Events

Mark your calendars for MacDowell’s National Benefit in 2023 to be held on October 16th, once again at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in NYC! This year, the 2023 benefit will feature performances and installations by MacDowell Fellows as well as the presentation of the 4th Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award to Fairfax Dorn, the co-founder and artistic director of Ballroom Marfa.

More than a thousand arts lovers visited us for Medal Day, July 23rd, 2023! This beloved New Hampshire event gathers community members, fans, and artists on MacDowell's verdant grounds for the awarding of the Edward MacDowell Medal. Visit the page to see video of the ceremony honoring esteemed filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, images, and read transcripts. After the ceremony, visitors enjoyed a picnic lunch and visited open studios. For more information or to become a sponsor next summer, please email events@macdowell.org

MacDowell Downtown is a free series of public presentations by MacDowell Fellows that typically take place on the first Friday of the month from March to November in downtown Peterborough. Each season of MacDowell Downtown features a wide array of programming, including film screenings, workshops, readings, writing seminars, art exhibitions, performances, talks, and more.

Saturday, May 6, 2023 marked a return to Bond Hall for this year's New Hampshire Benefit! This annual event brings together artists-in-residence, MacDowell supporters, and business leaders for an intimate community celebration of art and artists on our grounds! To learn more about it and view a slideshow from the evening, please click the button below.

Watch a replay of the June 1 Katherine Min Fellowship celebration. The MacDowell community and the family and friends of Katherine Min gathered for the second annual celebration of the endowed fellowship awarded annually to elevate the voices of Asian American writers at MacDowell. MacDowell Fellow Alexander Chee hosted this year's celebration from the MacDowell NYC offices. The evening of readings and commemoration featured Jessica Shi, 2020 Katherine Min Fellow, Lisa Ko, 2021 Katherine Min Fellow, and Kayla Min Andrews, writer and daughter of Katherine Min.

Writer, organizer, and educator Mahogany L. Browne received the second annual Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award on behalf of Urban Word – one of the oldest and most comprehensive youth literary arts organizations in the country – during MacDowell’s National Benefit to be held virtually December 7, 2021. Watch the replay from this page!

Over the course of 2021, the 92nd Street Y and MacDowell partnered to present a series of five salons about the arts and creativity. Relive each of these unscripted, interdisciplinary conversations that happen every day at MacDowell from our series page via the button below:

On Saturday, November 19, 2022, the Fellows Executive Committee hosted the Annual Fellows Party in New York, reuniting recent and past Fellows in celebration of MacDowell’s mission and its ongoing role in their lives. A portion of the proceeds from these events help fund a gift to MacDowell. Stay tuned for information on the 2023 reunion this fall!

Grammy-winning composer and performer Rosanne Cash became the 61st Edward MacDowell Medalist during an intimate event at our Peterborough, NH, property. You can watch the televised New Hampshire PBS-MacDowell co-production of Medal Day here, find links to the ceremony's speeches, and learn more via the button below:

I Was Becoming celebrated the partnership between MacDowell and The Rona Jaffe Foundation with a reading and conversation with writers Elif Batuman, Chelsea Bieker, Monica Sok, and Julie Orringer on Monday, February 8th. You can watch the hour-long presentation at its page!

The MacDowell Journalism Panel, “Art and Urgency: Journalism in the Post-Truth Era,” took place on October 26 at 7 p.m. but you can watch the recorded discussion moderated by Virginia Quarterly Review Editor Paul Reyes with prominent journalists Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Meera Subramanian, Alexis Okeowo, and Jeff Sharlet.

To recognize James Baldwin and his extraordinary cultural legacy, MacDowell’s library has been named in his honor. Baldwin’s work as a novelist, poet, activist, essayist, playwright, social critic, and cultural leader continues to have enormous impact on the public imagination.