Newark Performing Arts

Aside from visual arts, Newark also offers an exciting menu of performing arts. The TD James Moody Festival is one of the East Coast's most influential jazz events. Held every November, it spotlights a broad spectrum of jazz and its' artists.

The Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers-Newark, located in the John Cotton Dana Library on campus, is the most comprehensive archive of jazz-related materials in the world, holding more than 150,000 recordings and thousands of books and artifacts. 

Founded in 1922, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra performs in six venues throughout the state and is the resident symphony orchestra of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Conductor Xian Zhang is the first female to be named music director of the NJSO.