Ellie Park, Photography Editor

From Corinne Bailey Rae to Lee Isaac Chung to Swae Lee, Yale welcomed some of the biggest names in the creative industry last year. Over the course of the 2023-24 academic year, more than sixty speakers visited the campus. 

If last year’s line-up of visitors is any indication of this year’s events, Yalies will certainly be in for a treat. Festivities will kick off with the upcoming Bulldog Bash, a beginning-of-the-term celebration of the Class of 2028, held on Old Campus. 

For new Yalies wondering who they’ll see this year, here are some of the highlights from last year. 

Last September was off to a busy start, with performances from TwoSet Violin, a musical duo that has amassed more than four million YouTube subscribers, and The Crossing — a Grammy-winning chamber choir. 

In the same month, the Humanities Now lecture series, a program designed to foster intellectual and social dialogue, welcomed Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma and Tanzanian singer Lady Jaydee. Together, the two creatives spoke on the cross-medium connections within African music and literature. 

According to Megan O’Donnell, a communications officer for Whitney Humanities Center, hearing two artists of “incredible talent,” across two different creative fields presented a “rare opportunity” for the Yale community. 

“Speaking of rare opportunities, not many people can say they saw the Queen of Bongo Flava perform live in a setting as intimate as The Underground at the Yale Schwarzman Center,” she said. 

“She Came to Me,” a romantic-comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Peter Dinklage, was also screened at Yale last September, followed by a Q&A session with director Rebecca Miller ’84. Attendees were shown an exclusive screening, which preceded the film’s box office debut in October. 

The month of September also saw one of the last performances ever from the Emerson String Quartet, hailed by Time Magazine as “America’s greatest quartet,” before the group’s dissolution. 

In October, Yale alum Lee Isaac Chung ’01 — who won a Golden Globe for his film “Minari” — addressed a packed Leitner House. Whilst sipping on tea, Chung spoke about his Arkansas upbringing, time at Yale and his time filmmaking in Rwanda. 

“It’s great to see a filmmaker, especially one that was so shaped by Yale, come back and talk about his time here,” said Joji Baratelli ’24, who facilitated the conversation. “A career in film is a long and difficult journey, but… he offers that very hope, of a life in art as a possibility — and for students, I think that’s a really exciting thing to see.”

The second semester saw no shortage of high-profile visitors, including architect David Rockwell. Rockwell was responsible for the restoration and renovation of Grand Central Terminal in New York City — work that would win him the 2001 Presidential Design award. 

As part of the 2023-24 Schwartzman Center season, Grammy-award winning opera singer Renee Fleming sang to a sold-out crowd in January. While she belted her signature soprano notes, whales, from a National Geographic projected behind her, flounced and danced to her music. Her stop at Yale is one of many visits around the world, from Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In April, Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” print visited the Yale University Art Gallery. One of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world, the print is so fragile that it can only be displayed for three months at a time, due to the harm of exhibition lighting. 

Yale wrapped up a year of remarkable visits with its annual Spring Fling music festival, which was headlined by DJ duo/twins Coco & Breezy, soft-pop band Dayglow, and rapper Swae Lee. Representing different genres, all three acts are well-established figures in their domains — Swae Lee is a member of Rae Sremmurd, a group that has been nominated for the BET, Grammy and Billboard Music awards. 

Ahead of the school year, Yalies had a fresh line-up of musical artists for its annual Bulldog Bash. Celebrating its fifth anniversary, this year’s Bulldog Bash featured DJ Yongolailan and electronic music act, Sxip Shirey & The Jank Band. Yongolailan is a music project created by the multi-instrumentalist producer Charly Poe, who won the Cuba Disco Award in 2015. 

Attendees also saw break-dancing, beat-boxing and acrobatic performances from Ryan Shinji, Keith Nelson and the Missing Element. 

This year’s Bulldog Bash was Aug. 25, 2024.