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.

Sept 21: The Junction Trio Premieres Music by John Zorn at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Photo by Shervin Lainez. Press photos available here.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Presents the Junction Trio in Two World Premieres by John Zorn

September 21: Junction Trio in John Zorn World Premieres
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall
25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: gardnermuseum.org/calendar/junction-trio-plays-john-zorn

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, presenting the Junction Trio on Sunday, September 21 at 1:30 pm in an afternoon of virtuosic and theatrical chamber music by John Zorn, including the world premieres of two new pieces by the celebrated avant-garde composer. The acclaimed supergroup—Stefan Jackiw (violin), Jay Campbell (cello), and Conrad Tao (piano)—will be joined by special guests Jorge Roeder (bass) and Ches Smith (drums).

Known for unique program combinations and vibrant performances, the Junction Trio brings a fresh approach to the repertoire, dazzling audiences with their virtuosity and unity. A.Z. Madonna reported in the Boston Globe,  “Watching the trio perform, one really couldn’t tell who was happier to be there—the rapt audience or the musicians, who threw themselves into repertoire they clearly love. . . . These three are onto something special.” Since forming in 2015, the Trio has performed across the country at leading venues including Carnegie Hall, Washington Performing Arts, 92nd Street Y, Royal Conservatory in Toronto, Newport Classical, the Aspen Music Festival, and for the LA Philharmonic's NowRising Series at The Ford Theater.

The New York Times has praised the individual musicians of the Junction Trio, comprising the “brilliant young violinist” Stefan Jackiw, the “electrifying” cellist Jay Campbell, and pianist and composer Conrad Tao, a musician of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision.” Together, Susan Miron writes in the Boston Musical Intelligencer, “This top-notch trio stands at the top of its game.”

At the Gardner Museum, the Junction Trio will give the world premiere of John Zorn’s Notes on the Assumption of Mystical Solidarity Approaching Nine Neological Approximations Illuminating the Eternal Return of the Same and But Doth Suffer a Sea-Change, both composed this year for the Trio. The program also includes Zorn’s Philosophical Investigations I and II and I Am Your Labyrinth…, all composed in the last three years by Zorn for the Trio.

Zorn has written more than a dozen new works for members of the Junction Trio over the years. In an interview with The Strad, cellist Jay Campbell described the unusual process of working with him, saying, “With John Zorn, you can bring up an idea, and then a week later, a piece lands in your inbox—it’s so immediate. And John always thinks about writing for people, not instruments, and takes into consideration the personality of the players. He has written a lot of pieces for me or for ensembles that I’m in, so he knows my playing well and knows where to challenge me. Every single piece of his has new challenges that push my playing—often in directions that I didn’t think were possible. It almost feels like he knows my playing better than I do. It’s really fun to grow into a piece, especially when it’s written for you.” 

In the same interview, violinist Stefan Jackiw says of the surprising nature of Zorn’s music, that it “has a reputation for being very dense and thorny, but it’s actually highly lyrical.” He continues, “There are moments of almost Italian, bel canto textures. They get juxtaposed with incredibly kinetic, thorny stuff, where there’s a bajillion things happening at once. Suddenly there will be a clearing and then a soaring melody with a clear, accompanimental line.” 

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 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 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.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Weekend Concert Series in September - ACRONYM, Junction Trio, Catalyst String Quartet

Clockwise from top left: Junction Trio, Catalyst Quartet, ACRONYM. Press photos available here.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Weekend Concert Series
September Performances

September 13-14: ACRONYM in Bach’s Complete Brandenburg Concertos
September 21: Junction Trio in John Zorn World Premieres
September 28: Catalyst String Quartet

Information & Tickets: gardnermuseum.org/about/music

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

BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will launch its Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series with four performances in September. 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.

The Fall 2025 season opens with two concerts featuring Baroque-band and period-instrument superstars ACRONYM, praised for their “consummate style, grace, and unity of spirit” (The New York Times), performing J.S. Bach's complete Brandenburg Concertos on Saturday, September 13 and Sunday, September 14 at 1:30 pm. In anticipation of overwhelming demand, the ensemble will perform the complete cycle twice, featuring Bach's masterworks on authentic period instruments including flutes, recorders, trumpets, hunting horns, gambas, and violins of every size—a motley “kitchen” of continuo instruments, and more.

The season continues on Sunday, September 21 at 1:30 pm with the Junction Trio presenting an afternoon of virtuosic chamber music by John Zorn. The acclaimed trio—Stefan Jackiw (violin), Jay Campbell (cello), and Conrad Tao (piano), joined by special guests Jorge Roeder (bass) and Ches Smith (drums)—will perform Zorn's vivid and theatrical music, which has become an audience favorite at the Gardner. Their program includes two world premieres—Zorn’s Notes on the Assumption of Mystical Solidarity Approaching Nine Neological Approximations Illuminating the Eternal Return of the Same and But Doth Suffer a Sea-Change, as well as his Philosophical Investigations I and II and I Am Your Labyrinth…, all composed in the last three years. 

The Catalyst String Quartet returns on Sunday, September 28 at 1:30 pm after their astonishing Gardner debut last season. The quartet’s program features Concertante Quartets No. 2 in G minor (1777) by the legendary violinist-composer Joseph Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges), a superb swordsman who led an all-Black regiment in the French Revolution, alongside Dora Pejačević's splendid String Quartet in C major from 1922—re-introducing Gardner audiences to the work of this late-Romantic Croatian composer—and Beethoven's monumental String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132.

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 11 am 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 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.

Announcing the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series - 11 Concerts from September through November

Press photos available here.

Announcing the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s
Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series

 Eleven Performances at Calderwood Hall from September through November

Information & Tickets: gardnermuseum.org/about/music

BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum announces its Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series, an eleven-concert autumn season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel running from September 13 through November 23, 2025. Opening with two performances of J.S. Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos by period-instrument superstars ACRONYM on Saturday, September 13 and Sunday, September 14, the series continues with nine Sunday afternoon concerts (all at 1:30 p.m.) featuring 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 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 diverse performers, with a special focus on music by women or musicians of color.

In addition to ACRONYM’s opening performances of Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos (September 13 and 14), the fall season includes supergroup Junction Trio in a concert of music by John Zorn including two world premieres (September 21); Catalyst Quartet in music by the legendary Joseph Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges) and newly rediscovered Croatian composer Dora Pejačević (September 28); the Sphinx Virtuosi returning to the Gardner with solo cellist Sterling Elliott (October 5) performing a program celebrating the Americas, including Boston premieres of new works by Quenton Blache and Jessie Montgomery; extraordinary violinist Miranda Cuckson in a program spanning two hundred years of violin music (October 19); Rachel Barton Pine performing on the Museum’s 1770s viola d’amore in music by the instrument’s former owner, composer (and close friend of Isabella Stewart Gardner) Charles Martin Loeffler (October 26); innovative, vanguard flutist Claire Chase in a concert pairing very old and very new music (November 2); renowned mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke in a concert celebrating American song, including the Boston premiere of a new song cycle co-commissioned by the Gardner Museum from composer Jasmine Barnes (November 16); and the Gardner debuts of stellar pianists Clayton Stephenson (November 9) and Michelle Cann (November 23).

“Our Fall season balances debuts by artists giving their first Calderwood performance with return visits by members of the Gardner Museum’s wider musical family,” says George Steel. “I am particularly excited about new works by John Zorn, Tania Léon, Jasmine Barnes, Jessie Montgomery, and Quenton Blanche, as well as the Gardner premieres of some wonderful older music that has been unknown for too long, including music by Dora Pejačevic, José White Lafitte, and Mrs. Gardner’s friend Charles Martin Loeffler.”

Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series Overview

The Fall 2025 season opens with two concerts featuring Baroque-band ACRONYM, praised for its “consummate style, grace, and unity of spirit” (The New York Times), performing J.S. Bach's complete Brandenburg Concertos on Saturday, September 13 and Sunday, September 14. In anticipation of overwhelming demand, the ensemble will perform the complete cycle twice, featuring Bach's masterworks on authentic period instruments including flutes, recorders, trumpets, hunting horns, gambas, and violins of every size—a motley “kitchen” of continuo instruments, and more.

The season continues on Sunday, September 21 with the Junction Trio presenting an afternoon of virtuosic chamber music by John Zorn. The acclaimed trio—Stefan Jackiw (violin), Jay Campbell (cello), and Conrad Tao (piano), joined by special guests Jorge Roeder (bass) and Ches Smith (drums)—will perform Zorn's vivid and theatrical music, which has become an audience favorite at the Gardner. Their program includes two world premieres—Zorn’s Notes on the Assumption of Mystical Solidarity Approaching Nine Neological Approximations Illuminating the Eternal Return of the Same and but doth suffer a sea-change, as well as his Philosophical Investigations I and II and I Am Your Labyrinth…, all composed in the last three years.

The Catalyst String Quartet returns on Sunday, September 28 after their astonishing Gardner debut last season. The quartet’s program features Concertante Quartets No. 2 in G minor (1777) by the legendary violinist-composer Joseph Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges), a superb swordsman who led an all-Black regiment in the French Revolution, alongside Dora Pejačević's splendid String Quartet in C major from 1922—re-introducing Gardner audiences to the work of this late-Romantic Croatian composer—and Beethoven's monumental String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132.

October opens with the blazing 22-member Sphinx Virtuosi returning to the Gardner on Sunday, October 5, 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.

A musician’s musician, violinist Miranda Cuckson comes to the Gardner Museum with pianist Blair McMillen on Sunday, October 19 to present a program comprising nearly two hundred 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.

Rachel Barton Pine returns on Sunday, October 26 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, last played in the 1980s. This instrument, crafted in the 1770s, was 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.

On Sunday, November 2, MacArthur Fellow and Harvard Professor, flutist Claire Chase, joined by period instrumentalists—violinist Aisslinn Nosky, cellist Katinka Kleijn, and pianist/harpsichordist Alex Peh—presents a fascinating program blending the old and the new, combining Baroque masterpieces by Marais, J.S. Bach, and Boismortier with new music from the 20th and 21st centuries by Messiaen, Saariaho, Tania León, Marcos Balter, Michael Oesterle, and Dai Fujikura.

Pianist Clayton Stephenson, winner of the 2025 Sphinx Medal and recent Harvard and New England Conservatory graduate, makes his Gardner debut on Sunday, November 9 with a brilliant solo piano program featuring J.S. Bach, Schubert, Albéniz, Stravinsky, and Gershwin. Gramophone magazine raves, “Stephenson is not just a remarkable virtuoso, but a poet, a dramatist and a master story-teller.”

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, quite simply one of America's greatest singers, takes a night off from the global operatic stage on Sunday, November 16 to present a program of American songs, including a Gardner Museum co-commissioned Boston premiere from Jasmine Barnes. Her program with pianist Myra Huang features songs written in the United States and by composers who found their home there, in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country in 2026. The program includes the songs of Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, H. Leslie Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Carlos Simon, Michael Tilson Thomas, and more.

The Fall 2025 season concludes on Sunday, November 23 with the Gardner debut of pianist Michelle Cann, 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. Cann’s program features dazzling music from pianist-composers, including Price’s Sonata in E minor, as well as three 19th-century showpieces from Romantic greats—Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Chopin. 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.

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 p.m. (except ACRONYM, which performs on both Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 p.m.) in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA). 

Ticketing Information

Tickets ($20-$85) go on sale to the general public on Wednesday, August 13 at 10:00 a.m. and 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 a.m. to 5 p.m., Weekdays from 11a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursdays until 9 p.m. 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 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.