Originally known as the "William Jewell College Fine Arts Program", it hosted Luciano Pavarotti's international recital debut on February 1, 1973.
The Series has since hosted several leading tenors, including Giuseppe Filianoti (2012),[1] Francisco Araiza (1982), Ben Heppner (1997), Marcelo Álvarez (2001), Juan Diego Flórez (2002), Daniil Shtoda (2002), Salvatore Licitra (2005), and Clifton Forbis (2006).
New York City Ballet’s Patricia McBride and Edward Villella danced in the Series’ first performance in December 1965, and violinist Itzhak Perlman played a recital in 1971.
[citation needed] “Cezanne called the Louvre ‘the book in which we learn to read,’” said Terry Teachout, a Jewell alumnus and drama critic for The Wall Street Journal.
It gave me a golden yardstick of taste–-one I still use to this day.”[citation needed] “No one will ever be able to calculate how the presence of some of the world’s most superb artists before area innocents influenced the development of resident music, dance and theater companies,” the Kansas City Star wrote of the Harriman-Jewell Series.