Enhance the creative and performing arts

University Priority

Amplifying the Power of Imagination

The arts lift us to new heights and inspire us to dream bigger.

Combining the creative and analytical is essential to Northwestern’s ethos. This unique interdisciplinary approach ensures that art is accessible and thought-provoking across mediums.

Bienen School of Music

Boasting a faculty of award-winning performers, composers and scholars, Bienen prepares musicians of the highest caliber. A combination of outstanding musicianship, keen intelligence and curiosity about the world produces a range of creative voices.

School of Communication

The School of Communication is where art, research and scholarship meet. With pioneering faculty leading the way, the school advances the arts and sciences of communication through bold exploration and collaboration.

Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, Northwestern’s largest school, is the University’s nerve center for interdisciplinary teaching and research. The College’s intellectually vibrant community is home to the Department of Art Theory & Practice and Creative Writing Program – including the Litowitz MFA+MA Program in Creative Writing and English. The internationally-acclaimed artists and writers in these units weave an intricate intellectual fabric of scholarship and expertise that enriches our arts curriculum.

The Block Museum of Art

The Block is an engine that drives questioning, experimentation and creativity across fields of study, with visual arts at the center. Free and open to the public, the museum houses a collection of over 6,000 works from artists around the world.

Meet Some of Our Experts

Our talented faculty make life more colorful and vibrant.

Whether through visual, musical or literary work, Northwestern’s creative minds stretch across disciplines, revealing new insights and perspectives into the world around us.

Natasha Trethewey

Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States. In 2007 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Native Guard.

KO

KO is most widely known for their acting work that spans the last 25 years on Broadway and TV. They won a Tony Award for their role as Anita in the Broadway revival of West Side Story directed by Arthur Laurents.

Taimur Sullivan

Sullivan is a professor of Saxophone and a member of the acclaimed PRISM Quartet. His performances have taken him from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to engagements around the world.

Highlights

Learn how Northwestern’s creative arts enrich the human experience.

Jazz and new Black music in Chicago

An innovative class on Black music in Chicago culminated in a student-produced concert and pre-show panel featuring renowned jazz musicians with deep connections to Chicago.

The possibilities of art and technology

An interdisciplinary research group led by Thomas F. DeFrantz explores connections between performance and emergent technology in the service of theatrical storytelling and the telling of alternative histories.

Arts and culture events

Northwestern is a hub of cultural and artistic activities, with hundreds of concerts, performances, exhibitions and other events presented each year featuring both students and world-renowned guest artists.