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Alumna and high school music teacher and band director Melissa Hall retuned to ������'s campus in honor of Mason Band's 55th anniversary.

Friday, November 14 at the Center for the Arts, the concert features a partnership between ������ and Legal Services of Northern Virginia with a special guest appearance by George Mason President Gregory Washington.

Raising more than $289,000 to support Mason Arts, the 20th ARTS by George! benefit featured Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe winner Darren Criss as the headliner.

Federico Frum, BA Art and Visual Technology ’05, believes in the power of art to bring people together. Known professionally as MasPaz—Spanish for “more peace”—Frum has spent his career fusing activism and creativity, using bold street murals, community engagement, and cultural storytelling to spread a message of unity.

Christopher Kardambikis never set out to create work that would sit behind glass or live in private collections. Instead, he found his voice and purpose through publishing zines, artist books, and prints—things people could hold, trade, collect, and care about without needing a trust fund.

For Boris Willis, the future of games has always been bigger than pixels and code. Long before the rise of virtual production and interactive storytelling, Willis was blending technology, dance, and design into new forms of creative expression.

Historical dramas may be nothing new to the theater, but an original opera based on a landmark Supreme Court Civil Rights case? Rick Davis knew this was something different. After learning that Virginia Opera was planning to stage their new opera, Loving v. Virgina—based on the historic Supreme Court case striking down a Virginia law that banned interracial marriage—Davis seized the unique opportunity for his students. 

Only five years after graduating from ������, alumna Rhyan Elliott, Film and Video Studies ’20, was recently a production supervisor for the five-time Oscar-winning film Anora (2024), directed by Sean Baker.

The evening raised $162,500 and featured a cocktail reception, dinner on Merchant Hall Stage, special tributes to Honorees Marion Wall and Dominion Energy, a lively after-party, and more.

Death has been the constant companion in Steven Luu’s life—from war-torn Vietnam to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But through art, Luu, now an MFA student at ������’s School of Art, has discovered peace, purpose, and a path to healing.