Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Weekend Concert Series in October - Sphinx Virtuosi with Sterling Elliott, Miranda Cuckson and Blair McMillen, Rachel Barton Pine
Clockwise from top left: Sphinx Virtuosi, Sterling Elliott, Blair McMillen, Miranda Cuckson, Rachel Barton Pine.
Press photos available here.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Weekend Concert Series
October Performances
October 5: Sphinx Virtuosi with Sterling Elliott
October 19: Miranda Cuckson and Blair McMillen
October 26: Rachel Barton Pine
“The museum’s handsome Calderwood Hall remains one of the city’s most uniquely intimate and acoustically stunning venues." – A.Z. Madonna, The Boston Globe
Information & Tickets: gardnermuseum.org/about/music
For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com
BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continues its Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series with three performances in October. This eleven-concert autumn season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel runs from September 13 through November 23, 2025, 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.
On Sunday, October 5 at 1:30 pm, the blazing 22-member Sphinx Virtuosi, praised for its “elegant ascent into the upper ranks of string orchestras” by The Strad, returns to the Gardner Museum for a performance featuring cellist Sterling Elliott in a program spanning the Americas—from biracial Cuban composer and violinist José White Lafitte, to Argentine Alberto Ginastera, to the Mexican composer Manuel Ponce. The concert will include two Boston premieres of newly commissioned works by Quenton Blache and Jessie Montgomery. Sphinx Virtuosi is a dynamic, self-conducted chamber orchestra and the flagship performing ensemble of the Sphinx Organization, the nation’s leading nonprofit dedicated to transforming the arts. Comprising 18 of the nation’s most accomplished professional string players, Sphinx Virtuosi is redefining classical music through artistic excellence, pioneering programming, and cultural leadership. Cellist Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. Throughout his young career, he has already appeared with major orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, and more.
A musician’s musician, violinist Miranda Cuckson comes to the Gardner Museum with pianist Blair McMillen on Sunday, October 19 at 1:30 pm to present a program comprising nearly 200 years of violin music—from Beethoven’s Sonata in G, Op. 30, No. 3 (1802) to Lili Boulanger’s D'un matin de printemps (1918) to Jamaican-British composer Eleanor Alberga’s The Wild Blue Yonder (1995). The centerpiece of the concert is Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 80 (1946), an ideal showcase for Cuckson’s virtuosity and range of expressive colors. In the past few years, Miranda Cuckson has given celebrated concerto debuts at the Vienna Musikverein (playing Georg Friedrich Haas’ Violin Concerto No. 2, which she premiered in four countries), and with John Adams at the Ojai Music Festival. She has been a featured performer internationally at Wien Modern, Grafenegg, Lincoln Center, St. Paul’s Liquid Music, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and more.
Rachel Barton Pine, praised for her “bravura technique and soulful musicianship” by the New York Times, returns to the Gardner Museum on Sunday, October 26 at 1:30pm for a special recital on her own violin and viola d’amore. She will also perform on the Gardner Museum’s extraordinary 18th century viola d’amore (on display in the Yellow Room), which she tested at the Museum last fall. The instrument, which was last played in concert in the 1980s, was crafted in the 1770s and given to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1903 by composer Charles Martin Loeffler, who was her close friend and central to music programming at the Museum. Pine will perform selections by Vivaldi, Telemann, and Haydn for viola d’amore, as well as two works composed by Loeffler—his Mescolanza “Olla Podrida” and Norske Land. On violin, she will perform Brahms’ Violin Sonata and Sarasate’s Introduction and Tarantella. With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Rachel Barton Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music. Her discography consists of over 40 recordings, including 25 for Cedille Records, and her many recital appearances have included Davos, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Marlboro, Ravinia, Salzburg, Bravo! Vail, and Wolf Trap.
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.