HARRIMAN-JEWELL SERIES

The Harriman-Jewell Series continues to bring the world's foremost stars in classical music to Kansas City. In the recently completed 2024-25 season, we offered 13 performances and 20 educational events, more than 250 artists appeared in our programming, and we served 17,776 individuals across the Kansas City area. In 2024-2025 we celebrated our 60th Anniversary of showcasing high-quality artists from around the world to local audiences. Some notable presentations included our opening event in Helzberg Hall of the Kauffman Center of the Performing Arts featuring pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, Itzhak Perlman with an ensemble of Klezmer musicians, Joyce DiDonato singing with ensemble King's Return, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and the Ballet Folklorico De Mexico, to name a few. We sought programming that was varied and included a multidisciplinary lineup of dance, symphony orchestras, opera stars, instrumentalists, jazz and chamber musicians. Most notable for our organization, last season we established Harriman-Jewell Series (the Series) as an independent 501c3 entity to best fulfill our mission to bring extraordinary artistic experiences to Kansas City. William Jewell College formed the Series as a college department in 1965, but our growth has allowed us to sustain our operations independently from the College and provides us the opportunity to independently manage our operations into the future. Externally, this shift will have little impact; however, operationally it allows the Series financial independence and independent Board governance. The Series staff remains in place which will aid in a seamless transition of operations. We are honored that our donor base has remained loyal to the Series throughout this transition, and they have shown their enthusiasm and support for this next step.