyday.

The year begins to slow with the arrival of autumn, but the same cannot be said for the local arts scene. Over the next few months, brand-new seasons of cultural programming begin again at both small and large venues all across Baltimore, bringing with them fresh exhibitions, plays, performances, and much more—altogether showcasing the bona fide abundance of our local creative community.

Make the most of your fall by attending a few of the events featured in our September issue’s Fall Arts Preview. But don’t stop there—there are so many incredible offerings this time of year, we couldn’t fit all of them in. Long live the local arts!

9/6-10/11: ALL WATER HAS A PERFECT MEMORY
Curated by Beat arts-and-culture editor Teri Henderson, and featuring works by local and international artists Fleesie Hubbard, Jamilla Okubo, and Jessica Whittingham, this exhibition explores how water represents transformation, creativity, and spirituality across the Black diaspora. Don’t miss the opening reception on Friday September 6 from 7-10 p.m. Current Space, 421 N. Howard St. Sat. 1-5 p.m. Free.

9/14: LOVE GROOVE FESTIVAL
In 2017, a new arts festival was born in Baltimore that has since grown into a beloved annual tradition worth attending not just for its impressive lineup of dozens of local musicians, artists, and other craftspeople, but also its mission—as its name implies—to bring the city good vibes. Best of all, it’s free to the public, with its founder, multitalented local musician John Tyler, ensuring access for all ages. This year, it begins with a Bike Party ride to boot. Robert C. Marshall Park, 1329 Pennsylvania Ave. 12-7 p.m. Free-$30.

9/20-10/13: JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE
The Baltimore August Wilson Celebration, an unprecedented collaboration among the local theater community, began earlier this year as the brainchild of Chesapeake Shakespeare founder Lesley Malin. Now through 2027, several troupes, from Arena Players to Everyman Theater, will perform the complete American Century Cycle by the festival’s namesake playwright, who candidly captures the African-American experience through each of these 10 plays. In this, the second show, follow the story of Herald Loomis as he searches for his peace and identity. Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, 7 S. Calvert St. Thurs.-Sat. Times vary. $31-69. 

9/21: THE HFSTIVAL
For Baltimoreans of a certain age, three little letters, HFS, bring back a slew of memories from when the region’s beloved alt-rock radio station, 99.1 FM, was the place for alternative music. It also hosted its annual music festival, drawing the biggest names of the day, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and more. Now, after nearly 20 years, the HFStival is ready to rock again, this time at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. Expect throwback bands like Bush and Incubus, plus more recent indie acts like The Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie. Nationals Park, 1500 S. Capitol St. S.E., Washington, D.C. 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. $150-250. 

9/21: YO-YO MA + JONATHON HEYWARD
Call it a duet for the ages. For one night only, the world-famous, Grammy Award-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma will take to the Meyerhoff stage to kick off the new season of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, performing alongside maestro Jonathon Heyward, as well as surprise guests and student performers from OrchKids. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. 8 p.m. Prices vary.

9/26-11/30: WALK ON BY
You might not know it, but one of Baltimore’s official sister cities is all the way across the pond in the Netherlands. Since 1985, Rotterdam and Baltimore have shared a cultural cross-promotion, and now a new Creative Alliance exhibition aims to explore that relationship even further, delving into the diverse stories of Black artists from both historic industrial port cities, including local photographer Schaun Champion and painter Charles Wallace III. Curated by visual arts director (and Waller Gallery founder) Joy Davis, it aims to be a one-of-a-kind opportunity for creative exchange. Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave. Fri.-Sat. 12-6 p.m. Free.

9/27-29: THE BALTIMORE BOOK FESTIVAL
Baltimore has long been “the city that reads,” and for one long weekend, that literary heritage is on full display during the annual Baltimore Book Festival, hosted by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts in partnership with Waverly Main Street, Red Emma’s bookstore, and Peabody Heights Brewery. Celebrate the rich local literary scene by exploring past and present authors, witnessing live discussions, participating in activities, and more. Waverly Main St. Sat. 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. 

10/5-6: BOPA OPEN STUDIO TOUR
Once a year, an opportunity arises to experience the local art scene in a way like no other. For one fall weekend, the city’s Open Studio Tour takes art lovers on a sneak peek of more than 100 studios and showrooms run by a variety of Baltimore artists—from painters, photographers, and sculptors to gallery owners. Hosted by the School 33 Art Center, it’s a highly anticipated citywide event with a two-day open-door policy, allowing the public to simply pop in and pull back the curtain on our city talents at work. Locations and times vary. Free.

10/13-8/31/2025: GOOD SPORTS: THE WISDOM & FUN OF FAIR PLAY
Is there anything more magical than when a new exhibition opens up at AVAM? This Federal Hill institution is known for its one-of-a-kind art collection and exhibits that deeply explore our shared humanity. In this sprawling new show—what they call one of their “mega” exhibits, up through late next year—the museum turns its attention toward an unlikely subject: sports. Across a wide range of works by both local and global visionary artists, it gets to the heart of our universal enjoyment of play, while also celebrating wellness of mind, body, and spirit. American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy. Wed.-Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Free-$15.95. 

10/18: SWEATY EYEBALLS
The Baltimore arts scene is known for its music, its paintings, its theater, but no appreciator of all things creative should sleep on its small-but-mighty animation scene. In 2012, the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival was founded by Towson professor Phil Davis as a way to celebrate exactly that, with the annual juried event featuring international screenings, local-talent showcases, youth productions, workshops, and more at theater venues across the city. It’s a fun and colorful affair featuring works for all ages.  Locations, times, and prices vary.

10/18-12/7: THE TEXTURES OF US
Many Baltimoreans, and much of the world, became acquainted with the works of then-amateur photographer Devin Allen when, after the police-involved death of Freddie Gray, his image of the ensuing uprising wound up on the cover of Time magazine. Since then, though, Allen’s work has become synonymous with Baltimore, even as his career has grown far beyond our local city limits, with his photographs featured in the likes of The New York Times and held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian. Explore his works in a new light during this intimate show in Old Goucher. Galerie Myrtis, 2224 N. Charles St. Thurs.-Sat. 2-6 p.m. Free.

10/20-11/17: QUEENS GIRL
Over the last few years, Baltimore audiences have gotten to know the “Queens Girl,” aka Jacqueline Marie Butler, the young Black girl at the heart of this award-winning trilogy. In the first play, her world is turned upside down when she’s sent to a predominantly white school in Greenwich Village in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. Each subsequent play is a journey of self-discovery, and in this final act, Black in the Green Mountains, she reaches Bennington College in Vermont against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Followers and newcomers alike should consider Everyman’s new production a can’t-miss. Everyman Theatre, 315 W. Fayette St. Times and prices vary. 

11/16: QUEERING THE COLLECTION
Now an international movement, “Queering the Collection” invites LGBTQ+-identifying perspective into arts institutions for conversations connecting art history with modern perspectives. In this latest installation at The Walters, Baltimore-based multidisciplinary artist Jacob Budenz presents an afternoon performance to spark dialogue about the relationship between medieval representations of Christian European patriarchal figures and representations of Mother Earth during times of climate change and societal collision. Afterward, the Annex Theater actor will talk with European Art curator Christine Sciacca about the intersections of queerness and mysticism in art. The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. 2 p.m. Free. 

11/3-4/6/2025: LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER
Showcasing exhibitions on women artists, Indigenous artists, and, now, those centered on the environment, the Baltimore Museum of Art has been meeting the moment through its latest initiatives, serving as a leader in the broader movement for arts institutions everywhere to diversify their spaces and the dialogues within them. Their Turn Again to the Earth project is inspired by the writings of environmental activist (and one-time Baltimorean) Rachel Carson. First up? Artist LaToya Ruby Frazier’s More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland 2021-2022. Across a socially distanced series of powerful portraits and narratives, Frazier’s installation celebrates local essential workers through the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, in a seismic shift in terms of how we experience both space and time. Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr. Wed.-Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Free.

11/30-12/22: BLACK NATIVITY
One of the last times ArtsCentric put on this iconic Christmas retelling by celebrated playwright Langston Hughes, we declared that “there wasn’t a soul in the audience who wasn’t stomping their feet and clapping along.” That’s likely to be the case again when the Remington-based theater troupe teams up with Mt. Vernon’s Center Stage for this holiday classic, presented through the African-American perspective, featuring original music by local composer Cedric D. Lyles. Baltimore Center Stage, 700 N. Calvert. Times and prices vary. 

TO 9/1/2025: iWITNESS: MEDIA + THE MOVEMENT
In honor of the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this compelling exhibit dives into the ways in which media, from radio and television to print, impacted the Civil Rights Movement, with a particular examination of roles played by Baltimore’s own stations, publications, and more. Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St. Mon., Thurs.-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun. 12-5 p.m. Free-$12. 

The fall marks the beginning of the artistic year. As a result, the creative calendar is literally bursting with concerts, exhibits, and theatrical events. These are a few of our favorites.

Iron Crow Theatre presents The Cradle Will Rock
TO OCT. 8: Marc Blitzstein’s 1937 play is so unabashedly anti-capitalist that it was the first musical ever shut down by the U.S. government. The Cradle Will Rock attacks wealth and the political power it unjustly wields, and pays homage to those fighting to survive. Best of Baltimore-winning Iron Crow gives this historic work a highly stylized, modern restaging that sounds like a perfect fit for these turbulent political times. Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St. 410-539-3091

The Christians
TO OCT. 8: This play ponders the age-old question: What happens when we lose faith in our leaders? It turns the lens specifically on the American megachurch, examining what results when people of the same religion hold different beliefs and begin questioning the infallibility of pastors. As an added bonus, this production features multiple choirs from area churches to get you into that old-time religion spirit. Center Stage, 700 N. Calvert St. 410-332-0033

Altered Realities
TO NOV. 4: Sometimes all you need is a little shift in perspective. This exhibition aims to provide just that, using works from a variety of mediums—from painting to virtual reality—to focus on uncanny interpretations of everyday experiences. This show includes many exceptional Baltimore-area talents, such as photographer and videographer Johnathan Baker, Best of Baltimore winner Phaan Howng, and Scott Cawood, who uses scrap steel to examine transformation. Maryland Art Place, 218 W. Saratoga St. 410-962-8565.

Arts of Asia
OCT. 1: The Walters’ Asian Art collection has been under lock and key for years, awaiting a splendid restoration. Now, the collection, which highlights the artistic traditions of countries that span the world’s largest continent, from India to Japan, and is considered one of the most exceptional in North America, has been brought back to life. Marvel at these antiquities in their beautiful new home, especially the John and Berthe Ford Gallery, which features the art of India, Nepal, and Tibet. The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. 410-547-9000

Helen Glazer: Antarctica Project
Oct. 18-Dec. 8: Art and environmental activism are a perfect pairing. Once you’ve viewed stunning works depicting the beauty of our world, how can you deny that it should be saved? Artist Helen Glazer is inspired by the complex physical forces that shape the natural world, and uses rarely visited places—in this case, Antarctica—as her subject matter. This exhibit centers on photographs she made in 2015, when she was a grantee of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program—the only person from Baltimore ever to have won this competition. There, she was given access to protected areas where she photographed ice formations and geological structures at remote locations and scientific field camps. Rosenberg Gallery, Goucher College, 1021 Dulaney Valley Rd., Towson. 410-337-6477. 

Baltimore Voices at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Nov.1-3: Yes, this fusion of music and spoken word is technically geared toward high school students, and yes, it’s in the morning during the middle of the week­­—but it’s too good of a concept for us not to recommend. Baltimore Voices focuses on the people who live in Baltimore, including city school students, who were interviewed by the co-founders of WYPR’s documentary series Out of the Blocks. Add in beatboxer Shodekeh as emcee, remix samples from the beat wizards at the Baltimore Boom Bap Society, and the BSO playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, and you’ll have quite an interesting morning. Nov.1-3. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. 410-783-8000. 

Necessity of Tomorrow(s)—Mark Bradford: Making a Path
NOV. 11: This fall, The Baltimore Museum of Art will hold three events that invite nationally and internationally recognized artists and thinkers to consider key ideas at the intersection of aesthetics, race, and social justice. (The series borrows its title from an essay by science-fiction author Samuel Delaney that argues for the role of creative speculation in making a more just future.) The first of these gatherings features Mark Bradford, whose work is showcased at the BMA-organized U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He will join BMA director Christopher Bedford to discuss his artistic practice and community-based work, followed by a conversation around issues of access, plus a live musical performance. Union Baptist Church, 1201 Druid Hill Ave. 410-523-6880.

André Watts plays Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor
NOV. 17, 19: Peabody Institute alum André Watts (who shot to fame when Leonard Bernstein chose him to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic) returns to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to play the explosive, grandiose piano work that is known as the most popular of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos. Also on the program, Christopher Theofanidis, one of the most performed living composers, honors fellow composer Stephen Paulus in a new work. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. 410-783-8000

The Revolutionists
DEC. 6–JAN. 7, 2018: Playwright Lauren Gunderson took a page from A Tale of Two Cities and set her new play during the French Revolution. But, unlike Dickens, she has focused solely on the women——and has given her work a comedic touch. In this play, which is making its East Coast debut, former queen Marie Antoinette, assassin Charlotte Corday, playwright Olympe de Gouges, and Caribbean spy Marianne Angelle find themselves alone together in a room. France’s fight for equality and freedom finds modern parallels in this play, which explores feminism, legacy and standing up for one’s beliefs. Everyman Theatre, 315 Fayette St. 410-752-2208

Experiencing art is, for some people, mere entertainment, a welcome diversion from the banalities of everyday life. Others may think of art primarily as an investment, or something to be consumed. But for some of us, art can be a life-changing experience.

With that in mind, we posed two questions to a few dozen of our finest local artists: What piece of art (visual art/film/literature/music/dance/whatever) changed your life? And how did it affect you?

The responses were entertaining and enlightening. You may even find some of them inspiring. We’ve also prepared an extensive listing of arts events scheduled for the coming months. Thanks to the Free Fall Baltimore initiative—more than 75 arts organizations are offering events free of charge in October and November (visit freefallbaltimore.com for details)—there’s never been a better time to experience the local arts scene.

It might even change your life.

John Barth
Novelist

For better or worse, I became the writer that I became in considerable measure because of two literary monuments fortuitously encountered during my student years at Johns Hopkins. The first was James Joyce’s Ulysses, that polestar of literary Modernism first published in France in 1922, banned from the USA until 1933 on account of its erotic aspects, acclaimed in a recent poll as the greatest novel of the 20th century, and hungrily devoured by me nearly 60 years ago in the 1946 Modern Library edition. That copy remains on my shelf, index-tabbed and heavily annotated by a fledgling fictionist as wowed at age 20 by that Modernist masterpiece as a naive but ambitious young painter might have been on first encountering the works of Pablo Picasso.

The second (in some ways a counterweight to the first) was the anonymous medieval Persian/Arabian tales of Scheherazade, which I’d read originally as a kid in a radically abridged and expurgated Arabian Nights discreetly illustrated by N. C. Wyeth, but then rediscovered in the Hopkins library in Richard Burton’s 17-volume, privately printed and utterly unexpurgated 1885 edition (likewise now in a place of honor in our house) entitled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night—ribald, raucous, hilarious, heart-constricting —wherein the Sultan’s Vizier’s beautiful and canny daughter diverts her murderously misogynous master with nearly three years worth of sex and storytelling to prevent his deflowering and executing every maiden in the realm. Her life ever on the line, only as good as her next piece, Scheherazade remains for me the most piquant emblem of the storyteller’s lot.

So: one icon of early-20th-century Modernism and another of timeless oral taletelling, Ulysses and The 1001 Nights became (and remain) my chiefest stars. With their aid I’ve steered my own course, trying as best I can to not mistake my navigation-stars for my destination.

Teddy Douglas
DJ/producer (Basement Boys)

“Soul Man” by Sam and Dave was the first 45 rpm record that my parents purchased for me in the 1960’s. It made me fall in love with music. To now have a career in the music business is truly satisfying.

Geologist & Avey Tare
Musicians (Animal Collective)

The Shining by Stanley Kubrick—specifically the music in the film. How could you know at 15 years old that abstract sound could be just as interesting and powerful as melody and rhythm? We certainly didn’t until watching that film at just the right moment. Eleven years later, we’re still influenced by what we learned that night.

Jay Steinhour
DJ/producer (Basement Boys)

When I was in high school I took a trip one fall with some friends to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater.” I was overwhelmed by the design integrity, how it worked with nature and almost became part of nature. It also worked so well as a living space. I knew I wanted to be creative, and affect how people experienced the world and interacted with it. I went to architecture school, and turned to interactive urban planning, by involving and educating communities about the world around them. Then, my interest turned to music. Though I liked many different kinds of music, it was soulful dance music that grabbed me. But what really grabbed me was DJing and creating a musical journey for dancers on the dance floor. The creative process of programming positive, soulful dance music pulled me into a career in music. More than architecture, it allowed me to affect an even deeper, more personal space where people lived.

Grace Hartigan
Painter

One of the things that really changed my life was meeting Jackson Pollock and seeing his drip paintings when they were still wet in the studio. They impressed upon me that the canvas and the self are indivisible—they cannot be divided. The work is the self.

Lafayette Gilchrist
Musician

The album Money Jungle, the famous trio date involving Max Roach (drums), Charles Mingus (bass), and The Man himself, Duke Ellington, at the piano. I never knew sound could have such adventure and imagination. I knew after hearing this record my life would be spent in the pursuit of sounds.

Tim Camponeschi (aka Slim Man)
Musician

When I was five years old, my Dad took me to see a movie with Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye. It was called The Five Pennies. I saw Louis play trumpet and sing in the movie, and asked my Dad to get me a trumpet for Christmas.

He got me a plastic toy trumpet. I told him I didn’t want a toy, I wanted a real one. So for my birthday, right after Christmas, he got me a real one, and it started my love affair with music, jazz, and Louis Armstrong.

Madison Smartt Bell
Novelist

There is more than one such instance, but the one that comes to mind is the part in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot where Prince Myshkin goes to visit Rogozhin. Myshkin, being on the verge of an epileptic seizure, is full of paranoid dread and believes that Rogozhin is planning to kill him. In fact, Rogozhin is planning to kill him (the two have a difference over a woman, etc.). Rogozhin is waiting for Myshkin at the top of his stairs, and Myshkin climbs toward him believing that Rogozhin is holding a knife behind his back, which he is. At the moment Rogozhin draws his knife, Myshkin falls into his fit and in the moment of collapse experiences the full panorama of omniscient euphoria that is often reported from the cusp of such seizures. In my own life at the time, there were events that seemed to echo it still further, so a feeling of synchronicity was impressed deeply upon me. And Dostoevksy became my greatest influence.

Irene Lewis
Artistic Director (Center Stage)

When I was fifteen, my high school in Long Island put on a production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Prior to that, I had not been exposed to anything artistic—theater, classical music, dance, visual arts, what have you—but from experiencing that show, and seeing the depth of vision and human emotion presented on a stage through very simple means, I was hooked. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

Gregg Wilhelm
Founder of CityLit Project

The original Clash album (on vinyl!) released in the USA in 1979, but discovered by me in 1981 at Record Masters in the Rotunda. From the first crunching chords of “Clash City Rockers” to the stop-on-a-dime finale of “Garageland,” I was hooked. It ushered me to the Ramones, The Jam, Minor Threat, Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, and the rest of the Clash catalog that become my soundtrack for the Reagan-Thatcher 1980s. More importantly, it ignited the first sparks of a DIY spirit within me. While I never dyed my hair blue, pierced a body part, or owned a pair of real Doc Martens, that essential punk spirit evolved into what I guess they call an “entrepreneurial spirit” these days. This drive might partly explain how I have been able to create “career opportunities” in the book world even though the culture of literature is under attack. Twenty-five years later, I still listen to it.

John Berndt
Musician & Co-Founder of the High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music

At the age of six my mother took me to the BMA to see an “empty gallery” exhibit by Sol Lewitt consisting of faint geometric pencil marks on the walls. What it suggested to me at that ripe age was a kind of non-conformist culture confronting the viewer from a remote, complex, strange, and abstract standpoint—like being contacted by interesting aliens that have something fundamental and surprising to tell you. I spent the rest of my life following up on that suggested possibility by energetically exploring and participating in the artistic, musical, and political avant-gardes. While they contain plenty of garbage and fluff, they did ultimately provide me with many “miracles”—piercing ideas and perspectives that go far beyond what is usually possible in our civilization. The path severely less traveled was really where the action was.

Marin Alsop
Music Director (BSO)

Hearing Brahms’ String Sextet in B flat major when I was 12 years old made me suddenly understand that music can change one’s life from the inside out. It’s the first piece I felt truly “moved” by and I have loved it intensely from that moment on.

Anne Tyler
Novelist

Eudora Welty’s short story, “The Wide Net”—and more specifically, the sentence describing someone who could sit all day pondering how the tail of the C got through the loop of the L in the Coca-Cola sign. That sentence came at me like a burst of light. It made me see that I could write about ordinary life rather than something grand and operatic.

Maria Broom
Dancer and Actress (The Wire)

The most influential artistic experience of my life was seeing the original Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo at the Lyric when I was six years old. It was the singular event that made me “know” that I wanted to perform on stage as a dancer. I saw all of those men and women in beautiful costumes surrounded by stunning, larger-than-life scenery, and I knew that “those were my people.” And I have been dancing and performing ever since.

Tom Hall
Music Director (Baltimore Choral Arts Society)

They say you never forget your first time, and they’re right. The first time I ever sang in a chorus was during my freshman year in college. We sang Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, and I was so moved, that within weeks of singing that concert, I abandoned my plans to be a professional guitarist and embraced choral music as my life’s work. The best thing about choral music is that you are part of something bigger than yourself. The Fauré Requiem will always be a big part of me.

Elizabeth Spires
Poet

Some experiences of great art are electric, dramatic. I’m thinking of the effect on the viewer, or reader, of Van Gogh’s swirling, cosmically charged Starry Night or Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Terrible Sonnets.” But some art is more quietly life-changing. Five or six years ago, my husband brought back some small paintings from Haiti, done in a naive style by the young painter Armand Fleurimond. His lyrical scenes of the lush Haitian countryside and seashore, of children jumping rope or flying kites, insisted that a parallel world co-exists in that tiny island country alongside the violence, instability, and poverty.

Fleurimond’s paintings capture a private realm that I return to again and again, always feeling restored by his fresh, innocent vision. His paintings speak to the power of the imagination to give us a different version of the violent world we have grown accustomed to living in. By their very existence, they insist that hope prevails. In Haiti. Here. Anywhere. I call that life-changing.

Darin Atwater
Music Director (Soulful Symphony)

In high school while watching the Kennedy Center Honors, which my mom forced me to do every December, I saw The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform their classic Revelations as they paid tribute the their Artistic Director and Founder, Alvin Ailey. It gave me an aesthetic framework for the elevation of the African-American vernacular. It represented the power of an institution to represent culture at its highest form, and the ability to engineer that culture through art. It is that benchmark I pursue.

Niki Lee
Musician

Green Day’s American Idiot CD catapulted me out of whatever I thought middle-age was supposed to be. My transformation from hermit-like suburbanite to 47-year-old punk rock groupie was stunning. The opening guitar riff of the title song nailed me nearly two years ago, while I was working on the computer and listening to the Howard Stern Show. It caused my whole body to surge backwards in my black swivel chair, hands involuntarily flying off my ergonomic computer keyboard as if I’d been shot full of electricity. Giving a middle finger to the powers-that-be, it was the most satisfying rock music I’d heard in over 15 years, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d been craving that kind of expression.

It helped pull me back from the brink of becoming a sloppy drug addict with severe health, relationship, and job problems. The pain of a severe case of sciatica got me addicted to painkillers, cigarettes, Bailey’s Irish Cream, and Cocoa Puffs.

It was a slippery slope. None of my clothes fit, and visits to the liquor store became embarrassingly frequent. Fearing I’d end up being some fat, out-of-shape, rode-hard-and-put-up-wet 50-year-old, I started doing yoga and gave up my vices. Hearing American Idiot was the final slap in the face that ratcheted up my recovery 10,000 notches.

To see Green Day perform, and I simply had to, I started to travel—before that, I always hated to travel. The band was playing American Idiot in its entirety at the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas, and I wanted to go. Flying, especially after 9/11, totally freaked me out, but I went anyway because I was sick of thinking that only other people went on adventures. The show was exhilarating. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong is a force I’ve never witnessed before—a cross between Charlie Chaplin, Jim Morrison, Mister Rogers, and Elvis. But the cherry on the top of that Sin City hot fudge sundae was shooting craps with the band’s drummer, Tre Cool, who complimented me on my Green Day tattoo. Oh yeah, I got a Green Day tattoo on my forearm.

Then, there was Europe. I impulsively bought a ticket to see the band in Lyon, France. A friend of mine was so amused by my newfound fandom that she gave me a free, first-class British Airways ticket to cross the Atlantic. The trip to Lyon turned into a tour of four countries in six days, during which I saw the band three times. I even took the Chunnel between England and France, something that I never ever ever would have considered before that—much too dangerous!

American Idiot upended my life so exquisitely that, after years of fearful living, I was liberated. I learned how to have fun by myself and with others, how to fly without panicking, and how to infuse my own music and life with spirit and guts. Now, when something overwhelms me, I get in touch with my inner Billie Joe.

John Waters
Filmmaker/Writer/Artist

I first saw this shocking, elegant, beautiful painting—Nude Descending A Staircase by Marcel Duchamp—in a magazine when I was about 8 years old and it stopped me in my childhood tracks. I couldn’t wait to show this masterpiece to friends but they all said, “EWWWWWW!” “That’s ugly.” “You’re stupid.” Right then I realized the thrilling power of contemporary art and for the next year every time I came down the steps at my parents’ house, I was Nude Descending A Staircase, but I didn’t tell anybody.

Manuel Barrueco
Musician

Back in 1987, I had the opportunity to get to know the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu while performing his concerto “To the Edge of Dream” with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony. Up until that time, I had seen classical music and my own work much more from an intellectual point of view. But after that experience, especially after getting over the shock of both of them encouraging me to infuse my performance with much more eroticism, my work transformed itself to be much more about beauty, poetry, and ultimately about the human experience.

Alex Castro
Designer

So many things. So many important things. Eliot (Four Quartets), Stevens (Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction), but it always comes back to music. All art feebly tries to attain what music does naturally. So, recently, the Aria movement from Roger Sessions’ Divertimento for Orchestra, but always the one thing that I go back to and which has had the profoundest effect: the Bach Cello Suites, preferably played by Janos Starker.

Nothing goes deeper or sees more.