Reminder: Rising Star Violinist Randall Goosby performs at the Gardner Museum on April 12

L-R: Randall Goosby, Zhu Wang, Renaissance Quartet. Press photos available here.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Presents Violinist Randall Goosby with Pianist Zhu Wang in April and the Renaissance String Quartet in May

Randall Goosby & Zhu Wang: Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 1:30 pm
Renaissance String Quartet: Sunday, May 17, 2026 at 1:30 pm

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall | 25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: www.gardnermuseum.org/about/music

For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com

BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continues its Winter/Spring 2026 Weekend Concert Series, presenting superstar violinist Randall Goosby with pianist Zhu Wang on Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 1:30 pm and the Renaissance String Quartet (of which Goosby is a member) on Sunday, May 17, 2026 at 1:30 pm. This fifteen-concert season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel runs from January 25 through May 17, 2026, and features world-class artists in the Museum’s extraordinary Calderwood Hall—a 300-seat “sonic cube” with three levels of balconies designed so that 80% of seats are front row, creating a uniquely intense and intentional listening experience.

Virtuoso violinist Randall Goosby returns to Calderwood Hall on April 12 with pianist Zhu Wang for an intimate recital of epic music. Two major sonatas bookend the program: Debussy’s elusive and gorgeous sonata is paired with Beethoven’s sunny F major essay in the form. The concert also includes Southland Sketches by Harry Burleigh, who was key in forging a quintessential American musical language, modifying the gorgeous modal inflections of spirituals with the chromatic ambiguities of Wagner’s harmony. Romance by Boston’s Amy Beach, the best of the Second New England School of composers, gorgeously drinks from a similar Wagnerian well. Dvořák’s Four Romantic Pieces provide a bridge between these worlds, showing how Romanticism and folk traditions can be seamlessly interwoven.

Signed exclusively to Decca Classics in 2020 at the age of 24, American violinist Randall Goosby is acclaimed for the sensitivity and intensity of his musicianship alongside his determination to make music more inclusive and accessible, as well as bringing the music of under-represented composers to light. Goosby was recently appointed to The Juilliard School’s Preparatory Division and the Pre-College violin faculty. He began studying violin at the age of seven and made his solo debut with the Jacksonville Symphony at age nine. Four years later, he became the youngest First Prize winner of the Sphinx Competition at thirteen, leading to debut performances with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and New World Symphony. In addition to his performance at the Gardner Museum, highlights of his current season include debut performances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, and San Diego Symphony. He returns this season to the San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony, and appears in recital across the country. Of his concerto debut on Decca, Gramophone raved, “There’s an honesty and modesty...This playing isn’t dressed to impress but to express.”

Randall Goosby returns in May, when the Gardner Museum presents the Renaissance String Quartet on May 17, for the closing performance of the Winter/Spring 2026 Weekend Concert Series. In addition to Goosby, this supergroup includes violinist Jeremiah Blacklow, violist Jameel Martin, and cellist Daniel Hass—four terrific musicians who find time in their busy touring lives as soloists and chamber musicians to perform together. Brahms’ String Quartet No. 2 in A minor anchors the program with its characteristic blend of passion and intellectual rigor. The concert also includes the great American composer Florence Price’s String Quartet No. 1 in G Major. Price had a special gift for quartet writing; the exquisite and eloquent slow movement of her first quartet shows her love of American song, especially Black spirituals. The program closes with String Quartet No. 1, “Love and Levity,” by Daniel Hass, the cellist in the Renaissance String Quartet. He describes the piece as “Beethovenian in its thematic and structural tautness, but even more so in its motion towards excess.”

The Renaissance String Quartet is driven by a desire to reimagine the role and capacity of the string quartet as a vehicle for change, inspiring audiences, students, and collaborators around the world. Founded in 2021, the New York City-based quartet was formed on the basis of over a decade of friendship at The Perlman Music Program and The Juilliard School. The quartet feels a responsibility to command a diverse repertoire of classic, underrepresented, and new works, so they can contribute to the reclamation, redefinition, and continuation of a musical tradition that belongs to all of us. They represent and articulate an inclusive vision of the future of classical music, which sees a culture of music wherein all lives and histories are welcomed and celebrated.

George Steel’s music programming for the Museum continues founder and legendary arts patron Isabella Stewart Gardner’s vision of bringing together musicians and audiences for inspiring gatherings. Dating to 1927, the Gardner’s Weekend Concert Series is the longest running museum music program in the country. Much like Isabella Stewart Gardner did in her time, Steel champions unknown repertoire and embraces new works, creates connections and builds community among musicians, and supports them by presenting them in new endeavors and collaborations. His programming also frequently draws on the history of the Gardner Museum, featuring instruments from the Museum’s collection and music by composers who were associated with its founder. In honoring Isabella Stewart Gardner’s musical legacy, Music at the Gardner remains strongly committed to broadening the repertoire of music presented to include previously overlooked and marginalized composers as well as performers of all backgrounds.

Winter/Spring 2026 At-a-Glance Concert Schedule 

January 25: Twelfth Night Ensemble
February 1: Romuald Grimbert-Barré, violin; Tommy Mesa, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano
February 8: Claremont Trio
February 22: Attacca Quartet
February 26: Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians performed by Ensemble Signal - Thursday Night Music
March 1: Goldmund Quartet with Gloria Chien, piano
March 8: Paul O’Dette, lute
March 15: Borromeo String Quartet
March 29: Castle of Our Skins with Daniel Bernard Roumain, electric violin and Val-Inc, sound chemist
April 5: Paul Galbraith, guitar
April 12: Randall Goosby, violin with Zhu Wang, piano
April 18: Boston Children’s Chorus: The Road She Paved
April 19: Imani Winds
April 26: The Butter Quartet
May 10: Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
May 17: Renaissance String Quartet

All concerts take place on Sundays at 1:30 pm, except for Ensemble Signal which performs on Thursday, February 26 at 7 pm and the Boston Children’s Chorus which performs on Saturday, April 18 at 2 pm. All concerts take place in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA).

Ticketing Information

Tickets are available at gardnermuseum.org/about/music or by calling the Box Office at 617 278 5156. For additional information including about accessibility, please contact boxoffice@isgm.org.

About the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invites you to escape the ordinary in a magical setting where art and community come together to inspire new ways of envisioning our world. Embodying the fearless legacy of its founder, the Museum offers a singular invitation to explore the past through a contemporary lens, creating meaningful encounters with art and joyful connections for all. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, unforgettable galleries surround a luminous Courtyard and are home to masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent. The Renzo Piano Wing provides a platform for contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars and serves as an innovative venue where creativity is celebrated in all of its forms. 

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115 • Hours: Open Weekends from 10 am to 5 pm, Weekdays from 11am to 5 pm and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $22; Seniors $20; Students $15; Free for members, children under 18, everyone on their birthday, and all named “Isabella” • $2 off admission with a same-day Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ticket • For information 617 566 1401 • Box Office 617 278 5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org

Music at the Gardner is supported by Manitou Fund. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Alford P. Rudnick Memorial Concert; David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder; Wendy Shattuck Young Artist Concert; and Willona Sinclair Memorial Concert. The piano is dedicated as the Alex d’Arbeloff Steinway. The harpsichord was generously donated by Dr. Robert Barstow in memory of Marion Huse, and its care is endowed in memory of Dr. Barstow by The Barstow Fund. Music at the Gardner is also supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Joseph Mari, Sallie and Jim McGregor, Nicie and Jay Panetta, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

April 17: Composer Robert Sirota Releases World Premiere Recording of 212: Symphony No. 1 on Azica – Performed by Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra Conducted by George Manahan

Composer Robert Sirota Releases 212: Symphony No. 1 on April 17
on Azica Records

World Premiere Recording of Sirota’s Symphonic Work
Performed by Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by George Manahan

Downloads and CDs available to press on request

“[Robert] Sirota’s compositional voice has a distinctive tartness and rhythmic bite.”
– Anthony Tomassini, The New York Times

Robert Sirota | Manhattan School of Music | Azica Records

The world premiere recording of composer Robert Sirota’s 212: Symphony No. 1 will be released on April 17, 2026. The tenth album featuring Sirota’s music, and his first for Azica Records, 212: Symphony No. 1 is performed by Manhattan School of Music’s Symphony Orchestra led by celebrated conductor George Manahan. Over five decades, Robert Sirota has developed a distinctive voice, clearly discernible in all of his work – whether symphonic, choral, stage, or chamber music. Writing in the Portland Press Herald, Allan Kozinn asserts: “Sirota’s musical language is personal and undogmatic, in the sense that instead of aligning himself with any of the competing contemporary styles, he follows his own internal musical compass.”

Robert Sirota composed 212: Symphony No. 1 in 2007. Of the work’s world premiere, Anthony Tomassini wrote in The New York Times, “Although the overall musical language of this score recalls the American neo-classicists, Mr. Sirota’s compositional voice has a distinctive tartness and rhythmic bite. Thick, astringent chromatic harmonies come in tightly bound chords to create nervous sonorities. Yet the textures are always lucid; details come through.”

Named after the iconic area code, the work is lovingly dedicated to the memory of Sirota’s father, Harry Sirota, whom Robert describes as, “a truly great New Yorker.”

When starting work on the piece, Sirota came to the realization that writing music inspired by the borough of Manhattan required an extended, multi-movement work as the chosen musical form. He states in his program note that “nothing less” would suffice, going on to write, “In framing the four movements of this 25-minute work, I have tried to portray Manhattan as I have experienced it: a place of incomparable majesty, vitality, tragedy, and hope.”

Over the work’s four movements, Sirota takes listeners on a journey through the borough – the approach to Manhattan’s iconic skyline (“Approaches”); the sound and unique energy of the subway (“Do Not Hold Doors”); grief for the tragedy of September 11 (“Lamentation”); and finally, concluding with a hopeful hymn for the city (“O Manhattan”).

Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US and Europe; ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; the Chiara, American, Telegraph, and Blair String Quartets; the Neave, Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and at festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, and Cooperstown music festivals; Bowdoin Gamper and Bowdoin International Music Festival; and Mizzou International Composers Festival. Commissions for Sirota@70 in honor of his 70th birthday included works for Thomas Pellaton, Carol Wincenc, Linda Chesis & the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival, and Sierra Chamber Society.

Additional recent commissions include the music for Rising, an evening-length dance collaboration with choreographer Gabrielle Lamb, Pigeonwing Dance, and the Neave Trio; A Migrant’s Dream, a choral work commissioned by Judith Clurman for Essential Voices USA; Sirota’s third string quartet, Wave Upon Wave for the Naumburg Foundation; his fourth string quartet Contrapassos for the Sierra Chamber Society, Immigrant Songs for the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine; Luminous Bodies performed by Jeffrey Kahane and yMusic at the Sarasota Music Festival; Hafez Songs for Palladium Musicum; O Blessed Holy Trinity for choir and organ, for Trinity Episcopal Church, Indianapolis; and his Cello Sonata No. 2, for Benjamin Larsen and Hyungjin Choi. Sirota’s arrangements of songs for Paul Simon and yMusic were performed on Simon’s farewell tour, including an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Sirota is a recipient of grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, United States Information Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center. His works are recorded on Navona Records, Legacy Recordings, National Sawdust Tracks, and the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels. His music is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Hal Leonard, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore.

Before becoming Director of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in 1995, Sirota served as Chairman of the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University and Director of Boston University's School of Music. From 2005-2012, he was the President of Manhattan School of Music, where he was also a member of the School’s composition faculty.

A native New Yorker, Sirota studied at Juilliard, Oberlin, and Harvard and divides his time between New York and Searsmont, Maine with his wife, Episcopal priest and organist Victoria Sirota. They frequently collaborate on new works, with Victoria as librettist and performer, at times also working with their children, Jonah and Nadia, both world-class violists.

George Manahan has had an esteemed career embracing everything from opera to the concert stage, the traditional to the contemporary. In the 2025-26 season Manahan made his debut with the Sacramento Philharmonic. In the previous season he debuted at New Orleans Opera for Tosca and Opera Colorado for La Bohème and returned to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for Die Fledermaus.

Manahan continues his commitment to working with young musicians as Director of Orchestral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music. He is the 2012 winner of the Ditson Conductor’s Award, established in 1945 by the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University. It is the oldest award honoring conductors for their support of American music. Previous recipients include James Levine, Christopher Keene, Leopold Stowkowsky, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, and Alan Gilbert. He has also served as Music Director of New York City Opera, Portland Opera, and American Composers’ Orchestra.

His many appearances on television include productions of La Bohème, Lizzie Borden, and Tosca on PBS. Live from Lincoln Center’s telecast of New York City Opera’s production of Madame Butterfly under his direction won a 2007 Emmy Award. George’s wide-ranging recording activities include the premiere recording of Steve Reich’s Tehillim for ECM; recordings of Edward Thomas’s Desire Under the Elms, which was nominated for a Grammy; Joe Jackson’s Will Power; and Tobias Picker’s Emmeline. His enthusiasm for contemporary music continues today; he has conducted numerous world premieres, including Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne, Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, David Lang’s Modern Painters, Hans Werner Henze’s The English Cat, and Terence Blanchard’s Champion. As Music Director of the Richmond Symphony (VA) for twelve years, he was honored four times by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) for his commitment to new music.

He received his formal musical training at the Manhattan School of Music, studying conducting with Anton Coppola and George Schick, and was appointed to the faculty of the school upon his graduation, at which time The Juilliard School awarded him a fellowship as Assistant Conductor with the American Opera Center. Manahan was chosen as the Exxon Arts Endowment Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony and he made his opera debut with the Santa Fe Opera, conducting the American premiere of Arnold Schoenberg’s Von Heute Auf Morgen.

212: Symphony No. 1 by Robert Sirota | Azica
George Manahan, Conductor | Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra
Release Date: April 17, 2026 (Worldwide)

212: Symphony No. 1

1. I: Approaches [6:25]
2. II: Do Not Hold Doors [3:31]
3. III: Lamentation [8:19]
4. IV: O Manhattan [7:28]

Total time [​​25:44]

Recorded live on October 17–18, 2024 at Neidorff – Karpati Hall, Manhattan School of Music
Produced by: Robert Sirota and Manhattan School of Music
Engineered and edited by: Dan Rorke, MSM Chief Recording Engineer, the Orto Center for Distance Learning and Recording Arts
Assistant Engineering by: Bryant Blackburn
Mastered by: Alan Bise
Graphic Design by: Monica Mussulin

Announcing the 2026 Newport Classical Music Festival - 30 Concerts from July 2-19 at 11 Unforgettable Venues

Press photos available here.

Announcing the 2026 Newport Classical Music Festival
30 Concerts from July 2-19, 2026

Performances by Pianist Michelle Cann, Broadway Star Jeremy Jordan, Violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing, Apollo’s Fire, Delirium Musicum, the Parker Quartet, VOCES8, Beijing Guitar Duo, Trio Karénine, WindSync, the Harlem Quartet, and Many More 

Regional Premiere of Vivian Fung’s Goddess//Insect
Performed by Violinist Kristin Lee & Sandbox Percussion
Co-Commissioned by Newport Classical 

Opera Night at The Breakers: Golden Age with Lawrence Brownlee & Erin Morley 

Historic Venues include The Breakers, The Elms, Blithewold Mansion, Castle Hill Inn, Rosecliff Mansion, Redwood Library and Athenæum, and More

Tickets on Sale April 9: www.newportclassical.org/music-festival

Newport, RI – From July 2-19, 2026, the Newport Classical Music Festival will again turn this “City by the Sea” into a summer destination for music lovers, featuring 30 concerts across 11 unforgettable venues, from cliffside lawns to gilded mansions, including the stunning interiors of The Breakers, The Elms, Castle Hill Inn, Blithewold Mansion, Rosecliff Mansion, Redwood Library and Athenæum, and more. For 57 years, Newport Classical has showcased classical music as a living art form, presenting artists and programs that are diverse and ever-evolving in intimate and iconic venues that make every performance one of a kind. The 2026 Festival will again offer audiences the opportunity to discover new composers, revisit beloved works, and experience timeless works offered from a fresh perspective. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on April 8 at 10am.

Highlights of the 2026 Festival include Opening Night with chamber orchestra Delirium Musicum; a celebration of the Golden Age of Opera with Lawrence Brownlee and Erin Morley; solo piano performances by Michelle Cann and Dmitry Shishkin, as well as a two-piano recital with Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy; a new work by Vivian Fung, co-commissioned by Newport Classical, performed by Sandbox Percussion and violinist Kristin Lee; performances by violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing, VOCES8, Apollo’s Fire, Trio Karénine, WindSync, Cerus Saxophone Quartet, Beijing Guitar Duo, Parker Quartet, and more; two evenings with Broadway star Jeremy Jordan, known for his lead role in Newsies and most recently The Great Gatsby; and Closing Night with the GRAMMY® Award-winning Harlem Quartet, joined by Newport Classical’s Resident Festival Artists.

Other highlights of the 2026 Newport Classical Music Festival include the beloved Sunrise Concerts at 5:15am; a concert inspired by nature at Norman Bird Sanctuary; a free Fourth of July concert at King Park; and this year’s young professional Newport Classical Resident Festival Artists in eight performances.

Executive Director Oliver Inteeworn says, “For 57 years, the Newport Classical Music Festival has transformed July in Newport into something truly magical: a vibrant gathering where world-class artistry, the intimate beauty of the city’s historic venues, and the unique enthusiasm of a dedicated community of music lovers come together in perfect harmony. This summer, we’re proud to present 30 concerts that illuminate the enduring power of classical music, forging powerful connections between performers and audiences. We look forward to sharing these unforgettable experiences with you at the 2026 Newport Classical Music Festival." 

Now in its fifth year, Newport Classical’s Festival Artists Residency Program brings together five professional musicians at the early stages of their careers for an intense period of rehearsal and music-making during the Festival. This diverse group of emerging talents live, work, and play together, becoming engaged members of the community during their extended time in Newport. Each of these exceptionally gifted musicians are selected for their experience working in fast-paced chamber music settings and comfort tackling a wide range of repertoire. This summer, Newport Classical welcomes Nathan Amaral (violin); Joshua Brown (violin); Joseph Skerik (viola), Leland Ko (cello), and Janice Carissa (piano).

Press photos available in high resolution here. Photographs by Lisette Rooney.

2026 Newport Classical Music Festival Concerts:

Newport Classical Music Festival’s Opening Night concert on Tuesday, July 2 at 8pm at The Breakers features Delirium Musicum, a fiery, self-conducted chamber orchestra. Described as “ferocious and rhythmically mesmerizing” by the San Francisco Classical Voice, the ensemble is known for challenging expectations and redefining classical music as a red-hot concert experience. In a program featuring masterworks from the Baroque era to the music of today, Delirium Musicum will deliver a fierce concert experience against the gilded glamour of The Breakers. The concert will include music by Saint-Saëns, Gabriella Smith, Satie, Max Richter, Philip Glass, Schubert, Jessie Montgomery, and Vivaldi.

On Friday, July 3 at 8pm at The Breakers, pianist Dmitry Shishkin will bring the artistry that has earned him international acclaim to Newport audiences in a program featuring Schubert, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky. Regarded as one of the most compelling pianists of his generation, Shishkin is a prizewinner of the International Tchaikovsky and Geneva International Music Competitions, and has been praised by Gramophone for his “imaginative pointing to his phrasing.” He has appeared on major international stages and with leading orchestras around the world, including the Tokyo Symphony, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Belgium, Staatskapelle Weimar, and the Russian National Orchestra, among others.

On Saturday, July 4 at 8pm, the Newport Classical Music Festival presents a free, outdoor Fourth of July Patriotic Pops concert preceding the fireworks at King Park featuring Fenway Brass & Percussion, one of Boston’s most esteemed professional brass ensembles, in a joyous program celebrating America's birthday. This family-friendly concert, with views of the Pell Bridge, is part of the 2026 BankNewport Community Concerts Series. Audience members are encouraged to bring blankets and lawn chairs to enjoy the performance and fireworks. 

Internationally acclaimed for their “fearless, yet probingly beautiful” performances (The Strad), the GRAMMY® Award-winning Parker Quartet returns to Newport to perform at The Breakers on Sunday, July 5 at 8pm, in a vibrant program featuring Beethoven, Paul Wiancko, and Schubert. Renowned for their fresh interpretations of canonical works, the Quartet continues to chart a dynamic artistic path rooted in both tradition and innovation, having captivated audiences on the world’s premier stages for over two decades.

In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, the 2026 Resident Festival Artists invite audiences to immerse themselves in the lush, evocative sound world of American Impressionism on Monday, July 6 at 4pm at the Newport Art Museum. Highlighting three visionary American composers, the program explores the American answer to the Impressionist movement, emphasizing the subtle textures, nuance, and distinctive spirit of early 20th century American music through the works of Arthur Foote, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, and Florence Price. Ticket holders can arrive early to explore the Newport Art Museum for a truly enriching afternoon.

Spend a beautiful morning on the outdoor grounds of Blithewold Mansion on Tuesday, July 7 at 11am, with the Cerus Saxophone Quartet. Named for the mythical wild bull tamed by Persephone, Cerus brings the same spirit to the stage, blending works from the traditional classical cannon and new contemporary works with energy, precision, and playful imagination. From Glazunov and Bach to living composers like Karalyn Schubring and Joan Pérez-Villegas, the quartet’s program spans centuries and styles, showcasing the saxophone quartet as a dynamic voice in 21st-century chamber music.

“A pianist of sterling artistry” (Gramophone), GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist Michelle Cann makes her Newport debut with a picturesque concert at Castle Hill Inn on Tuesday, July 7 at 7:30pm. A recipient of both the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, Cann has established herself as one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. Her program includes music by Brahms, Robert Schumann, and Clara Schumann – three composers whose lives were intertwined through friendship and love. Ticket holders can enjoy complimentary desserts and coffee during intermission, with drinks available for purchase, all set against the stunning backdrop of a Newport summer sunset over the water.

The 2026 Resident Festival Artists present a concert titled The Sonata, celebrating the beloved form on Wednesday, July 8 at 11am at The Elms, featuring music by Mozart, Beethoven, Clarke, and Debussy. The program takes the audience on a journey through musical history, moving from the elegance of the Classical period, the expressive heights of the Romantic era, and into the modern and Impressionist sounds of the early 20th century. Set within the elegance and charm of one of Newport’s most charming mansions, this morning concert offers an intimate musical conversation through time.

Violinist Stella Chen, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist Brannon Cho join forces for an evening of chamber music trios on Wednesday, July 8 at 8pm. These three powerhouse musicians have each garnered international acclaim and have performed on prestigious stages worldwide with some of the world’s top orchestras. They come together to present a program pairing beloved Classical trios by Mozart and Dohnányi with a contemporary work by Andreia Pinto-Correia inspired by the individual voices of the ensemble, set against the glamorous backdrop of The Breakers.

After a sold-out performance with the Galvin Cello Quartet in 2025, cellist James Baik returns to Newport for a morning recital at The Elms mansion on Thursday, July 9 at 11am. First Prize Winner of the 2023 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions and recipient of the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Prize, Baik brings what The Strad calls “a musical fabric bejeweled with the precision and beauty of [his] sound” to a program featuring Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Fauré, and more. This concert offers an enchanting journey through time, set against the elegance of The Elms. 

Violinist Kristin Lee, praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy,” and the “utterly amazing” (Guardian) GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion, give the regional premiere of Goddess//Insect – a new work composed for them by JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung – on Thursday, July 9 at 8pm. The piece is co-commissioned by a national consortium of presenters, including Newport Classical. “Goddess//Insect is derived from the term 'God-Bug Syndrome' where a 'god complex' (inflated self-importance) acts as a defense against deep-seated feelings of worthlessness,” says Fung. “I believe our world right now is facing these conflicting emotions.” Exploring the vibrant dialogue between violin and percussion, Lee and Sandbox Percussion bring this dynamic new work to The Breakers, along with music by two other women composers, Gabriella Smith and Joan Tower.

Attendees will start their day with a breathtaking sunrise over Newport’s iconic Cliff Walk and the sparkling Atlantic Ocean as the Resident Festival Artists embark on a serene musical journey, on Friday, July 10 at 5:15am. Set on the terrace of Rosecliff mansion, with its sweeping views and peaceful ambiance, Sunrise Meditations offers a rare opportunity to experience music in harmony with the day’s first light. The program features a thoughtfully curated selection, including Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21, Schubert’s String Quartet No. 12, Viéxtemps’ Capriccio for solo viola, and more. Complimentary coffee and pastries will be served before and after the concert. 

The GRAMMY® Award-winning Apollo’s Fire brings its vivacious sound to The Breakers on Friday, July 10 at 8pm, for an evening of Baroque brilliance. Led by visionary harpsichordist and conductor Jeannette Sorrell, the ensemble is America’s most active touring Baroque orchestra, and is celebrated for performances that are not only deeply expressive, but truly capture the heart of the period. “Sorrell and her dazzling period band… are incandescent” (The Sunday Times, London), and their playing animates Baroque music with “European stylishness with American entrepreneurialism,” inviting listeners to experience this repertoire not as history, but as something thrillingly alive. 

The Resident Festival Artists present a morning of delightful chamber music in perfect harmony with nature, immersed in the serene beauty of the Norman Bird Sanctuary on Saturday, July 11 at 9am. Surrounded by the sanctuary’s lush greenery, this year’s Strings in Nature concert features Haydn’s String Quartet in F Major, Jean Francaix’s Trio a Cordes, John Blackwood's McEwan’s String Quartet No. 8, and Britten’s Simple Symphony. As the music unfolds, the birds may even lend their own melodies, adding a whimsical, enchanting layer to this peaceful outdoor performance.

A Gilmore Young Artist and Salon de Virtuosi recipient, Indonesian pianist Janice Carissa is celebrated for her ability to craft vivid musical narratives that transcend mere virtuosity (Chicago Classical Review). Having performed for the President of Indonesia at the Presidential Palace Indonesia and earning ovations in the United Nations, Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House and Louis Vuitton Foundation, she brings her impeccable talent to Newport for an afternoon recital at the historic Emmanuel Church on Saturday, July 11 at 3pm. Paired with the venue's stunning English gothic architecture, Carissa presents a program spanning Bach, Granados, Alkan, Ravel, Messiaen, and more.

The GRAMMY-nominated British vocal ensemble VOCES8, the world’s top-streaming classical vocal group, presents an impeccably crafted vocal concert at The Breakers mansion on Saturday, July 11 at 8pm. Renowned for their flawless blend, rich tonal color, and adventurous programming, VOCES8 moves effortlessly between choral masterpieces, contemporary works, and inventive arrangements of beloved classics. This concert features works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Eric Whitacre, Ola Gjeilo, Taylor Scott Davis, and inspired interpretations of favorites from Simon & Garfunkel, John Barry, and more, culminating in a celebration of the power and joy of the human voice.

Praised by Classical Guitar Magazine for “having the star potential to serve as inspiration for new generations of guitarists to come,” the Beijing Guitar Duo make their Newport debut at the historic Redwood Library and Athenæum on Sunday, July 12 at 3pm. Guitarists Meng Su and Yameng Wang have performed around the world in famous halls such as the Concertgebouw, Palau de Musica, Tchaikovsky Hall, and Carnegie Hall, and their recordings, including a Latin-GRAMMY-nominated debut, have earned acclaim for artistry that exceeds their years. Blending their impeccable technique with the warmth and charm of the Redwood Library and Athenæum, this delightful afternoon concert invites listeners into an intimate musical conversation featuring works by Franck, Debussy, Piazzolla, and more.

After a sold-out Newport Classical debut in 2024, Trio Karénine returns to Newport for their first performance at The Breakers mansion on Sunday, July 12 at 8pm. Praised by Newport Classical patrons as “one of the top performances I have seen” and for defining “what chamber music is all about,” the Paris-based trio is celebrated for its extraordinary cohesion and precision. Founded in 2009, Trio Karénine has appeared in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Frick Collection in New York. Acclaimed for their imaginative interpretations of the classical canon, the trio presents a program featuring works by Rimski-Korsakov, Saint-Saëns, and Tchaikovsky. 

For the first time, Newport Classical takes the stage at the enchanting Glen Manor House. The Resident Festival Artists step into this elegant, storybook setting to perform Whispers of Virtuosity, featuring music by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, on Monday, July 13 at 11am. From Haydn’s spirited Op. 77, No. 1, to Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21, to Beethoven’s Op. 18, No. 6, this morning concert reveals the heart of the Classical era.

Experience familiar works in a whole new light as returning artists Hanzhi Wang and Anthony Trionfo take audiences through a vibrant program reimagined for accordion and flute, in two parts at 1pm and 4pm on Tuesday, July 14 at Newport Art Museum. These intimate concerts invite audiences to hear well-loved repertoire including music by Joseph Bologne, J.S. Bach, Debussy, Barber, Stravinsky, Piazzolla, and more, in a fresh, inventive way, paired with contemporary works – including music composed by Hanzhi Wang herself – which perfectly complements these reimagined classics. Ticket holders can arrive early to explore the museum.

Broadway star Jeremy Jordan takes the stage for two unforgettable solo evenings at The Breakers mansion on Tuesday, July 14 and Wednesday, July 15 at 8pm. With a career spanning over three decades, Jordan is a two-time Tony Award®-nominee for Newsies and Floyd Collins and a Theatre World Award winner for his breakout role in Bonnie & Clyde. He has dazzled audiences on Broadway, film, and television, from Waitress and The Great Gatsby to The Last Five Years and NBC’s Smash. Known for his powerhouse voice, magnetic stage presence, and decades of sold-out cabaret performances, Jeremy delivers a night of show-stopping songs, captivating storytelling, and pure Broadway magic for fans of all ages, with pianist Ben Rauhala.

Set within the French-inspired grandeur of The Elms mansion, modeled after an 18th‑century château, the Resident Festival Artists transport you to the Romantic era with a morning of music full of charm, emotion, and French flair in a concert titled French Romanticism on Wednesday, July 15 at 11am. From Farrenc’s graceful trio to Chaminade’s signature melodies and Saint-Saëns’ sweeping Piano Trio, this program is a journey through France’s most beloved chamber works.

After an energetic and imaginative Children’s Concert in 2024, WindSync returns to Newport for a performance at The Elms on Thursday, July 16 at 11am. Praised for playing “many idioms authoritatively, elegantly, with adroit technique, and with great fun” (All About the Arts), WindSync brings a playful approach to the wind quintet repertoire, weaving together classical favorites, contemporary works, and folk-inspired pieces into a vivid musical journey. Set in the elegant surroundings of the historic Elms mansion, this morning concert features a program ranging from the vibrant textures of Boulanger and Glass, the folky Botanist Suite, Mozart’s spirited Serenade in C minor, and more, inviting listeners to step into the colorful world of the wind quintet. 

Acclaimed violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing returns to The Breakers on Thursday, July 16 at 8pm, joining harpsichordist Sebastian Bottone and Newport Classical’s Resident Festival Artists in Colors of Bach, a program that explores the breadth of one of classical music’s most influential voices. Bringing together solo, chamber, and ensemble works from across Bach’s lifetime, this performance offers a rare opportunity to experience his music as a living, breathing world of sound, rich with contrast, beauty, and humanity.

Framed by a quintessential Newport sunrise over the Atlantic and the iconic Cliff Walk, the Resident Festival Artists invite audiences to a thoughtfully curated early morning concert on Friday, July 17 at 5:15am, on the terrace of the Rosecliff mansion. The program, titled Awakening Light, features reflective music by Biber, Beethoven, Pärt, Holst, and Golijov. Complimentary coffee and pastries will be served before and after the concert.

Described as “piano magicians” by The Arts Desk, duo Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy bring their synergy to Newport for a magical night of interplay between two of today’s most compelling pianists, on Friday, July 17 at 8pm. Known for their inventive site-specific performances, from car parks in London to historic theaters in Aldeburgh, they now add The Breakers mansion to their impressive list of unique venues. Their program is anchored by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye,  promising an evening of “magical” (BBC Music Magazine) and playful dialogue between two pianos and four hands.

On Saturday, July 18 at 8pm, one of the most beloved evenings of the Festival returns. This year, Opera Night: Golden Age features two of the world’s most celebrated voices. Tenor Lawrence Brownlee and soprano Erin Morley bring their unparalleled virtuosity to The Breakers for an unforgettable evening of bel canto masterpieces. From Rossini and Bellini to Verdi and Bizet, this dazzling program features some of opera’s most beloved arias, showcasing the exceptional technique that has made these two artists international stars. Experience the thrill of hearing music written for the world’s greatest voices performed by two artists at the absolute pinnacle of their careers.

The 2026 Newport Classical Music Festival concludes on Sunday, July 19 at 8pm with the Festival Finale: Harlem Quartet and Friends at The Breakers, featuring GRAMMY® Award-winning Harlem Quartet alongside Newport Classical’s Resident Festival Artists in an exhilarating evening of string octets. Known for bringing “a new attitude to classical music” (Cincinnati Enquirer), the Harlem Quartet brings its signature dynamic energy to Newport for a performance steeped in innovation and collaboration. With a program dynamically anchored by Shostakovich and Mendelssohn, this finale promises to be a bold and exciting send-off to the 2026 Festival.

For the full schedule, visit: www.newportclassical.org/music-festival 

About Newport Classical 

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc., Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity having presented the American debuts of hundreds of international artists and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. In the 56 years since, Newport Classical has become the most active year-round presenter of live performing arts on Aquidneck Island, and an essential pillar of Rhode Island’s cultural landscape, welcoming thousands of patrons all year long.

Newport Classical invests in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form through its four core programs – the one-of-a-kind Music Festival; the Chamber Series in the Newport Classical Recital Hall; the free, family-friendly Community Concerts Series; and the Music Enrichment and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools and community organizations to become the arts advocates and music lovers of tomorrow. These programs illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music. To date, Newport Classical has commissioned and presented the world premiere of works by Stacy Garrop, Shawn Okpebholo, Curtis Stewart, Clarice Assad, and Cris Derksen.

After a year-long community-driven process, and rooted in the organization’s mission “to celebrate the living art form of classical music in intimate and iconic locations,” Newport Classical released its 2025-2028 Strategic Plan, presenting a clear roadmap to become a stronger, healthier, and more vibrant organization that enhances its programs and community engagement, promotes responsible financial growth and sustainability, and centers artistic excellence in every decision, as the organization aspires to open its doors even wider.

April 10-11: Music in the Crypt - Out of the Shadows presented by the GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine

James Blachly and EXO at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, photo by Allison Stock. Press photos available in high resolution here.

GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) Continues 2025-2026 Season

James Blachly, Music Director

Music in the Crypt: Out of the Shadows
April 10-11, 2026

Friday, April 10, 2026 at 7:30pm & Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 5pm and 7:30pm
Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Crypt
1047 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY
Tickets & Information 

New York, NY – The GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) continues its 2025-2026 season, titled Origins, running from November 2025 through June 2026. Led by founding Music Director James Blachly, EXO presents four immersive programs this season, each reflecting the origins and mission of the organization – to curate programs that embrace the unique acoustics and characters of each venue, creating a one-of-a-kind listening environment and a new experience of sound. In three performances on Friday, April 10, 2026 at 7:30pm and Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 5pm and 7:30pm, EXO and Blachly present Music in the Crypt: Out of the Shadows at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in the seldomly seen Crypt (1047 Amsterdam Ave., NYC). 

The concerts offer a rare glimpse into the subterranean level of the world's largest Gothic Cathedral, in a space with three tombs and an open arched vault. In this umbrous space, EXO performs Jessie Montgomery’s Source Code, Caroline Shaw’s Punctum for string orchestra, Franz Schreker’s Intermezzo, Blachly’s Emerging, and Ludwig van Beethoven's uniquely sacred movement for string quartet, the Heiliger Dankgesang, from Opus 132, arranged for string orchestra by James Blachly.

EXO and Blachly invite audiences to listen deeply in this profound and mysterious setting. With these concerts, EXO continues its ongoing exploration of the relationship between sound and architecture throughout the Cathedral. Each piece reflects the theme of “origins,” with Schreker’s work launching his career, Montgomery’s work reflecting on artistic influences, Shaw’s music referring to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and the Beethoven reflecting the source of inspiration for so many musicians. The performances are also a homecoming for Blachly – more than 20 years ago, he recorded his first string quartet in this very space. 

The final event of EXO’s 2025-2026 season is a reprise of its celebrated collaboration with composer Brad Balliett in his A Field Guide to Imaginary Birds, to be held once again outdoors in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on June 6, 2026.

About Experiential Orchestra:

The GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) brings audiences close to the music by engaging listeners through imaginative, immersive, and interactive concert experiences. Founded by Music Director James Blachly in 2009, EXO’s performances and recordings have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and have been praised for having “luscious tone and poise” by Classics Today. 

EXO was founded on collaboration and co-creation, and each curated performance is imbued with a generous spirit of celebration, facilitating the exploration of what Blachly calls, “a new experience of sound” by audiences. The orchestra’s performances take place in and outside the concert hall with audiences invited to participate in unorthodox ways. EXO has performed the music of Arvo Pärt in the Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited audiences to dance during Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at National Sawdust, enveloped the audience in concerts at Lincoln Center with audience and orchestra members sitting together, and presented  Symphonie fantastique and Petrushka with circus choreography at The Muse in Brooklyn.   

Recent highlights have included a subscription concert at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, an immersive performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs with cellist Andrew Yee and soprano Sarah Brailey, and the New York premiere of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with soloist Curtis Stewart. In January 2024, EXO performed Pärt’s masterwork Passio at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, offering audiences the opportunity to experience the concert while reclining on yoga mats. In March 2024, the orchestra co-presented a four-day Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York, coinciding with Perry’s 100th birthday that month.

EXO is known for imaginative and groundbreaking programming that frequently advocates for under-celebrated masterpieces and composers. The orchestra’s world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison (1930) was released on Chandos Records in 2020 to international critical acclaim in The New York Times, Gramophone, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many other publications. The album won the GRAMMY for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2021 – the first GRAMMY ever awarded for Smyth’s music. EXO’s world premiere recording of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Curtis Stewart, was released on the Bright Shiny Things label in March 2024 and earned two GRAMMY nominations.

EXO is led by Founder and Music Director James Blachly, General Manager Sandy Choi, Creative Partner Catherine Gregory, Concertmasters Alex Fortes and Henry Wang, Personnel Manager Arthur Sato, and Artistic Advisors Patrick Castillo, Brad Balliett, and Doug Balliett. Leila Amineddoleh serves as Board Chair.

About Founding Music Director James Blachly:

James Blachly is a GRAMMY®-winning conductor dedicated to enriching the concert experience by connecting with audiences in memorable and meaningful ways. James Blachly serves as Music Director of Experiential Orchestra and Johnstown Symphony Orchestra. He is a versatile guest conductor in diverse repertoire for orchestras including New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and WDR Funkhausorchester. A strong supporter of composers of our time, Blachly has commissioned and premiered more than 40 works by composers including Jessie Montgomery, Courtney Bryan, Viet Cuong, Michi Wiancko, Kate Copeland Ettinger, Tommy Daugherty, Patrick Castillo, Brad and Doug Balliett, and many others. In recent seasons, he has collaborated with soloists Daniel Hope, Paul Jacobs, Julia Bullock, Dashon Burton, Michelle Cann, Andrew Yee, Curtis Stewart, Simone Porter, and more. In addition to his work with Experiential Orchestra, with the Johnstown Symphony, Blachly has conducted the orchestra at the Flight 93 Memorial for the 20th Anniversary of 9/11, in a former steel mill in a concert that was featured on Katie Couric’s America Inside Out, at the First Summit Arena at the War Memorial, and in eight seasons the orchestra has increased season ticket sales and annual giving each by more than 50%. In 2021, he received a commendation by the City of Johnstown and the Johnstown chapter of the NAACP. In recent seasons, Blachly has introduced an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, and youth concert. For more information, visit www.jamesblachly.com.

April 10: Newport Classical presents Violinist Yevgeny Kutik and Pianist Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner in World Premiere

L-R: Blake Pouliot, Henry Kramer, Trio Zimbalist. Photos available in high resolution here.

Newport Classical Continues 2025-2026 Chamber Series

Violinist Yevgeny Kutik Makes his Newport Classical Debut
with Pianist Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner

Featuring the World Premiere of Scattered Light by Jonathan Leshnoff
Commissioned by Newport Classical

Friday, April 10, 2026 at 7:30pm
Newport Classical Recital Hall | 42 Dearborn Street | Newport, RI
Information & Tickets: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Newport Classical continues its fifth full-season Chamber Series, which features twelve concerts held on select Fridays between September 2025 and June 2026 at the organization’s home venue, the Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn St.). On Friday, April 10, 2026 at 7:30pm, violinist Yevgeny Kutik makes his Newport Classical debut with returning pianist Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner. Their program features the world premiere of Scattered Light by composer Jonathan Leshnoff, written for Kutik and commissioned by Newport Classical. The concert will also include Debussy’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Achron’s Hebrew Dance, and Grieg’s Sonata No. 3 In C Minor.

Yevgeny Kutik’s “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique” (The New York Times) and “old world charm” (WQXR) have captivated audiences worldwide. A recipient of the Salon de Virtuosi Grant and the Tanglewood Music Center’s Jules Reiner Violin Prize, Kutik has moved audiences with performances that marry emotional depth and technical brilliance. For this recital, Kutik collaborates with Newport Classical favorite, pianist Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner, who is returning after a sold-out recital in 2024. Celebrated as “a gifted virtuoso” (San Francisco Chronicle) with “mesmerizing artistry and extraordinary ability to communicate” (The Post-Standard), Sánchez-Werner partners with Kutik in a musical dialogue.

Jonathan Leshnoff composed his new work Scattered Light in response to George Washington's letter to the Newport Hebrew Congregation in August 1790 – a landmark statement of religious liberty, affirming that the new United States would give “to bigotry no sanction” and “to persecution no assistance.” The letter, which will be read aloud prior to the performance by Rhode Island Historian Laureate Keith Stokes, has come to symbolize an American ideal: that people of different faiths should be able to live in safety, dignity, and mutual respect.

Leshnoff writes, “Knowing that my music would be the next audible sound after the reading of this worthy text created a bond between the music and text so strong that the music is inextricably bound with the text, almost like the poem of a vocal song is bound with its music. The fact that the title of this work is taken from Washington’s letter is just the beginning of the text-to-music bond.”

Watch Yevgeny Kutik Perform Hebrew Lullaby, Op. 35, No. 2 by Joseph Achron

Newport Classical's Chamber Series takes place at Newport Classical Recital Hall in downtown Newport, known for its striking architecture and excellent acoustics. Audiences are invited to enjoy performances by world-class classical musicians in a relaxed setting, with complimentary wine generously provided by Gold's Wine and Spirits served when the doors open at 7:00pm and again during intermission. Both performers and audience members alike have described these concerts as some of their favorites. “Beautiful concert, high artistry and exciting programming . . . a deeply moving and soulful experience, with a rousing and brilliant virtuosity that kept you on the edge of your seat,” raved one attendee.

As part of Newport Classical's desire to create connections between classical music, the artists who perform it, and the Newport community, all musicians performing on the Chamber Series will also visit a local school or organization to present their talents and meaningfully engage with students and community members of all ages through Newport Classical's Music Enrichment and Engagement Initiative.

The Chamber Series continues with rising-star pianist James Zijian Wei, first-prize winner at the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition, who makes his highly anticipated Newport debut on May 8 with a program featuring Ravel, Liszt, and more. This season’s Chamber Series concludes on June 5 with flutist Amir Hoshang Farsi and pianist Chelsea Wang, both Carnegie Hall Ensemble Connect alumni, presenting a program of sparkling impressionism featuring works by Fauré, Lili Boulanger, and contemporary composers Reena Esmail, Ian Clarke, and Yuko Uebayashi.

The 2026 Newport Classical Music Festival will take place from July 2-19, 2026. The complete schedule will be announced on March 24, 2026.

About Newport Classical 

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc., Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity having presented the American debuts of hundreds of international artists and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. In the 56 years since, Newport Classical has become the most active year-round presenter of live performing arts on Aquidneck Island, and an essential pillar of Rhode Island’s cultural landscape, welcoming thousands of patrons all year long.

Newport Classical invests in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form through its four core programs – the one-of-a-kind Music Festival; the Chamber Series in the Newport Classical Recital Hall; the free, family-friendly Community Concerts Series; and the Music Education and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools to become the arts advocates and music lovers of tomorrow. These programs illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music. To date, Newport Classical has commissioned and presented the world premiere of works by Stacy Garrop, Shawn Okpebholo, Curtis Stewart, Clarice Assad, and Cris Derksen.

Listen Now - Cantaloupe Music Releases Evening Light: Raga Cycle I by Michael Harrison and Ina Filip

Out Today Cantaloupe Music Releases Evening Light: Raga Cycle I

By Michael Harrison and Ina Filip

Out Now: https://lnk.to/Evening_Light

“music of positively intoxicating beauty” – Steve Smith, The New Yorker, on Harrison’s music 

Downloads available to press on request. This is a digital-only release.

www.michaelharrison.com | www.inafilip.ca | www.cantaloupemusic.com

New York, NY  – Today, coinciding with the Spring Equinox, Cantaloupe Music releases Evening Light: Raga Cycle I. The new album opens the first chapter of the Raga Cycle, an eight-album series conceived by celebrated composer/pianist Michael Harrison, featuring collaborations with a range of musicians from around the world. Each album corresponds to a different three-hour segment of the day and night, following the Indian raga time cycle. This first installment, co-composed with vocalist Ina Filip (originally from Brazil and based in Québec), blends Indian classical ragas with lyrical and minimalist piano, multi-layered vocals, and electroacoustic textures. The album also features composer Elliot Cole on synthesizer, French composer Benoit Rolland on electroacoustics, and Bangladeshi tabla virtuoso Mir Naqibul Islam. 

Ragas are structures for melodic improvisation that capture a specific attitude, mood, and spiritual reality. In India they have been transmitted aurally from teacher to student for hundreds of years. Michael Harrison has studied this music devotedly for over 40 years with masters Pandit Pran Nath (alongside Terry Riley and La Monte Young) and Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan.

Evening Light centers on the ragas Yaman and Bhupali, inhabiting the atmosphere of early evening — traditionally associated with expansiveness, luminosity, and quiet intensity. At its core is a finely shaped exchange between Harrison’s just intonation piano — the result of four decades of experience bridging Indian and Western classical traditions — and Filip’s voice. Harrison’s just intonation tuning system means the intervals are pure and uncompromised, creating a more beautiful resonance than traditional equal-tempered pianos, and more faithfully matching the tuning of traditional Indian ragas. Grounded in the discipline of Dhrupad, yet expansive in scope, Filip’s vocal writing shapes layered architectures and intricate interplay with the piano. Together their work melds the musical worlds of North India with those of Europe and America.

The opening Water Jhala — the album’s lead single, out today — unfolds through an intricate voice-and-piano exchange. In Angelim Tree the artists use low-register vocals and delicate piano lines to create an atmosphere of intimacy yet intensity. In Evening Light, the calm interplay is intended to draw the listener into stillness. Woven Sky unfolds through gradually shifting piano ostinati and quietly evolving harmonies, contrasting with the kinetic drive of Harrison’s Tarana Counterpoint – a polyphonic arrangement of a traditional melody attributed to 13th century musician and poet Amir Khusrau. Mahadev stands as a luminous devotional rendering, and the final track, Désancrage, closes the album in a poignant and intimate reflection.

Michael Harrison’s latest album Seven Sacred Names (Cantaloupe 2021) features performances by Grammy-winning Roomful of Teeth, violinist Tim Fain, cellist Ashley Bathgate, and others, with Harrison on piano. Just Constellations commissioned and recorded by Roomful of Teeth (New Amsterdam 2020), was called “glacially beautiful” and “luminous” by Alex Ross in The New Yorker and selected for NPR's Best 100 Songs of 2020 and Bandcamp's Best of Contemporary Classical 2020. His Time Loops album (Cantaloupe 2012) was chosen for NPR's Top 10 Classical Albums of 2012. His work, Revelation (Cantaloupe 2007), achieved international recognition and inclusion in the Best Classical Recordings of 2007 selections of The New York Times and Boston Globe and was called “the most brilliant and original extended composition for solo piano since the early works of Frederic Rzewski three decades ago” by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Tim Page. Harrison’s music has also been recorded on Innova, New Albion, New World, and Important Records.

More about Michael Harrison: Composer/pianist Michael Harrison (called “an American maverick” by Philip Glass) forges a new approach to composition through just intonation (the system of tuning based on pure harmonic proportions). His works blend classical music traditions of Europe and North India. He is a Guggenheim Fellowship and NYFA Artist Fellowship recipient. 

Harrison creates dedicated tuning systems for many of his works. He pioneered a structural approach to composition in which the proportions of harmonic relationships organically determine other musical elements such as pitch, duration, and dynamics. He also invented the "harmonic piano," a grand piano that plays 24 notes per octave, documented in the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Harrison seeks expressions of universality via the physics of sound — music that brings one into a state of concentrated listening as a meditative and even mind-altering experience.

His music has been performed at BAM Next Wave Festival, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Park Avenue Armory, the Louvre, Centre Pompidou, MASS MoCA, Big Ears Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, the United Nations, Klavier Festival Ruhr, and the Sundance Film Festival. His recent engagements include the Minimal Music Festival at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, the Italian Virtual Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2021, the Mattatoio Museum in Rome, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Harrison collaborates with performers including Alarm Will Sound, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Maya Beiser, Clarice Jensen, Del Sol String Quartet, and Contemporaneous, who have commissioned his works using just intonation. He has collaborated with visual and media artists, choreographers, and filmmaker Bill Morrison. 

While still an undergraduate student, Harrison met composer La Monte Young. Soon Young brought him to New York as his protégé to study composition, performance, and Indian classical music. Harrison was the exclusive tuner for Young's custom Bösendorfer concert grand and became the only person other than the composer to perform Young's six-hour The Well-Tuned Piano. Living in Young's Tribeca loft during this formative decade, Harrison was immersed in the world of minimal music and art. Terry Riley became a close friend and mentor within a broader circle that included John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Marian Zazeela, and the Dia Art Foundation's founders (the patrons of Harrison's work with Young). Most importantly, he became a disciple of Young and Riley's music guru, Pandit Pran Nath, traveling to India with Pran Nath and Riley for extensive study and practice periods.

Harrison’s residencies include MacDowell, Yaddo, Camargo, McColl Center, Ucross, Djerassi, Millay, Bogliasco, La Napoule, I-Park, MASS MoCA, and the Visiting Artists program of the American Academy in Rome. In addition to the Guggenheim, his awards include an Aaron Copland Recording Grant, Classical Recording Foundation Award, IBLA Foundation Prize, American Composers Forum residency and performance in the Havana Contemporary Music Festival, and a New Music USA Grant. Harrison received his Masters in Composition, studying with Reiko Fueting, at Manhattan School of Music.

About Ina Filip: ​​Ina Filip is a Brazilian-born vocalist and composer based in Québec whose work bridges Indian classical music, modal improvisation, and contemporary composition. Drawing on rigorous training and cross-cultural musical influences, she has developed a distinctive vocal and compositional language that is both deeply personal and creatively expansive.

She undertook intensive training in Dhrupad — the most microtonally refined and contemplative tradition of North Indian classical music — under the guidance of the Gundecha Brothers, widely regarded as the foremost living exponents of the form. Filip lived and studied for several years in their residential gurukul in India within the Guru–Shishya Parampara system, India’s traditional pedagogical system grounded in daily, long-term oral transmission between teacher and disciple. This rigorous formation immersed her in the raga system while cultivating advanced microtonal precision. 

In parallel, her improvisational practice has been profoundly shaped by Bobby McFerrin’s vocal approach, which she has explored, studied, and embodied through years of playful experimentation and deep listening. Filip has developed a distinctive compositional approach that brings traditional vocal practice into contemporary contexts. Her work integrates layered vocal architectures, contrapuntal interplay, and electroacoustic textures, expanding the expressive possibilities of voice.

Her collaborative scope extends into interdisciplinary creation. She co-created the music for 24 Hours at Once, an installation with Harrison and filmmaker Bill Morrison, presented by Art Letters & Numbers (New York), and contributed to Passage,  in collaboration with Harrison and visual artist Nina Elder, presented at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts (North Carolina).

Filip’s voice has appeared in projects spanning ambient electroacoustic composition and raga-based vocal polyphony. Her discography includes Cantos de Ma, a solo album centered on voice and silence, and Polyphonic Malkauns, a contemporary raga reinterpretation created with composer Payton MacDonald. She has also contributed to the international electronic music scene through collaborations with producers including Soohan and Adham Shaikh, whose releases featuring her vocals reached global audiences.

Filip’s projects have been supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and the Canada Council for the Arts (CAC) through grants for composition, production and performance. She has also participated in artist residencies including Avaloch Farm Music Institute (New Hampshire) and Art Letters & Numbers (New York).

Across all her projects, Filip’s voice carries the discipline of long-dedicated practice and the freedom of improvisation, inviting listeners into a space of resonance, presence, and expanded perception.

ALBUM TRACK LISTING & CREDITS:

Evening Light: Raga Cycle I
Michael Harrison and Ina Filip
Cantaloupe Music

Release Date: March 20, 2026 

1. Water Jhala (Raga Yaman)
2. Angelim Tree
3. Evening Light (Raga Yaman)
4. Woven Sky (Raga Yaman)
5. Tarana Counterpoint (Raga Yaman Kalyan)
6. Mahadev (Raga Bhupali)
7. Désancrage

Produced by Elliot Cole and Benoit Rolland
Engineered and mixed by Louis Morneau in Montreal 

Michael Harrison, piano tuned in just intonation, vocals on Mahadev
Ina Filip, vocals
Elliot Cole, synthesizer, vocals on Tarana Counterpoint and Angelim Tree
Benoit Rolland, electro-acoustics, synth bass
Mir Naqibul Islam, tabla
Shawn Mativetsky, tabla on Tarana Counterpoint
Gabriel Cabezas, Audréanne Filion, cellos on Désancrage

All music composed by Michael Harrison and Ina Filip, except Désancrage composed by Michael Harrison, Ina Filip and Elliot Cole

Tarana Counterpoint and Mahadev are based on traditional melodies, adapted by Michael Harrison

The artists acknowledge the support of Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts 

Executive producers: Michael Gordon, David Lang, Kenny Savelson and Julia Wolfe
Cantaloupe Club Producers Circle: Patricia & Martin Angerman, Eric Scott Klein, Ken Nielsen, Roger Stude, Ola Torstensson
Label manager: Bill Murphy
Licensing manager: Brian Petuch
Label assistant: Yael Gordon
Art direction and graphic design: Noah Scalin/Another Limited Rebellion 

Album cover image by Hans Jenny from his book Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena and Vibration, used by permission from MacroMedia Publishing

April 17: Jupiter String Quartet Releases Undreamed Shores New Album on Orchid Classics – New Single: Rise Up Out Today

The Jupiter String Quartet Releases Undreamed Shores on April 17
Highly Anticipated New Album and Orchid Classics Debut

Coinciding with Earth Day 2026
Featuring the Music of Michi Wiancko, Stephen Andrew Taylor, and Kati Agócs

Rise Up by Michi Wiancko
New Single Out Today - Listen Here

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Downloads and CDs available to press on request

“Tonal refinement and precision” – The Strad

www.jupiterquartet.com | www.orchidclassics.com

On April 17, 2026, the Jupiter String Quartet releases Undreamed Shores, the ensemble’s ninth studio album and first on Orchid Classics. On Undreamed Shores, the Jupiter Quartet turns to old friends with new inspiration. The album features the world premiere recordings of new string quartets written for the Jupiter by composers who are also longtime friends of the ensemble — Michi Wiancko (To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores), Stephen Andrew Taylor (Chaconne/Labyrinth), and Kati Agócs (Imprimatur, String Quartet No. 2) — exploring themes including the climate crisis, the pandemic, memory, and re-imagination. This highly anticipated recording is the Jupiter’s final album with violinist Nelson Lee, who departed from the group’s lineup in September 2025, succeeded by violinist Mélanie Clapiès.

New single, Rise Up from To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores by Michi Wiancko, is out today - listen here.

The Jupiter writes of this project:

“We are excited to share these three wonderful works, which were written for us, all of which find space for hope and light in challenging times. Commissioning and programming new musical works has always been a core part of our mission and we believe these contemporary works are able to speak to our current times in unique ways. We have lived and performed these works dozens of times over the last decade, in concert halls, schools, symposia, and virtual spaces. We are delighted to now present them in one album. While each compositional voice represented on this album is distinct and original, the three quartets find common ground in their desire to reach for something that transcends our often difficult and fraught modern-day society. Each work offers space for us to consider our collective humanity.”

Of her piece, Michi Wiancko writes, “To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores is a multi-movement work for string quartet that celebrates the power of the natural world while carving out space to explore the notions of regeneration, hope, and wildness in relationship to ecological grief. Central to the piece is the idea of kinship and collective humanity, and the need to help protect each other and our most vulnerable places and populations.” Appropriately, the new album is being released in close proximity to Earth Day, April 22, 2026. To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores was commissioned jointly by the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (Urbana, IL) and Bay Chamber Concerts (Rockport, ME).

Stephen Andrew Taylor writes in his program notes for Chaconne/Labyrinth: “‘Chaconne’ is an old-fashioned word for a repeating chord progression, like the 12-bar blues. My chords are a little weirder, using just intonation to find notes that don’t exist on the piano keyboard. The quartet plays a chaconne, but at the same time they are lost in a labyrinth. The chords keep returning, only to point in new directions. This is how I felt during the pandemic: stuck in a loop, but at the same time lost in a maze, desperately seeking the way out. At the center of this maze, like the Minotaur of Greek myth, lies a depiction of the coronavirus that has so profoundly changed our world. After this encounter – marked by strange, percussive sounds – the quartet traces their way, like following Ariadne’s thread, back through the labyrinth.” Chaconne/Labyrinth was commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, sponsored by Drs. Margot and JD Garcia, and is dedicated to Harold Weaver and Cecile Weaver.

In her program notes, Kati Agócs writes, “Imprimatur (String Quartet No. 2) is a rhapsodic suite in five movements framed by an introduction and coda. A meditation on spiritual lightness that is celebratory in tone, the piece explores how a single idea imprints itself upon the memory through rapturous re-imagination. The movements flow into one another without pause to create a fifteen-minute trajectory. The opening chords and their answer, a rhapsodic melody, develop into tropes which re-appear transmuted, even sublimated throughout, embracing a dialectic of darkness and light. The work culminates in a serene quodlibet, merging the tropes. The word imprimatur, from Roman Catholic tradition, signifies approval to print a text – an affirmation or sanctioning. Most saliently, it can also mean a mark of distinction or an imprint.” Imprimatur (String Quartet #2) was commissioned jointly by the Aspen Music Festival and School (Robert Spano, Music Director); the Harvard Musical Association; and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign in honor of the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Jupiter String Quartet.

The Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Mélanie Clapiès and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Founded in 2001, the ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music, and exudes an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous. The New Yorker states, “The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” 

The quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Taos School of Music Summer Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.  

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.  

The Jupiter String Quartet feels a strong connection to the core string quartet repertoire; they have presented the complete Bartok and Beethoven string quartets on numerous occasions. Also deeply committed to new music, they have commissioned string quartets from Nathan Shields, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Michi Wiancko, Syd Hodkinson, Hannah Lash, Dan Visconti, and Kati Agócs; a quintet with baritone voice by Mark Adamo; and a piano quintet by Pierre Jalbert. 

The quartet’s discography includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon. In fall 2024, the Jupiter Quartet recorded their new album with GRAMMY-winner Judith Sherman, featuring the world premiere recordings of Michi Wiancko’s To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores, Stephen Taylor’s Chaconne/Labyrinth, and Kati Agócs's Imprimatur, which were all composed for the Jupiters. In 2021, the quartet recorded a collaborative album with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics), also produced by Judith Sherman. This album features the world premiere recording of Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round. The Arts Fuse acclaimed, “This joint album from the Jupiter String Quartet and Jasper String Quartet is striking for its backstory but really memorable for its smart program and fine execution.”

The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four. 

For more information, visit www.jupiterquartet.com.

Undreamed Shores | Jupiter Quartet | Orchid Classics
Release Date: April 17, 2026 (Worldwide)
Recorded September 9-11, 2024 in Foellinger Great Hall, Krannert Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Michi Wiancko
To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores
1. I. Pelagic Within [5:20]
2. II. Dream of the Xerces Blue [2:58]
3. III. Central Park Microbial [1:48]
4. IV. Invisible Eviction [0:57]
5. V. Crying, Together [2:33]
6. VI. Follow the Water [2:38]
7. VII. Rise Up [4:16]

Stephen Andrew Taylor
8. Chaconne/Labyrinth [19:03]

Kati Agócs

9. Imprimatur (String Quartet No. 2) [15:15]
Recitative
I. Ostinato
II. Enraptured Troping
III. Meditation – Crystal Chains
IV. Wild Dance
V. Quodlibet
Coda

Total time [54:48]

Producer: Judith Sherman
Engineer: Graham Duncan
Editing assistant: Jeanne Velonis
Mastering: Jeanne Velonis and Judith Sherman
Cover Art: Black Sun by Hua Nian
Booklet photography: Todd Rosenberg

OUT TODAY: Anna Lapwood Returns with New Sony Classical Album Arise, Shine – Featuring The Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge

Anna Lapwood Returns with New Sony Classical Choral Album
Arise, Shine

Featuring The Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge

Out Today - Listen Here

Following a stellar 2025, sensational musician Anna Lapwood starts 2026 with the announcement of her brand-new choral album, Arise, Shine – pre-order here. This new recording follows her 2025 chart topping album, Firedove, and sees Anna conducting her beloved Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge for the very last time.

Arise, Shine will be released on Friday, March 6, 2026 on Sony Classical and comes at a pivotal moment in Anna’s career, marking the conclusion of her tenure as Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, a role she held for nine years until the end of the summer term in 2025. The album is a deeply personal project, highlighting Anna’s close connection to The Pembroke College Chapel Choir and her committed mentoring of the students. The album features a rich and varied programme, including two original compositions by Anna – Arise, Shine and An Irish Blessing – written in response to special people and key moments during her time with Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Of the album, Anna notes:

“As I was preparing to leave Pembroke, I felt it was really important to do one final album with the Chapel Choir to mark their incredible hard work over the course of the last nine years. The choir has grown so much in that time - both in size but also in ambition and identity, and I have learned so much from working with these singers. I wanted to curate an album that felt like it summed up just a little of what makes Pembroke unique, pairing traditional repertoire with modern reinterpretations, and showcasing music written by young composers from within Pembroke Choir and beyond. It feels particularly special to include a piece written by Maryam Giraud who was one of my first girl choristers when I set up the Girls’ Choir, and who is now an undergraduate at the College. Her piece sets a text written by Cassidy McKinlay, one of our other altos, and it’s this kind of creative teamwork that I feel sums up Pembroke so beautifully. This is an album that is all about the unique warmth of making music with friends and being able to share that experience with others”.

The track list reflects Anna’s fascination with contrasting interpretations of sacred texts, pairing works such as Ubi Caritas by Maurice Duruflé and Ola Gjeilo, and O Sacrum Convivium by Olivier Messiaen and Lucy Walker. Walker, a former alto in the choir who knows its sound inside out, has become its most-performed living composer and contributes several works to the album. Other Pembroke highlights include Rain, a joint project between two more Chapel Choir altos where Maryam Giraud sets a text written by her fellow chorister, Cassidy McKinlay. Giraud’s journey from a young singer in the Girls’ Choir, founded in 2018, to composer on this album is a testament to Anna’s commitment to nurturing talent and creating opportunities for women and girls in music. The album also features Abide With Me by Maggie Kaposamweo, a young composer living in Zambia. Anna set up an online mentoring scheme for Maggie with Lucy Walker, and the commission fee for this composition helped fund Maggie’s music studies at the University of Lusaka, Zambia.

2025 was an extraordinary year for Anna Lapwood. Her album Firedove soared to No.1 on the Official Classical Artist Album Chart. She became the Royal Albert Hall’s first-ever Official Organist, premiered Max Richter’s new concerto Cosmology alongside Kristina Arakelyan’s Toccata and captivated audiences with her all-night BBC Proms event From Dark Till Dawn. International acclaim continued to grow with a landmark performance in Cologne, Germany, drawing a crowd of 13,000 people, forming a one-mile queue around the city.

Beyond the concert hall, Anna’s infectious enthusiasm for music has reached new audiences and she has achieved some remarkable milestones, including an appearance at New York Fashion Week, being featured on the Sunday Times Power List, and even giving Hollywood icon Tom Cruise an impromptu organ lesson. She rounded off 2025 with a sold-out nationwide tour ‘Christmas with Anna Lapwood’ and a Royal Albert Hall headline Christmas show.

ARISE, SHINE : TRACKLISTING:

1. Arise, Shine
Composer: Anna Lapwood

2. Adoro Te Devote
Composer: Cecilia Mcdowall
Lyricist: Saint Thomas Aquinas

3. Miserere
Composer: Gregorio Allegri

4. Regina Caeli
Composer: Lise Borel

5. Rain
Composer: Maryam Giraud
Lyricist: Cassidy Mckinlay

6. Ubi Caritas
Composer: Maurice Duruflé

7. Silent Night
Composer: Franz Xaver Gruber

8. The Lord’s Prayer
Composer: Lucy Walker

9. O Sacrum Convivium
Composer: Olivier Messiaen
Lyricist: Saint Thomas Aquinas

10. Ubi Caritas
Composer: Ola Gjeilo

11. A Hymn For St Cecilia
Composer: Lucy Walker
Lyricist: Ursula Vaughan Williams

12. Abide With Me
Composer: Maggie Kaposamweo
Lyricist: Maggie Kaposamweo & Henry Francis Lyte

13. O Sacrum Convivium
Composer: Lucy Walker
Lyricist: Saint Thomas Aquinas

14. An Irish Blessing
Composer: Anna Lapwood

15. Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Composer: Harold Arlen
Lyricist: Yip Harburg

Visit: www.annalapwood.co.uk

Caramoor Continues its Rosen House Concert Series with Junction Trio on April 12 and Poiesis Quartet on May 3

L-R: Junction Trio, Poiesis Quartet, available in high resolution here.

Caramoor Continues Rosen House Concert Series
with Two Spring Chamber Music Performances on April 12 and May 3

Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 3:00pm: Junction Trio
Sunday, May 3, 2026 at 3:00pm: Poiesis Quartet

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts | Rosen House
149 Girdle Ridge Road | Katonah, NY
Tickets & Information

KATONAH, NY – Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY, continues its Rosen House Concert Series with two chamber music performances in April and May. On Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 3:00pm, Caramoor presents the internationally acclaimed supergroup Junction Trio. Caramoor’s 2025-26 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence, Poiesis Quartet, gives the second performance of its residency on Sunday, May 3, 2026 at 3:00pm. Caramoor’s Rosen House Concert Series is held in the exquisite Music Room of the historic home – a Mediterranean-style villa from 1939 filled with treasures from around the world. Audiences enjoy performances by some of today’s most in-demand artists in the same living room salon setting where Walter and Lucie Rosen once entertained their many friends.

Since coming together in 2015 as the Junction Trio, celebrated soloists violinist Stefan Jackiw (a 2007 alumn of Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars program), cellist Jay Campbell, and pianist Conrad Tao have dazzled audiences with performances that blend technical brilliance, emotional depth, and an adventurous spirit – redefining chamber music with fearless creativity and electrifying synergy.  For this performance at Caramoor on April 12, the Junction Trio will perform Conrad Tao’s Eventide, Maurice Ravel’s Piano Trio, and Robert Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 1 In D Minor, Op. 63. Whether interpreting classical masterworks or trailblazing contemporary works, the trio brings a fresh, dynamic energy to the stage. Their critically acclaimed appearances at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and Toronto’s Royal Conservatory have affirmed their place as one of today’s most exciting ensembles. 

The Poiesis Quartet – pronounced poy-EE-suhss, from the Greek “to make” – comprising violinists Sarah Ying Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor, and cellist Drew Dansby, returns to the Rosen House on May 3 for the second concert of its residency at Caramoor, which showcases the ensemble’s fresh take on chamber music. Formed at Oberlin in 2022 and now based in Cincinnati, this award-winning ensemble has quickly gained national attention, with honors including the Grand Prizes at the 2025 Banff International String Quartet and the 2023 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competitions. Known for its rich, cohesive sound and adventurous programming, the quartet breathes new life into classical masterworks while amplifying bold, contemporary voices. On May 3, the Poiesis Quartet will perform Michi Wiancko’s To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores (2020); Eleanor Alberga’s String Quartet No. 2 (1994); and Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 (1934). Poiesis’s first concert in residence at Caramoor was chosen as one of the best classical performances of 2025 by The New York Times. Tickets are free for audience members ages 18 and under.About Goitse

The multi-award-winning quintet Goitse continues to blaze trails as one of Ireland’s most dynamic and celebrated traditional ensembles. Forged in the white-hot creative crucible of Limerick’s Irish World Academy, the band is now celebrating 15 years of touring worldwide, captivating audiences with their signature blend of original compositions and timeless traditional tunes.

The gripping rhythm section of Colm Phelan and Conal O'Kane sets a powerful drive for the music, while the sweet, charismatic voice of County Louth's Áine McGeeney draws audiences into a song the way few performers can.

Danny Collins, a multi-instrumentalist All-Ireland Champion, is known for his distinctively rhythmic and expressive piano accordion playing, while Alan Reid features on banjo and bouzouki, drawing from an extensive knowledge of archival collections that enrich the band's repertoire.

Known for electrifying live performances, Goitse has built a reputation for energy, warmth and an uncanny ability to connect with audiences everywhere. Their artistry has not gone unnoticed: the band members and their music were recently featured on the hit Apple TV series Bad Sisters, introducing their sound to an even broader global audience.

From intimate stages to major international festivals, Goitse continues to redefine what it means to be ambassadors of Irish traditional music, pushing boundaries while honoring the past.

About Caramoor

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY. Once the home of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor has evolved into one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performances, cultural engagement, and exploration – a sanctuary for music, art, and nature.

Each year, Caramoor presents an exciting array of concerts across genres – from classical, opera, and chamber music to jazz, American roots, global sounds, and the American songbook. Caramoor’s acclaimed Summer Season brings audiences together for unforgettable outdoor performances from June into August in five distinct settings (the Venetian Theater, Friends Field, Spanish Courtyard, Sunken Garden, and the Music Room), while the intimate Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May in the historic Rosen House, a Mediterranean-style villa listed on the National Register of Historic Places and filled with treasures from around the world. With a mission to engage audiences of all ages, Caramoor also offers a selection of concerts and programs for families and our youngest listeners.

Caramoor is a place where music, history, and nature come together to create moments of beauty and connection for all who visit. In addition to hearing concerts, visitors to Caramoor can tour the spectacular Rosen House, explore its intriguing collections, enjoy a picnic, and experience the lush gardens and grounds – including Caramoor’s unique collection of site-specific Sound Art, permanently installed sound sculptures which draw inspiration from their environment. Caramoor also offers a formal afternoon tea service year-round in the Music Room (by reservation), a seasonal concessions tent, and a selection of public programs such as yoga, art classes, and large-scale community events.

At-a-Glance Calendar: Upcoming Rosen House Concert Series Performances

Friday, March 20 at 7:30pm: Goitse (sold out)
Sunday, March 22 at 3:00pm: Víkingur Ólafsson, piano (sold out)
Sunday, April 12 at 3:00pm: Junction Trio
Sunday, April 19 at 3:00pm: Steven Isserlis, cello & Connie Shih, piano  (sold out)
Friday, May 1 at 7:30pm: Anat Cohen Quartethinho  (sold out)
Sunday, May 3 at 3:00pm: Poiesis Quartet
Friday, May 8 at 7:30pm: Solomon Hicks

For Caramoor’s complete schedule: caramoor.org/events

Ticketing Information

Concert tickets are available for purchase online at caramoor.org; by phone at 914.232.1252 Tuesdays through Fridays from 10am-4pm; and on site from the Box Office two hours before each performance.

Caramoor is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road in Katonah, NY.

More information about visiting Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit

June 5: Simone Dinnerstein Makes Label Debut on Naïve in Hourglass - Music by Philip Glass - with Baroklyn

Simone Dinnerstein Makes Label Debut on Naïve in Hourglass with Baroklyn

Featuring Philip Glass’s Suite from The Hours and Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

Release Date: June 5, 2026
Pre-Save 

First Single – The Hours – Out Today
Listen Here

Review downloads & CDs available upon request.

“it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding” – The Washington Post

simonedinnerstein.com | naiverecords.com 

March 19, 2026 – On June 5, 2026, GRAMMY-nominated American pianist Simone Dinnerstein, one of the most distinctive voices in classical music today, releases her first album on naïve since signing with the label earlier this year. Titled Hourglass, it features Philip Glass’s Suite from The Hours and his Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Piano Concerto No. 1). The album, recorded with Dinnerstein’s own ensemble Baroklyn, is another milestone in her close artistic association with the renowned composer, who celebrates his 90th birthday in January 2027. The first single, The Hours, is out today.

Simone Dinnerstein first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly personal. This approach extends to all of the repertoire she performs, from Bach to Glass, with whom she has collaborated for over ten years. Glass wrote his Piano Concerto No. 3 for Dinnerstein in 2017, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras from across North America. She recorded and released it the following year on her acclaimed album Circles. NPR reported, “Dinnerstein's creamy tone and elastic phrasing gives the music an air of Schubertian warmth and wistfulness.”

Dinnerstein says, “In my reading of the works on this album with Baroklyn, we focused on the larger beats. Instead of lining up each single step, we wanted every voice to have its own ebb and flow, coinciding with other voices in certain larger pulse divisions. This allows us to hear the particular phrasing of the voices more independently, and brings out the strangeness in the music. The goal was to create a whole, but a whole made up of all the distinctive particularities of the individual lines and musicians.”

Philip Glass’s Suite from The Hours (arranged by Michael Riesman) is a three-movement piano concerto taken from Glass’s film score for Stephen Daldry’s film The Hours starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep, an adaptation of the novel by Michael Cunningham. The score received Golden Globe, GRAMMY, and Academy Award nominations, along with winning a British Academy Film Award in Film Music. It is a veritable manifesto of Glass’s expressive simplicity, in which layers and motifs are inconstant, subtly transform, and give rise to a richly wrought polyphonic universe. In this recording, Baroklyn’s expansive phrasing and serene assurance, and Dinnerstein’s intense sonority, combine to highlight the music’s almost Classical elegance, as if it were a newly discovered Mozart concerto. 

Glass’s Tirol Concerto, composed in 2000, went unperformed in New York for more than 20 years until Dinnerstein’s performance of the work with the Brooklyn Orchestra and Olivier Glissant in November 2023. Two brief, fleeting movements in neo-Baroque vein enclose a broad elegy—music for an imagined film—threaded with numerous reminiscences of Glass’s Etudes for piano, which he began writing in 1994. Glass based the concerto on melody fragments of traditional Austrian Volkslied, or folk music, in the Tyrolean tradition. Dinnerstein says of the piece, “The second movement of the Tirol is what first drew me to it. Built almost as a set of variations, the sound is lush and pulsating, and its mood relates to his Symphony No. 3 for strings. I love the play between intense lyricism and a feeling of austerity, so reminiscent of Schubert’s writing.”

Dinnerstein recorded Hourglass with the ensemble that she founded and directs, Baroklyn (a portmanteau of Baroque and Brooklyn, her home New York borough). She describes the ensemble as “a community that shares the artistic vision that is most important to me, that music should be creative and new. We avoid ‘fixing’ our interpretations, to keep the music from becoming static. We have a plan, but are open to the moment. This way of making music is dependent upon listening, openness to change, and trust. It results in a feeling of togetherness.”

Dinnerstein sees a natural affinity between the music of Philip Glass and that of J.S. Bach in their deeply polyphonic visions, quest for the absolute independence of each line, and an abiding concern for the singing quality of musical phrases.

She says:

“When I think about the music of Philip Glass, I think about time. The music is intricate and polyphonic. It’s layered, with patterns that keep shifting in the subtlest of ways. Though the harmonies are clearly important in the musical narrative, Glass’s music is multi-linear in a way that evokes the music of Bach. It is music on the horizontal, as opposed to the vertical. If anything, it is circular music. . .

Glass’s music is famously known for its repetitions. Every repetition is a reaction to the one before and an anticipation of one to come. We hear differently because our hearing changes with each note—we carry the whole unfolding of the music with us as we listen. We hear it as a constant becoming, not as a set of musical facts. This is exactly why I don’t hear Glass’s music as mechanical. It makes me think about the hourglass rather than the factory clock. A clock divides time into discrete, measured steps, in a way that in many parts of contemporary life feels natural. In music we can feel a vestige of the unnaturalness of that relentless pulse, an unhuman rigidity. Like our experience of time, music sometimes seems to move faster, sometimes slower, sometimes chaotically, sometimes evenly. The hourglass, with its unsubdivided and embodied flow, is how I think of this music.” 

Since her recording of the Goldberg Variations, in addition to establishing a busy performing career, Simone Dinnerstein has made fourteen albums—all of which have topped the Billboard classical charts. She has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Seoul Arts Center, and the Sydney Opera House.

About Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Track List & Credits: 

Hourglass
Release Date: June 5, 2026 | naïve
Music by Philip Glass | Simone Dinnerstein, director and piano | Baroklyn 

Suite from The Hours (2002)
1. I [11:17]
2. II [8:59]
3. III [6:57]

Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Piano Concerto No. 1) (2000)
4. Movement I [6:28]
5. Movement II [16:40]
6. Movement III [6:33] 

Recording Producers: Silas Brown, Simone Dinnerstein
Sound Engineering: Silas Brown, Doron Schachter, Richie Clarke
Editing: Silas Brown, Simone Dinnerstein
Mixing and Mastering: Silas Brown (Legacy Sound)

Recorded at Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center, New York, NY, May 25-26, 2025

Summary: This album is the first release on naïve from American pianist Simone Dinnerstein, one of the most distinctive voices in classical music today. Recorded with Dinnerstein's own string ensemble, Baroklyn, it immerses listeners in the sound world of Philip Glass, continuing the GRAMMY-nominated pianist's close artistic association with renowned composer, and features his Suite from The Hours and Tirol Concerto.

Upcoming Performances:

March 21, 2026: Chandler Center for the Arts – Randolph, VT
March 27, 2026: University of Chicago – Chicago, IL
April 17, 2026: Carnegie Hall – New York, NY
April 25, 2026: St. Peter's Community Arts Academy – Geneva, NY
May 17, 2026: Sands Point Preserve Conservancy – Sands Point, NY
May 21, 2026: Concordia Chamber Players – Solebury, PA
May 27, 2026: Library of Congress – Washington, D.C.
June 9, 2026: Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, Central Park – New York, NY
June 13, 2026: Rockport Chamber Music Festival – Rockport, MA
June 14, 2026: Music Mountain Summer Festival – Falls Village, CT
June 25, 2026: Flagstaff Piano Festival – Flagstaff, AZ
June 30, 2026: Lyra Music – Beacon, NY 

For details: www.simonedinnerstein.com/concerts-upcoming

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum presents Violinist Randall Goosby on April 12 and the Renaissance String Quartet on May 17

L-R: Randall Goosby, Zhu Wang, Renaissance Quartet. Press photos available here.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Presents Violinist Randall Goosby with Pianist Zhu Wang in April and the Renaissance String Quartet in May

Randall Goosby & Zhu Wang: Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 1:30 pm
Renaissance String Quartet: Sunday, May 17, 2026 at 1:30 pm

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall | 25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: www.gardnermuseum.org/about/music

For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com

BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continues its Winter/Spring 2026 Weekend Concert Series, presenting superstar violinist Randall Goosby with pianist Zhu Wang on Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 1:30 pm and the Renaissance String Quartet (of which Goosby is a member) on Sunday, May 17, 2026 at 1:30 pm. This fifteen-concert season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel runs from January 25 through May 17, 2026, and features world-class artists in the Museum’s extraordinary Calderwood Hall—a 300-seat “sonic cube” with three levels of balconies designed so that 80% of seats are front row, creating a uniquely intense and intentional listening experience. 

Virtuoso violinist Randall Goosby returns to Calderwood Hall on April 12 with pianist Zhu Wang for an intimate recital of epic music. Two major sonatas bookend the program: Debussy’s elusive and gorgeous sonata is paired with Beethoven’s sunny F major essay in the form. The concert also includes Southland Sketches by Harry Burleigh, who was key in forging a quintessential American musical language, modifying the gorgeous modal inflections of spirituals with the chromatic ambiguities of Wagner’s harmony. Romance by Boston’s Amy Beach, the best of the Second New England School of composers, gorgeously drinks from a similar Wagnerian well. Dvořák’s Four Romantic Pieces provide a bridge between these worlds, showing how Romanticism and folk traditions can be seamlessly interwoven. 

Signed exclusively to Decca Classics in 2020 at the age of 24, American violinist Randall Goosby is acclaimed for the sensitivity and intensity of his musicianship alongside his determination to make music more inclusive and accessible, as well as bringing the music of under-represented composers to light. Goosby was recently appointed to The Juilliard School’s Preparatory Division and the Pre-College violin faculty. He began studying violin at the age of seven and made his solo debut with the Jacksonville Symphony at age nine. Four years later, he became the youngest First Prize winner of the Sphinx Competition at thirteen, leading to debut performances with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and New World Symphony. In addition to his performance at the Gardner Museum, highlights of his current season include debut performances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, and San Diego Symphony. He returns this season to the San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony, and appears in recital across the country. Of his concerto debut on Decca, Gramophone raved, “There’s an honesty and modesty...This playing isn’t dressed to impress but to express.” 

Randall Goosby returns in May, when the Gardner Museum presents the Renaissance String Quartet on May 17, for the closing performance of the Winter/Spring 2026 Weekend Concert Series. In addition to Goosby, this supergroup includes violinist Jeremiah Blacklow, violist Jameel Martin, and cellist Daniel Hass—four terrific musicians who find time in their busy touring lives as soloists and chamber musicians to perform together. Brahms’ String Quartet No. 2 in A minor anchors the program with its characteristic blend of passion and intellectual rigor. The concert also includes the great American composer Florence Price’s String Quartet No. 1 in G Major. Price had a special gift for quartet writing; the exquisite and eloquent slow movement of her first quartet shows her love of American song, especially Black spirituals. The program closes with String Quartet No. 1, “Love and Levity,” by Daniel Hass, the cellist in the Renaissance String Quartet. He describes the piece as “Beethovenian in its thematic and structural tautness, but even more so in its motion towards excess.”

The Renaissance String Quartet is driven by a desire to reimagine the role and capacity of the string quartet as a vehicle for change, inspiring audiences, students, and collaborators around the world. Founded in 2021, the New York City-based quartet was formed on the basis of over a decade of friendship at The Perlman Music Program and The Juilliard School. The quartet feels a responsibility to command a diverse repertoire of classic, underrepresented, and new works, so they can contribute to the reclamation, redefinition, and continuation of a musical tradition that belongs to all of us. They represent and articulate an inclusive vision of the future of classical music, which sees a culture of music wherein all lives and histories are welcomed and celebrated. 

George Steel’s music programming for the Museum continues founder and legendary arts patron Isabella Stewart Gardner’s vision of bringing together musicians and audiences for inspiring gatherings. Dating to 1927, the Gardner’s Weekend Concert Series is the longest running museum music program in the country. Much like Isabella Stewart Gardner did in her time, Steel champions unknown repertoire and embraces new works, creates connections and builds community among musicians, and supports them by presenting them in new endeavors and collaborations. His programming also frequently draws on the history of the Gardner Museum, featuring instruments from the Museum’s collection and music by composers who were associated with its founder. In honoring Isabella Stewart Gardner’s musical legacy, Music at the Gardner remains strongly committed to broadening the repertoire of music presented to include previously overlooked and marginalized composers as well as performers of all backgrounds.

Winter/Spring 2026 At-a-Glance Concert Schedule 

January 25: Twelfth Night Ensemble
February 1: Romuald Grimbert-Barré, violin; Tommy Mesa, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano
February 8: Claremont Trio
February 22: Attacca Quartet
February 26: Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians performed by Ensemble Signal - Thursday Night Music
March 1: Goldmund Quartet with Gloria Chien, piano
March 8: Paul O’Dette, lute
March 15: Borromeo String Quartet
March 29: Castle of Our Skins with Daniel Bernard Roumain, electric violin and Val-Inc, sound chemist
April 5: Paul Galbraith, guitar
April 12: Randall Goosby, violin with Zhu Wang, piano
April 18: Boston Children’s Chorus: The Road She Paved
April 19: Imani Winds
April 26: The Butter Quartet
May 10: Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
May 17: Renaissance String Quartet

All concerts take place on Sundays at 1:30 pm, except for Ensemble Signal which performs on Thursday, February 26 at 7 pm and the Boston Children’s Chorus which performs on Saturday, April 18 at 2 pm. All concerts take place in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA).

Ticketing Information

Tickets are available at gardnermuseum.org/about/music or by calling the Box Office at 617 278 5156. For additional information including about accessibility, please contact boxoffice@isgm.org.

About the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invites you to escape the ordinary in a magical setting where art and community come together to inspire new ways of envisioning our world. Embodying the fearless legacy of its founder, the Museum offers a singular invitation to explore the past through a contemporary lens, creating meaningful encounters with art and joyful connections for all. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, unforgettable galleries surround a luminous Courtyard and are home to masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent. The Renzo Piano Wing provides a platform for contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars and serves as an innovative venue where creativity is celebrated in all of its forms. 

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115 • Hours: Open Weekends from 10 am to 5 pm, Weekdays from 11am to 5 pm and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $22; Seniors $20; Students $15; Free for members, children under 18, everyone on their birthday, and all named “Isabella” • $2 off admission with a same-day Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ticket • For information 617 566 1401 • Box Office 617 278 5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org

Music at the Gardner is supported by Manitou Fund. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Alford P. Rudnick Memorial Concert; David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder; Wendy Shattuck Young Artist Concert; and Willona Sinclair Memorial Concert. The piano is dedicated as the Alex d’Arbeloff Steinway. The harpsichord was generously donated by Dr. Robert Barstow in memory of Marion Huse, and its care is endowed in memory of Dr. Barstow by The Barstow Fund. Music at the Gardner is also supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Joseph Mari, Sallie and Jim McGregor, Nicie and Jay Panetta, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

April 5: Guitarist Paul Galbraith performs at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Guitarist Paul Galbraith, press photos available here.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Presents
Guitarist Paul Galbraith on April 5, 2026

Sunday, April 5, 2026 at 1:30pm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall | 25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: www.gardnermuseum.org/about/music

For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com

BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continues its Winter/Spring 2026 Weekend Concert Series, presenting superstar guitarist Paul Galbraith on Sunday, April 5, 2026 at 1:30 pm. This fifteen-concert season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel runs from January 25 through May 17, 2026, and features world-class artists in the Museum’s extraordinary Calderwood Hall—a 300-seat “sonic cube” with three levels of balconies designed so that 80% of seats are front row, creating a uniquely intense and intentional listening experience.

Paul Galbraith is one of the great guitarists of our time and a superb interpreter. With the music of J.S. Bach and Albéniz at the heart of his program, Galbraith will perform on his remarkable eight-string “Brahms Guitar,” which he holds like a cello. His instrument and his artistry are sui generis. There is simply no one else doing what Galbraith does. His program ranges from Dowland’s Elizabethan gems through J.S. Bach’s French Suites and Partitas, to a sonata by Haydn, Albéniz’s masterpieces Suite Española and España, Ravel’s Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn, and Lennox Berkeley’s Quatre pièces. There is no better place to hear Galbraith’s miraculous playing than in the superb acoustics of Calderwood Hall. 

In 1981 at the age of seventeen, Paul Galbraith's performance at the Segovia International Guitar Competition won him the Silver Medal. Segovia, who was present for the competition, called his playing “magnificent.” The following year he went on to win a BBC Young Musician of the Year Award. These awards helped launch an international career including performances with some of the finest orchestras in Britain and Europe (Royal Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, BBC Philharmonic, Scottish Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Orchestra, Scottish Baroque Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra among them). Galbraith’s concert tours have taken him to the US, Canada, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Czech Republic, Norway, Hungary, Brazil, China, India, and Iceland.

Galbraith’s unique playing position was first revealed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1989. His guitar is supported by a metal endpin (similar to that of a cello) that rests on a wooden resonance box. The instrument itself was designed by Galbraith in collaboration with renowned builder David Rubio. The eight strings and extraordinary design of this guitar effectively increase the instrument’s range and possibilities to an extent never before possible, which has enabled Galbraith to make transcriptions of works by composers not usually associated with the guitar, such as Haydn, Schubert, and Brahms.

George Steel’s music programming for the Museum continues founder and legendary arts patron Isabella Stewart Gardner’s vision of bringing together musicians and audiences for inspiring gatherings. Dating to 1927, the Gardner’s Weekend Concert Series is the longest running museum music program in the country. Much like Isabella Stewart Gardner did in her time, Steel champions unknown repertoire and embraces new works, creates connections and builds community among musicians, and supports them by presenting them in new endeavors and collaborations. His programming also frequently draws on the history of the Gardner Museum, featuring instruments from the Museum’s collection and music by composers who were associated with its founder. In honoring Isabella Stewart Gardner’s musical legacy, Music at the Gardner remains strongly committed to broadening the repertoire of music presented to include previously overlooked and marginalized composers as well as performers of all backgrounds.

Winter/Spring 2026 At-a-Glance Concert Schedule 

January 25: Twelfth Night Ensemble
February 1: Romuald Grimbert-Barré, violin; Tommy Mesa, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano
February 8: Claremont Trio
February 22: Attacca Quartet
February 26: Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians performed by Ensemble Signal - Thursday Night Music
March 1: Goldmund Quartet with Gloria Chien, piano
March 8: Paul O’Dette, lute
March 15: Borromeo String Quartet
March 29: Castle of Our Skins with Daniel Bernard Roumain, electric violin and Val-Inc, sound chemist
April 5: Paul Galbraith, guitar
April 12: Randall Goosby, violin with Zhu Wang, piano
April 18: Boston Children’s Chorus: The Road She Paved
April 19: Imani Winds
April 26: The Butter Quartet
May 10: Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
May 17: Renaissance String Quartet

All concerts take place on Sundays at 1:30 pm, except for Ensemble Signal which performs on Thursday, February 26 at 7 pm and the Boston Children’s Chorus which performs on Saturday, April 18 at 2 pm. All concerts take place in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA).

Ticketing Information

Tickets are available at gardnermuseum.org/about/music or by calling the Box Office at 617 278 5156. For additional information including about accessibility, please contact boxoffice@isgm.org.

About the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invites you to escape the ordinary in a magical setting where art and community come together to inspire new ways of envisioning our world. Embodying the fearless legacy of its founder, the Museum offers a singular invitation to explore the past through a contemporary lens, creating meaningful encounters with art and joyful connections for all. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, unforgettable galleries surround a luminous Courtyard and are home to masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent. The Renzo Piano Wing provides a platform for contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars and serves as an innovative venue where creativity is celebrated in all of its forms. 

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115 • Hours: Open Weekends from 10 am to 5 pm, Weekdays from 11am to 5 pm and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $22; Seniors $20; Students $15; Free for members, children under 18, everyone on their birthday, and all named “Isabella” • $2 off admission with a same-day Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ticket • For information 617 566 1401 • Box Office 617 278 5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org

Music at the Gardner is supported by Manitou Fund. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Alford P. Rudnick Memorial Concert; David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder; Wendy Shattuck Young Artist Concert; and Willona Sinclair Memorial Concert. The piano is dedicated as the Alex d’Arbeloff Steinway. The harpsichord was generously donated by Dr. Robert Barstow in memory of Marion Huse, and its care is endowed in memory of Dr. Barstow by The Barstow Fund. Music at the Gardner is also supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Joseph Mari, Sallie and Jim McGregor, Nicie and Jay Panetta, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

April 23-25: New York Premiere of Rising Presented by CUNY Dance Initiative at Baruch Performing Arts Center – Featuring GRAMMY-Nominated Neave Trio, Pigeonwing Dance, and Music by Robert Sirota

Photo of Rising by Jeremy Kyle Gruner available in high resolution here.

Rising has New York Premiere

Choreography by Gabrielle Lamb and Music by Robert Sirota
Performed by Pigeonwing Dance and the Neave Trio

Presented by CUNY Dance Initiative at Baruch Performing Arts Center

April 23, 24, 25, 2026 at 7pm
Baruch Performing Arts Center | 55 Lexington Ave | NYC
Tickets and Information

NeaveTrio.com | PigeonwingDance.com | www.RobertSirota.com

New York, NY – On April 23, 24, 25, 2026 at 7pm at Baruch Performing Arts Center, CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI) presents the New York premiere performances of Rising –– an evening-length dance work featuring a score by composer Robert Sirota and choreography by Gabrielle Lamb, performed by Lamb’s company Pigeonwing Dance and the Neave Trio. The performances are the culmination of Lamb’s residency with CDI this spring.

Dances about water –– rivers and oceans –– are among the oldest human forms of expression; but in this time of climate change and rising sea levels, Rising takes on much more heightened significance. An exploration of our connection to Earth's oceans, Rising intertwines Robert Sirota's emotive, lyrical music, performed live by the GRAMMY-nominated Neave Trio, with Gabrielle Lamb's evocative and articulate choreography for her chamber company, Pigeonwing Dance. The score includes recorded text from oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer (Flotsametrics and the Floating World) and naturalist Craig Foster (My Octopus Teacher). Rising was developed over three years with the Neave Trio, who selected both the composer and choreographer. The musicians and dancers, who perform together onstage, shaped the work's vision.

The artists wish to bring attention to the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels on marine ecosystems, while leaving space for the hope that, in the words of naturalist Craig Foster, “we can all learn to walk a little more lightly on this planet.”

Of his score for Rising, Robert Sirota says, “There is nothing more essential to our survival than the preservation of our oceans and the tenuous balances that foster life on earth. Collaborating on this major work with the extraordinary choreographer Gabrielle Lamb and the brilliant Neave Trio has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. I think that together, we have made a useful contribution to the conversation.”

Gabrielle Lamb describes Rising’s choreography and its connection to the images of its oceanic theme: “A single dancer is onstage, moving to spoken text by an oceanographer describing oceanic gyres. Words give way to the piano’s rippling arpeggios, and more dancers enter with sinuous oscillations suggestive of sea creatures. Soon, their five bodies combine into fluent living sculptures. Eye contact connects dancers, transforming abstract movement into human interaction and hinting at multiple interrelated stories.”

Rising premiered on September 27, 2024 at Oregon State University as a co-presentation by the Patricia Valian Reser Center for Art and Creativity (PRAx) and the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. Rising was made possible by a commissioning grant from the O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, with additional support from Ballet Vero Beach, the Riverside Dance Festival, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Arts Center at Governors Island.

About the Artists

Robert Sirota: www.robertsirota.com
Gabrielle Lamb: www.pigeonwingdance.com/gabrielle
Pigeonwing Dance: pigeonwingdance.com
Neave Trio: www.neavetrio.com

For Calendar Editors:

Description: CUNY Dance Initiative presents the New York premiere performances of Rising, an exploration of our connection to Earth's oceans intertwining Robert Sirota's emotive, lyrical music, performed live by the GRAMMY-nominated Neave Trio, with Gabrielle Lamb's evocative and articulate choreography for her chamber company, Pigeonwing Dance.

Performance details:

What: Rising
Who: Choreographer Gabrielle Lamb, Composer Robert Sirota, Pigeonwing Dance, and the Neave Trio
Presented by CUNY Dance Initiative
When: April 23, 24, 25, 2026 at 7pm
Where: Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Ave (25th Street between Lexington and Third Aves) , New York, NY 10010
Tickets and Information: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36688/production/1265274

May 1: New Sony Classical Album by Pianist Arcadi Volodos Featuring the Music of Franz Schubert & Robert Schumann - New Single Out Today

New Sony Classical Album by Pianist Arcadi Volodos

Schubert: Piano Sonata No.17 In D Major, D.850
Schumann: Kinderszenen Op.15

Kinderszenen, Op.15/VII. Träumerei
Out Today - Listen Here

Album Release Date: May 1, 2026
Pre-Order Available Now

A musician known for conjuring up magical sounds on the piano is back. Seven years after his last album, the exceptionally gifted Arcadi Volodos is releasing a new and long-awaited Sony Classical album on May 1, 2026, recorded live at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. And again, he is devoting himself to the music of Franz Schubert as well as Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen. Accompanying today’s announcement is the first single, Kinderszenen, Op.15/VII. Träumerei - listen here.

“The great difficulty with Schubert”, says Volodos, “is the basic outline, the absolute transparency. It is in silence that the personality and the spirituality of the interpreter shine through.” For Volodos as an interpreter, it is here, in this world of stillness and half-tones, that his real work begins, since “this demands simplicity and depth”.

Volodos’s earlier Schubert recordings have included the great sonatas in G major (D 894, released in 2002) and in A major (D 959, first issued in 2019). He is now turning his attention to the D major Sonata D 850, a work sometimes known as the “Gastein” Sonata since Schubert composed it during the summer of 1825, when he was taking the waters at Bad Gastein to the south of Salzburg.

Arcadi Volodos draws particular attention to the “extreme sensibility” of Schubert’s music, which explains why he favours a freedom of approach that allows for flexible tempos.

“It is absurd to want to fix the tempo by means of a metronome,” he argues, because “music is a language, not an equation.” It is very much the many incomparable transition passages, the melodies and the gently changing harmonies that make Schubert’s music so unmistakably his own. And this is all the more true when they are performed by a pianist as exceptional as Arcadi Volodos.

The second work on his new album is Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen, a set of thirteen priceless miniatures for the piano, the best known of which is the famous “Träumerei”.

“I think that it is only when you grow older that you understand these pieces better and better,” says Volodos, referring obliquely to the fact that Schumann did not write them for children. What matters more, as Volodos explains, is “It is a question of rediscovering within oneself the child’s sense of wonderment, this pure and sincere understanding of a world that one spends an entire lifetime trying to rediscover.”

To that extent this recording of Kinderszenen seems like a summation of Volodos’s whole life as an artist: each piece is a little jewel that allows the piano to radiate with light and to shine in all its colours and nuances. One could argue that this profundity is accessible only to those artists who, like Volodos, have a relatively manageable repertory at their command, at least in terms of their public appearances. “I like it when the works come to life inside me and become a part of me.” The present recording attests to the truth of this comment in many different ways.

Arcadi Volodos was born in St Petersburg and it was there, too, that he studied. He first became famous for his highly virtuosic piano arrangements of Romantic orchestral works but since his international breakthrough in the late 1990s he is now invariably numbered among the finest pianists currently before the public. He appears in all the leading concert halls and at festivals all over the world. His relatively few recordings have regularly garnered the most prestigious international awards.

Out Today: Countertenor Randall Scotting's Divine Impresario - Nicolini on Stage

Countertenor Randall Scotting Releases New Album Today

Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage

Celebrating the Legendary 18th-Century Castrato
Through Rarely Heard Baroque Repertoire
Including Nine Works Recorded for the First Time

Listen Now

Release Date: March 13, 2026
Signum Classics

"As well as giving ravishing accounts of the slower, expressive arias, Scotting is more than capable of negotiating the virtuoso demands of some of the more flamboyant music audiences came to expect of their castrato idols. He also joins forces with HIP royalty, Mary Bevan, for three lovely duets, while he benefits throughout from beautifully idiomatic orchestral support from the Academy of Ancient Music under the direction of Laurence Cummings..." - D. James Ross, Early Music Review

"On a scale of one to ten, I give this album an eleven." - Maggie Ramsey, Opera Today

"Randall Scotting weaves a fascinating selection of arias written for Nicolini into an engaging recital." - Planet Hugill

www.randallscotting.com | www.signumrecords.com/product/divine-impresario

Review CDs and downloads available upon request.

Internationally acclaimed countertenor Randall Scotting announces the release of Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage, out March 13, 2026 on Signum Classics. The landmark album celebrates Nicolò Grimaldi, the castrato who conquered the opera world under the stage name Nicolini (1673 - 1732). Recorded with the Academy of Ancient Music under the direction of Laurence Cummings, with soprano Mary Bevan, the album features rarely performed arias and duets from the early 18th century, nine of which have never been recorded before and have not been heard since Nicolini's lifetime.

While Nicolini is best remembered today for the music Handel wrote for him, including beloved arias from Rinaldo and Amadigi, this album reveals his far broader musical world. For Divine Impresario, Scotting has revived works by a range of composers who wrote for this castrato, drawn to his dramatic range and vocal brilliance, including Francesco Gasparini, Nicola Porpora, Riccardo Broschi, Francesco Mancini, Attilio Ariosti, and Giovanni Antonio Giaj.

Divine Impresario takes its title from Nicolini's unique role as both performer and visionary. “When I think about Nicolò Grimaldi, the word that comes to mind is impresario,” explains Scotting. “Not in the limited sense of a theatre manager, but rather as a creative force who shaped the artform itself. Nicolini wasn't content just to stand and sing; he directed performances, he reworked libretti, and he elevated the standard of acting in opera.”

For Scotting, this project marries his onstage and offstage roles. Sought-after by some of the world's most esteemed opera houses and concert halls, the countertenor’s performances have been described as “expressive” (The New York Times), “rich-toned” (Musical America), “luminous” (Ópera Actual), “ravishing” (BBC Music Magazine), and “flexible and rich” (Early Music Review). His breakout moment came in 2019 at London's Royal Ballet & Opera when he stepped in last-minute for Sir David McVicar's production of Britten's Death in Venice, praised for “singing brilliantly” to sold-out audiences, after which he joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera. In 2023, he created the role of Adone in the world premiere of Venere e Adone at the Staatsoper Hamburg under Kent Nagano, earning praise for a “vocally and physically muscular” performance. He has previously worked with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, Italy's Spoleto Festival, Boston Baroque, and Sydney's Pinchgut Opera, among others. He recently made spectacular debuts at the Royal Ballet & Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Staatsoper Hamburg, with upcoming debuts at Carnegie Hall and La Fenice in Venice.

Holding a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London, where his dissertation focused on the castrato Senesino and early 18th-century Italian opera, Scotting is also that rare performer who has trained extensively as a scholar – a background that served him well in researching and bringing to life the repertoire he performs here.

After extensive research into Nicolini’s performing career, Scotting sought out manuscripts from archives in England, Belgium, Austria, Germany, and Sweden. Choosing the best of what he found, he then meticulously created modern performing editions for all the music on the album so that it could be performed and recorded.

“For me, stepping into this repertoire is a kind of conversation across time, with Nicolini, but also with the idea of what it means to be an impresario today,” says Scotting. “Like him, I'm drawn to music-making that is dramatically committed. In recording this music, I sought to channel the intensity for which Nicolini was famous and to honor his legacy as the divine impresario: defined by an ambition for opera to be more than just dazzling technique, but also a captivating and emotional experience.”

Born into a poor Neapolitan family in 1673, Nicolò Grimaldi rose to become one of the most celebrated performers of his era. After making his stage debut in Naples at only twelve years old, he rapidly gained fame throughout Italy, eventually being inducted into the Order of Saint Mark’s Cross in Venice in 1705 for his outstanding performances. His reputation soon spread across Europe, and in 1708 he arrived in London with a three-year contract and an extraordinary £1,000 salary (an amount that at that time would have taken a skilled tradesman thirty years to earn).

Nicolini quickly became an international superstar, praised not only for his vocal brilliance but for his exceptional acting. One of the album's highlights is “Mostro crudel che fai?” from Riccardo Broschi's Idaspe, representing the famed lion-fighting scene that electrified London audiences. In Mancini's Idaspe fedele, Nicolini became notorious for slaying a “live” lion onstage in a nude-colored costume – a theatrical spectacle that became one of early 18th-century London's most talked-about moments. The album also includes the delicate and lyrical aria “È vano ogni pensiero” from Mancini's setting of the opera, revealing how Nicolini could, as Scotting puts it in his liner note for the album, “wrestle monsters and still sing with incomparable elegance.”

More about Randall Scotting:

Dramatically persuasive and intensely musical, Randall Scotting is recognized for winning over audiences with his vocal beauty, stylish singing, and charismatic stage presence. He has released several solo albums in recent years, building a growing profile as a recording artist. For his debut album, The Crown, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment led by Laurence Cummings, he was lauded for "ravishing vocalism" and "impressive beauty and warmth." Signum Classics then released Lovesick, an album of lute and folk songs featuring Scotting and Grammy-award winner and lutenist Stephen Stubbs, widely praised and noted as "not only beautifully sung, but 'lived'." His most recent album, Infinite Refrain, with London's Academy of Ancient Music, offers 17th-century arias and love duets for countertenor and tenor, receiving glowing acclaim as "a vibrantly seductive" and "strikingly beautiful declaration of same-sex love."

Remarkable for the breadth of his artistic curiosity, Scotting delights in defying expectations, from improvising live with Bobby McFerrin at Carnegie Hall to performing with the avant-garde cabaret troupe Company XIV in a blend of opera, folk, and pop music. Trained at London's Royal College of Music, the Juilliard School, and as a Fulbright Scholar at Budapest's Liszt Academy, his scholarly credentials complement his performing career. In 2018 he was awarded a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London for his thesis on the castrato Senesino (Francesco Bernardi) and early 18th-century Italian opera 

About Mary Bevan:

Mary Bevan is one of Britain's most celebrated sopranos, equally at home in opera, concert, and recital. During the 2025/26 season, she debuts with the Dutch National Opera in a new Michel van der Aa commission Theory of Flames, sings Pat Nixon in John Adams's Nixon in China conducted by the composer in Rome, and returns to the Semperoper Dresden in Handel's Saul.

In recent seasons she has sung the title role in La Calisto with the Bayerische Staatsoper, Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare with Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Morgana in Alcina at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Eurydice in Orfeo ed Eurydice for Teatro La Fenice. Her concert appearances have included her Carnegie Hall debut with the English Concert, Haydn's Creation at the Barbican with the Academy of Ancient Music, and Bach's Mass in B Minor at the BBC Proms. She has toured extensively across Europe, Australia, Asia, and the US. Bevan's many releases on Signum Records include Elegy, art song albums, Voyages and Divine Muse, French song album Visions Illuminées, and Handel's Queens. She was awarded an MBE in the Queen's birthday honors list in 2019 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2025.

About Laurence Cummings:

Laurence Cummings is Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music and Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música in Porto, and one of Britain’s most exciting exponents of historical performance both as a conductor and harpsichordist. A noted authority on Handel, the Guardian has written that “he now ranks as one of the composer's best advocates in the world. Self-effacing on the podium, faithful above all to the score, he matches Handel's energy and invention with unmistakable lyricism, generosity and dignity.”

Frequently praised for his stylish and compelling performances in the opera house, his career has taken him across Europe conducting productions at Royal Ballet and Opera Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Opernhaus Zurich, Dutch National Opera, Theater an der Wien, and Gothenburg Opera, working with directors including David McVicar, Christoph Marthaler, Deborah Warner, and Peter Sellars. He is equally at home on the concert platform, regularly invited to conduct both period and modern instrument orchestras worldwide.

His previous collaborations with Randall Scotting include The Crown, Heroic Arias for Senesino with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Infinite Refrain, Music of Love's Refuge with Academy of Ancient Music, both on Signum Classics.

About Academy of Ancient Music:

Academy of Ancient Music is an orchestra with a worldwide reputation for excellence in baroque and classical music. Using historically informed techniques, period-specific instruments and original sources, they bring music vividly to life in committed, vibrant performances.

Established more than 50 years ago by Christopher Hogwood, AAM has released more than 300 albums to date, collecting countless accolades including Classic BRIT, Gramophone and Edison awards. They are the most listened-to period-instrument orchestra online, with over one million monthly listeners on streaming platforms. AAM recently celebrated their Golden Anniversary with the completion of a landmark project to record Mozart's complete works for keyboard and orchestra, a series described by the Financial Times as having “set new standards.”

Beyond the concert hall, AAM is committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians through their innovative AAMplify initiative, working with music colleges and universities across the UK. AAM holds the position of Associate Ensemble at London’s Barbican Centre and the Teatro San Cassiano, Venice, and Orchestra-in-Residence at the University of Cambridge and The Apex, Bury St Edmunds.

About Signum Records:

Signum Records is a leading British independent label, specialising in classical music. Founded in 1997, Signum boasts a catalogue of over 900 titles collectively streamed over 850 million times and continues to release 40+ new recordings each year by internationally acclaimed artists. Signum works closely with its sister company, Floating Earth, the leading production and engineering specialist service provider in Europe.

Album Track Listing & Credits:

Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage
Randall Scotting, countertenor | Mary Bevan, soprano | Academy of Ancient Music led by Laurence Cummings
Release Date: March 13, 2026
Signum Classics 

1. *Mostro crudel che fai? from Idaspe [4:34]
Riccardo Broschi (c. 1698-1756) | Venice 1730

2. Porto piagato in petto from Ambleto [3:01]
Francesco Gasparini (1661-1727) | London 1712

3. Sinfonia from Rinaldo | Instrumental [1:02]
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) | London 1711

4. Cara sposa from Rinaldo [10:00]
G.F. Handel | London 1711 

5. *Spiegami il tuo desio from Siface [5:55]
Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) | Venice 1726
with Mary Bevan, soprano

6. Oh notte!… Notte amica from Amadigi [4:47]
G.F. Handel | London 1715

7. *Come nave in mezzo all'onda from Siface [5:28]
N. Porpora | Venice 1726

8. *Per te bell'idol mio from Antioco [4:48]
F. Gasparini | London 1711
with Mary Bevan, soprano

9. *È vano ogni pensiero from Idaspe fedele [8:56]
Francesco Mancini (1672-1737) | London 1710

10. Venti turbini from Rinaldo [5:02]
G.F. Handel | London 1711

11. *Nò, non piangete nò from Tito Manlio [4:43]
Attilio Ariosti (1666-1729) | London 1717

12. *Sì, t'intendo o core amante from Tomiri [3:41]
F. Gasparini | London 1709

13. *Questo conforto from Antioco [5:47]
F. Gasparini | London 1712 

14. *Pensa se ancor from Mitridate [5:18]
Giovanni Antonio Giaj (1690-1764) | Venice 1729

15. Crudel tu non farai from Amadigi [5:30]
G.F. Handel | London 1715
with Mary Bevan, soprano

*recorded for the first time

Total Time: 78:37

Randall Scotting, countertenor
Mary Bevan, soprano
Laurence Cummings, conductor and harpsichord
Academy of Ancient Music

Recorded: November 18-21, 2024
Location: St Jude On-the-Hill, Hampstead, London, UK
Producer: Nicholas Parker
Audio Engineer, Mixing, and Mastering: Tom Lewington
Assistant Engineer: Alex Sermon
Musical Coaching: Yukiko Oba and Murray Hipkin

Concept, Repertoire Selections, and Performing Editions: Randall Scotting, PhD
Album Booklet, Package Design, Copy Editing, and Photo Editing: Nic Mramer

April 17: GRAMMY-Nominated Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis Releases New Album Terra Infirma - World Premiere Recordings of Music by Reena Esmail

GRAMMY®-Nominated Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis
Releases Terra Infirma on April 17 Just Before Earth Day 2026

World Premiere Recordings of Major New Works Composed by Reena Esmail

Featuring Vijay Gupta, Violin
Interlochen Center for the Arts Orchestra & Chorus
Conducted by Andrew Grams | Carter Smith, Choral Director

Watch the Trailer for The Terra Infirma Project

Release Dates: April 17 (digital), May 15 (CD) on Azica Records 

Yolanda Kondonassis | Reena Esmail | Azica Records

Review CDs and downloads available upon request.

On April 17, 2026, shortly before Earth Day, GRAMMY®-nominated harpist Yolanda Kondonassis releases her new album Terra Infirma on Azica Records. Terra Infirma, which will be released on CD on May 15, 2026, features world premiere recordings of major new works by acclaimed composer Reena Esmail, including the titular concerto for harp and percussion (both performed by Kondonassis) with orchestra, as well as Sandhiprakash for violin and harp, and Earth Speaks: Curiosity for chorus and solo harp. In addition to Kondonassis, the album includes violinist Vijay Gupta, the Interlochen Center for the Arts Orchestra and Chorus, conductor Andrew Grams, and choral director Carter Smith.

Each piece on the album concerns our relationship to the environment – an ongoing theme in both Kondonassis’s and Esmail’s work. Kondonassis’s most recent album is FIVE MINUTES for Earth from 2022, which features pieces (including one by Esmail) commissioned through her environmental awareness non-profit organization Earth at Heart. Esmail often uses her work as a composer and performer to support environmental advocacy, particularly with her compositions Earth Speaks and Malhaar: A Requiem for Water.

Esmail’s new harp and percussion concerto Terra Infirma was directly informed by the composer’s experience living in Los Angeles during the catastrophic fires of January 2025. Esmail, who is Indian-American, also drew on her extensive studies of Hindustani music in composing the piece. Her compositional voice is at once arresting, lyrical, haunting, and fierce. She writes in the liner notes, “Though the idea had been set in motion four years earlier, the timing of its creation was uncanny. I began writing this concerto in January 2025, a few days before wildfire ravaged my neighborhood of Altadena, CA. The material for immolation came to me as I walked the hills of Los Angeles while we were evacuated. The piece draws on the ancient Hindustani raags of Deepak, which evokes fire, and Megh, which extinguishes it through rain.” Kondonassis, known for “a range of colour that’s breathtaking,” (Gramophone), brings the work to life with colorful authenticity. 

Terra Infirma reflects not only the environmental passion and advocacy of both artists, but also their inspiration to innovate and expand the concerto form. In this bold new work, with a title taken from a poem by Robert Walters (also commissioned by Kondonassis through Earth at Heart), the harp symbolizes the protagonist Earth, both fragile and powerful. The towering instrument is moved choreographically by Kondonassis across the stage as she journeys through various arrays of suspended percussion. Esmail describes the work as “part virtuoso concerto, part performance art, and part theater.”

Says Esmail, “Terra Infirma sits somewhere between a harp/percussion concerto and a monodrama – Yolanda leads us through the trajectory of a wildfire, starting with the eerie moments before the first spark, and ending with the hope of new growth. The work explores our human relationship to fire – a force that can be at once devastating and illuminating. It has been a dream to work so closely with Yolanda, who has reinvented the role of the harp over and over again throughout her career. We have built the DNA of this piece together over so many years – experimenting in percussion studios, mapping stage plots, pushing our imaginations to the limit. I am so excited to share this work with the world.”

Kondonassis says, “The personal and musical resonance that I feel with Reena has resulted in a work that’s deeply personal, uniquely colorful, and ground-breaking in so many ways. The harp is a highly visual instrument, and Terra Infirma utilizes that element to the fullest. In this work, the harp is actually a character in the musical drama onstage, and that gives me the chance to portray an enormous range of artistic emotion.”

Photos by Ryan Zimmerman available in high resolution here.

The album also includes Esmail’s works Sandhiprakash (originally written for solo cello in 2022, reimagined for violin and harp for this project) and Earth Speaks: Curiosity (originally written in 2014 for chorus and solo piano, revised for chorus and solo harp). Esmail writes, “Sandhiprakash, meaning ‘the joining of light’, is the term for a particular set of Hindustani raags that are performed at the moments of sunrise and sunset. This piece focuses on the sunrise raags, Bhairav, Ahir Bhairav and Vibhas. Quite different from the sonorities that evoke dawn in Western music, these melodies are darker and more mysterious.” Earth Speaks: Curiosity uses as its texts the list of stops that the rover Curiosity made on Mars in 2011 – many of them named from the places worldwide where the scientists involved conducted their research – as well as haikus which were submitted to an online competition to commemorate the launch.

The new album forms the heart of The Terra Infirma Project, a multi-year initiative of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, which boasts Kondonassis as an alumna (class of ‘82). In addition to the world premiere performances and recording of Esmail’s pieces, the project consists of a live multi-media concert video, the creation of a two-part documentary, and a year-long series of educational and residency activities at Interlochen Center for the Arts. The entire process, from initial workshops to the world-premiere and recording, has been captured by the award-winning film crew Fulvew Productions for the upcoming documentary to be released in August 2026. .

Watch a trailer for The Terra Infirma Project:

Of working with and mentoring the students at her alma mater during her residency at Interlochen, Kondonassis states, “Bringing Terra Infirma to life with my dear friend, Reena Esmail, was a gift in itself, but to do it at Interlochen – where many of my earliest and most important musical values were formed – was extraordinary. My time on campus suggested to me that maybe, just maybe, we actually can go home again when ‘home’ represents the genesis of our best selves. My time spent with the incredible Interlochen students assured me that the future of music is safe in the hands of these smart, curious, motivated young players. Even in our increasingly complex world, their ability to commit and collaborate with their whole hearts gives me hope. I find it enormously inspiring to be reminded that the training ground of great artists shouldn’t be considered an assembly line, but a magnificent garden – rich with seeds, buds, and blooms for which opportunity and mentorship are the sun and water.”

About Yolanda Kondonassis:

Yolanda Kondonassis enjoys a career as one of the world’s leading solo harpists. Hailed as “viscerally exciting” by TheChicago Tribune, she has performed around the globe as a concerto soloist and in recital, pushing the boundaries of what listeners expect of the harp. Since making her debut at age 18 with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, Kondonassis has appeared as soloist with countless major orchestras in the United States and abroad. Also a published author, speaker, professor of harp, and environmental activist, she weaves her many passions into a vibrant and multi-faceted career.

Praised by Gramophone for her “keen sense of dramatic timing and a range of colour that’s breathtaking,” Kondonassis has released over 25 commercial recordings and her music has been sold and downloaded by millions of listeners. She was nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for her world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto (Azica). Her album of music by Takemitsu and Debussy, Air (Telarc), was also nominated for a GRAMMY® Award.

Committed to the advancement of new music, Kondonassis’ body of solo harp commissions includes works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, Reena Esmail, Chen Yi, Bright Sheng, Jennifer Higdon, Stephen Hartke, Takuma Itoh, Zhou Long, Donald Erb, and Arturo Sandoval, among numerous others. As an author, she has published several books to date, including The Composer’s Guide to Writing Well for the Modern Harp (Carl Fischer); On Playing the Harp (Carl Fischer); The Yolanda Kondonassis Collection (Carl Fischer); and The Earth Collection (Theodore Presser), a curated volume of newly-composed, earth-inspired works for solo harp.

Kondonassis’s first children’s book, Our House is Round: A Kid’s Book About Why Protecting Our Earth Matters, was released in 2012 by Skyhorse Publishing and praised as “the perfect children’s introduction to environmental issues” by The Environmental Defense Fund. The book was subsequently licensed by Scholastic Books and recently released in an updated paperback edition under the title, My Earth, My Home.

Kondonassis is currently Director of the Harp Department at The University of Michigan, after previously heading the harp departments at Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music for over 25 years. She has presented masterclasses around the world and is the founding director of The American Harp Institute. She attended Interlochen Arts Academy as a high school student and continued her studies at The Cleveland Institute of Music, where she received her BM and MM degrees in Harp Performance.

About Reena Esmail:

Reena Esmail’s music weaves together the traditions of Hindustani and Western classical music, drawing musicians from many perspectives into shared creative spaces. Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider.

Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press, and her piece TaReKiTa has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide. Her life and music was profiled on Season 3 of the PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Esmail was the Los Angeles Master Choral’s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She has been in residence with Tanglewood Music Center (co-Curator – 2023), Spoleto Festival (Chamber Music Composer-in-Residence – 2024) and Marlboro Music Festival (2025 Composer in Residence). 

Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse, and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers. Esmail resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, CA. 

About the Featured Artists & Ensembles:

Vijay Gupta: vijaygupta.com
Andrew Grams:andrewgrams.com
Carter Smith: interlochen.org/person/carter-smith

About Earth at Heart: www.earthatheart.org

About Interlochen Center for the Arts:

The nonprofit Interlochen Center for the Arts is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the only organization in the world that brings together a 3,400 -plus-student summer camp program; a 570-plus-student fine arts boarding high school; a year-round source of expert online arts education for children, teens, and adults; opportunities for adults to engage in fulfilling artistic and creative programs; two 24-hour, listener-supported public radio services (classical music and news); more than 600 arts presentations annually by students, faculty, and world-renowned guest artists; a robust hospitality division that curates on-campus lodging, dining, and transportation services; and a global alumni base spanning nine decades, including leaders in the arts and all other endeavors. For information, visit interlochen.org.

About the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra:

A recipient of The American Prize, the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra is recognized as one of America’s finest high school orchestras. Under the direction of Leslie B. Dunner, the orchestra performs an advanced repertoire encompassing symphonies, concertos, and contemporary works. The orchestra has appeared at Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Symphony Hall, the Kimmel Center, and the New World Center, and has premiered works by Wynton Marsalis, Reena Esmail, Ash Fure, and Hannah Lash, among many others. Deeply committed to interdisciplinary creation, the ensemble collaborates regularly with the six other artistic divisions within Interlochen Arts Academy, reflecting the institution’s belief in artistic connection and creative exploration across disciplines. Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra alumni occupy positions in leading orchestras around the world, including principal positions with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and The Cleveland Orchestra, among others. For more information, visit interlochen.org/music/academy/music-ensembles.

Album Information:

Terra Infirma | Yolanda Kondonassis, Harp & Percussion | Azica Records
All Music Composed by Reena Esmail
Featuring Vijay Gupta, Violin | Interlochen Center for the Arts Orchestra & Chorus
Andrew Grams, Conductor | Carter Smith, Choral Director
Release Date: April 17, 2026 (Digital) | May 15, 2026 (CD) (Worldwide)

Terra Infirma: Concerto for Harp, Percussion, and Orchestra

1. i. bone-colored branches [2:30]
Broken rocks reflecting the sun. Waterless, the terraced vineyards
Have all turned brown. Her Eden disintegrates, a daily
Orchard of dead trees with bone-colored branches. 

2. ii. immolation [3:30]
Immolation. The world’s trees snap into flame...
The world is burning. 

3. iii. helium ember [5:25]
...a helium ember that pulleys up through a tightening sky. 

4. iv. roaming the ghost forest [7:05]
...glowing in aftermath...Dante roaming the ghost forest,
A spectral coastline of damp embers, black ash and hissing smoke. 

5. v. skeletal silhouette [2:41]
Only the skeletal remains of Manzanita bushes
Scratch the horizon, a torched past in eerie silhouette. 

6. vi. swallowed [5:25]
...swallowed by fire...
Smoldering forests forge new deliriums.

7. vii. facing the flame [3:52]
But somewhere, at this very moment, the snow is melting as it should.
On a high mountain trail, a cool spring rushes out of a low stand of Alders.
This is where you kiss the ground, gather the soil in your hands,
Tend to the shelter of new life greening at the water’s edge... 

8. Sandhiprakash for violin and harp [8:40]

Earth Speaks: Curiosity for SATB chorus and solo harp
9. I. Ethereal [7:01]
10. II. Remote. Icy [2:48]
11. III. Intimate, Serene [3:39]

Total Time: [52:44] 

All World Premiere Recordings 

Executive Producer: Yolanda Kondonassis
Producer: Alan Bise
Recording Engineers: Alan Bise and Michael Culler
Mixing Engineer: Alan Bise
Project Manager at Interlochen Center for the Arts: Eric Stomberg
Cover Photo: Adobe Stock
Concert Photography: Ryan Zimmerman
Designer: Anilda Carrasquillo, Cover to Cover Design
Recorded in Corson Auditorium at Interlochen Center for the Arts

April 18: Lisa Bielawa's Rochester Broadcast – A Spatial Symphony Presented by Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester

High resolution press photos available here.

Rochester Broadcast by Lisa Bielawa
A Spatial Symphony for Hundreds of Musicians at Parcel 5

Presented by Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester

Two Performances on Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 12pm and 2:00pm
Parcel 5 | 285 East Main Street | Rochester, NY
Free and Open to the Public, No Registration Required

More Information: esm.rochester.edu/esm-event/rochester-broadcast

Rochester, NY –– This spring, award-winning composer Lisa Bielawa, currently the Howard Hanson Visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, partners with the Eastman School of Music to bring together Eastman students and members of the Rochester community for Rochester Broadcast, a large-scale, site-specific “spatial symphony,” celebrating the diversity of artistic life in Rochester. There will be two outdoor performances, free and open to the public, on Saturday, April 18, 2026 (rain date April 19) from 12-12:30pm and 2-2:30pm at Parcel 5 (285 East Main Street, Rochester).

Featured groups will include Eastman School of Music (Eastman); Eastman Community Music School (ECMS); University of Rochester (URochester): All-In Brass Band (Tom Allen, director), URochesterMarching Pep Band (Anika Tripathi, student leader), URochester Chorus (Lee Wright, director), EastmanBrass Guild (Mark Kellogg, director), Eastman Saxology (Charles Pillow, director), ECMS Klezmer Ensemble (Jonathan Allentoff, director), Eastman Tuba Mirum (Justin Benavidez, director), Rochester Mandolin Orchestra (Ken Luk, director), ECMSGamelan Ensemble (Ken Luk, director), Eastman Chorale (Bill Weinert, director), ECMSChorus (Karen Templeton, director), Rochester Medical Orchestra (Evan Meccarello, director), Rochester School of the Arts Orchestra (John Fetter, , director), and Rochester School of the Arts Band (Kerry Venanzi, director).

Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition, whose music has been described as “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart,” by The New York Times. She is established as one of today’s leading composers and performers, consistently incorporating community-making as part of her artistic vision. In an article which branded Bielawa a “fire starter,” New Music Box reported, “It’s difficult to stand anywhere near composer and vocalist Lisa Bielawa and not feel energized by proximity… An extrovert to the core, Bielawa acknowledges that her highly social nature has taken her in some specific directions both as a composer and as a musical citizen. Community building and close collaboration with performing artists are often central to her compositional process.” She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, a bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, KY, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin and San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; she has composed and produced a twelve-episode, made-for-TV opera that features over 350 musicians and was filmed in locations across the country.

The San Francisco Chronicle described Bielawa’s work Crissy Broadcast, which took place on Crissy Field in San Francisco, as “one of the most moving performances of the year…where all the boundaries we take for granted in musical life…are casually obliterated.” The Knoxville News Sentinel described the preparation of Knoxville Broadcast as being “like observing the creation of a Rube Goldberg machine, in which each piece is carefully placed and prepped with precision before the first event sets off a chain of activity.”

“I’m so happy that Rochester will join the list of Broadcast cities!” says Bielawa. “I create these radically inclusive spatial symphonies for people to fill public urban space with sound, joyfully bringing people together through a celebration of the multiple musical communities in their hometown. Eastman is a perfect partner for this next adventure, in this famously musical city.”

“Education and performance are two sides of the same coin,” states Eastman’s Joan and Martin Messinger Dean Kate Sheeran. “By inviting Lisa to helm a Broadcast specifically composed for Rochester, we are finding new ways to bring music to members of our local community by inviting them to be a part of it.”

About the Composer

Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize winner who takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. She has received awards and fellowships from the Koussevitzky Foundation, American Academy of Arts & Letters, OPERA America, and American Antiquarian Society, Loghaven Artist Residency, and was part of the inaugural Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps. She received a Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser. Her music has been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, National Cathedral, Rouen Opera, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and Helsinki Music Center, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ROCO, and the Orlando Philharmonic. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Radio France, Yerevan Concert Hall in Armenia, the Venice Architectural Biennale, American Music Week in Salzburg, the INFANT Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, and more. Bielawa consistently incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, a bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, KY, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin and San Francisco, and munity using submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents through her work Broadcast from Home, now archived by the Library of Congress. For more information, please visit www.lisabielawa.net. .

Artist Website | Broadcasts | Facebook | Instagram

About Bielawa’s Broadcasts

Composer Lisa Bielawa’s Rochester Broadcast is the latest in a series of broadly inclusive Broadcast works, starting with her large-scale piece Airfield Broadcasts, a massive 60-minute work for hundreds of musicians that premiered on the tarmac of the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin (Tempelhof Broadcast, May 2013) and Crissy Field in San Francisco (Crissy Broadcast, October 2013). Bielawa turned these former airfields into vast musical canvases as professional, amateur, and student musicians executed a spatial symphony. The series continued with Mauer Broadcast at the site of the former Berlin Wall, commissioned for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by Kulturprojekte Berlin in 2019; Broadcast from Home, developed remotely during the early days of the pandemic lockdown in 2020, which included the testimonies and home-recorded voices of over 500 people from six continents worldwide; Brickyard Broadcast, developed in 2020 with the city and university in Raleigh, North Carolina, partnering with their libraries to create a performance site entirely in virtual reality; Voters’ Broadcast, commissioned in 2020 as part of the Democracy and Debate Theme Semester by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with support from its School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and developed in partnership with Kaufman Music Center in New York; Louisville Broadcast presented in 2023 by the Louisville Orchestra in two historic locations, Shelby Park and the Big Four Bridge; and Knoxville Broadcast, presented by Big Ears in October 2025 at World’s Fair Park.

About Eastman School of Music

The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company. It was the first professional school of the University of Rochester. Mr. Eastman’s dream was that his school would provide a broad education in the liberal arts as well as superb musical training.

More than 900 students are enrolled in the Collegiate Division of the Eastman School of Music—about 500 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. They come from almost every state, and approximately 23 percent are from other countries. They are taught by a faculty comprising more than 170 highly regarded performers, composers, conductors, scholars and educators. They are Pulitzer Prize winners, GRAMMY winners, Emmy winners, Guggenheim fellows, ASCAP Award recipients, published authors, recording artists and acclaimed musicians who have performed in the world’s greatest concert halls. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members and guest artists present more than 1,000 concerts to the Rochester community. Additionally, over 1,700 members of the Rochester community, from young children through senior citizens, are enrolled in the Eastman Community Music School.

About the University of Rochester

The University of Rochester is one of the nation’s leading private research universities, one of only 62-member institutions in the Association of American Universities. Located in Rochester, N.Y., the University gives undergraduates exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary study and close collaboration with faculty through its unique cluster-based curriculum. Its College, School of Arts and Sciences, and Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are complemented by the Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business, Warner School of Education, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, School of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Nursing, Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and the Memorial Art Gallery.

April 25: Jupiter Quartet Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts – Featuring Music by Clarice Assad, Salina Fisher, Florence Price, and Robert Schumann

Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string

Jupiter Quartet Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Performing the Music of Clarice Assad, Salina Fisher, 
Florence Price, and Robert Schumann

Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 7:30pm
University of Illinois | Foellinger Great Hall - Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL
Tickets and Information

Jupiter Quartet’s New Album Undreamed Shores
Out April 17 on Orchid Classics

“an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” – The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Urbana, IL – The Jupiter String Quartet –– whose playing The Washington Post describes as “characterful, illuminating and utterly committed” –– will perform at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 7:30pm. This is the ensemble’s final performance on this series during the 2025-2026 season. The program originally featured a collaboration with pianist Bernadette Harvey but has been changed due to circumstances beyond her control. Based at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Mélanie Clapiès and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Founded in 2001, the ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music, and exudes an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous.

The Jupiter Quartet brings its well-honed artistic chemistry to a musically diverse program that spans from the mid-19th century to the present day.. The performance will include Cançoes da America by Clarice Assad; Heal by Salina Fisher; selections from Five Folksongs in Counterpoint by Florence Price; and Quartet in A minor, Op. 41 No. 1 by Robert Schumann.

Says the Jupiter Quartet: “It is always a treat to play for our hometown community of Champaign-Urbana at the lovely Krannert Center. Although we are sad that the original program planned, which was to feature the wonderful pianist Bernadette Harvey, had to be postponed due to a visa delay, we are excited to share this dynamic program instead. All four of the composers we will feature have created works filled with color and variety, and we hope the audience will enjoy them as much as we do.”

A powerful communicator renowned for her musical scope and versatility, the GRAMMY-nominated composer, pianist, vocalist, and educator Clarice Assad is acclaimed for her evocative colors, rich textures, and diverse stylistic range. Of Canções da America, she writes: “Canções da America is a collection of song-like movements inspired by chants, dances, and rhythms associated with South American music. A melting pot of cultures consisting of Europeans, immigrants, natives, and people from Africa.” Salina Fisher is an award-winning New Zealand composer who draws from her background as a multi-instrumentalist of mixed Japanese heritage. Of the inspiration behind her 2021 work Heal, Fisher says: “During a year of collective and personal challenges, I became interested in the process of healing and its relation to music making,’ says Fisher. ‘Can composing be part of a healing process? What does it mean to share physical space and sound?’” African-American composer Florence Price’s Five Folksongs in Counterpoint is a brilliant reworking of popular folk tunes and spirituals. The movements the Jupiters will play are based on the songs My Darling Clementine, Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, and Shortnin’ Bread.. Finally, Robert Schumann’s vivid Quartet in A minor, Op. 41 No. 1, which he composed in his “chamber music year” of 1842, will close out the program. The quartet, which is dedicated to Felix Mendelssohn, along with the two other string quartets of Opus 41, drew particular inspiration from close study of the contrapuntal style of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn. Schumann’s life was filled with a personal struggle between light and darkness, and his music expresses this inner turbulence to powerful emotional effect.

On April 17, 2026, the Jupiter String Quartet releases Undreamed Shores, the ensemble’s ninth studio album and first on Orchid Classics. On Undreamed Shores, the Jupiter Quartet turns to old friends with new inspiration. The album features the world premiere recordings of new string quartets written for the Jupiter by composers who are also longtime friends of the ensemble — Michi Wiancko (To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores), Stephen Andrew Taylor (Chaconne/Labyrinth), and Kati Agócs (Imprimatur, String Quartet No. 2) — exploring themes including the climate crisis, the pandemic, memory, and re-imagination. This highly anticipated recording is the Jupiter’s final album with violinist Nelson Lee, who departed from the group’s lineup in September 2025, succeeded by violinist Mélanie Clapiès.

More About Jupiter String Quartet: The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.   

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two. 

The Jupiter String Quartet feels a strong connection to the core string quartet repertoire; they have presented the complete Bartok and Beethoven string quartets on numerous occasions. Also deeply committed to new music, they have commissioned string quartets from Nathan Shields, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Michi Wiancko, Syd Hodkinson, Hannah Lash, Dan Visconti, and Kati Agócs; a quintet with baritone voice by Mark Adamo; and a piano quintet by Pierre Jalbert. 

In addition to Undreamed Shores, the Jupiter’s discography includes a collaborative album with the Jasper Quartet released on Marquis Records in 2021, featuring Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round, which was praised by The Arts Fuse for its “smart program and fine execution.” The quartet has recorded previously for Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon.

The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, described by The New Yorker as having “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity,” is presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in their final series performance for the 2025-2026 season. The award-winning ensemble will perform a musically diverse program of works that spans from the mid-19th century to the present day, including works by living composers. The performance will include: Cançoes da America by Clarice Assad, Heal by Salina Fisher; selections from Five Folksongs in Counterpoint by Florence Price; and Quartet in A minor, Op. 41 No. 1 by Robert Schumann.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
What: Music by Clarice Assad, Salina Fisher, Florence Price, and Robert Schumann
When: Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: University of Illinois, Foellinger Great Hall - Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL
Tickets and information: ​​https://krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-bernadette-harvey-piano

Mini-Doc on Raymond J. Lustig's Forthcoming Album SEMMELWEIS Out Now - Album Out April 17 on Sono Luminus

Sono Luminus Releases SEMMELWEIS on April 17

A New Song Cycle
Music by Raymond J. Lustig and Words by Matthew Doherty 

Featuring Charlotte Mundy, Raymond J. Lustig, and The Rhythm Method 

Inspired by the Life of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis

Watch the Mini-Documentary on the Making of the Album

 "entrancing...surreally beautiful...ecstatic...rapturous" – The New York Times 

"compelling beauty and eerie prescience" – The Washington Post

www.raylustig.com  | www.sonoluminus.com

Review CDs and downloads available upon request.

American composer Raymond J. Lustig releases his next album, a recording of his new song cycle SEMMELWEIS, on the Sono Luminus label on April 17, 2026. With words by Matthew Doherty and music by Lustig, the recording featuring soprano Charlotte Mundy, Raymond J. Lustig, and The Rhythm Method, plus violinist Leah Asher, cellist Meaghan Burke, bass clarinetist Chrystof Knoche, and double bassist Ranjit Prasad.

The source material for Lustig’s compelling song cycle is the story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, the 19th-century obstetrician who championed the practice of handwashing which is the foundation of today’s antiseptic procedures. Amidst a devastating epidemic in the 1840s, Dr. Semmelweis discovered that the deadly disease was being spread to healthy mothers by the unclean hands of their own doctors. Tragically, the medical community rebelled against his discovery. Semmelweis’s insight had a lot to do with watching the washing rituals of midwives. Their practices reflected ancient learned knowledge, and noticing their superior outcomes alerted Semmelweis that his doctors were skipping something of critical importance, with tragic results. An impatient and irascible man, speaking twenty years ahead of the germ theory of disease, and with news that would bring unbearable guilt to countless doctors, he found few ears open to considering his shocking hypothesis. They scoffed at his findings, rejected his theory, stripped him of his credentials, and he was subsequently driven into an asylum where he died alone. It was not until decades later that his discovery was validated and accepted. 

Not surprisingly, Dr. Semmelweis had a resurgence of interest during the pandemic. He was even featured as the “Google Doodle” on March 20, 2020, described as being, “widely remembered as ‘the father of infection control,’ credited with revolutionizing not just obstetrics, but the medical field itself, informing generations beyond his own that handwashing is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of diseases.”

For many years, composer Raymond Lustig has been intrigued and inspired by Dr. Semmelweis. He first conceived of a stage work around the doctor’s story in 2007. At the time, he was a graduate student in music, but he had spent several years doing biomedical research. After many iterations, the fully staged production of SEMMELWEIS came to fruition in 2018, when Lustig joined forces with writer Matthew Doherty and Hungarian director Martin Boross, and the world premiere performances were presented by Budapest Operetta Theatre and Bartók Plusz Opera Festival.

Lustig has released a mini-documentary, SEMMELWEIS: From Stage to Studio Album, about the making of the recording:

The song cycle recorded here derives from that production. “Our goal was to make a true studio album, rather than a capture of the stage work,” Lustig says. “I knew I wanted to work with Charlotte Mundy, whose voice has always been the ideal for me for this work. We then decided that, rather than try to build a choir of matching female voices, we would instead use only Charlotte’s voice, multiplied over itself, spread out in the stereo field, one unified voice totally surrounding and overwhelming. These female voices often represent a chorus of ghosts of the mothers he could not save (or ‘mother ghosts,’ as we call them), who haunt Dr. Semmelweis. Engineer and co-producer Maximilien Hein and I, as well as engineer Drew Schlingman, recorded with the musicians in my studio at Respirano on Hudson and at The Hit Factory in New York. The theatrical experience and private listening are very different. We knew we needed to rebuild the music from the ground up, reconsidering every detail, refining and elaborating, revising and revising, to get to the true emotional heart of the story as an auditory experience.”

The entire action of SEMMELWEIS may be seen as a reflection – a fever dream or death dream – of Ignaz Semmelweis’ inner psyche at his life’s end. Dr. Semmelweis re-experiences events from throughout his life, perhaps out of sequence, distorted, or unreliable, as if through a lens of a mind in turmoil.

“We envisioned it as a story made of glass that had fallen to the floor, smashed, and the shards lay there reflecting only segments of the meaning, but somehow, gazing upon all of them, letting them come back together in the mind, the meaning might be perceived,” explains Lustig. “Maybe, or maybe just partially, or maybe not at all.”

About Raymond J. Lustig: ASCAP-award-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist Raymond Lustig’s music stretches boundaries to weave together his classical upbringing, his love of folk choral traditions, and indie rock. Having also taken a significant detour into the world of biomedical research, he continues to draw inspiration from nature and the sciences.

His critically acclaimed 2013 work Latency Canons—composed for an orchestra made up of musicians playing literally from around the globe via the internet—brought international attention to his music. Premiering seven years before the Covid pandemic at Carnegie Hall and simultaneously at sites worldwide, it pioneered remote music making as something accessible to traditional players and audiences.

Lustig has collaborated with cellist Joshua Roman, tenor Nicholas Phan, American Composers Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Metropolis Ensemble, Budapest Operetta Theater, the Bartok Plusz Opera Festival, the American Opera Project, pianist Blair McMillen, and classical guitar ensemble Duo Noire. He is currently working closely with Italian alternative rock artist Luigi Porto, with whom he co-leads the alternative rock band Manicburg, whose debut album premiered in 2024.

Lustig’s work has been honored with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Rudolf Nassim Prize for his orchestral work UNSTUCK, the Aaron Copland Award from Copland House, the Juilliard Orchestra competition, the New Juilliard Ensemble competition.

ALBUM TRACK LISTING & CREDITS:

SEMMELWEIS
Music by Raymond Lustig
Words by Matthew Doherty
Raymond Lustig | Charlotte Mundy | The Rhythm Method
Sono Luminus
Release Date: April 17, 2026 

1. What is the Day
2. Market Squares
3. Give Birth on the Earthworks
4. Best Idea
5. My Doctor's Hands
6. Never a Choice
7. Out in the Yard
8. Archaeology
9. Our Skin So Fair
10. As if Your Body Were a Cathedral
11. You Cannot Stay
12. My Dark Disgrace
13. Etiology
14. Eureka
15. I am the Experiment
16. Madness
17. Once a Candle
18. The Only One
19. Lullaby
20. Finale

Total Time: 65:28 

Music by Raymond J. Lustig
Words by Matthew Doherty
Additional Latin words: Martin Boross, Diána Eszter Mátrai, Julia Jakubowska 

Charlotte Mundy - voice of Woman and the Mother Ghosts
Raymond J. Lustig - voice of Semmelweis, piano, organ, accordion, music boxes
The Rhythm Method - string quartet
Leah Asher - violin
Meaghan Burke - cello
Ranjit Prasad - double bass
Chrystof Knoche - bass clarinet 

Produced by Raymond J. Lustig and Maximilien Hein
Executive Produced by Raymond J. Lustig
Additional Production by Drew Schlingman (“Best Idea”, “Eureka”)
Recorded by Maximilien Hein and Drew Schlingman
Mixed by Maximilien Hein
Mastered by Daniel Shores 

Recorded at The Hit Factory, NYC and Respirano on Hudson, NYC from 2023 to 2025
Assistant Engineer at The Hit Factory: Brendan O’Neill 

Album Art by Alex Sopp
Graphic Design by Josh Frey

GatherNYC Presents Sunday Concerts Violinist Rachell Ellen Wong & Harpsichordist David Belkovski; Boyd Meets Girl & Friends; Bassist & Composer Kebra-Seyoun Charles; Poiesis Quartet

L-R: Osvaldo Golijov, Poiesis Quartet, Boyd Meets Girl, En-Chi Cheng, Kebra-Seyoun Charles, Jennifer Choi, David Felberg, Clarice Assad, Rachell Ellen Wong & David Belkovski

GatherNYC Continues Expanded 2025-2026 Season in NYC
at Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle

31 Concerts – Now Held Weekly, Every Sunday Morning at 11AM through May 31, 2026

Up Next:
April 5: Rachell Ellen Wong and David Belkovski (Violin, Harpsichord)
April 12: Boyd Meets Girl and Friends (Flute, Guitar and Strings)
April 19: Kebra-Seyoun Charles (Bass, Composer​​​​​)
April 26: Poiesis Quartet (String Quartet)

“thoughtful, intimate events curated with refreshing eclecticism by its founders, the cellist Laura Metcalf and the guitarist Rupert Boyd, complete with pastries and coffee – The New Yorker

“A sweet chamber music series” – The New York Times

“Impressive Aussie/American led concert series proves music can be a religion.”
– Limelight Magazine

Museum of Arts and Design | The Theater at MAD | 2 Columbus Circle | NYC

Tickets & Information: www.gathernyc.org

New York, NY – GatherNYC, a revolutionary concert experience founded in 2018 by cellist Laura Metcalf and guitarist Rupert Boyd, continues its expanded 2025-2026 season at the series’ home venue, Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) (2 Columbus Circle). For the first time, GatherNYC is offering weekly concerts, held every Sunday morning at 11am, in The Theater at MAD. Coffee and pastries are served before each performance at 10:30am. Admission for children under 12 is free. The series presents an astonishing thirty-one concerts between October 2025 and May 2026.

Guests at GatherNYC are served exquisite live classical music performed by New York’s immensely talented artists, artisanal coffee and pastries, a taste of the spoken word, and a brief celebration of silence. The entire experience lasts one hour and evokes the community and spiritual nourishment of a religious service – but the religion is music, and all are welcome.

Spoken word artists perform briefly at the midpoint of each concert, many of whom are winners of The Moth StorySLAM events. “It’s an interesting moment of something completely different from the music, and it often connects with the audience,” Metcalf told Strings magazine in a feature about the series. “Then we have a two-minute celebration of silence when we turn the lights down, centering ourselves in the center of the city. Then the lights come back on, and the music starts again out of the silence. We find that the listening and the feeling in the room changes after that.”

Metcalf and Boyd say, “We are thrilled to be offering 31 concerts throughout our expanded 2025-2026 season, by far our largest lineup yet. In these challenging times, we feel it’s essential to provide our community with a gathering place each week where we can enjoy world-class artists together in an intimate, unique setting – complete with spoken word, silence, coffee and a communal, welcoming environment. We look forward to welcoming new and old friends week after week.”

Up Next – All Concerts Take Place on Sundays at 11AM:

April 5: Rachell Ellen Wong, violin + David Belkovski, harpsichord
Following their much-loved performance at GatherNYC in 2023 as part of the early music collective Twelfth Night, Wong and Belkovski return to the stage for a charming and intimate recital featuring impeccably performed Baroque gems.

April 12: Boyd Meets Girl and Friends play Clarice Assad & Osvoldo Golijov
This exciting program for flute, guitar and string quartet pair works by two superstar Latin-American composers whose styles contrast and compliment each other. Golijov’s achingly beautiful Tenebrae is juxtaposed with Clarice Assad’s exhilarating Sephardic Suite. Boyd Meets Girl is joined by violinists David Felberg and Jennifer Choi and violist En-Chi Cheng.

April 19: Kebra-Seyoun Charles, bass + composer
Kebra-Seyoun Charles is a distinguished double bass soloist and composer lauded for their counter-classical musical language and their ability to aptly communicate complex ideas and emotions to audiences. For their GatherNYC debut, they will perform a new work entitled “Shango” for bass and percussion duo, interspersed with virtuosic double bass solos.

April 26: Poeisis Quartet
Fresh off their win at the 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition (arguably the most important competition of its kind in the world), this fast-rising young string quartet will treat audiences to its vital and energetic approach to music-making and programming.

Says Poeisis of their program: “In collaboration with five emerging QTPOC (Queer/Trans People of Color) composers from our alma mater, Oberlin College & Conservatory, the Oberlin Commission Project expands the string quartet canon with approaches to music-making that are too often unheard. This initiative brings underrepresented voices, genres, and influences to the forefront, and also serves as an act of resistance and perseverance. Composer Zola Saadi-Klein's composition is rooted in the Persian Dastgāh music tradition, and through their work they are "acknowledging our queer and ancestral identities can freely coexist beyond the binaries of classical music and societal expectations." As queer musicians and as Oberlin graduates, this project serves as our way of giving back to the communities who raised us and brought us together.”

2026 GatherNYC Schedule:

May 3: Thomas Mesa, cello + JP Jofre, bandoneon
Two of the most exciting soloists working today, Mesa and Jofre come together for a morning of tango and tango-inspired works that spotlight the unusual combination of their instruments, cello and bandoneon, while allowing each performer to shine.

May 10: Curtis Stewart, violin + composer
GatherNYC favorite, Curtis Stewart, returns to the stage with a preview of his much-anticipated project “24 American Caprices.” The 24 American Caprices are inspired by a kaleidoscope of recorded American music, with some honorary American additions...musical aspects of each inspiration are abstracted and imbued with challenging violin techniques emulating the sounds and styles of their origin. In the full meaning of caprice, these violin fragments dance and sing lightly from inspiration to ornamentation, both with flights of fantasy and fastidious settings of referenced material, creating playful musical dialogue around American lineage and individual perspective in Classical music.

May 17: Catalyst Quartet
The GRAMMY-winning Catalyst Quartet, known for their masterful, comprehensive recordings of music by Black composers throughout history, bring their signature polish and style back to GatherNYC for the second time.

May 24: Aeolus Quartet
The acclaimed Aeolus Quartet presents a touching and thoughtful program for their first performance at GatherNYC. From a Bach chorale composed to unite the voices of church congregations to the expansive Overture and Chorale by Andrea Casarrubios inspired by it; from the textural celebration of Montgomery's Strum to the bubbling virtuosity of Bacewicz’s Quartet No. 3 composed in the new world that arose from the ashes of WWII. In this program, storytelling and silence give way to the tender slow movement of Price’s G Major Quartet rooted in the tradition of Black spirituals.

May 31: Season Finale – Musicians from the NY Phil with Boyd Meets Girl
GatherNYC artistic directors Laura Metcalf and Rupert Boyd once again team up with members of the New York Philharmonic, including returning violist Leah Ferguson, violinist Alina Kobialka and more, to craft an exhilarating program centered around Aaron Jay Kernis’ tour de force for guitar and string quartet, “100 Greatest Dance Hits.” Dance into the summer and celebrate the conclusion of another wonderful season of GatherNYC!

For tickets and information, visit www.gathernyc.org.