April 17: World Premiere at Carnegie Hall of A Call for the Battle to Cease by Robert & Victoria Sirota performed by GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein & Cecilia Chorus of New York
World Premiere of A Call for the Battle to Cease at Carnegie Hall
Music by Robert Sirota and Text by Victoria Sirota
Performed by GRAMMY®-Nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
and The Cecilia Chorus of New York with Orchestra
Led by Music Director Mark Shapiro
Friday, April 17, 2026 at 8pm
Carnegie Hall | Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage | 57th St. and 7th Ave. | NYC
Tickets: www.carnegiehall.org, 212.247.7800, or the Carnegie Hall Box Office
Tickets & More Information
Watch Here: Mark Shapiro and Simone Dinnerstein Talk About A Call for the Battle to Cease
Robert Sirota | Simone Dinnerstein | The Cecilia Chorus of New York
L- R Robert and Victoria Sirota, The Cecilia Cecilia Chorus of New York, Simone Dinnerstein
New York, NY – On Friday, April 17, 2026 at 8pm, A Call for the Battle to Cease –– composed by Robert Sirota with text by Victoria Sirota — will have its world premiere at Carnegie Hall
in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage (57th St. and 7th Ave.), performed by GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein and The Cecilia Chorus of New York with Orchestra led by Music Director Mark Shapiro, joined by the Every Voice Choirs (EVC) Concert Choir. The concert also includes excerpts from Missa in tempore belli by Franz Joseph Haydn and the New York premiere of Mass in Exile by Mark Buller librettist Leah Lax. The program responds to today’s hunger for justice and peace with an uplifting vision of inspiration and compassion.
Although husband-and-wife team Robert Sirota (music) and Victoria Sirota (text) created A Call for the Battle to Cease a decade ago in 2016, the work was never played due to the commissioning ensemble unexpectedly ceasing operations before the premiere. The piece was always intended for the featured soloist, Simone Dinnerstein, to perform –– the Sirotas have known the celebrated Brooklyn-based pianist since her childhood.
The message of this major new composition feels even more poignant today. Robert Sirota describes how he and Victoria approached their respective work on the project: “[I] was tasked with using the same instrumentation as Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy –– solo piano, orchestra, and chorus. Victoria was tasked with writing a text which would address, in Beethovenian terms, the need for us to transcend the divisions of race, nationality, class and politics that tear at the fabric of our common humanity. What she came up with is stunning in its eloquent simplicity.”
Victoria Sirota’s text underscores the need to refocus on love, solidarity, and embracing differences. Robert Sirota says, “Expanded to incorporate youthful voices, A Call for the Battle to Cease comes across as even more achingly relevant to our current moment: ‘Rejoice in the gift of our differences!,’ The virtuosic piano solo begins with the actual ‘call,’ picked up later by brass. The piece moves from anger and anguish –– from hatred and fear, to a place of love and wonder, at times echoing Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, and punctuated by the young people lifting their hearts to us; not a plea for mere tolerance or peaceful coexistence, but rather the triumphant assertion that it is our very diversity that gives joy and meaning to our lives together. Pianist Simone Dinnerstein ends the piece with the same ‘call,’ now presented as a question to us all: do we have the will to embrace this difficult world with love and hope?”
Robert Sirota has garnered distinction as composer, arranger, music executive and arts advocate. His chamber works have been performed by Alarm Will Sound; Sandbox Percussion; Yale Camerata; yMusic; the Chiara, American, Blair, and Telegraph Quartets; and in festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, Cooperstown, and Bowdoin. Orchestral performances include the Seattle, Vermont, Virginia, East Texas, Lincoln (NE), Meridian (MS), New Haven, Greater Bridgeport, Oradea (Romania) and Saint Petersburg (Russia) symphonies, as well as conservatory orchestras of
Oberlin, Peabody, Manhattan School of Music, Toronto, and Singapore. Recent commissions include the Neave Trio, Judith Clurman/Essential Voices USA, Jeffrey Kahane/Sarasota Music Festival, Palladium Musicum, the Naumburg Foundation, and arrangements for Paul Simon. Recipient of grants from the Watson and Guggenheim Foundations, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center, Sirota’s works are recorded on the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels. For more information, visit https://www.robertsirota.com.
Victoria R. Sirota, Episcopal priest, organist and author, holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Boston University and Harvard Divinity School. She has taught at Yale Institute of Sacred Music, The Ecumenical Institute of Theology, Boston University and Concord Academy. Former National Chaplain for the American Guild of Organists and the Association of Anglican Musicians, she is the author of articles, reviews and texts for hymns, cantatas and song cycles. Recorded on Northeastern, Gasparo and Albany Records, her book Preaching to the Choir: Claiming the Role of Sacred Musician is available from Church Publishing. Honors include awards and grants from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, The Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Foundation and Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. The Rev. Canon Sirota has served in Baltimore and Yonkers, and at The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in NYC. Active as a guest preacher and writer, she lives in Searsmont, Maine.
About Simone Dinnerstein: Simone Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and 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, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made fifteen albums, all of which have topped the Billboard classical charts. The first fourteen were from Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. Her most recent recording Complicité (Supertrain Records, 2025), is her first all-Bach album in over ten years and features Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano and Peggy Pearson, oboe d’amore along with the string ensemble Simone founded and directs, Baroklyn. Recorded with producer Silas Brown, the album also includes composer Philip Lasser’s continuo realizations and recomposition of Bach’s Air on the G String. In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests, including world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, as well as the premiere performance of Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording, Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S., performing in 11 concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative.
For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.
About Mark Shapiro: Six-time ASCAP Award-winner Mark Shapiro is active as a conductor of choruses, orchestras, and opera. He is Music Director of The Cecilia Chorus of New York, Artistic Director of Cantori New York, Principal Conductor of Marshall Opera, and Conductor Emeritus of The Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra, which he served as Music Director for a decade. Characterizing his leadership as “insightful,” The New York Times has praised his “virtuosity and assurance”; Opera News has noted his “superb pacing and great confidence.” Favorite venues include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Le Poisson Rouge, the Guggenheim and Rubin Museums, Charlottetown’s Confederation Centre of the Arts, and the amphitheater at Vaison-la-Romaine, France. Opera credits include five productions with Juilliard Vocal Arts and appearances with American Opera Projects, Center for Contemporary Opera, Encompass New Opera, Opera Company of Middlebury, and Underworld Opera, as well as the opera programs of Hofstra and Rutgers. Stage directors include Ed Berkeley, Mary Birnbaum, John Giampietro, Crystal Manich, Louisa Muller, and Emma Griffin. Shapiro has recorded for Albany, Arsis, Newport Classics, and PGM. His recording of Frank Martin’s oratorio Le vin herbé was an Opera News Editor’s Choice. An album of music by Philip Glass with Irish violinist Gregory Harrington and Shapiro conducting the Janacek Philharmonic was released in 2020. Radio appearances have included WQXR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, and Sirius. Shapiro is represented by Encompass Arts. markshapiromusic.com
The Cecilia Chorus of New York is a widely recognized, diverse, multigenerational, mixed 150-member chorus that has been enriching New York's musical life since 1906. Each season the chorus performs two major concerts at Carnegie Hall and a third concert at another venue. Spanning five centuries, our imaginatively curated repertoire includes standard works, neglected gems, and exciting commissions. Membership by audition is open to all.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: GRAMMY®-Nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, The Cecilia Chorus of New York with Orchestra, and Every Voice Choirs (EVC) Chorus
Presented by The Cecilia Chorus of New York
What: Excerpts from Missa in tempore belli by Franz Joseph Haydn, Mass in Exile by Mark Buller (NY Premiere) and A Call for the Battle to Cease by Robert Sirota (World Premiere)
When: Friday, April 17, 2026 at 8pm
Where: Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, 57th St. and 7th Ave., New York, NY 10019
Tickets and information: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2026/04/17/The-Cecilia-Chorus-of-New-York-with-Orchestra-0800PM
Description: On April 17, 2026, A Call for the Battle to Cease by composer Robert Sirota with text by Victoria Sirota, has its world premiere performance at Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium / Perlman Stage, presented by The Cecilia Chorus of New York. First composed in 2016, the message of the piece remains pertinent as ever, emphasizing the need to refocus on love, solidarity, and embracing differences. The performance features GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein and The Cecilia Chorus of New York with Orchestra led by Music Director Mark Shapiro, joined by the Every Voice Choirs (EVC) Concert Choir.The program also includes Excerpts from Missa in tempore belli by Franz Joseph Haydn and the New York premiere Mass in Exile by Mark Buller.