With the spring semester coming to a close, the Redfern Arts Center is wrapping up its 2025-2026 season.
The Redfern Arts Center has hosted a variety of shows, from music performances to theatre shows and dance performances. It aimed to finish off strong with shows on the weekend of May 3 and 4.
The Alumni Recital Hall hosted a total of three different performances over the final weekend of classes. The Flute/Saxophone/Video Game Ensemble, the Concert Choir/Chamber Singer/Vocal Consort performance and the Student Composer/Percussion Ensemble.
The Redfern’s Performing Arts Program Manager and Artistic Director, Stephanie Bass Abrams, spoke about the choice to have the different ensembles come together into a combined performance.
“We’re trying to move a lot of our ensembles to do fewer concerts,” Abrams said. “Just so that we can present and attract audiences to come and see different things. It’s really hard to get [people], especially students, to come to all of them. So we’re putting things into one bill, but they’re really sort of separate.”
The joint performances hosted acts for each of the ensembles performing, such as the Student Composer and Percussion Ensemble, which had nine works from the student composers and six pieces from the Percussion ensemble to take up the two-hour runtime.
Audience members, sophomore Alex Murphy and SNHU student Thailia Stafford, spoke about the Student Composer and Percussion Ensemble performance.
“I thought it was awesome,” Murphy said. “There was a student at the start that did completely amazing.
It’s crazy that he did four different pieces. He was definitely the star of the show.”
“I loved the 1984 piece,” Stafford added. “I read that book and the piece portrayed it very well. I really loved all the references, and it was really cool.”
Scott Gunnis, a Keene community member, spoke similarly to the vocal performance on May 2.
“The performance was actually excellent, to be honest,” Gunnis said. “I loved all the body percussion in some of the songs, it made it a lot better.”
In terms of the year as a whole, Abrams spoke highly about the achievements made this year for the Redfern Arts Center.
“I’m just about to wrap up my first academic year on this job,” said Abrams. “I started in August, and I didn’t know what to expect. But I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished with the Redfern team, especially.”
“We are very small, but mighty,” Abrams continued. “We’ve experienced some challenges this year with regards to cuts and stuff, and we were able to somehow pull it all together to produce and present incredible productions.”
From presenting a wide array of student and group shows to hosting a professional touring company’s performance this semester, the Redfern has had a collection of great moments this year.
Abrams also spoke about the upcoming performances for the Presenting Series of the 2026-2027 school year.
“The students all still plan to have their events like usual,” Abrams said. “Then we’re bringing the presenting series in, which is just so exciting. It’s a bit scary to dive into these, but we hope people come as we bring in these shows.”
The presenting series of the upcoming year has performances such as a circus-style show in September, a silent movie orchestra in October and a Multi-Media theatre performance by POLLProject Ensemble in April. All of these performances will be free for Keene State Students to attend, some even coming with workshops and receptions.
“We wish to aim for everyone for this upcoming season,” Abrams said. “That’s why I’ve tried to curate this coming presenting series season with a little bit of something for everybody. You know, we have contemporary circus, live music, dance and theatre. But we have so much more inside of these performances. There’s multimedia, there’s projection, there’s a lot of elements in these shows that pull the whole thing together.”
“We’ve accomplished a lot this year,” Abrams said. “I’m really excited to see how we grow as a team and what we’re able to accomplish going forward.”
Michael Ardita can be contacted at
mardita@kscequinox.com
