Admission Cost: $5 USC students; $25 general admission

Hailed by The New York Times as “prodigiously accomplished and exciting” and as one of the piano’s “brilliant stars,” pianist Blair McMillen has forged a musical life that is unbounded by convention. He is well-known for his advocacy of living composers and contemporary music, as well as for championing very early keyboard music and more recent neglected masterpieces. For more than two decades, McMillen has divided his time as piano soloist, chamber musician, music festival director, and educator/teacher.

Blair McMillen is the co-founder and co-director of the Rite of Summer Music Festival. Rite of Summer is a free, outdoor contemporary-music series held on New York City’s Governors Island. The festival has presented boundary-pushing artists such as the JACK Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Tigue, Theo Bleckmann, Todd Reynolds, Contemporaneous, and Don Byron’s New Gospel Quintet. Celebrating its twelfth season in 2023, Rite of Summer is the only annual music festival on Governors Island, a place the New Yorker has called “an enormous playground for the arts.”

Blair McMillen holds degrees from Oberlin College, Manhattan School of Music, and The Juilliard School.

Blair McMillen has performed in major concert venues in New York, throughout the United States, and around the world. 

Tickets go on sale May 1!

Purchase tickets in person at the Koger Center Box Office or online. New this year: save $ by purchasing an event package of all SEPF signature concerts!