Sept 26: ECM New Series Releases Dobrinka Tabakova's Sun Triptych

ECM New Series Releases

Dobrinka Tabakova
Sun Triptych

Whispered Lullaby; Suite in Jazz Style; Fantasy Homage to Schubert; Organum Light; Spinning a Yarn; Sun Triptych

Maxim Rysanov, viola; Dasol Kim, piano; Roman Mints, violin, hurdy-gurdy; Kristina Blaumane, violoncello; BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Dobrinka Tabakova

Release Date: September 26, 2025
ECM New Series 2670

Downloads and CDs available upon request.

Dobrinka Tabakova’s ECM New Series debut, String Paths, made an immediate impact on its release in 2013. The Washington Times hailed it as an “exciting, deeply moving, original and triumphant” recording, while The Strad praised its “glowing tonal harmonies and grand, sweeping gestures.” Music from String Paths was incorporated in Jean-Luc Godard’s films Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language) and Le livre d’image (The Image Book), and the album received a Grammy nomination.

The British-Bulgarian composer’s new album, again produced by Manfred Eicher, brings back some of the String Paths cast, including close associates violist Maxim Rysanov, violinist Roman Mints and cellist Kristine Blaumane.  Friends and colleagues since conservatory days at the Guildhall School, all now leading soloists in their own right, they have grown up with the expressive language and colours of Tabakova’s music and are among its ideal interpreters.

In addition, the BBC Concert Orchestra, with whom she held the position of Composer-in- Residence from 2017 to 2022, presents her works Sun Triptych and Fantasy Homage to Schubert. In the album’s musical constellation, these works have a central role, with the more chamber-like pieces – including Whispered Lullaby, the Suite in Jazz Style and Spinning a Yarn – surrounding or connecting them, “growing out of this nebulous, still world, and melting back into it,” as Tabakova says.

Two pieces for viola and piano open the album: Whispered Lullaby is a gentle, yearning song, originally composed for a children’s opera, Midsummer Magic. The Suite in Jazz Style, an imaginative chamber meditation on jazz gestures, atmospheres and textures, is a successor to the Suite in Old Style on String Paths, also written for the wide ranging skills of violist Maxim Rysakov.

Spinning a Yarn, a piece with a touching, archaic folk-like quality, features Roman Mints on both violin and hurdy-gurdy, “a beautiful, interesting - and capricious! - instrument. To have that link to a folkloric past is also very important to me.” As the Washington Times remarked: “Tabakova may be using the musical materials of tradition, but through them she has broken new paths.”

The Fantasy Homage to Schubert recontextualizes Schubert’s Fantasy in C Major, originally for violin and piano, resetting its opening melody “in a completely transfigured environment,” and directing it heavenward. Conjuring images of slowly turning planets, Tabakova paints a picture of “floating in space, free of gravity – comets and celestial bodies passing by. And, as the Schubert melody is heard for the first time, we catch a first glimpse of Planet Earth.”

The radiant Sun Triptych evokes the changing play of light on the natural world over the course of the day. Dobrinka Tabakova: “The solace I find in nature permeates this work. The first movement builds up gently, ascending lines in the solos, increasingly denser and richer chords in the strings...The sustained textures of the first movement become hazy tremolos in the second movement, ‘Day’, as the shimmering of the strings suggest the buzzing of insects and the heat haze when the sun is at its strongest. In the final movement, a retrograde of some of the gestures in the first movement is applied to bring the close of the journey with ‘Dusk.’”

Organum Light was written in response to a commission from vocal group Opus Anglicanum; since the piece drew inspiration from the polyphonic viol consort works of Gibbons and Purcell, transferring the music to a string ensemble was, Tabakova notes, a very natural step.

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Dobrinka Tabakova was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in 1980 and moved with her family to the UK in 1991; she has lived in London since then.  She studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department and at the age of 14 won the Jean-Frédéric Perrenoud composition prize at the Vienna International Music Competition. Tabakova graduated from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and King’s College London, and also participated in master classes with composers including Iannis Xenakis, John Adams and Louis Andriessen.

A meeting with Manfred Eicher at the Lockenhaus Festival – where her Suite In Old Style was performed in 2007 – led subsequently to the recording of String Paths, the first album devoted entirely to Tabakova’s music.

For five years from 2017, Tabakova was Composer-in-Residence for the BBC Concert Orchestra, also taking over the role of conductor at the end of this period.

Whispered Lullaby, Suite in Jazz Style and Spinning a Yarn were recorded at Berlin’s Meistersaal in August 2020. Fantasy Homage to Schubert, Organum Light and Sun Triptych were recorded at Watford Colosseum in July 2021. The album was completed and mixed at Bavaria Musikstudios in Munich in January 2025 by Manfred Eicher and Dobrinka Tabakova with Michael Hinreiner (engineer).

CD Booklet includes a liner note by Dobrinka Tabakova and recording session photos.

Further information: https://www.dobrinka.com/ and www.ecmrecords.com

California Symphony Accepting Applications for 2026-2029 Composer-in-Residence Program

L-R, Composers Viet Cuong and Saad Haddad with Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony.
Photos by Kristen Loken available in high resolution here.

California Symphony Accepting Applications for 2026-2029 Composer-in-Residence Program

Unique opportunity to compose, rehearse, premiere, and record multiple orchestral compositions over three years

Donato Cabrera, Artistic & Music Director

Information & Online Application: www.californiasymphony.org/composerinresidence
Deadline: October 31, 2025 (11:59pm PT)

WALNUT CREEK, CA – California Symphony is now accepting applications for its unique three-year Composer-in-Residence Program, now in its 34th year. Applications through the online portal will be accepted until October 31, 2025 at 11:59pm PT.  The residency runs from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2029, and the selected composer will be notified no later than February 1, 2026.

California Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence Program is unusual in that it gives early-career professional composers or graduate students in composition the opportunity to work with a professional orchestra over an extended period, composing a new orchestral work each season and visiting the orchestra and community multiple times in order to build experience and relationships. The program has become one of the most sought-after in the country, with past participants going on to win major honors and awards, including GRAMMY Awards, the Rome Prize, the Barlow Prize, Guggenheim Fellowships, and more. 

Writing for symphony orchestra is a major challenge for many early-career composers. Creating balance among the different sections of an orchestra, exploring the nuances of tone color between instruments, and learning how to communicate effectively with the conductor and orchestra members during rehearsals are important skills best gained in the hands-on environment of real-time work with a professional orchestra. California Symphony recognized this need early on and founded its Composer-in-Residence program in 1991. Opportunities for composers to collaborate with professional orchestras in a three-year, immersive setting like this remain few and far between.

California Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence will work closely with Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera and the musicians of the orchestra throughout the residency. California Symphony will commission three new orchestral pieces from the composer, with each being premiered on one of the orchestra’s subscription concerts at the Lesher Center for the Arts during the 2026-27, 2027-28, and 2028-29 seasons. Additionally, each season Cabrera and the full orchestra will record 30-minute reading workshops for the new pieces, from which study recordings will be provided to the composer.

California Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence Program also provides early-career composers with experience in the full ecosystem of the orchestra. The composer will engage with the community through participating in California Symphony’s education work in local schools; interacting with audiences at concerts and during pre-concert discussions; attending special events and other fundraising activities; and supporting promotion of performances by writing guest blog entries, providing social media content, and giving interviews to the press.

“There is no greater joy for me than helping to bring a new piece of music into this world, and our composer-in-residence program facilitates this process like no other that I’m aware. The challenge for composers, like conductors, is that there is no way to hone one’s craft except in real time, with the orchestra responding to everything you have prepared for them in advance,” says Cabrera. “In providing 30-minute reading workshops for composers to actually hear their ideas before they are committed to a printed and published piece of music, introducing them to our community through donor events and community partnerships, and having them interact with student musicians and composers, the California Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence Program is unique and essential.”

In addition to commission fees for the three new orchestral works composed during the residency, California Symphony provides travel expenses and accommodations for two residency weeks for the composer, for each of the three concert seasons. Early-career professional composers or graduate students in composition who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents are eligible to apply. The three-round application process is blind. Applicants’ identities are not disclosed to the selection panel, which includes Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera, the current Composer-in-Residence, and other professionals in the field.

Previous Composer-in-Residence Mason Bates says, “The California Symphony has one of the most outstanding composer-in-residence programs in the country. They have this orchestra-as-laboratory idea, and they let the composer work in ways that almost never happen anywhere else.”

California Symphony’s current and previous composers in residence are Saad Haddad (2023-2026), Viet Cuong (2020-2023), Katherine Balch (2017-2020), Dan Visconti (2014-2027), D.J. Sparr (2011-2014), Mason Bates (2007-2010), Kevin Beavers (2002-2005), Pierre Jalbert (1999-2002), Kevin Puts (1996-1999), Christopher Theofanidis (1994-1996), Kamran Ince (1991-1994).

ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY:

Founded in 1986, California Symphony has been led by Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera since 2013. It is distinguished by its vibrant concert programs that span the breadth of orchestral repertoire, including works by American composers and by living composers. Its concert season at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California serves a growing number of music lovers from across the Bay Area.

California Symphony believes that the concert experience should be fun and inviting, and its mission is to create a welcoming, engaging, and inclusive environment for the entire community. Through this commitment to community, imaginative programming, and its support of emerging composers, California Symphony is a leader among orchestras in California and a model for regional orchestras everywhere.

Since 1991, California Symphony's three-year Young American Composer-in-Residence program has provided a composer with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collaborate with the orchestra over three consecutive years to create, rehearse, premiere, and record three major orchestra compositions, one each season. Every Composer-in-Residence has gone on to win top honors and accolades in the field, including the Rome Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Grammy Awards, and more.

The orchestra's nationally recognized educational initiative Sound Minds impacts students' trajectories by providing instruction for violin or cello and musicianship skills. Sound Minds has proven to contribute directly to improved reading and math proficiencies and character development, as students set and achieve goals, learn communication and problem-solving skills, and gain self-confidence. Inspired by the El Sistema program of Venezuela, the program is offered completely free of charge to the students and families of Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, California.

Through its innovative adult education program Fresh Look: The Symphony Exposed, California Symphony provides lifelong learners a fun-filled introduction to the orchestra and classical music. Led by celebrated educator and California Symphony program annotator Scott Foglesong, these live classes are held over four weeks in the summer annually.

In 2017, California Symphony became the first orchestra with a public statement of a commitment to diversity. Its website is available in both Spanish and English.

Reaching far beyond the performance hall, since 2020 the orchestra's concerts have been broadcast nationally on multiple radio series through Classical California (KUSC/KDFC) and the WFMT Radio Network, reaching over 1.5 million listeners across the country. 

California Symphony’s 2025-26 season is sponsored by the Lesher Foundation.

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider's Season Highlights - World Premiere of HILDEGARD with LA Opera & PROTOTYPE; New Orchestral Album; New Dance Work for Miami City Ballet; and more

Photo by Anja Schutz available in high resolution here.

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 2025-2026 Season Highlights

Rolling World Premiere Performances of First Opera HILDEGARD
Los Angeles Opera November 5-9, 2025 & PROTOTYPE in NYC January 9-17, 2026
Plus Aspen Music Festival Summer 2026
Co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects & the Aspen Music Festival and School 

 Release of New Orchestral Album
Forward Into Light with Andrew Cyr & Metropolis Ensemble in January 2026 

World Premiere of a New Work for the
New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet
April 17-19, 2026 

Professional World Premiere of Marmoris by the Monterey Symphony
May 16-17, 2026

Continued Performances of Major Works The Blue Hour, Penelope, Mass for the Endangered, Something for the Dark, Marmoris, Scenes from Unremembered

“Expressive, evocative, and personal, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music explores emotional landscapes through vivid, compelling narratives in a unique sound world that she has made identifiably her own – familiar, yet at the same time strange and unsettling.” – Gramophone

 “Her music can sound ageless and contemporary at once, with an emotional impact that's direct and immediate.” – Gothamist 

Schedule: www.sarahkirklandsnider.com/events

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, deemed “one of new music’s leading names” (Gramophone), writes music of direct expression and dramatic narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). With an attention to detail that is “as intricate and exquisite as a spider’s web” (BBC Music Magazine), Snider’s music synthesizes diverse influences to render a nuanced command of immersive storytelling. Snider’s music will be performed around the world this season in cities including Paris, France; Offenbach, Germany; Toronto and Kitchener, Ontario, Canada; Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia; and Antwerp, Belgium; as well as across the United States from Brooklyn, New York and Baltimore, Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Berkeley, California.

Highlights of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 2025-2026 concert season include the milestone premieres of three major new works – her first opera, HILDEGARD, for which she also wrote the libretto, co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival and School and presented in rolling world premieres by Los Angeles Opera (November 5-9, 2025) and PROTOTYPE Festival in New York (January 9-17, 2026), with subsequent performances at the Aspen Music Festival and School (Summer 2026); a new work for dance for the New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet (April 17-19, 2026); and the professional world premiere performances of Snider’s latest orchestral work Marmoris by the Monterey Symphony (May 16-17, 2026).

In addition, in January 2026 Sarah Kirkland Snider will release her fifth full-length LP, a new, all-orchestral album titled Forward Into Light produced by multi-Grammy-winning producer Silas Brown and recorded by Andrew Cyr and the Metropolis Ensemble, which features her work Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; the string orchestra version of Drink the Wild Ayre, a reimagining of the string quartet Snider was commissioned to write for the Emerson String Quartet for the ensemble’s farewell tour; Eye of Mnemosyne, commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic; and Something for the Dark, commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The album will be released by the label that Snider co-founded, New Amsterdam Records.

Co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival and School, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s opera HILDEGARD (2025) is about twelfth-century German Benedictine abbess/polymath/composer St. Hildegard von Bingen. HILDEGARD will have its rolling world premiere at Los Angeles Opera (November 5-9, 2025) and New York’s PROTOTYPE Festival (January 9-17, 2026), followed by performances by the Aspen Music Festival and School in summer 2026. Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum will present a discussion on the creation of HILDEGARD, along with performances of excerpts from the new work, on September 15, 2025, at the Guggenheim Museum. 

Set in 1147, the opera follows Hildegard as she begins transcribing her visions of God to obtain Papal approval, at grave risk of excommunication. She enlists a young convalescent, Richardis von Stade, to help illustrate her visions, and the two women quickly develop a transformative partnership that awakens them creatively, spiritually, and – much to the internal conflict of both women – romantically. Immersive and intimate, HILDEGARD is a tale of two gifted women struggling to find their voices in a time and place where female voices were not meant to be heard. More broadly, the opera is about the desire for connection – to divinity, humanity, and our deepest sense of self – and the conflicts that compete therein. 

Snider has both composed the opera and written the libretto. Beth Morrison is the creative producer. HILDEGARD is directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer with music director Gabriel Crouch, and stars Nola Richardson (Hildegard von Bingen), Mikaela Bennett (Richards von Stade), Raha Mirzadegan (Angel), Blythe Gaissert (Margravine von Stade), Roy Hage (Volmar), Patrick Bessenbacher (Mechthild), David Adam Moore (Abbot Cuno), and Paul Chwe MinChul An (Otto). With two grants from Opera America, Hildegard has been workshopped at Princeton University Lewis Center for the Arts Atelier program (2023), Opera Fusion: New Works at Cincinnati Opera (2024), and Mannes College of Music (2025).

Snider's new work for dance will premiere April 17-19, 2026 presented by two of Miami's cornerstone cultural institutions, New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet. The new work is a choreographic concerto, bringing together music by Snider and four other leading musical voices – Michael Abels, Jennifer Higdon, Kevin Puts, and Carlos Simon – paired with new work by visionary choreographers.

Snider’s newest orchestral work, Marmoris (2025), will receive its professional premiere by the Monterey Symphony under conductor Jayce Ogren at the Sunset Center in Carmel, CA (May 16-17, 2026), following performances at the University of Michigan in March 2025 and January 2026. Snider composed Marmoris in the months prior to the 2024 U.S. election, and the title is an ancient Latin word that means “the shimmering surface of the sea.” Snider writes, “Orchestras bring together musicians from all different backgrounds and perspectives to listen to each other, empathize, and cooperate in the creation of a shared human experience that transcends cultural and ideological differences. The orchestra has often reminded me of an ocean in this way – a seemingly living, breathing thing consisting of myriad unique lifeforms churning in concert. This piece reflects upon the forces in life that hold and enclose us, those vast similitudes that remind us we are a part of something much larger than our daily human struggles might allow us to perceive.”

Sarah Kirkland Snider’s existing works for orchestra will also be performed widely this season:

The Blue Hour (2017), an ambitious 70-minute song cycle for mezzo-soprano and string orchestra composed by Rachel Grimes, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, and Caroline Shaw, will be performed this season by Orchestra National Avignon with Shara Nova at the Philharmonie de Paris (October 17, 2025), by the Wheeling Symphony and Shara Nova in Wheeling, WV (March 20, 2026), the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Bella Adamova at Queen Elizabeth Hall (March 28, 2026), and The National Philharmonic and Shara Nova at the Music Centre at Strathmore (May 9, 2026). The Blue Hour uses as its text Carolyn Forché’s poem, “On Earth,” which catalogs the scattered thoughts, visions, and imagery of a life passing ever closer to death, organized through the objective but arbitrary tool of alphabetization. The recording by Shara Nova and A Far Cry was co-released in 2022 by Nonesuch Records and New Amsterdam Records and was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY Award. 

Snider’s work Penelope (2007/2009), a meditation on memory, identity, and what it means to come home inspired by Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey with lyrics by playwright Ellen McLaughlin, will be performed this season by the Alta Collective at Abbotsford Convent in Victoria, Australia (October 25-26, 2025); the Metropolis Ensemble presented by Emerald City Music in Seattle, WA (February 6, 2026) and Olympia, WA (February 7, 2026); and the Wheeling Symphony in Wheeling, WV (March 17, 2026). Penelope was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2010, recorded by Shara Nova and Signal.

Also this season, Snider’s Something for the Dark (2015) will be performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson (March 6-7, 2026). Snider writes of the genesis of the piece, “Something for the Dark was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a result of my receiving the DSO Elaine Lebenbom Award for Female Composers in 2014. Thinking about Detroit led me to think about resilience, and what it means to endure. . . The title of the piece comes from ‘For Fran,’ a poem by Philip Levine, the Detroit-born-and-raised, former U.S. Poet Laureate who was best known for his poems about Detroit’s working class.”

Also this season, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s monumental choral work Mass for the Endangered (2018) will continue to be performed throughout North America, including by The Emmanuel Choir in Baltimore (November 2, 2025), Soundstreams Choir in Toronto, ON (November 22, 2025), Park Slope Singers in Brooklyn, NY (January 31-February 1, 2026), Elora Singers at St. Matthew’s Centre in Kitchener, ON (March 29, 2026), and Borealis Chamber Artists in Duluth, MN (May 23, 2026). Commissioned by Trinity Wall Street in 2018, Mass for the Endangered is a hymn for the voiceless and discounted. Snider writes that the piece, “appeals for parity, compassion, and protection, from a mindset – a malignance or apathy – that threatens to destroy the planet we all are meant to share.” David Patrick Stearns reports in Arts Journal, “Snider’s Mass for the Endangered warrants all of the success that it has had…It’s frankly beautiful. Snider consistently delivers music you want to hear…the music has a keen sense of collage – with thoughtfully chosen musical objects co-existing in the same sound canvas…” Mass for the Endangered was released on Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Records in 2020.

In addition, Scenes from Unremembered (2011), Snider’s five-song version for choir and piano of her larger song cycle Unremembered, will be performed by Volti in Berkeley, CA (Spring 2026). Unremembered is inspired by the poems and illustrations of writer and artist Nathaniel Bellows. The complete song cycle was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2015, and named to dozens of best-of lists that year.

Snider’s chamber music and solo works will also be featured in several performances throughout the season including by pianist Adam Tendler in the plum tree I planted still there (2022) as part of his Inheritances project at Barre Opera House in Barre, VT (November 16, 2025); O Sweet and Beloved Mother (2023), a study for Snider’s opera HILDEGARD, by the Capitol Symphony Orchestra in Offenbach, Germany (March 15, 2026); Shiner (2006) for trombone, harp, viola, and marimba by Art of Elan at ICA in San Diego, CA (April 12, 2026); and You Are Free (2015), inspired by a field recording of Arvo Pärt’s interview with Björk from the 1990s, by Third Angle at Miller Hall World Forestry Center in Portland, OR (May 15, 2026).

Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music has been commissioned and/or performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Cleveland Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra; New York Philharmonic; San Francisco Symphony; Philharmonia Orchestra; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Residentie Orkest; Birmingham Royal Ballet; Emerson String Quartet; Renée Fleming and Will Liverman; Deutsche Grammophon for mezzo Emily D’Angelo; percussionist Colin Currie; eighth blackbird; A Far Cry; and Roomful of Teeth, among many others. The winner of the 2014 Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lebenbom Competition, Snider’s recent works include Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by American women suffragists; Drink the Wild Ayre, the final commission by the legendary Emerson String Quartet; Mass for the Endangered, a Trinity Wall Street-commissioned prayer for the environment for choir and ensemble, programmed by dozens of choirs the world over; and Embrace, an orchestral ballet for the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Her four full-length LPs – The Blue Hour (Nonesuch/NewAmsterdam, 2022), Mass for the Endangered (Nonesuch/NewAmsterdam, 2020), Unremembered (New Amsterdam, 2015), and Penelope (New Amsterdam, 2010) – have garnered year-end nods and critical acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Gramophone Magazine, Pitchfork, BBC Music Magazine, The Nation, and many others. A founding Co-Artistic Director of Brooklyn-based non-profit New Amsterdam Records, Snider has an M.M.and Artist’s Diploma from the Yale School of Music, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. She was a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in fall 2023. Her music is published by G. Schirmer. 

For more information about Sarah Kirkland Snider: www.sarahkirklandsnider.com/bio

Oct. 21: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Baroklyn Perform Music from New Album Complicité – Presented by Kaufman Music Center

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein and Baroklyn by Grayson Dantzic available in high resolution here.

GRAMMY®-Nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein 
and Baroklyn with Mezzo-Soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano and Oboist Katherine Needleman

Performing the Music of New Bach Album Complicité
Presented by Kaufman Music Center

Tuesday, October 21, 2025 at 7:30pm
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | 129 West 67th Street | New York, NY
Tickets & Information

Complicité is Out Now on Supertrain Records

Listen to Simone Dinnerstein on NPR’s Morning Edition

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

New York, NY – On Tuesday, October 21, 2025 at 7:30pm, GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein – described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic” – performs with Baroklyn, the string ensemble she founded and directs, the music of their recent album Complicité, presented by Kaufman Music Center (KMC) at Merkin Hall (129 W. 67th St.) as part of KMC’s Piano Dialogues series. The concert also features mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano and oboist Katherine Needleman with Dinnerstein and Baroklyn.

Simone Dinnerstein is well known for her distinctive musical voice and for her expressive performances of music by J.S. Bach. She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Both the new album, Complicité, and the upcoming concert at KMC include Dinnerstein and Baroklyn’s arrangement of Bach’s chorale Herr Gott, nun schleuß den Himmel auf, BWV 617; Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053; J.S. Bach: Der Leib war in der Erden, BWV 161 (arr. Simone Dinnerstein and Baroklyn); Bach’s Cantata 170, Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust with continuo realization by Philip Lasser; and In the Air, Lasser’s recomposition of Bach’s Air on the G String.

The deeply felt recording has been warmly-received by listeners – Complicité has already been streamed over 1 million times. Gramophone describes Dinnerstein’s performance as “full of life, engagement and detail.” Of the new album, Textura writes: “Not only are the performances terrific, the music impresses for being more than faithful replications of existing scores but instead arresting re-imaginings that take Bach's pieces into dynamic new realms.” Read the album press release here and listen here.

Dinnerstein says of her group Baroklyn, “Baroklyn is a group of string players which I lead from the piano. We’re a community that shares the artistic vision that is most important to me, that music should be creative and new. Rehearsal is important to us, and I’ve been influenced by theater practice in which we listen to each other and pass musical ideas and phrases within the group. We rehearse and perform in a semi-circle around the piano and I rearrange parts to emphasize lines, voices and imitative qualities to create a sense of dialogue.” The ensemble’s name is a portmanteau of Baroque and Brooklyn, Dinnerstein’s home borough.

Coinciding with the album’s release, Dinnerstein spoke with NPR’s Morning Edition about the project, as well as about her experience with performance anxiety and the way that playing with the sheet music on an iPad has resolved this for her. Of her work with Baroklyn, she said, “It's like a sharing circle, and you hear everybody's individuality, their individual sound as it gets passed around.” Listen to the NPR interview here.

Of the album’s title, Dinnerstein says, “Complicité is a term that I first heard from my son, who studied the teachings of the French theatre practitioner, Jacques Lecoq. Three important ideas that Lecoq communicated to his students were le jeu (playfulness), complicité (togetherness), and disponsibilité (openness). I was so intrigued by these ideas, and the different exercises that my son learned in order to cultivate these skills within ensemble acting, that I decided to try a Lecoq approach with my own musical ensemble, Baroklyn.”

More about Simone Dinnerstein: 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. Her first fourteen albums were recorded with Grammy Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy. 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. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording, Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera and the Cleveland Orchestra.

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.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, oboist Katherine Needleman, and Baroklyn – the string ensemble Dinnerstein founded and directs – as part of Kaufman Music Center’s Piano Dialogues series. The concert will feature music by J.S. Bach and Philip Lasser from Dinnerstein’s new album Complicité.

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein with Baroklyn, Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano and Oboist Katherine Needleman
What: Music from Dinnerstein’s New Bach Album Complicité
When: Tuesday, October 21, 2025 at 7:30pm
Where: Merkin Hall at Kaufmann Music Center, 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023
Tickets and Information: https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/simone-dinnerstein-with-baroklyn

Oct. 17: Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by the Other Minds Festival – Performing World Premiere of New Work by Samuel Adams in Tribute to Ingram Marshall

Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at
jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill

Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by the Other Minds Festival

Performing the World Premiere of Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright 
by Composer Samuel Adams

A Tribute to Ingram Marshall Commissioned by Sarah Cahill

Friday, October 17, 2025 at 8pm
Brava Theater | 2781 24th St. | San Francisco, CA
Tickets and More Information

“As tenacious and committed an advocate as any composer could dream of”
– San Francisco Chronicle

Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert

www.sarahcahill.com

San Francisco, CA – Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, will perform as part of Night 2 of the 29th annual Other Minds Festival on Friday, October 17, 2025 at 8pm. Cahill will give the world premiere of Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright by Samuel Adams. The concert will be held at Brava Theater (2781 24th St).

Commissioned by Cahill, Adams’ solo piano work is a tribute to composer Ingram Marshall (1942–2022). A resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, Ingram Marshall’s work has greatly influenced a number of composers and musicians from the area, including Adams – who studied with Marshall and considered him his mentor – and Cahill, who has frequently performed Marshall’s music, as well as commissioned other works by the late composer.

“I was seventeen when I met Ingram Marshall in San Francisco, and he had a tremendous influence on me,” says Cahill. “He wrote his great piano piece, Authentic Presence, for me and composed his four-hand work Five Easy Pieces for [pianist] Joseph Kubera and me. In 2008, I commissioned a piece from him called Movement: Deep in My Heart. Along with a small group of fellow musicians, I presented memorial concerts for Ingram at New Sounds Live in New York City and with San Francisco Performances. Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright is part of a larger project of a group of homages I'm commissioning from various composers titled "No Ordinary Light.”

Of this new work and his own connection to Ingram Marshall, Samuel Adams says, “[Ingram Marshall] and my father, John Adams, share a long history that dates back to the early 70s, when they were part of the small but vibrant contemporary music scene in San Francisco. I remained extremely close with Ingram until his passing in May 2022. Like many others he touched over the years, I remain indebted to his quietly prophetic musical sensibility—an almost opiate-like quality that imbues his work with a mystery and sadness that still resonates with me. Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright pays tribute to Ingram’s free-form, unpredictable sense of structure and highly impressionistic, almost ambient musical surfaces. His music often embraced the idea that form can be gradual and elusive—like late Sibelius—with the secrets of a piece only occasionally appearing close to its surface, like sunken cathedrals.”

In addition to Cahill’s world premiere performance, the evening’s program will feature additional solo and chamber works by Adams, including Sundial performed by Friction Quartet and percussionist Haruka Fujii, Violin Diptych performed by violinist Helen Kim and pianist Conor Hanick, and Études performed by pianist Conor Hanick. Libby Van Cleve will also perform Ingram Marshall’s Dark Waters on English horn.

Composer Ingram Marshall lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1973 to 1985 and in Washington State, where he taught at Evergreen State College, until 1989. He studied at Lake Forest College, Columbia University and California Institute of the Arts, where he received an M.F.A., and has been a student of Indonesian gamelan music, the influence of which may be heard in the slowed-down sense of time and use of melodic repetition found in many of his pieces. In the mid-seventies he developed a series of "live electronic" pieces such as Fragility Cycles, Gradual Requiem, and Alcatraz in which he blended tape collages, extended vocal techniques, Indonesian flutes, and keyboards. He performed widely in the United States with these works.

The Other Minds Festival is a beloved and well known presence in the San Francisco Bay Area. An annual presentation of many different artists and many different styles of music, the Other Minds Festival has been an annual staple of new music since the first event in 1993. Sarah Cahill has been a steadfast figure in the festival’s activities over the years, going as far back as the festival’s third year in 1996 when she performed George Lewis' solo piano suite Endless Shout, which she later recorded for the Tzadik label, under Lewis' supervision. Since that time, Cahill has also given several performances during different years of the festival, including most recently as 2024 when she performed RCSC by New Zealand born, American composer Annea Lockwood.

About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).

Cahill’s latest project is The Future is Female, an investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts at The Barbican, Metropolitan Museum, Carolina Performing Arts, National Gallery of Art, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival. Cahill also performed music from The Future is Female for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series.

Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Her three-album series, The Future is Female, was released on First Hand Records between March 2022 and April 2023. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe, from the 17th century to the present day, and include many world premiere recordings.

Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, performs as part of the 29th annual Other Minds Festival on October 17, 2025 at 8pm. Sarah will give the world premiere of Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright. The work, commissioned by Cahill, is a tribute to composer Ingram Marshall (1942–2022) written by composer Samuel Adams. The evening’s program will feature additional solo and chamber works by Adams, including Sundial performed by Friction Quartet and percussionist Haruka Fujii; Violin Diptych performed by violinist Helen Kim and pianist Conor Hanick; and Études performed by pianist Conor Hanick. Libby Van Cleve will also perform Ingram Marshall’s Dark Waters on English horn.

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill
Presented by Other Minds Festival
What: World premiere of Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright – a tribute to Ingram Marshall
When: Friday, October 17, 2025 at 8pm
Where: Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94110
More information: https://www.otherminds.org/other-minds-festival-29/

Sept. 13: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers Perform at Flower Piano 10th Anniversary – Presented by Sunset Piano and Gardens of Golden Gate Park

Photo credit: Travis Lange

Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers Perform at Flower Piano 10th Anniversary
Presented by Sunset Piano and Gardens of Golden Gate Park

Featuring Music by
Eleanor Alberga, Amy Beach, Elena Kats-Chernin, and Terry Riley

Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 11am in the Great Meadow
San Francisco Botanical Garden at Golden Gate Park| 1199 9th Ave. | San Francisco, CA

Free with General Admission to the Botanical Garden. Advanced Tickets Recommended.

www.gggp.org/flowerpiano | www.flowerpiano.com

www.sarahcahill.com | www.reginamusic.com

San Francisco, CA – Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers will perform together as part of San Francisco’s annual Flower Piano interactive music festival, on Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 11am, presented by Sunset Piano and Gardens of Golden Gate Park. Held at the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park (1199 9th Ave.), the beloved annual event brings the San Francisco community together for ten days (September 12-21, 2025) of live piano performances, filling the San Francisco Botanical Garden with elegant melodies and the joyful spirits of music lovers from near and far. Flower Piano celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2025, making this year’s events all the more meaningful for long-time attendees and first time visitors alike. The full festival will feature more than 100 performers, including solos, duos, and ensembles.

For this year’s milestone festival, Cahill and Myers will combine their prodigious musical talents in the performance of a vibrant, expressive, image-driven program of music from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Eleanor Alberga's Two-Piano Suite (1986), Amy Beach's Summer Dreams (1901), Dance of the Paper Umbrellas (2013) by Elena Kats-Chernin, and Terry Riley's Cinco de Mayo (1997). Festival attendees can watch the duo’s performance in the Great Meadow area of the Botanical Garden.

Eleanor Alberga’s Two-Piano Suite is a sprightly one movement work that is as lively and uplifting as is the reason for its composition. A Jamaican-born, British composer, Alberga wrote the work to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Jamaica's independence in 1987.

Amy Beach’s Summer Dreams connects with the natural beauty of the New England summer landscape, as well as other brilliant creatives like William Shakespeare, Agnes Helen Lockhart, and Walt Whitman. Made up of six miniatures, each references a specific natural image: The Brownies, Robin Redbreast, Twilight, Katy-dids, Elfin Tarantelle, and Good Night.

Dance of the Paper Umbrellas was written for the Hush Music Foundation – an Australian non-profit dedicated to producing and licensing original music and arts projects with the aim of improving healthcare environments and patient outcomes. Elena Kats-Chernin says of the idea behind the music: “I wondered what kind of piece I could write that would be uplifting. I wanted to enter the world of magic and dreams. I imagined a cake adorned with multi-coloured umbrellas. A dance formed in my head, starting with a pattern in harp, marimba, plucked strings and flutes.”

Terry Riley’s Cinco de Mayo is the first of five works for four hands on one piano that Cahill commissioned from Riley and which Cahill and Myers recorded in 2017 as part of the album, Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley on Irritable Hedgehog Records.

For more information about Sarah Cahill visit www.sarahcahill.com.

For more information about Regina Myers visit www.reginamusic.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers perform at San Francisco’s annual Flower Piano interactive music festival, presented by Sunset Piano and Gardens of Golden Gate Park, which celebrates its 10th anniversary at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. The two Bay Area pianists will perform a vibrant, expressive, image-driven program of music from the 20th and 21st centuries in the Great Meadow area of the Botanical Garden. The concert will include works by Eleanor Alberga, Amy Beach, Elena Kats-Chernin, and Terry Riley.

Concert details:

Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers
Presented by Sunset Piano and Gardens of Golden Gate Park
What: Music by Eleanor Alberga, Amy Beach, Elena Kats-Chernin, and Terry Riley
When: Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 11am
Where: San Francisco Botanical Garden at Golden Gate Park 1199 9th Ave., San Francisco, CA 94122
Tickets and information: https://gggp.org/flowerpiano/

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.

Sept. 27-28: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik is Featured Soloist with the Traverse City Philharmonic – Conducted by Artistic Director Kevin Rhodes

Photo of Yevgeny Kutik by Griffin Harrington available in hi-resolution here.

Violinist Yevgeny Kutik Performs as Featured Soloist
with the Traverse City Philharmonic
Conducted by Artistic Director Kevin Rhodes

in Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2, The American Four Seasons

September 27, 2025 at 7:30pm
September 28, 2025 at 3:00pm
Milliken Auditorium, Dennos Museum Center
1701 East Front Street | Traverse City, MI
Tickets and More Information

“polished dexterity and genteel, old-world charm” – WQXR

www.yevgenykutik.com

Traverse City, MI — On Saturday, September 27 at 7:30pm and Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 3pm, violinist Yevgeny Kutik, who The New York Times describes as having a “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique,” is the featured soloist with the Traverse City Philharmonic, conducted by Kevin Rhodes. Kutik will perform Violin Concerto No.2, The American Four Seasons, by Philip Glass. The concert will also include Ludwig van Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 5.

Yevgeny Kutik has captivated audiences worldwide with an old-world sound that communicates a modern intellect. Praised for his technical precision and virtuosity, he is lauded for his poetic and imaginative interpretations of standard works as well as rarely heard and newly composed repertoire.

Kutik says, “I’m so excited to be returning back to perform with my friends at the TC Phil and Kevin Rhodes. I’m so inspired by all that they are doing to bring great art and music to the community. The Glass is such a wonderful and unique piece to be playing—gorgeous, meditative, and expansive all at once. In it, I like to see the expanse of this beautiful country and all it has to offer.”

Artistic Director Kevin Rhodes says, “Every time I prepare Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, it feels like the very first time—I’m reminded again of its sheer genius. That iconic ‘da-da-da-DAAAA’ is the most famous opening in music history. Yevgeny and I have played Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, and Sibelius together, so I know what a thrilling performer he is in romantic and neo-romantic literature. I am particularly excited to experience what he will bring to a performance of this work of the minimalist American, Philip Glass!”

Philip Glass composed his Violin Concerto No. 2, subtitled The American Four Seasons, in the summer and autumn of 2009, for violinist Robert McDuffie. Glass wrote the work with the intent that it would serve as a companion to Antonio Vivaldi's iconic work The Four Seasons. At the same time, Glass ultimately decided to design his work to be more open-ended, particularly as it relates to the audience’s experience. In his program notes about the work, he says he saw it as “an opportunity, then, for the listener to make his/her own interpretation. Therefore, there will be no instructions for the audience, no clues as to where Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall might appear in the new concerto – an interesting, though not worrisome, problem for the listener.”

More about Yevgeny Kutik: Committed to the music of our time, Kutik regularly gives premiere and repeat performances of major works by today’s most celebrated composers. This season, he gives the world premiere of a new work by Jonathan Leshnoff with pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner presented by Newport Classical. In January 2025, he made his debut with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, led by Michelle Merrill, in a performance of Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2. In 2022 at the Tanglewood Music Festival, he gave the world premiere of Cântico, a work for solo violin by Andreia Pinto Correia co-commissioned for Kutik by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, he debuted with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra led by Leonard Slatkin, performing the world premiere of Joseph Schwantner’s Violin Concerto, written for him. The concerto is based on Schwantner’s earlier work, The Poet’s Hour – Soliloquy for Violin, which Kutik recorded on episode six of Gerard Schwarz’s All-Star Orchestra, released on DVD by Naxos and broadcast nationally on PBS.

A native of Minsk, Belarus, Yevgeny Kutik immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of five. His 2014 album, Music from the Suitcase: A Collection of Russian Miniatures (Marquis Classics), features music he found in his family’s suitcase after immigrating to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1990, and debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Classical chart. The album garnered critical acclaim and was featured on NPR's All Things Considered and in The New York Times. Kutik’s recent releases on Marquis include The Death of Juliet and Other Tales (2021) and Meditations on Family (2019), for which he commissioned eight composers to translate a personal family photo into a short musical miniature – a project featured on the cover of Strings magazine. Kutik’s other recordings include his debut album, Sounds of Defiance (2012), and Words Fail (2016), both released to critical acclaim.  

Other recent performance highlights include debuts at the Kennedy Center presented by Washington Performing Arts, and at the Ravinia Festival, as well as recital appearances as part of the Dame Myra Hess Concerts Chicago; at UCLA; Peoples' Symphony Concerts, Kaufman Music Center, and National Sawdust in New York City; the Embassy Series and The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.; and at the Lobkowicz Collections Prague presented by Prince William Lobkowicz. Festival performances have included the Tanglewood Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele in Germany, and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.  

Kutik made his major orchestral debut in 2003 with Keith Lockhart and The Boston Pops as the First Prize recipient of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition, and has since performed with orchestras throughout the country including the Rochester and Dayton Philharmonics; the Detroit, New Haven, Asheville, and Wyoming symphony orchestras; and more. Abroad, he has appeared with Germany’s Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock and WDR Rundfunk Orchestra Köln, Montenegro’s Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra, Japan’s Tokyo Vivaldi Ensemble, and the Cape Town Philharmonic in South Africa.

Passionate about his heritage and its influence on his artistry, Kutik is an advocate for the Jewish Federations of North America, the organization that assisted his family in coming to the United States, and regularly speaks and performs across the United States to both raise awareness and promote the assistance of refugees from around the world.  

Yevgeny Kutik began violin studies with his mother, Alla Zernitskaya, and went on to study with Zinaida Gilels, Shirley Givens, Roman Totenberg, and Donald Weilerstein. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory. Kutik is ​​the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Birch Festival – a festival built around connecting and integrating leading musicians with the Berkshire community, while highlighting the unique and original stories of those who make up the Berkshires. His violin was crafted in Italy in 1915 by Stefano Scarampella.  For more information, please visit www.yevgenykutik.com.

More about Maestro Kevin Rhodes here. Currently beginning his 25th season conducting the Traverse City Philharmonic. https://tcphil.org/meet-the-maestro/

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik, described as having a “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique,” (The New York Times) is the featured soloist in a performance with the Traverse City Philharmonic, conducted by Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Kevin Rhodes. Kutik will perform Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2, The American Four Seasons, which Glass wrote as a companion to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. The concert program will also include Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 5, and Saturday’s evening performance will include an after-concert reception and toast to the new season.

Concert details:

Who: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik
Presented by Traverse City Philharmonic
Conducted by Kevin Rhodes, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Traverse City Philharmonic
What: Music by Ludwig van Beethoven and Philip Glass
When: Saturday, September 27 7:30 pm and Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 3:00 pm
Where: Milliken Auditorium - Dennos Museum Center, 1701 East Front Street, Traverse City, MI 49686
Tickets and information: https://tcphil.org/series/beethoven-5-american-4-seasons/

Sept. 19: Pianist Sarah Cahill Performs The Woods So Wild at Community School of Music and Arts

Photo of Sarah Cahill by Miranda Sanborn, available in high resolution here.

Pianist Sarah Cahill Performs The Woods So Wild  
at Community School of Music and Arts

A Concert Inspired by Nature Featuring Music by
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mamoru Fujieda, William Byrd, Errki Melartin,
Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein and Leokadiya Kashperova

Friday, September 19, 2025 at 7:30pm
Tateuchi Hall | 230 San Antonio Circle | Mountain View, CA
Free Performance - More Information

“Pianist Sarah Cahill commands a near-godlike status among fans of  contemporary classical music” – NPR Music

Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert

Sarah Cahill: www.SarahCahill.com

Mountain View, CA – On Friday, September 19, 2024 at 7:30pm pianist Sarah Cahill, described as a “keen and captivating pianist” by The Washington Post, brings her program The Woods So Wild to Tateuchi Hall (230 San Antonio Circle) of Mountain View’s Community School for Music and Arts. Cahill’s program features a diverse assortment of expressive works reflective of nature’s beauty and an appreciation thereof. This performance is free and open to the public.

Forests, oceans, desert, mountains, flowers, grasslands, wilderness – throughout music’s history, composers have celebrated nature and the great outdoors. As humanity urgently strives to preserve this precious environment, reflecting on nature through music heightens society’s attention to its great wonders. In this program, beginning with William Byrd’s The Woods So Wild from 1590, Sarah Cahill takes listeners on a wondrous journey through musical portraits of the natural world including Forest Scenes by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, A Morning in the Woods by Leo Ornstein, The Murmur of the Wheat by Leokadiya Kashperova, Hermit Thrush at Eve by Amy Beach, Patterns of Plants by Mamoru Fujieda, and The Mysterious Forest by Erkki Melartin.

“It's always a great pleasure and an honor to perform in the CSMA series,” says Cahill. “I have such admiration for this terrific community school and the vital work they are doing, and performing on their gorgeous piano in the stunning Tateuchi Hall is a dream come true.”

About the Music Cahill Features in The Woods So Wild:

Composed in 1907 at the turn of the 20th century, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s remarkable Forest Scenes depicts an ethereal tale of a romantic encounter between a forest maiden and a phantom. The five movement work unfolds like a musical novel, with each section depicting a new chapter between the maiden and the phantom. The writing is fanciful and expressive; Coleridge-Taylor includes a variety of rhythms, tempo changes, and chord progressions throughout the work to evoke both the vacillating emotions of the characters and the dynamic actions of the story.

Leo Ornstein was 78 years old when he wrote Morning in the Woods, and it reflects his love of solitary walks in the forest. The music, full of brief melodic flourishes throughout, appears to embody the many signs of life and movement found in the woods – burst of wind, scurrying animals, the rustle of flora. Cahill recorded the work on her 2008 album, Leo Ornstein: Fantasy and Metaphor released on New Albion Records.

The impetus behind Mamoru Fujieda’s Patterns of Plants is just as organic as the work’s namesake objects. Fujieda measured and recorded the electrical impulses on different plants’ leaves with the help of “Plantron” –– a tool created by botanist and artist Yūji Dōgane. From there, Fujieda converted the electrical impulses into sound using Max, a visual programming language applicable to music and multimedia. It was from this converted information that Fujieda analyzed and noticed different musical patterns, which became the melodic foundation for the work’s miniature pieces. Sarah Cahill recorded Patterns of Plants in 2014 on Pinna Records.

During a summer at MacDowell – a New Hampshire retreat that nurtures all types of American artists – the serene ambiance inspired Amy Beach to compose The Hermit Thrush at Eve and The Hermit Thrush at Morn, the melodies of which echo the calls of the namesake bird, which Beach called "lonely and appealing." Beach heard a hermit thrush outside her window and imitated its song on her piano, leading to she and the bird having a musical dialogue.

Prominent Finnish composer Erkki Melartin’s The Mysterious Forest is an expressive cycle of six piano pieces, which are largely reflective of Melartin’s appreciation of rural life and nature’s beauty. The works were unfortunately never published during Melartin’s lifetime.

English Renaissance composer William Byrd wrote fourteen variations on the melody of The Woods So Wild, a song from the Tudor era. The first of the variations presents a simple rustic version of the main theme, alongside a drone accompaniment and the last variation is formed around a structure of rich polyphony.

Au sein de la Nature is a piano suite of six movements. As its title infers, the emotive suite of music evokes connections to nature. This was inspired by Kashperova’s nostalgia for the tranquil and secluded Russian countryside where she spent her childhood.

About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).

One of Cahill’s most extensive projects is The Future is Female, an investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts at The Barbican, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carolina Performing Arts, National Gallery of Art, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Gretna Arts, WoCo Festival, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival. Cahill also performed music from The Future is Female for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series.

Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Her three-album series, The Future is Female, was released on First Hand Records between March 2022 and April 2023. These albums encompass thirty compositions by women from around the globe, from the 17th century to the present day, and include many world premiere recordings.

Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as a “keen and captivating pianist” by The Washington Post, brings her program The Woods So Wild, an array of expressive works that reflect the beauty of nature, to Mountain View’s Community School of Music and Arts. The concert will include works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mamoru Fujieda, William Byrd, Errki Melartin, Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein and Leokadiya Kashperova

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Woods So Wild
Presented by Community School of Music and Arts
What: Music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mamoru Fujieda, William Byrd, Errki Melartin, Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein and Leokadiya Kashperova.
When: Friday, September 19, 2025 at 7:30pm
Where: Tateuchi Hall, 230 San Antonio Circle, Mountain View, CA 94040
More information (Free Concert, Open to the Public): arts4all.org/concerts/

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.

Jupiter String Quartet Announces Mélanie Clapiès as New Violinist Succeeding Nelson Lee

Photos by Todd Rosenberg and Tiana Hunter, available in high resolution here.

Jupiter String Quartet Announces Mélanie Clapiès as New Violinist

Clapiès will Join the Jupiter Following Nelson Lee’s Final Performance with the Quartet
on September 26, 2025 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

melanieclapies.com | www.jupiterquartet.com

Urbana, IL – The Jupiter String Quartet announces that Mélanie Clapiès has been selected as the ensemble’s new violinist, succeeding Nelson Lee and joining violinist Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel, and cellist Daniel McDonough. Founded in 2001, the Jupiter Quartet has had the same personnel since its inception, and is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music, with The New Yorker reporting, “The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” The quartet exudes an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, and has performed across the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and the Americas 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.

Outgoing violinist Nelson Lee has performed in the Jupiter String Quartet for 24 years. His final concert with the group will be on September 26, 2025, presented by the Krannert Center for the Performing Artist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where the Jupiter has been in residence since 2012. Lee will be relocating to Montréal, Canada, where he has accepted a position at McGill University. He says, “It is with immense gratitude that I say goodbye to my friends in the Jupiter Quartet. I feel indebted to all of them for being the most generous and inspiring collaborators through this journey that we started together in 2001. I have learned so much from them over the years as we have grown from life as students to having our own wonderful families. I know they will thrive in this next chapter with Mélanie and wish them all the best going forward.”

The Freivogel sisters and McDonough summarize their thoughts:

“We want to thank Nelson from the bottom of our hearts for over twenty inspiring years as our close colleague and friend. The countless memories and the depth of our connection is something that will stay with us permanently, even as we move forward in different directions. We hope he and his family will find great fulfillment and happiness in their new situation, and we will always be here to support them from afar.

We are also overjoyed to announce our new violinist, Mélanie Clapiès. She is a musician with a wide-ranging background in both Europe and the United States, a wonderful teacher, and an absolutely beautiful player, full of insight and creativity. We can’t wait to explore new ground with her as a quartet, and we welcome her and her family to our quartet family and our home community of Champaign-Urbana!”

Clapiès adds, “A longtime dream is becoming reality in joining this quartet, and I couldn't be more grateful for this next chapter with Meg, Liz, and Dan. It's a true privilege to explore the quartet repertoire with such inspired musicians.”

Mélanie Clapiès joins the Jupiter String Quartet, as well as the School of Music faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this fall. A French-born, multifaceted soloist and a dedicated chamber music player, Clapiès enjoys an international career. She has been invited to festivals in the US, France, the UK, Russia, Malta, Italy, Spain, and Algeria, including Yellow Barn, Colmar, Musique en roue libre, the Deauville’s Festival de Pâques and Août Musical, la Roque d’Anthéron, the Salon Romantique of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, “Suona Francese”, Portogruaro, and the Fondation Monteleon. She studied at the Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs de Musique in both Lyon and Paris. After moving to the United States, she received her M.M. and A.D. from the Yale School of Music and completed a Doctoral degree at the Manhattan School of Music. Her wide ranging musical focuses include new and experimental music, as well as electronic music, which she explores through performing, improvising, and composing. As a part of her ongoing interest in researching and uplifting unusual repertoire, she recorded Pierrots Lunaires, an album of duos for violin and cello with cellist Yan Levionnois (Fondamenta/Sony). Named a Zonta Club laureate in 2001, she has also received the Broadus Erle Prize, Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize, Philip Francis Nelson Prize from Yale University, and the Saul Braverman Award. A dedicated educator, Clapiès comes to the University of Illinois from Butler University, where she has been a member of the violin faculty since 2022. She previously taught at the conservatories in Toulon and Bordeaux as well as at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.

The Jupiter will celebrate Nelson Lee in their final concert together on Friday, September 26, 2025 at 7:30pm, which opens the ensemble’s series at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Their program features three vibrant works spanning more than two centuries – W.A. Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte, and César Franck’s Piano Quintet performed with pianist Jon Nakamatsu. The Jupiter’s series at the Krannert Center includes two more performances this season on March 12, 2026 and April 25, 2026.

Based in Urbana, IL and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, and includes violinist Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). 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.

Recent and upcoming highlights include residencies at Taos School of Music Summer Festival, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Adam Chamber Music Festival in New Zealand, and the University of Idaho, as well as performances presented by the Library of Congress, the University of Florida Performing Arts, Bay Chamber Concerts, Calgary Pro Musica, San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, and many more. Major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, the Banff Centre, Taos School of Music Summer Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, Music at Menlo, Maverick Concerts, Caramoor International Music Festival, Lanaudiere Festival, West Cork (Ireland) Chamber Music Festival, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, Skaneateles Festival, Madeline Island Music Festival, Yellow Barn Festival, Encore Chamber Music Festival, the inaugural Chamber Music Athens, and the Seoul Spring Festival, among others. 

The Jupiter String Quartet’s honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2004. In 2005, they won the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City, which quickly led to a busy touring schedule. They received the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America in 2007, followed by an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2008. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two and, in 2009, they received a grant from the Fromm Foundation to commission a new quartet from Dan Visconti for a CMSLC performance at Alice Tully Hall. In 2012, the Jupiter Quartet members were appointed as artists-in-residence and faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where they continue to perform regularly in the beautiful Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, maintain private studios, and direct the chamber music program. 

The Jupiter String Quartet feels a strong connection to the core string quartet repertoire; they have presented the complete Bartók string quartets at the University of Illinois and the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets at the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Lanaudiere Festival in Quebec. 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. They are also part of a commission for chamber choir and string quartet, with music by Su Lian Tan and words by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

The Jupiters place a strong emphasis on developing relationships with future audiences through educational performances in schools and other community centers. They believe that, because of the intensity of its interplay and communication, chamber music is one of the most effective ways of spreading an enthusiasm for “classical” music to new audiences. The quartet has also held numerous masterclasses for young musicians, including most recently at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, Northwestern University, Eastman School of Music, the Aspen Music Festival, Encore Chamber Festival, Madeline Island Music Festival, and Peabody Conservatory. 

The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. This collaborative 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 reported, “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’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon. In fall 2024, the Jupiter Quartet recorded their next album with 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 Jupiter.

Sept 12: Newport Classical Opens 2025-2026 Chamber Series with Poiesis Quartet

Poiesis Quartet by Eden Davis. Photo available in high resolution here

Newport Classical Opens 2025-2026 Chamber Series with Poiesis Quartet

Friday, September 12 at 7:30pm

Information & Registration: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Newport Classical opens 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.), with the Poiesis Quartet on Friday, September 12, 2025 at 7:30pm.

The Poiesis Quartet (Sarah Ma, violin; Max Ball, violin; Jasper de Boor, viola; and Drew Dansby, cello) is an ensemble on the rise, with several national competition wins recently under their belts. The group is the winner of the Grand Prize, Gold Medal, and Lift Every Voice prize at the 2023 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, as well as the Gold Medal and BIPOC Prize at the 2023 St. Paul String Quartet Competition. Poiesis joined the Concert Artists Guild roster for North American management as winners of the Louis & Susan Meisel Competition in 2024. The quartet is touring nationally, and has performed abroad in Uruguay (2023), Italy at the 2024 Emilia Romagna Festival, and France at 2025 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Poiesis released its debut album as we are on the Bright Shiny Things label in 2024.

Derived from ancient Greek, the word Poiesis means “to make”; specifically, to create something that has not existed before. With an emphasis on expanding the string quartet repertoire with vibrant new works by emerging composers, the Poiesis Quartet infuses each performance with unique moments of synchronicity and verve. The quartet’s concert in Newport will begin with Beethoven’s radiant Op. 59 No. 3, an energetic and expressive work that sets the tone for an evening of dynamic contrasts. The program also features bold contemporary works including Kevin Lau's String Quartet No. 7, commissioned by the ensemble, alongside recent works by Brian Raphael Nabors and Sky Macklay. The concert ends with Calvary, a powerful arrangement of an African American spiritual, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s String Quartet No. 1, which draws inspiration from the same melody in a work that fuses classical form with spiritual roots.

Sarah Ma, violinist of the Poiesis Quartet, says, “We always prioritize creating emotionally compelling and fulfilling concert experiences. At its core, our program at Newport features our very first commissioned work – String Quartet No. 7 by Chinese-Canadian composer Kevin Lau. After Kevin's newborn baby son was diagnosed with a rare liver condition requiring surgeries and a rigorous recovery process, he wrote this work during this time as a 'surfacing' from grief and pain. Today, his family is healthy and happy, and his quartet ends with virtuosity, defiance, and joy, reminding us of gratitude for family. Especially paired with the Calvary spiritual, which speaks on Jesus' death and ascension to heaven, each work on this program in some way reflects on the necessity to persist towards and protect love. We always seek to foster an intellectual curiosity with our programs, encouraging audiences to seek out new musical forms that are robust, dense, and creative, and we also want that inspiration and passion to be rooted in a deeply meaningful and personal emotional conviction.”

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 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 Poiesis Quartet will visit the Edward King House during the day to perform selections from their concert program later that evening and share stories about their musical journeys, inspirations, and more, inviting questions and conversation with attendees. 

Watch Poiesis Quartet in Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s String Quartet No. 1:  

Up next, Newport Classical presents three free Community Concerts this summer and fall, designed especially for families and taking place right in their neighborhoods. The GRAMMY® Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet performs an interactive children’s concert on August 23 at the Newport County YMCA. The Navy Band Northeast’s Crosswinds Woodwind Quintet takes the stage on September 7 at Miantonomi Memorial Park, and classical guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan presents his New Lullaby Project (comfy PJs and stuffed animals welcome) on October 12 at Emmanuel Church.

On October 3, the Chamber Series continues with celebrated violinist Blake Pouliot, praised for his "radiant sound and high-powered virtuosity" (Los Angeles Times), performing with acclaimed pianist Henry Kramer in a Romantic program featuring Schumann's stormy Violin Sonata No. 1, Chausson's sweeping Poème, and Dvořák’s spirited Ziguenerleider. Trio Zimbalist makes their Newport Classical debut on October 17 with what EfSyn calls "precision and feverish intensity," presenting Beethoven's beloved "Archduke" Trio alongside works by Smetana and George Xiaoyuan Fu. Taiwanese American pianist Charlotte Hu, celebrated as a "first-class talent" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) with "superstar quality" (Jerusalem Post), embarks on a compelling journey through Chopin's expressive world on November 7. Saxophonist Valentin Kovalev, Gold Medal winner at the Jean-Marie Londeix International Saxophone Competition, brings his electrifying technique and soulful depth to his Newport Classical debut on November 21 with a program culminating in Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

The Chamber Series continues in 2026 with cellist Jonathan Swensen making his highly anticipated return on January 23 following his memorable 2024 debut as a Festival Artist. Honored with the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant and joint First Prize at the 2024 Naumburg International Cello Competition, Swensen is described as "a musician of charisma and thrilling physicality" (BBC Music Magazine). The Verona Quartet, celebrated by The New York Times as an "outstanding ensemble... cohesive yet full of temperament," makes their Newport Classical debut on February 20 with a program tracing a vivid stylistic arc from Scarlatti to Beethoven. On March 13, baritone Benjamin Appl, whose voice “belongs to the last of the old great masters of song” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), whose artistry has been described as “unbearably moving” (The Times), presents Schubert's hauntingly beautiful Die Winterreise with his frequent collaborator, pianist James Baillieu. Ars Poetica, an ensemble of acclaimed instrumentalists and vocalists with a passion for historical music, explores "Dance and Transfiguration" on March 27 with their colorful array of Baroque instruments. Violinist Yevgeny Kutik, praised for his "dark-hued and razor-sharp technique" (The New York Times), makes his Newport Classical debut on April 10 alongside returning pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner in works by Debussy, Prokofiev, and Grieg. Rising-star pianist James Zijian Wei, first-prize winner at the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition, makes his highly anticipated Newport debut on May 8 with a program featuring Ravel, Liszt, and more. The 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.

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.

Sept 27-28: California Symphony's Season Opens with PICTURES FROM PARIS, plus Pop-Up Performance for Amateur Musicians on Sept 20

Photo by Kristen Loken; high resolution photos available here.

California Symphony's 2025-2026 Season Opens with PICTURES FROM PARIS

Featuring Three Iconic Orchestral Showstoppers:
Ravel's Boléro, Gershwin's An American in Paris, and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition

Led by Donato Cabrera, Artistic & Music Director

In Concert September 27 at 7:30pm & September 28 at 4:00pm
At Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for the Arts

Calling Bay Area Amateur Musicians: Join California Symphony’s Bolero
Pop-Up Performance with Amateur Music Network
September 20 at 2-2:45pm at Walnut Creek’s Water Light Public Plaza
Free Registration: www.californiasymphony.org/amn

Tickets & Information: www.californiasymphony.org

WALNUT CREEK, CA – California Symphony and Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera launch the 2025-2026 season with PICTURES FROM PARIS – two concerts featuring a trio of evocative, orchestral showstoppers by Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin, and Modest Mussorgsky on Saturday, September 27, 2025 at 7:30pm and Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 4:00pm at Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek).

PICTURES FROM PARIS transports audiences to the vibrant scene of 1920s Paris. French composer Maurice Ravel’s mesmerizing Boléro from 1928 builds from a whisper to a triumphant climax as two beguiling melodies are shared throughout the entire orchestra in what became the composer’s most famous piece. Jazz meets classical in American composer George Gershwin’s An American in Paris, also from 1928. Gershwin and Ravel shared a musical friendship, with Gershwin later being instrumental in bringing Ravel to tour the U.S. Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition for piano in 1874 as a musical depiction of the paintings of artist Viktor Hartmann, but this version is Ravel’s famous update for orchestra from 1922, which showcases his unmatched ability to use the orchestra as a palette to create rich textures and vivid imagery. 

Amateur musicians in the Bay Area are invited to participate in California Symphony’s season opening week. On Saturday, September 20, California Symphony will host a free Pop Up event in partnership with the Amateur Music Network. From 2-2:45pm at Water Light Public Plaza (1501 Locust St., Walnut Creek), Donato Cabrera will lead an open reading of selections from Ravel’s Boléro for amateur musicians – all levels are welcome. Registration (which is free, but required) is open now. 

Cabrera says, “Alongside all of the literary masterpieces written in 1920s Paris stand a number of musical warhorses that were also composed in the City of Lights during this flapper decade. And standing at the center of this international soirée of gifted composers was Maurice Ravel. This concert not only showcases Ravel’s talents as a composer and orchestrator, but also his ability to spot talent and innate promise in others. It is a mark of a great teacher to know when someone doesn’t need any tutelage. And while the story of Ravel declining to teach Gershwin is well known, this anecdote became apocryphal, as Gershwin would go on to compose An American in Paris, one of the most descriptive and accurate depictions of Paris ever conceived. For as many times as I have conducted Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s brilliantly iconoclastic and pianistic tour de force Pictures at an Exhibition, I am always surprised by the sounds and instruments he chooses to use. There have been many attempts at orchestrating this piece since then, but none ever come off quite as convincingly as Ravel’s. For as large of an orchestra that Ravel requires for his Boléro, it is worth remembering that it was originally composed as a solo vehicle for the indomitable Belle Époque doyenne of dance, Ida Rubenstein. Whenever I listen to Boléro, I imagine what it would’ve been like to see the premiere at the Paris Opéra, with Ms. Rubenstein dancing on a table.”

Ravel's Boléro remains one of classical music's most instantly recognizable works. What began as a commission for a ballet became his most performed composition. Reportedly he said of the piece, playing the theme with one finger on the piano, "Don't you think this theme has an insistent quality? I'm going to try and repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can." The U.S. premiere of the piece was performed in 1929 by the New York Philharmonic led by Arturo Toscanini, and according to The New York Times, the piece was met with “shouts and cheers” from the audience.

In An American in Paris, Gershwin masterfully blends jazz rhythms with classical orchestration. He scored the piece for the standard symphony orchestra plus celesta, saxophones, and car horns, and even brought Parisian taxi horns from his 1926 visit to New York for the premiere of the piece at Carnegie Hall in 1928. Gershwin described the piece as an effort to “portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere.”

Pictures at an Exhibition tells the story of a friendship through music. When Mussorgsky’s friend artist Viktor Hartmann died suddenly at age 39, Mussorgsky was devastated. Walking through a memorial exhibition of Hartmann's paintings in 1874, the composer was inspired by Hartmann’s work to create a musical tour through the gallery, complete with "Promenade" sections representing moving from painting to painting. Mussorgsky wrote the work for piano, and it was Ravel's brilliant 1922 orchestration that transformed it into a colorful orchestral piece.

Illustrating California Symphony’s signature approach to creating vibrant concerts, rich in storytelling and spanning the breadth of orchestral repertoire, the 2025-2026 season explores evocative programmatic music including Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Valentin Silvestrov’s Stille Musik; the fruitful intersection of jazz and classical in music by Jessie Montgomery, Friedrich Gulda, and George Gershwin; the monumental symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, and Alexander Borodin; the timelessness of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart including excerpts from Don Giovanni; and world-class soloists in riveting concertos including pianist Robert Thies in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, Nathan Chan in Friedrich Gulda’s Cello Concerto, violinists Jennifer Cho and Sam Weiser in Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, and pianist Sofya Gulyak in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

This season, California Symphony continues to serve its community beyond the stage through its nationally recognized educational initiative Sound Minds and its innovative lifelong learning program Fresh Look: The Symphony Exposed. It will also expand its programs for vulnerable populations at Trinity Center Walnut Creek and continue community partnerships to reach more underserved youth throughout Contra Costa County.

Founded in 1986, California Symphony has been led by Donato Cabrera since 2013. Its concert season at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California serves a growing number of music lovers from across the Bay Area. California Symphony believes that the concert experience should be fun and inviting, and its mission is to create a welcoming, engaging, and inclusive environment for the entire community. Through this commitment to community, imaginative programming, and its support of emerging composers, California Symphony is a leader among orchestras in California and a model for regional orchestras everywhere.

Single tickets start at $50 and at $25 for students 25 and under. Season subscriptions and single tickets are available now. More information is available at CaliforniaSymphony.org or call the Lesher Center Ticket Office at (925) 943-7469 (open Wed – Sun, 12pm to 6pm).

FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:

WHAT: California Symphony opens its 2025-2026 season with PICTURES FROM PARIS, featuring three iconic orchestral showstoppers that transport audiences to the vibrant artistic world of 1920s Paris. Conducted by Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera, the orchestra performs Maurice Ravel's hypnotic Boléro, George Gershwin's jazz-infused An American in Paris, and Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel's brilliant orchestration.

California Symphony takes the stuffiness out of the concert experience: Take selfies at the photo booth, order a signature cocktail, and sip at your seat. Ice cream from Handel’s will also be available for sale at intermission. Tickets include a free 30-minute pre-concert talk by Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera, starting one hour before the show.

WHEN:
Saturday, September 27, 2025 at 7:30pm
Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 4:00pm

WHERE:
Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts
1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek

CONCERT:
PICTURES FROM PARIS
Donato Cabrera, conductor
California Symphony

PROGRAM:
Maurice Ravel: Boléro (1928)
George Gershwin: An American in Paris (1928)
Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (1874; orch. by Ravel 1922)

TICKETS: Single tickets start at $50 and at $25 for students 25 and under. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit CaliforniaSymphony.org or call the Lesher Center Ticket Office at (925) 943-7469 (open Wed – Sun, 12pm to 6pm).

PHOTOS: Available here

ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY:
Founded in 1986, California Symphony has been led by Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera since 2013. It is distinguished by its vibrant concert programs that span the breadth of orchestral repertoire, including works by American composers and by living composers. Its concert season at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California serves a growing number of music lovers from across the Bay Area.

California Symphony believes that the concert experience should be fun and inviting, and its mission is to create a welcoming, engaging, and inclusive environment for the entire community. Through this commitment to community, imaginative programming, and its support of emerging composers, California Symphony is a leader among orchestras in California and a model for regional orchestras everywhere.

Since 1991, California Symphony's three-year Young American Composer-in-Residence program has provided a composer with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collaborate with the orchestra over three consecutive years to create, rehearse, premiere, and record three major orchestra compositions, one each season. Every Composer-in-Residence has gone on to win top honors and accolades in the field, including the Rome Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Grammy Awards, and more.

The orchestra's nationally recognized educational initiative Sound Minds impacts students' trajectories by providing instruction for violin or cello and musicianship skills. Sound Minds has proven to contribute directly to improved reading and math proficiencies and character development, as students set and achieve goals, learn communication and problem-solving skills, and gain self-confidence. Inspired by the El Sistema program of Venezuela, the program is offered completely free of charge to the students and families of Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, California.

Through its innovative adult education program Fresh Look: The Symphony Exposed, California Symphony provides lifelong learners a fun-filled introduction to the orchestra and classical music. Led by celebrated educator and California Symphony program annotator Scott Foglesong, these live classes are held over four weeks in the summer annually.

In 2017, California Symphony became the first orchestra with a public statement of a commitment to diversity. Its website is available in both Spanish and English.

Reaching far beyond the performance hall, since 2020 the orchestra's concerts have been broadcast nationally on multiple radio series through Classical California (KUSC/KDFC) and the WFMT Radio Network, reaching over 1.5 million listeners across the country.

For more information, visit CaliforniaSymphony.org. 

California Symphony’s 2025-26 season is sponsored by the Lesher Foundation.

Big Ears Presents Knoxville Broadcast by Lisa Bielawa - A Spatial Symphony for Hundreds of Musicians - Oct. 17 & 18

Lisa Bielawa's Crissy Broadcast in San Francisco. Photo by James Block. Hi resolution press photos available here.

Big Ears Presents Knoxville Broadcast by Lisa Bielawa 

A Spatial Symphony for Hundreds of Musicians

Three FREE Outdoor Performances at World’s Fair Park – October 17 & 18, 2025

More Information: www.bigearsfestival.org/knoxville-broadcast

KNOXVILLE, TN – August 19, 2025 – Although its acclaimed international festival is still seven months away, Big Ears has announced an extraordinary project for this coming October: Knoxville Broadcast, a large-scale, site-specific “spatial symphony,” created by the award-winning composer Lisa Bielawa, that will unite hundreds of musicians from across Knoxville in three free public performances at World’s Fair Park:

• Friday, October 17 – 6:00 pm

• Saturday, October 18 – 11:00 am & 2:00 pm

Knoxville Broadcast continues Bielawa’s celebrated series of Broadcast performances in Berlin, San Francisco, and Louisville—each rooted in the history and community of its location. The San Francisco Chronicle called Crissy Broadcast, “...one of the most moving performances of the year…where all the boundaries we take for granted in musical life…are casually obliterated.”

For Knoxville, Bielawa has composed a new score inspired by the city’s landscape, voices, and musical traditions. More than 600 local musicians of all ages and backgrounds will take part, including the Appalachian Equality Chorus, Knoxville Community Band, Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra, Halls Middle School Bands, L&N Stem Academy Concert Band and Orchestra, Drums Up Guns Down, members of Nief-Norf, Hardin Valley Academy Guitar Ensemble, Roane State Community College Choir, and the University of Tennessee Gospel Choir. Three all-ages “pickup” groups—Sterchi String Band (old-time), Found Forte (youth percussion), and the Sunsphere Singers (intergenerational choir)—are also open to the public.

Bielawa will weave in spoken and sung texts contributed by Knoxville residents, embedding their words and stories directly into the music. Details on how to join a pickup group or submit text are at www.bigearsfestival.org/knoxville-broadcast.

World’s Fair Park—home to the 1982 World’s Fair and its iconic Sunsphere—sits on the former site of Knoxville’s rail yard and L&N Train Station, once a vital hub connecting the city nationwide. Today, it serves as a gathering place for concerts, festivals, and civic events that bring people together from across the region.

True to the meaning of “broadcast”—“to scatter in all directions”—musicians will begin in the amphitheater and gradually disperse throughout the park, coordinated by long-distance musical cues. Audiences can choose their own paths, hearing the piece from multiple perspectives as it unfolds. The design breaks down traditional barriers between performer and audience, creating a flexible, accessible, and deeply communal experience for all ages.

"The abundance of musical cultures here makes Knoxville Broadcast unique among my large-scale urban celebrations,” says Bielawa. “From Appalachian traditional music and folk guitar to found object percussion and West African drumming, plus a vital tradition of school and community bands, orchestras, and choruses—it’s been an exciting adventure collaborating with this vibrant city!"

Support for Knoxville Broadcast is provided by: Lawson Family Foundation, Boyd Family Foundation, Hobson Wood Foundation, City of Knoxville, and South Arts.

Join Knoxville Broadcast
For more information about participating in a community ensemble or contributing text for the event, visit: www.bigearsfestival.org/knoxville-broadcast. 

Knoxville Broadcast Details
Composer: Lisa Bielawa

Produced by: Big Ears Festival
Location: World’s Fair Park Amphitheater, Knoxville, TN
Dates & Times: Friday, October 17, 2025 @ 6:00 pm
Saturday, October 18, 2025 – 11:00 am & 2:00 pm
Admission: Free and open to the public

Download Hi-Res Photos

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, 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 to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the pandemic, Bielawa cultivated a virtual community using submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents through her work Broadcast from Home, now archived by the Library of Congress.

Artist Website | Broadcasts | Facebook | Instagram

About Bielawa’s Broadcasts
Composer Lisa Bielawa’s Knoxville 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; and Louisville Broadcast presented in 2023 by the Louisville Orchestra in two historic locations, Shelby Park and the Big Four Bridge.

About Big Ears
Hailed as one of the most unique and visionary music festivals in the world, Big Ears Festival brings together a kaleidoscope of musical and artistic traditions each spring in Knoxville, Tennessee. Since 2009, Big Ears has presented hundreds of groundbreaking artists from across the globe—spanning jazz, classical, experimental, folk, electronic, and beyond—alongside film screenings, art installations, conversations, and community events. Named by The New York Times as “a music festival with a rare vision,” Big Ears transforms Knoxville into an expansive stage, drawing thousands of visitors while fostering deep engagement with the city’s cultural life.

Website | Facebook | Instagram

Sept. 7: Sarah Cahill and Joseph Kubera Perform Blue + Bob A Concert Featuring Piano Music of “Blue” Gene Tyranny and Robert Ashley – Presented by Other Minds

L-R: Sarah Cahill, Joseph Kubera.
Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski. Photo of Joseph Kubera by Martin Popelar

Pianists Sarah Cahill and Joseph Kubera Perform Blue + Bob
A Concert Featuring Piano Music of “Blue” Gene Tyranny and Robert Ashley

Presented by Other Minds
in Cooperation with The Center for Contemporary Music, 
Mills College at Northeastern University

Sunday, September 7, 2025 at 7pm
Littlefield Concert Hall
Mills College at Northeastern University
Richards Rd. | Oakland, CA
Tickets and More Information

SarahCahill.com | JosephKubera.com

Oakland, CA – Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “keen and captivating” by The Washington Post and pianist Joseph Kubera, described by The Village Voice as one of “new music’s most valued performers,” come together on Sunday, September 7, 2025 to perform Blue + Bob – a special concert program presented by Other Minds in cooperation with The Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College at Northeastern University. The performance will be held in Littlefield Concert Hall at Mills College (Richards Rd).

Blue + Bob celebrates the work of “Blue” Gene Tyranny and Robert Ashley and includes Tyranny’s two-piano gems Decertified Highway of Dreams (1991) and A Letter from Home (2002) and Ashley’s Viva’s Boy (1991) and Details (2b) (1962), along with solo compositions by both composers. Kubera and Cahill worked on these scores with both composers, and will also perform pieces that Tyranny dedicated to each of them, including The Drifter (1994) and Spirit (1996/2002).

“Blue” Gene Tyranny – born Robert Nathan Sheff in San Antonio, Texas – performed a diverse repertoire throughout his career, from the piano music of John Cage and Charles Ives to collaborations with Laurie Anderson and Iggy Pop. Following his involvement with the ONCE Festival of New Music in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he taught and worked as a recording studio technician at Mills College in Oakland from 1971–1982, later moving to New York.

After co-founding the ONCE Group in his native Ann Arbor, Robert Ashley directed the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College from 1969–1981, before also moving to New York. He was known for his experimental approach to opera, a fruitful source for his collaborations with Tyranny, notably in Perfect Lives.

Robert Ashley and “Blue” Gene Tyranny were both esteemed and beloved teachers in the Mills College Music Department. They were opposites in many ways, but when they met in the early 1960s working with the legendary ONCE Group, while Tyranny was still a teenager, they forged a fifty-year collaboration and lifelong friendship.

About Sarah Cahill: hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Annea Lockwood, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF). Recent performances include The Barbican Centre in London, The National Gallery of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and an NPR Tiny Desk concert. She recently premiered Viet Cuong’s piano concerto, Stargazer, with the California Symphony. Sarah’s recordings include Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan, recorded at the Cleveland Museum of Art with Evan Ziporyn, Jody Diamond, and Gamelan Si Betty, and Eighty Trips Around the Sun, a four-disc tribute to Terry Riley. Sarah’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 pm on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

About Joseph Kubera: Praised in The Wire (UK) for his “instrumental athleticism, technical precision and conceptual lucidity,” and his “capacity to stretch limits and redefine horizons,” Joseph Kubera has been a leading new music pianist for the past four decades. Recently he played at De Singel in Antwerp, at the “Christian Wolff at 90” celebration in New York, and recorded piano music by Laurie Spiegel, Daniel Goode, and Lejaren Hiller. He has directed performances of Julius Eastman’s music in New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, and has worked closely with such luminaries as Morton Feldman, Julius Eastman, Robert Ashley, and La Monte Young. Composers who have written works for him include Larry Austin, Michael Byron, Anthony Coleman, Alvin Lucier, Roscoe Mitchell, and “Blue” Gene Tyranny. A longtime Cage advocate, Kubera has made definitive recordings of Music of Changes and the Concert for Piano and toured widely with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Cage’s invitation. He has worked with S.E.M. Ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, and myriad other ensembles in New York City. In addition to his work with Sarah Cahill, he has collaborated with pianists Adam Tendler and Marilyn Nonken and baritone Thomas Buckner. Kubera has been awarded grants through the NEA and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He has recorded for Wergo, New Albion, New World, Lovely Music, Tzadik, and many other labels.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Joseph Kubera perform a special two piano recital featuring the music of “Blue” Gene Tyranny (1945–2020) and Robert Ashley (1930–2014) – two esteemed and beloved teachers in the Mills College Music Department – as part of Other Minds’ PastForward series, presented in cooperation with the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College at Northeastern University

Concert details:

Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Joseph Kubera in Blue + Bob
Presented by Other Minds in cooperation with the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College at Northeastern University
What: Keyboard Music of “Blue” Gene Tyranny and Robert Ashley
When: Sunday, September 7, 2025 at 7pm
Where: Littlefield Concert Hall, Mills College Richards Rd Oakland, CA 94613
Tickets and information: eventbrite.com/e/blue-bob-keyboard-music-of-blue-gene-tyranny-and-robert-ashley-tickets-1316893938219

Sept. 12: Hauser Reimagines Billie Eilish Anthem from the Barbie Movie – Latest Single from New Album Cinema on Sony Music Masterworks

Approved PR Photo (Download)
 Hauser– Credit: Simon Emmett

Hauser Reimagines Oscar-Winning Billie Eilish Anthem
What Was I Made For? from the Barbie Movie
Listen Here | Watch Music Video Here 

Latest Single off Forthcoming Album Cinema
Out September 12 on Sony Music Masterworks
Pre-Order Now

World-class cellist HAUSER, celebrated for transcending boundaries in classical crossover, unveils his soul-stirring rendition of What Was I Made For?, the Oscar-winning hit by Billie Eilish and Finneas from the Barbie Movie – listen here. Accompanying today's release is a new music video – watch here. Reimagined as a solo cello piece, this release is paired with a visually striking music video that finds HAUSER at his most expressive, channeling the song’s vulnerability and depth through his unmistakable artistry and cinematic touch. This is the latest single from HAUSER’s forthcoming album Cinema, out September 12, 2025 via Sony Music Masterworks and available for pre-order here. This release marks a highlight in HAUSER’s cinematic-aligned discography, offering a poignant tribute to one of the most emotionally resonant pop ballads of recent years.

What Was I Made For? joins a powerful lineup of iconic themes on Cinema, including Le Vent, Le Cri,  the Mission: Impossible theme, Phantom of the Opera’s Music Of The Night, A Time For Us, and Writing’s on the Wall, the Oscar-winning song from Spectre. 

Cinema is a sweeping homage to some of the most unforgettable film melodies ever written. Featuring 25 tracks recorded with the prestigious London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Robert Ziegler, the album spans decades of cinematic history, reinventing classic themes through HAUSER’s lush, emotional interpretations. From the sweeping drama of Tara’s Theme from Gone with the Wind to the contemporary melancholy of Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For from Barbie, the selections highlight both the grandeur and intimacy of film music.

The album also features romantic themes from Somewhere in Time and Out of Africa, as well as deeply personal renditions of hidden gems by legendary European composers, including Nino Rota, Francis Lai, Luis Bacalov, and Vangelis. While HAUSER previously explored film and television music with 2CELLOS on their album Score, Cinema marks his first solo foray into this genre, offering a more introspective and curated collection that reflects his own cinematic passions.

HAUSER recently concluded his second solo North American tour, The Rebel Is Back!, with a sold-out show at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, FL. The tour spanned major cities and venues, including Radio City Music Hall and The Greek Theater, among others. Following the success of his North American tour, HAUSER will bring his cinematic performances to Europe this fall, with shows planned in major cities across the continent,check https://hauserofficial.com for the exact cities and dates. 

With Cinema, HAUSER invites listeners on a deeply personal journey through the power of film music. “Some of these pieces are hidden jewels,” he explains. “They may not be instantly recognizable to everyone, but I believe they’ll become new favorites once people hear them through the lens of the cello.”

Known for his flair, virtuosity, and global appeal, HAUSER continues to push the boundaries of classical crossover, bringing orchestral music to new audiences with every performance. Cinema is his latest statement of artistry, cinematic emotion, and cultural celebration. 

Album Artwork | (Download)

HAUSER – CINEMA
RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 12, 2025
TRACKLISTING – 

CD ALBUM

1. Writing's On The Wall (from "Spectre")

2. Concerto pour la fin d'un amour

3. A Time for Us (Love Theme from "Romeo and Juliet")

4. Mission: Impossible

5. Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi (from Amélie)

6. Lujon

7. Tara's Theme (from "Gone with the Wind")

8. Somewhere in Time

9. The Music of the Night

10. Theme from A Summer Place

11. Chi Mai

12. Mi mancherai

13. Promentory (from The Last of the Mohicans)

14. What Was I Made For? (from Barbie)

15. Conquest of Paradise

DIGITAL ALBUM

1. Writing's On The Wall (from "Spectre")

2. Concerto pour la fin d'un amour

3. A Time for Us (Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet)

4. Mission: Impossible

5. Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi (from Amélie)

6. Le vent, le cri

7. Stranger in Paradise

8. Lujon

9. Tara's Theme (from Gone with the Wind)

10. Somewhere in Time

11. The Music of the Night

12. Theme from "A Summer Place"

13. If You Are My Love

14. Chi Mai

15. Mi mancherai

16. Promentory (from The Last of the Mohicans)

17. The Ludlows (from Legends of the Fall)

18. Amore mio aiutami

19. An Affair to Remember

20. What Was I Made For? (from Barbie)

21. Marion's Theme (from Raiders of the Lost Ark)

22. We Have All The Time In The World

23. Main Title (I Had A Farm in Africa)

24. La petite fille de la mer

25. Conquest of Paradise

ABOUT HAUSER

Following an incredible 10-year run as half of 2CELLOS, global superstar HAUSER has ushered in a new era as a solo artist and visual concept creator, using his innovative musical skills and irresistible charisma to bring a new wave of cello music to fans everywhere. Making his solo debut in 2020 with the release of Classic, followed by The Player (2022), Hauser Chirstimas (2023) Classic II (2024) and now Cinema, HAUSER has amassed over 2 billion audio streams and 4 billion video views globally. Revered globally for his captivating live performance, the Croatian musician is a phenomenon that thrives on audience interaction, hitting the stage in over 40 countries across the globe including historic venues like New York City’s Radio City Music Hall and London’s Royal Albert Hall and performing alongside such wide-ranging acts as Andrea Bocelli, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Elton John, as well as adored by Céline Dion. His electric stage presence has also led to several high-profile appearances, including an opening night performance at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, performing at the Vatican for the Pope, and special features for both the NFL and UEFA. Named one of People Magazine’s 2022 Sexiest Men Alive and featured by the likes of Rolling Stone, Forbes, and The New York Times, HAUSER has graced the stage for numerous broadcast performances, most recently adding Love Island to a long resume of appearances that includes The Bachelorette, TODAY Show, Good Morning America, Ellen, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CNN en Español and more. This year, HAUSER launched “Music Unites the World” on his social media -- a passion project where he will record an iconic song from each nation around the globe to spread a message of unity through music.

Connect With Hauser:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok

# # #

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/

New Music USA Selects Lisa Bielawa and Mary Kouyoumdjian for its Amplifying Voices Program

L-R: Lisa Bielawa & Mary Kouyoumdjian, both by Desmond White. Available in high resolution here.

New Music USA Announces Two Composers Newly Selected for its Amplifying Voices Program

Lisa Bielawa: 2025-2026 Season

Mary Kouyoumdjian: 2026-2027 Season 

Information: www.newmusicusa.org/program/amplifying-voices

New York, NY – New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices program, which launched in 2020 to foster collaboration and collective action between U.S. orchestras and composers through a network of co-commissions, announces its next participating composers – Lisa Bielawa for the 2025-2026 season and Mary Kouyoumdjian for the 2026-2027 season. Fifty orchestras and 13 composers across the country have been part of the program.

Amplifying Voices facilitates the co-commissioning and performance of new orchestral works by living composers, enabling orchestras nationwide to extend their work with the composers of our time. Established through commissioning consortia involving leading orchestras across the US and internationally, the program increases the support and promotion of living composers, empowers composers by involving them directly in orchestras' artistic planning processes and guaranteeing multiple performances of their works, and makes major strides toward transforming the classical canon for future generations. The program also purposefully fosters deep collaboration by funding multiple visits to the orchestra by the composer over the course of the season, and by encouraging orchestras to include community experiences such as local school visits and education programs as part of their partnerships.

Previous participants in Amplifying Voices are a who’s who of leading composers of our time, and include Clarice Assad, Katherine Balch, Valerie Coleman, Juan Pablo Contreras, Vijay Iyer, Tania León, Jessie Montgomery, Brian Raphael Nabors, Nina Shekhar, Tyshawn Sorey, and Shelley Washington.

Lisa Bielawa: Amplifying Voices 2025-2026

Lisa Bielawa’s new work supported by Amplifying Voices is her Violin Concerto No. 2: PULSE, composed for violinist Tessa Lark. The lead orchestra for the Amplifying Voices co-commissioning consortium is the Louisville Orchestra, which will give the world premiere performances of the concerto on October 24-25, 2025, led by Music Director Teddy Abrams. Additional consortium members are the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (to be scheduled, led by Artistic Director Gil Rose), Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (November 29-30, 2025, led by Music Director Cristian Măcelaru), and Santa Fe Pro Musica (to be scheduled). PULSE is co-commissioned by The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, and additional support was provided by James Rosenfeld, Justus Schlichting, Kari and Jon Ullman, and the Loghaven Artist Residency.

Bielawa writes, “This concerto was conceived as a way of keeping my finger on the pulse of American life during a period of seismic change and self-examination. Composed over a six-month period starting just before the 2024 presidential election, it is also informed by my immersion during this time in our sentimental history as told through our traditional musics. Tessa Lark’s artistry draws from multiple musical traditions, from Old-time to jazz to the classical avant-garde. I have had the enviable opportunity to hear Tessa play in the Smoky Mountains with Appalachian traditional musicians, at the Blue Note in midtown Manhattan, and on concert stages in concertos and chamber music both new and old.”

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 to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the pandemic, Bielawa cultivated a virtual community using submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents through her work Broadcast from Home, now archived by the Library of Congress. Her next large-scale public work is Knoxville Broadcast, presented by the Big Ears Festival on October 17-18, 2025. 

Mary Kouyoumdjian: Amplifying Voices 2026-2027 

The lead orchestra for the Amplifying Voices co-commissioning consortium for Mary Kouyoumdjian’s new work is the Fresno Philharmonic led by Music Director Rei Hotoda, with co-commissioners the California Symphony led by Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra led by Music Director and Principal Conductor Matthew Kraemer, and Knoxville Symphony Orchestra led by Music Director Aram Demirjian. The Fresno Philharmonic will premiere the new work during the 2026-2027 season, with subsequent performances by the co-commissioners to follow in 2027-2028.

For the Fresno Philharmonic, the commission project with Kouyoumdjian will be part of a multi-season series of commissions called Cultural Crossroads which focus on the many diverse ethnic communities which make up California’s Central Valley. Kouyoumdjian says, "Much more will be solidified after my initial research visit to Fresno when I will have the opportunity to engage directly with the community, but our early brainstorming sessions about the piece have inspired me to work with the Armenian immigrant community of Fresno, which has historically been home to much of the Armenian diaspora. I am also drawn to the writings of Armenian-American author William Saroyan, whose work beautifully honored his local immigrant community in all of its vibrancy and humor through difficult circumstances. The work will bring these themes into a resonant and universal perspective that aims to connect with the local communities of the collaborating consortium orchestras, and will committedly strive to pull urgently needed focus on immigrant communities who are the very heart and soul of our country."

Mary Kouyoumdjian is a composer and documentarian with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first generation Armenian-American and having come from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, interest in music as documentary, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new. A strong believer in freedom of speech and the arts as an amplifier of expression, her compositional work often integrates recorded testimonies with resilient individuals and field recordings of place to invite empathy by humanizing complex experiences around social and political conflict. A finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her live music-documentary Paper Pianos, Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beth Morrison Projects/OPERA America, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and Roomful of Teeth among others. Her work has been featured internationally at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, the Barbican Centre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Millennium Park, Benaroya Hall, Prototype Festival, Cabrillo Festival, Big Ears Festival, Cal Performances, SF Jazz, Tribeca Film Festival, and PBS. Recently her opera Adoration, adapted from Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film, received its west coast premiere at LA Opera, and her debut portrait album, WITNESS with the Kronos Quartet, was released through Phenotypic Recordings. Kouyoumdjian holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in Composition at Columbia University, an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University, and a B.A. in Composition from UC San Diego. She is on composition faculty at The New School.

About New Music USA

New Music USA is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing new music in all its forms. Its mission is to nurture a vibrant and inclusive community for artists and listeners by supporting the creation, performance, and appreciation of new music throughout the United States. Through responsive grant-making; skill-building; mentorship and convenings for creators from all backgrounds; and platforms designed to connect music-makers with organizations and their audiences, New Music USA works to ensure a thriving, connected, and equitable ecosystem for the music of our time. 

The Amplifying Voices program continues New Music USA’s legacy of meaningfully connecting living composers and orchestras in the U.S. to collaborate and create new works. From 2011-2019, New Music USA ran the Music Alive Composer in Residence program with support from the Mellon Foundation. This built on the work of one of New Music USA’s founding organizations, Meet The Composer (MTC), which launched its breakthrough Composer In Residence program in 1982 and Music Alive in 1999. In its 20-year span, Music Alive, which was run in partnership with the League of American Orchestras, supported 116 composers, 81 orchestras, and 121 distinct residencies. New Music USA was awarded the Gold Baton from The League of American Orchestras, its highest honor, in 2020 for its outstanding work in the sector. www.newmusicusa.org 

Amplifying Voices is powered by the Sphinx Organization, with additional support from ASCAP, the Sorel Organization, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the Wise Music Charitable Foundation, and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trust.

Composer Christopher Stark Announces New Album Fire Ecologies out Sept 19 and Gowanus Canal Concert on Sept 27

Composer Christopher Stark and Unheard-of Ensemble Release Fire Ecologies on New Focus Recordings

Album Length Work Commissioned by Chamber Music America
An Exploration of America's Landscapes in the Face of Climate Change

Worldwide Release: September 19, 2025

Album Release Concert Coinciding with Climate Week NYC 2025

Saturday, September 27, 2025
Gowanus Dredgers Bunker, 2 | 19th St, Brooklyn, NY
Canoe Launch at 6pm | Music at 6:30pm
Tickets and More Information

“Projects like these may not reverse the course of climate change, but they do have the power to help us look deeper into places we may overlook.” – Hell Gate NYC on Fire Ecologies

Downloads and CDs available to press on request

christopher-stark.com | unheard-ofensemble.com | newfocusrecordings.com

Christopher Stark, Rome Prize-winning composer, curator, and Associate Professor of Composition at Washington University in St. Louis, announces the release of Fire Ecologies. The new recording, performed by New York based chamber group Unheard-of Ensemble – Ford Fourqurean (clarinet), Matheus Souza (violin), Iva Casian-Lakoš (cello), Daniel Anastasio (piano) – is set for release with New Focus Recordings on September 19, 2025. Originally a multimedia work containing music and visual elements, Fire Ecologies is an hour-long live experience commissioned by Chamber Music America for Unheard-of Ensemble.

The work was premiered on September 18, 2021 by Unheard-of Ensemble at the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY. Coinciding with Climate Week NYC 2025, Stark and Unheard-of Ensemble will return to the Gowanus Canal for Fire Ecologies’ album release concert on Saturday, September 27, 2025. The audience can immerse themselves in the experience on the Gowanus, listening to the program from land or on the water. Limited boat access and on-water support are provided by The Gowanus Dredgers. Attendees may also arrive in their own vessels.

In the nearly four years since its premiere, Fire Ecologies has been performed several times throughout the United States with two of its most noteworthy performances taking place at two New York City based EPA Superfund sites. These locations add to the statement of the work itself, aiming to move the conversation about climate change beyond the walls of the concert hall and into nature, striving to bring more attention to the places that need more urgent preservation efforts.

Fire Ecologies incorporates field recordings of the 2020 California wildfires and sounds from Stark’s travels around the U.S. “Nature has always been a central theme in my work because I grew up in western Montana in a very small town at the base of the Rocky Mountains and on the southern shore of a large glacial lake,” Stark writes in an article for Washington University in St. Louis. “But in recent years the inspiration I take from nature has become more complicated as climate change has begun to haunt our planet.”

Stark, who has been praised by St. Louis Public Radio for his “forward-thinking compositions,” has been recognized by orchestras, foundations, and festivals alike for his thought provoking vision as a composer. This creative openness extends beyond just the incorporation of nature and Stark’s message-focused concepts. The collaboration between Stark and Unheard-of Ensemble for both the performance and recording of Fire Ecologies in particular, came together in 2017 because Stark saw he and the group shared a mutual appreciation for acoustic instrumental performance, electronic audio production and video.

The catalyst for Fire Ecologies arose from the month of widespread traveling that Christopher Stark did during the late summer of 2020 around Montana, Oregon, and California, as well as parts of Colorado and explorations of nature from the U.S. heartland surrounding Missouri. “I packed up my car and spent a month traveling…documenting the catastrophic wildfires that were ravaging the American West that year,” writes Stark. Made up of seven “scenes,” Fire Ecologies evokes many contrasting moods through each one.

“They take their titles from pre-existing, nature-inspired music in an attempt to recontextualize these old pieces through the contemporary lens of global warming,” writes Stark. “For example, the second scene is called Jeux d’eau ( Water Games) after Maurice Ravel, and the fifth scene is called “Dypt inne i barskogen” (“Deep in the Forest”) after Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt.”

Fire Ecologies is Christopher Stark’s third full-length album following 2024’s The Language of Landscapes, another recording born from a work commissioned by Chamber Music America. Stark released his debut album, Seasonal Music & Other Works, on Bridge Records in 2019.

Christopher Stark,
Release Date: September 19, 2025 | New Focus Recordings
Recorded on: June 2-3, 2023 at Big Orange Sheep, Brooklyn

Tracklist:

[1] Scene 1 Terra Incognita
[2] Scene 2 Jeux d'eau
[3] Scene 3 Louange à l' éternité de Mère Nature
[4] Scene 4 Infernal Dance
[5] Scene 5 Dypt inne i barskogen
[6] Scene 6 Marche funebre
[7] Scene 7 Terra Incognita (reprise)

[Total Time: 52:43]

Ford Fourqurean, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet
Matheus Souza, Violin
Iva Casian-Lakoš, Cello
Daniel Anastasio, Piano/Sampler

Engineered by Chris Benham
Mixed by Christopher Stark
Album Designed by Sarah Rose Design Services

About Christopher Stark: Christopher Stark, whose music The New York Times has called, "fetching and colorful," has been awarded prizes from the American Academy in Rome, Guggenheim Foundation, Chamber Music America, Barlow Endowment, and the Fromm Foundation at Harvard. Named a "Rising Star" by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his works have been performed by ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, Mivos Quartet, and Detroit Symphony. Stark has created orchestral arrangements for producers Nineteen85 (the producer of Drake’s “Hotline Bling”) and Luis Resto (the producer of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”) and is a Creative Partner of the St. Louis Symphony where he curates their contemporary chamber music series at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Stark has held residencies at Civitella Ranieri in Umbria, Copland House in upstate New York, AiR Bergen in Norway, and the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria where he was the Aaron Copland Fellow in Music. His film score for the feature-length film Novitiate starring Melissa Leo and Margaret Qualley premiered at Sundance in 2017 and was theatrically released internationally by Sony Pictures Classics.

About Unheard-of Ensemble: Unheard-of Ensemble is a Brooklyn-based clarinet, violin, cello, and piano quartet dedicated to connecting new music to communities in New York and across the United States through the development and performance of adventurous programs using technology and interactive multimedia. Unheard-of is committed to the idea that new music belongs in every community, and implements this mission through concerts and educational workshops throughout New York as well as on tour. Unheard-of has grown since forming in 2014 into a nation-wide community across multiple artistic genres. With an approach that is open and welcoming of all voices, Unheard-of strives to be a vehicle for development and growth for voices novel and experienced, experimental and traditional, uncomfortable and accessible. Unheard-of Ensemble tours regularly, commissions large-scale multimedia projects, and runs its own summer workshop for emerging composers, the Collaborative Composition Initiative (CCI). Unheard-of’s Dialogues series brings together composers, artists, and audiences to explore the creative process behind music creation. Their on the water Cultural Ecologies series with the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, invites audiences to the Gowanus for four multimedia concerts each year utilizing Brooklyn’s own Gowanus Canal as their stage.

Unheard-of was a recipient of a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant to commission Rome Prize-winner Christopher Stark, 2023 Artistic Projects Grant for their Cultural Ecologies series, and a 2020 Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant made possible with support of the New York Community Trust.

Newport Classical Presents Three Free Community and Children’s Concerts in August, September, and October

Newport Classical Presents Three Free Community and Children’s Concerts

Free, Casual, and Welcoming to All
Presented by BankNewport

Children's Concert: Akropolis Reed Quintet
Saturday, August 23, 2025 at 4pm
Newport County YMCA | 792 Valley Road | Middletown, RI 

Community Concert: Navy Band Northeast’s Crosswinds Woodwind Quintet
Sunday, September 7, 2025 at 2:30pm
Miantonomi Memorial Park | 120 Hillside Ave. | Newport, RI

Children's Concert: Aaron Larget-Caplan's New Lullaby Project
Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 2:30pm
Emmanuel Church | 42 Dearborn St. | Newport, RI

 Information & Registration: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Newport Classical announces three free concerts as part of its 2025 Community Concerts Series presented by BankNewport taking place from August through October 2025. The GRAMMY® Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet performs on Saturday, August 23, 2025 at 4:00pm at the Newport County YMCA (792 Valley Road, Middletown). The Navy Band Northeast’s Crosswinds Woodwind Quintet takes the stage on Sunday, September 7, 2025 at 2:30pm at Miantonomi Memorial Park, and classical guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan presents his New Lullaby Project on Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 2:30pm at Emmanuel Church.

Audiences can look forward to enjoying these casual, engaging, and welcoming concerts designed especially for families right in their neighborhoods. Newport Classical's Community Concerts Series is free and open to the community; advanced registration is requested but not required for all performances.

On August 23, inspire your little one's love for classical music with the GRAMMY® Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet in a lively, free, and family-friendly concert perfect for kids and adults alike. This fun and interactive hour features upbeat selections from their last six albums, spanning a wide range of musical styles, including favorites like Death Metal Chicken and Circusmuziek, musical storytelling games, and more. Come early to explore the instrument petting zoo, grab a hot dog from Wally's Wiener Wagon, and experience an afternoon of joyful music-making at the YMCA. This concert is made possible through the generous support of Randy and Becky Johnson in honor of their granddaughter Schuyler Madison.

On September 7, join Newport Classical at Miantonomi Memorial Park for an afternoon of free live music with the Navy Band Northeast’s Crosswinds Woodwind Quintet. These five talented active-duty Navy musicians bring the rich colors of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn to life with a fun, wide-ranging program of beloved classical works, patriotic favorites, and familiar tunes that are sure to get you dancing. Bring your own blanket or chairs and settle in for a relaxed, family-friendly concert under the open sky.

On October 12, get cozy with classical guitar. Snuggle up for a magical afternoon with acclaimed guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan and his New Lullaby Project. Taking place at Emmanuel Church, this free interactive concert features original compositions commissioned from around the world, inviting young listeners to experience contemporary music through the traditional genre of the lullaby. Families will discover the classical guitar's gentle power through soothing melodies, Larget-Caplan's engaging storytelling, and unexpected musical surprises. Feel free to wear your comfiest PJs and bring your favorite stuffed animal and a blanket to enjoy the performance. 

These concerts are generously presented as part of the BankNewport Community Concerts Series with additional support from the Rhode Island Foundation Newport County Fund and a Walmart Foundation Spark Good Local Grant. 

For Newport Classical's complete concert calendar, visit www.newportclassical.org/concerts.  

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.

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.