New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC)

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) is the artistic, cultural, educational, and civic center of New Jersey. Within and outside its walls, great performances and events transform lives every day. As the largest venue for performing arts in its home state, each season NJPAC presents more than 400 concerts, plays, recitals, spoken-word performances, and many other cultural experiences. Located in vibrant downtown Newark, NJPAC has been widely credited as a catalyst in the revitalization of New Jersey’s largest city, attracting more than 7 million visitors since its opening in 1997. The mainstage in Prudential Hall has been crossed by the world’s leading artists, from Tony Bennett, Diana Ross and Louis C.K. to Paul Simon, LL Cool J and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. NJPAC’s curatorial leadership in jazz generated the annual TD James Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival, an expansive series of all-star performances and related events. Successfully and newly established at NJPAC, the biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival draws aficionados of the written and spoken word from 34 states and several foreign countries. NJPAC’s free outdoor music series, Horizon Foundation Sounds of the City, is a highly anticipated mainstay of Newark’s community nightlife. Up to 6,000 people are drawn to the three-acre Theater Square on Thursdays during the summer months. NJPAC takes bold direction in its classical music programming and has brought such talents as Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra to its stage. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has designated NJPAC as its flagship venue. More than a million children statewide have participated in NJPAC’s arts education programs, including the innovative Wells Fargo Jazz for Teens, The Star-Ledger Scholarship for the Performing Arts, The Young Artist Institute, and the Passport to Culture SchoolTime Series of performances. In-school residencies also are offered in dance, theater, music, and the literary arts.