Nov 23: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Presents Pianist Michelle Cann
Photo by Titilayo Ayangade. Press photos available here.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Presents Pianist Michelle Cann
Sunday, November 23, 2025 at 1:30 pm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall
25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/michelle-cann-11.23.25
For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com
BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum concludes its Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series with the Gardner debut of pianist Michelle Cann, a two-time GRAMMY® Award winner, on Sunday, November 23, 2025 at 1:30 pm. Michelle Cann is lauded as “exquisite” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and “a pianist of sterling artistry” by Gramophone. Her recent engagements include appearances with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo, and more.
Cann’s program for her first appearance at the Gardner Museum features dazzling music from pianist-composers, including Florence Price’s Sonata in E minor, as well as three 19th-century showpieces from Romantic greats—Felix Mendelssohn’s Fantasie in F-sharp minor, Op. 28; Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1, S. 514; and Frédéric Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47. Cann will also perform Joel Thompson’s “My Dungeon Shook” from Three American Preludes, composed in 2020 and inspired by the words of celebrated author and civil rights activist James Baldwin as well as a traditional spiritual famously quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his "I Have a Dream" speech.
Michelle Cann is a two-time GRAMMY® Award winner for her recordings of the music of Florence Price, the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra. Recognized as a leading interpreter of the piano music of Price, Cann performed the New York City premiere of Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished Orchestra in 2016 and the Philadelphia premiere with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2021. Her recording of the concerto with the New York Youth Symphony won a GRAMMY® Award in 2023 for Best Orchestral Performance. She also won a GRAMMY® Award in 2025 for Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price, recorded with soprano Karen Slack, which features 19 unpublished songs composed by Price. Her acclaimed debut solo album Revival, featuring music by Price and Margaret Bonds, was released in May 2023 on the Curtis Studio label. Cann is a recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. She is on the faculty of Curtis Institute of Music and the Manhattan School of Music.
The Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series is an eleven-concert autumn season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel running from September 13 through November 23, 2025, which 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.
George Steel’s programming for the Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series 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.
Fall 2025 At-a-Glance Concert Schedule
September 13-14: ACRONYM - The Complete Brandenburg Concertos by J.S. Bach
September 21: Junction Trio Plays John Zorn
September 28: Catalyst String Quartet
October 5: Sphinx Virtuosi with Sterling Elliott, cello
October 19: Miranda Cuckson, violin, and Blair McMillen, piano
October 26: Rachel Barton Pine, violin and viola d'amore
November 2: Claire Chase, flutes, with Aisslinn Nosky, violin, Katinka Kleijn, cello, and Alex Peh, piano and harpsichord
This performance is made possible by the Anne Hawley Fund for Programs.
November 9: Clayton Stephenson, piano
This program is performed in memory of Willona Sinclair.
November 16: Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano with Myra Huang, piano
This concert is made possible by the generous support of David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder.
November 23: Michelle Cann, piano
All concerts take place on Sundays at 1:30 pm (except ACRONYM, which performs on both Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 pm) in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA).
Ticketing Information
Tickets ($20-$85) are available at gardnermuseum.org/about/music or by calling the Box Office at 617 278 5156. All concert tickets include Museum admission.
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 17 and under, 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 Nora McNeely Hurley / 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, Nicie and Jay Panetta, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.