Nov. 6: Caramoor Continues 2026-2027 Rosen House Concert Series with Pianist Aaron Diehl
Nov. 6: Caramoor Continues 2026-2027 Rosen House Concert Series with Pianist Aaron Diehl
Photo of Aaron Diehl by Maria Jarzyna. Available in hi-resolution here.
Caramoor Continues 2026-2027 Rosen House Concert Series
with Pianist Aaron Diehl
Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30pm
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts | Rosen House
149 Girdle Ridge Road | Katonah, NY
Tickets & Information
“melodic precision, harmonic erudition, and elegant restraint”
– The New York Times on Aaron Diehl
KATONAH, NY – Caramoor, a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY, continues its intimate 2026-2027 Rosen House Concert Series with a solo performance by GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Aaron Diehl – presented in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center – on Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30pm. Once the estate of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor is one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performance, cultural engagement, and exploration. Caramoor’s Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May, held in the exquisite Music Room of the historic home – a Mediterranean-style villa from 1939 filled with treasures from around the world. Audiences enjoy performances by some of today’s most in-demand artists in the same salon setting where the Rosens once entertained their many friends.
Pianist Aaron Diehl has quietly redefined the lines between jazz and classical and built a global career around his nuanced, understated approach to music-making. He has collaborated with musical giants such as Wynton Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Philip Glass. Diehl serves as the Artistic Director of the Jazz in July Festival at 92NY and frequently performs as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Cleveland Orchestra. A familiar presence at Caramoor, Diehl recorded his debut solo album, Live at Caramoor, at the venue in 2008 and most recently returned for a performance with The Knights of Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite, following his landmark recording of the work in 2023.
More about Aaron Diehl: With an expansive, orchestral, lyrical approach to the piano that channels predecessors like Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum and Jelly Roll Morton, Aaron Diehl has headlined the Monterey, Detroit, and Newport Jazz Festivals, and had residencies at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Village Vanguard, SFJAZZ, and many more. He counts among his mentors towering figures such as John Lewis, Kenny Barron, Fred Hersch, Marcus Roberts, and Eric Reed.
Diehl has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, working with conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Marin Alsop, Alan Gilbert, Teddy Abrams, and John Adams. He has performed at leading venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Hollywood Bowl, the Elbphilharmonie, and Tanglewood, and maintains ongoing collaborations with artists across the classical and jazz spectrums.
In September 2023, Diehl released his recording of Mary Lou Williams’s Zodiac Suite with The Knights, a Brooklyn-based orchestral collective led by conductor Eric Jacobsen. As the first-ever studio recording of Mary Lou Williams’s Zodiac Suite, it has been touted as "a joyous, enchanting creation… a triumph" (The Guardian) with Diehl lauded as "a contemporary champion" (The New York Times) and "a perfect choice to preside over this landmark recording" (The Wall Street Journal). The album features Diehl’s trio and guest artists saxophonist Nicole Glover, clarinetist Evan Christopher, trumpeter Brandon Lee, and soprano Mikaela Bennett. The critically-acclaimed album is Diehl’s fourth recording on Mack Avenue Records, following 2020’s The Vagabond, 2015’s Space Time Continuum, and his 2013 label debut, The Bespoke Man’s Narrative.
Diehl was born in Columbus, Ohio, where he grew up listening to his grandfather, pianist and trombonist Arthur Baskerville. His family nurtured Diehl’s undeniable musical talents from a young age and in 2002, a 16-year-old Diehl competed in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition, where he placed as a finalist. It was there that he attracted the attention of Wynton Marsalis, who invited Diehl to join his septet for a European tour. After studying at Juilliard under the direction of Kenny Barron, Eric Reed and Oxana Yablonskaya, Diehl was awarded the 2011 American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellowship. Diehl, who holds commercial single and multi-engine pilot certifications, inherited a lifelong love of flying from his father who was himself an avid pilot. Diehl has been a Steinway Artist since 2016.
About Caramoor
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY. Once the home of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor has evolved into one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performances, cultural engagement, and exploration – a sanctuary for music, art, and nature.
Each year, Caramoor presents an exciting array of concerts across genres – from classical, opera, and chamber music to jazz, American roots, global sounds, and the American songbook. Caramoor’s acclaimed Summer Season brings audiences together for unforgettable outdoor performances from June into August in five distinct settings (the Venetian Theater, Friends Field, Spanish Courtyard, Sunken Garden, and the Music Room), while the intimate Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May in the historic Rosen House, a Mediterranean-style villa listed on the National Register of Historic Places and filled with treasures from around the world. With a mission to engage audiences of all ages, Caramoor also offers a selection of concerts and programs for families and our youngest listeners. Caramoor’s concert schedule is available at caramoor.org/events/concerts.
Caramoor is a place where music, history, and nature come together to create moments of beauty and connection for all who visit. Caramoor has expanded its Beyond the Music slate of community and family programming to include tours, teas, yoga, and more, giving visitors a wide variety of ways to experience this unique setting in addition to its world-class concerts. In addition to hearing concerts, visitors to Caramoor can tour the spectacular Rosen House, explore its intriguing collections, enjoy a picnic, and experience the lush gardens and grounds – including Caramoor’s unique collection of site-specific Sound Art, permanently installed sound sculptures that draw inspiration from their environment. Caramoor also offers a formal afternoon tea service year-round in the Music Room (by reservation), the seasonal summer concessions Bravo Bar, and a selection of public programs such as yoga, art classes, and large-scale community events. Beyond the Music programs are announced on a rolling basis at caramoor.org/events/beyond-the-music.
Caramoor’s official digital guide is available on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app from Bloomberg Philanthropies, via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The guide invites visitors to explore the estate at their own pace, with a 23-stop, one-mile walking tour. The app requires no ticket, login, or subscription. Visitors can walk the entire tour without a ticket or reservation.
Ticketing Information
Concert tickets are available for purchase online at caramoor.org; by phone at 914.232.1252 Tuesdays through Fridays from 10am-4pm; and on site from the Box Office two hours before each performance.
Caramoor is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road in Katonah, NY.
How to get to Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit-us/amenities
More information about visiting Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit
At-a-Glance Calendar: 2026-27 Rosen House Concert Series Performances
Friday, October 2, 2026 at 7:30pm: Nobuntu
Friday, October 16, 2026 at 7:30pm: Bandits on the Run
Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 3:00pm: Countertenor Iestyn Davies and Harpist Oliver Wass
Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 3:00pm: Pianist Jonathan Biss
Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 3:00pm: Evnin Rising Stars
Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30pm: Pianist Aaron Diehl
Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet
Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 2:00pm and 4:00pm: Christmas with Cantus
Sunday, March 7, 2027 at 3:00pm: Schwab Vocal Rising Stars
Sunday, April 4, 2027 at 3:00pm: Viano Quartet
Friday, April 9, 2027 at 7:30pm: The Summer Camargo Quintet
Sunday, April 11, 2027 at 3:00pm: ACRONYM and Countertenor Reginald Mobley
Sunday, April 25, 2027 at 3:00pm: Pianist Inon Barnatan
Sunday, May 2, 2027 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet
Friday, May 7, 2027 at 7:30pm: Sister Sadie
Friday, May 14, 2027 at 7:30pm: Cabaret in the Music Room with Vocalist Mandy Gonzalez
For Caramoor's complete schedule, including the Rosen House Concert Series and Beyond the Music events: caramoor.org/events/calendar
Caramoor’s Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May, held in the exquisite Music Room of the Rosens’ historic home – a Mediterranean-style villa from 1939 filled with treasures from around the world.
Photo by Gabe Palacio available in high resolution here.
Oct. 30: Violinist Kristin Lee and Sandbox Percussion Give the West Coast Premiere of New Work Composed by Vivian Fung – Presented by Music@Menlo
Oct. 30: Violinist Kristin Lee and Sandbox Percussion Give the West Coast Premiere of New Work Composed by Vivian Fung – Presented by Music@Menlo
L-R Kristin Lee by Lauren Desberg, Vivian Fung by Titilayo Ayangade, Sandbox Percussion by Alex Lee
available in high resolution here.
Violinist Kristin Lee and Sandbox Percussion
Give the West Coast Premiere of New Work Composed by Vivian Fung
Presented by Music@Menlo
Friday, October 30, 2026 at 7:00pm
Spieker Center for the Arts | 50 Valparaiso Ave. | Atherton, CA
Tickets and More Information
violinistkristinlee.com | vivianfung.ca | sandboxpercussion.com | musicatmenlo.org
Violinist Kristin Lee, praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy,” and the “utterly amazing” (Guardian) GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion, give the West Coast premiere of Goddess//Insect – a new work composed for them by JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung – on Friday, October 30, 2026 at 7:00pm presented by Music@Menlo. The performance will be held in the Spieker Center for the Arts (50 Valparaiso Ave.). Sandbox Percussion and Lee pair Fung’s new work with To Sing Or Dance for violin and percussion by Joan Tower and Gabriella Smith’s percussion quartet written for Sandbox, FIVE.
Goddess//Insect is co-commissioned by a national consortium of presenters – Emerald City Music, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, Constellations Chamber Concerts, and Newport Classical.
“Goddess//Insect is derived from the term 'God-Bug Syndrome' where a 'god complex' (inflated self-importance) acts as a defense against deep-seated feelings of worthlessness,” says Vivian Fung. “I believe our world right now is facing these conflicting emotions and so this work is ultimately a work that reflects our turbulent and chaotic times.”
Kristin Lee and Vivian Fung have a fruitful history of musical collaboration. In 2009, Lee joined Fung on a tour of Bali with the gamelan that Fung was performing with. This trip informed the violin concerto that Fung would write for Lee the following year. Of that work, Fung writes in her note on the piece, “The concerto draws on the sights, sounds, and memories of Bali that have remained in my heart from the tour, as well as my getting to know Kristin [Lee], her firebrand style of playing, and, complementing that, the intense lyricism that she expresses as well.”
Kristin Lee says, “This project has been in the works for several years, and I couldn’t be more excited that it has finally come to life. My admiration for Sandbox Percussion’s vast sound world and Vivian Fung’s boundless creativity grew out of two very different musical chapters in my life, and bringing them together feels like a dream come true. Beyond my own personal excitement, this piece is a celebration of an instrumentation with enormous potential; the combination of percussion quartet and violin. Yet, this pairing remains underrepresented in the repertoire. By sharing works by Vivian and Joan, I hope this project will inspire others to expand the possibilities for this instrumentation and help bring its powerful impact to a wider audience.”
Victor Caccese of Sandbox Percussion says, “We’re thrilled to collaborate with Kristin Lee on a new work by Vivian Fung and to explore the dialogue between an instrument with a rich history like the violin and the expansive, ever-evolving sound world of a percussion quartet. Sandbox Percussion has long admired Kristin’s artistry and the singular path she has forged as a violinist, and this collaboration feels like a perfect fit. This project offers a meaningful opportunity to expand the chamber music repertoire for violin and percussion quartet. Vivian’s music is endlessly creative, drawing on long-standing musical traditions while blending them with fresh, contemporary ideas. Her work opens up a rich and expressive space for these instruments together, and we’re excited to bring a new voice into this still largely underexplored corner of the chamber music landscape.”
About the Artists:
Kristin Lee: violinistkristinlee.com
Sandbox Percussion: sandboxpercussion.com
Vivian Fung: vivianfung.ca
Oct. 20: Jupiter Quartet Opens Krannert Center Season Series with U.S. Premiere by Arlene Sierra – Plus Pre-Concert Artists' Talk on Oct. 14
Oct. 20: Jupiter Quartet Opens Krannert Center Season Series with U.S. Premiere by Arlene Sierra – Plus Pre-Concert Artists' Talk on Oct. 14
Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string
Jupiter Quartet Performs First Concert of the Season on their Series at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Featuring the U.S. Premiere of A Young Mind in Old Bees by Arlene Sierra with Bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward
Plus the Music of Shulamit Ran and Alban Berg
Discussion with Composers Ran and Sierra to Follow the Performance
Pre-concert Artists’ Talk on Berg’s Lyric Suite on October 14 at 1pm
Artists’ Talk on Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at 1pm
Free and Open to the Public
Stage 5 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL
More Information
Performance by Jupiter Quartet
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 7:30pm
University of Illinois | Foellinger Great Hall at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL
Tickets and Information
“an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” – The New Yorker
Urbana, IL – On Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 7:30pm, the Jupiter String Quartet, whose playing The Washington Post describes as “characterful, illuminating and utterly committed,” will give the first performance on its series of three concerts this season at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The concert will be preceded by an Artists’ Talk at the Krannert Center Stage 5 on Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at 1pm, where the Jupiter Quartet and Emily Laugesen, Director of Community Engagement at KCPA, will discuss and dissect Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite. The performance on October 20 will include a post-concert discussion with composers Shulamit Ran and Arlene Sierra.
The Jupiter String Quartet performs all over the country, and its members have been artists-in-residence and faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign since 2012. The quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Mélanie Clapiès and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Founded in 2001, the ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music, and exudes an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous. 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.
On October 20, the Jupiter brings its well-honed artistic chemistry to the U.S. premiere of A Young Mind in Old Bees, a vibrant new quintet for bassoon and string quartet by Arlene Sierra, featuring University of Illinois faculty artist bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward. The concert, which will be featured as part of the University of Illinois New Music Festival, will also include two works shaped by clandestine love and remembrance in the face of extreme tragedy – Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite and Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory. Following the performance, there will be a discussion and Q&A session with both Ran and Sierra, who will be in residence at UIUC for the week.
Arlene Sierra’s music is frequently informed by nature, drawing inspiration from sources including birdsong, insect calls, and more. She has been praised for her “highly flexible and distinctive style” by The Guardian and has composed for leading ensembles around the world including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, and Tokyo Philharmonic. Bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward gave the world premiere performance of her new work for bassoon and string quartet, A Young Mind in Old Bees, earlier this year at the Cardiff University School of Music, where Sierra teaches. The piece is a shimmering, rhythmic, and expressive exploration of the life of bees. The Jupiter Quartet and Roidl-Ward’s performance at Krannert Center will be the U.S. premiere.
Shulamit Ran’s third string quartet, Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory, is a tribute to the Jewish artist Felix Nussbaum and other victims of the Holocaust. The work’s name is tied to “Glitter and Doom,” the title of an exhibition of German art from 1919-1933, which was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006-07. Ran writes in her program note, “[T]his is my way of saying, ‘Do not forget,’ something that I believe can be done through music with special power and poignancy.”
Alban Berg’s unlikely muse and the inspiration of his Lyric Suite, Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, was discovered far past the time of the work’s composition, through a miniature score by Berg, which outlined a secret love narrative. Despite both being married, Berg and Fuchs-Robettin began an affair in 1925, and Berg composed the work over the following year as a musical manifestation of the excitement, trepidation, and suffering of their secret relationship, going so far as to include their initials in musical cryptograms throughout the work.
The Jupiter String Quartet’s next performances at Krannert Center will be on February 18, 2027 when they collaborate with renowned pianist Jeremy Denk, and April 20, 2027.
The Jupiter Quartet has performed 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. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program. Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two. The Jupiter has recorded extensively for the Marquis Classics label, Azica Records, and Orchid Classics.
For more information, visit www.jupiterquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The Jupiter Quartet, described by The New Yorker as having “technical finesse and rare expressive maturity,” will give the first performance on its series of three concerts this season at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on October 20. The award-winning ensemble will give the U.S. premiere of A Young Mind in Old Bees, a new quintet for bassoon and strings by Arlene Sierra, featuring faculty artist Ben Roidl-Ward. The program will also include works shaped by clandestine love and remembrance in the face of extreme tragedy – Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite and Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory. A Q&A with Ran and Sierra will follow the performance. There will also be an Artists’ Talk on October 14 with Emily Laugesen, Director of Community Engagement at KCPA, discussing Berg’s Lyric Suite, which is free and open to the public.
Concert details:
Who: Jupiter String Quartet and Emily Laugesen, Director of Community Engagement at KCPA
Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
What: Artists’ Talk on Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite
When: Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at 1pm
Where: Stage 5 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL
Tickets and information: https://krannertcenter.com/events/artists-talk-jupiter-string-quartet
Who: Jupiter String Quartet and Bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward
Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
What: The U.S. Premiere of A Young Mind in Old Bees by Arlene Sierra, Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory; and Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite
When: Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: University of Illinois, Foellinger Great Hall - Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL
Tickets and information: https://krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-ben-roidl-ward-bassoon-new-music-festival-event
Nov 7 & 8: California Symphony’s 40th Anniversary Season Continues with FROM TCHAIKOVSKY TO COPLAND – CLASSICAL CONTEMPORARIES
Nov 7 & 8: California Symphony’s 40th Anniversary Season Continues with FROM TCHAIKOVSKY TO COPLAND – CLASSICAL CONTEMPORARIES
Photo by Kristen Loken. Hi res photos available here.
California Symphony’s 40th Anniversary Season Continues November 7 & 8 with FROM TCHAIKOVSKY TO COPLAND – CLASSICAL CONTEMPORARIES
Exploring the relationships between musical contemporaries across Russia and America
Led by Donato Cabrera, Artistic & Music Director
Featuring Cory Tiffin, Clarinet Soloist
In Concert Saturday, November 7 at 7:30pm & Sunday, November 8, 2026 at 4:00pm
At Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for the Arts
Tickets & Information
WALNUT CREEK, CA – California Symphony, led by Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera and Executive Director Lisa Dell, continues its 40th anniversary season with FROM TCHAIKOVSKY TO COPLAND – CLASSICAL CONTEMPORARIES on Saturday, November 7 at 7:30pm and Sunday, November 8, 2026 at 4:00pm in the Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek). The concerts explore the relationships between musical contemporaries across Russia and America through music by Anton Arensky, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tickets include a free 30-minute pre-concert talk by award-winning instructor Scott Foglesong, one hour before each performance.
Russian composer Anton Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky from 1894 honors his teacher Tchaikovsky, creating a direct musical and historical connection. The variations are based on a theme from Tchaikovsky's song Legend, transforming it into a work of lyrical beauty and emotional depth. Tchaikovsky's own Serenade for Strings from 1880 remains one of his most enduring and personal works, described by the composer himself as “a piece from the heart.” American composer Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto from 1948 was commissioned and premiered by jazz legend Benny Goodman, and fuses a lyrical and expressive first movement with a second movement influenced by popular music from North and South America, connected by a spectacular cadenza for the soloist. California Symphony's new principal clarinet, Cory Tiffin, takes center stage in this virtuosic showcase. Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings from 1936, with its hauntingly beautiful melody, is one of the most recognizable pieces in American music, heard in concerts, films, and national moments of reflection.
The program highlights how musical contemporaries influenced one another: Arensky paid tribute to his mentor while shaping his own lyrical Russian style, while Barber and Copland explored complementary visions of American music, from Barber's expressive lyricism to Copland's folk-inspired “Americana.”
Donato Cabrera says, “Music is so often a conversation across time — between a teacher and the student who outlives him, between contemporaries who never meet yet breathe the same air. Arensky wrote his Variations as an elegy for Tchaikovsky, his mentor, turning a simple song into something of profound tenderness; half a world away, Barber and Copland were each inventing, in utterly distinct voices, what American music could sound like. Every note on this program carries the echo of someone else's. And with our new principal clarinet, Cory Tiffin, taking the solo spotlight in Copland's concerto — a work written for Benny Goodman himself — that conversation continues right into the present.”
Arensky’s Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky began as the slow movement from his String Quartet No. 2, written shortly after Tchaikovsky’s death in 1893. The movement proved to be so popular that Arensky created a version for string orchestra the following year. The theme is provided by Tchaikovsky’s song Legend, part of his set of Sixteen Children’s Songs. Over the seven variations, Arensky moves through many moods from lilting and delicate to solemn and reverent.
Tchaikovsky composed Serenade for Strings when he was in Ukraine, and included in its four movements an homage to Mozart (first movement), a Valse reminiscent of his ballet scores (second movement), a chorale-like Elegia (third movement), and a finale that draws on Russian folk songs. The premiere took place at a surprise concert for Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatoire, performed by both students and professionals, in 1880. The work has persisted since then as one of the most enduring and beloved pieces for orchestra.
Copland’s Clarinet Concerto was commissioned by Benny Goodman in 1947, and Copland wrote it while he was in Rio de Janeiro working as a lecturer and conductor. Goodman premiered the concerto on an NBC radio broadcast, performing with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner. The concerto incorporates many jazz elements. Copland wrote of the piece, “The instrumentation being clarinet with strings, harp, and piano, I did not have a large battery of percussion to achieve jazzy effects, so I used slapping basses and whacking harp sounds to simulate them. The Clarinet Concerto ends with a fairly elaborate coda in C major that finishes off with a clarinet glissando—or ‘smear’ in jazz lingo.”
Like Arensky’s Variations, Barber’s Adagio for Strings started as the slow movement of a string quartet. Barber was only 26 years old when he composed it. He arranged the Adagio for string orchestra at the request of the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini, who performed it for the first time in 1938, broadcast by the NBC Symphony Orchestra (the same orchestra that would later give the first performance of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto). The piece has since been recorded hundreds of times and has been described by NPR as “America’s semi-official music for mourning,” played after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, at the funerals of Albert Einstein and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and at many memorials for the victims of September 11. Adagio for Strings was named by NPR as one of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.
During the 2026-2027 season, California Symphony celebrates 40 years of bringing vibrant orchestral music to the Bay Area in five compelling programs over ten performances from September 2026 to May 2027, plus the return of California Symphony’s Holiday Traditions concerts in December 2026. California Symphony's signature programming approaches orchestral music as storytelling, and this season explores American connections across continents and generations; musical contemporaries from Russia and America; the grandeur of the Enlightenment era in Paris; California innovators alongside Beethoven's bold optimism; and evocative orchestral landscapes from Spain, Mexico, and Italy. World-class soloists join the orchestra in riveting concertos, including cellist Julian Schwarz in Jennifer Higdon's Cello Concerto, clarinetist Cory Tiffin in Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto, violinist Helen Kim in John Adams' Violin Concerto, and pianist Tanya Gabrielian in Manuel de Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain.
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.
During the 2026-2027 season, California Symphony will continue 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 continue and expand its community partnerships with the Amateur Music Network and the Trinity Center Walnut Creek.
FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:
WHAT: California Symphony continues its 40th anniversary season with a program that explores the relationships between musical contemporaries across Russia and America. Russian composer Anton Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky from 1894 honors his teacher Tchaikovsky, creating a direct musical and historical connection. The variations are based on a theme from Tchaikovsky's song Legend, transforming it into a work of lyrical beauty and emotional depth. Tchaikovsky's own Serenade for Strings from 1880 remains one of his most enduring and personal works, described by the composer himself as “a piece from the heart.” American composer Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto from 1948 was commissioned and premiered by jazz legend Benny Goodman, and fuses a lyrical and expressive first movement with a second movement influenced by popular music from North and South America, connected by a spectacular cadenza for the soloist. California Symphony's new principal clarinet, Cory Tiffin, takes center stage in this virtuosic showcase. Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings from 1936, with its hauntingly beautiful melody, is one of the most recognizable pieces in American music, heard in concerts, films, and national moments of reflection. The program highlights how musical contemporaries influenced one another: Arensky paid tribute to his mentor while shaping his own lyrical Russian style, while Barber and Copland explored complementary visions of American music, from Barber's expressive lyricism to Copland's folk-inspired “Americana.”
Tickets include a free 30-minute pre-concert talk by award-winning instructor Scott Foglesong, one hour before each performance.
WHEN:
Saturday, November 7, 2026 at 7:30pm
Sunday, November 8, 2026 at 4pm
WHERE:
Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts
1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek
CONCERT:
FROM TCHAIKOVSKY TO COPLAND – Classical Contemporaries
Donato Cabrera, conductor
California Symphony
PROGRAM:
Anton Arensky: Variations on Theme by Tchaikovsky (1894)
Aaron Copland: Clarinet Concerto (1948)
Cory Tiffin, clarinet
Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings (1936)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings (1880)
TICKETS: Single tickets ($50-110) and student tickets ($25 for students 25 and under with valid Student ID) on sale now. Subscribe to a 5-, 4-, or 3-Concert Series for 20% savings on tickets. For more information or to purchase, visit CaliforniaSymphony.org or call (925) 280-2490.
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 2026-27 season is sponsored by the Lesher Foundation.
Renaissance String Quartet Begins as 2026-27 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor - First Concert on November 15
Renaissance String Quartet Begins as 2026-27 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor - First Concert on November 15
Photo by Daniel Perales. Press photos available here.
Renaissance String Quartet Begins Residency at Caramoor as the 2026-2027 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence
Plus Caramoor Announces 2026 Evnin Rising Stars
“the RSQ teased out every facet of the score, from the music’s whispered utterances to its driving passionate torrents” – The Arts Fuse
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts
149 Girdle Ridge Road | Katonah, NY
Tickets & Information
Getting to Caramoor from NYC: Caramoor is an approximately one-hour ride on Metro-North from Grand Central to Katonah, NY.
KATONAH, NY – Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts welcomes the Renaissance String Quartet as the acclaimed ensemble begins its season as the 2026-2027 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence. On a rapid ascent since its founding five years ago by violinists Randall Goosby and Jeremiah Blacklow, violist Jameel Martin, and cellist Daniel Hass, the Renaissance String Quartet gives the first of three concerts during its residency on Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00pm as part of Caramoor’s Rosen House Concert Series, performing Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K. 546; Price’s String Quartet No. 2 in A minor; and Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1. The Quartet will return on Sunday, May 2, 2027 at 3:00pm for a second concert as part of the Rosen House Concert Series featuring the world premiere of Suite for String Quartet composed by the Quartet’s cellist Daniel Hass, paired with Mozart’s String Quartet No. 22 in B-flat Major, K. 589 and Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major. The group’s third concert will take place during Caramoor’s 2027 Summer Season and will include the world premiere of a new work commissioned for the ensemble by Caramoor.
The Renaissance String Quartet was built on over a decade of friendship formed at The Perlman Music Program and The Juilliard School. Driven by a desire to reimagine the capacity of the string quartet, the ensemble commands a diverse repertoire of classic, underrepresented, and new works to champion an inclusive vision for the future of classical music. As recipients of a 2024 Salon de Virtuosi career grant, the quartet has performed extensively across the globe, featuring recent international debuts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and Muziekhaven in Amsterdam alongside dynamic collaborations and educational residencies spanning from Princeton University to Kingston, Jamaica.
The Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence annually supports an exceptional emerging string quartet. The year-long residency includes three performances at Caramoor and two 10-day periods (November 9-18, 2026 and April 26-May 5, 2027) in which the Quartet works with students in local schools. Approximately one thousand students will benefit from engagements in more than 10 schools across Westchester County. The Quartet-in-Residence program extends access to the arts for high school students by providing one-to-one mentoring with professional musicians, giving students insight into pursuing a career in the arts. Caramoor also commissions a new work by a composer of the Quartet's choosing – the Renaissance String Quartet will premiere the new piece written for the group at Caramoor in summer 2027.
Caramoor also announces the 2026 participants in its Evnin Rising Stars program. Each year, the program’s Artistic Director Marcy Rosen identifies eight of the most promising musicians at the cusp of their careers, bringing them to Caramoor for a weeklong chamber music residency with distinguished artist mentors. This year’s Evnin Rising Stars are Isabelle Ai Durrenberger, violin; Stephen Kim, violin; Julian Rhee, violin; Laura Liu, viola; Emad Zolfaghari, viola; Andrew Byun, cello; Annie Jacobs-Perkins, cello; and Albert Cano Smit, piano. The Evnin Rising Stars will give two Rosen House Concert Series performances on Saturday, October 31, 2026 at 3pm (featuring music by Mozart, Janáček, and Franck) and Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 3pm (featuring music by Beethoven, Bartók, and Brahms). In addition to Rosen, this year’s mentors are violinist Soovin Kim and violist Dmitri Murrath, both alumni of the Evnin Rising Stars program.
Free tickets to performances by the Renaissance String Quartet and the Evnin Rising Stars are available for audience members ages 18 and under.
Caramoor is a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY. Once the estate of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, it is one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performance, cultural engagement, and exploration. Each year, Caramoor presents an exciting array of concerts across genres – from classical, opera, and chamber music to jazz, American roots, global sounds, and the American songbook – during its acclaimed Summer Season from June to August and its intimate Rosen House Concert Series from October through May.
Alongside its concert presentations, Caramoor maintains an ongoing commitment to mentorship for young instrumentalists through the Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence, founded in 1999, and the Evnin Rising Stars program, founded in 1992.
New this season, Caramoor is teaming up with Juilliard Extension to offer six classes that give audiences the opportunity to dive deeper into the themes presented on stage throughout the Rosen House Concert Series and Summer Season. Participants will learn from acclaimed professors and lecturers and engage in thoughtful discussion with fellow music lovers. Classes can be taken individually or as an entire series. The Thursday, October 22, 2026 class Beethoven to Bartók: The Expanding World of Chamber Music, taught by Juilliard faculty member Sam Nester, is a perfect primer for these chamber music performances. Across more than a century, chamber music transformed from an elegant form of domestic entertainment into one of the most powerful vehicles for personal expression in Western art. This lecture follows that evolution through the works of Beethoven, Brahms, and Bartók, three composers who reimagined what could be said through a small ensemble of instruments. Beginning with Beethoven's bold reworking of Classical forms, moving through the warmth and grandeur of Brahms's late Romantic voice, and culminating in the haunting introspection of Bartók's final string quartet, participants will explore how chamber music became a laboratory for innovation and artistic risk. Along the way, we will examine the changing social and cultural worlds that shaped these works and consider why the string quartet remains one of music's most enduring genres.
For Caramoor’s complete schedule, visit: caramoor.org/events/calendar
About Caramoor
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY. Once the home of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor has evolved into one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performances, cultural engagement, and exploration – a sanctuary for music, art, and nature.
Each year, Caramoor presents an exciting array of concerts across genres – from classical, opera, and chamber music to jazz, American roots, global sounds, and the American songbook. Caramoor’s acclaimed Summer Season brings audiences together for unforgettable outdoor performances from June into August in five distinct settings (the Venetian Theater, Friends Field, Spanish Courtyard, Sunken Garden, and the Music Room), while the intimate Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May in the historic Rosen House, a Mediterranean-style villa listed on the National Register of Historic Places and filled with treasures from around the world. With a mission to engage audiences of all ages, Caramoor also offers a selection of concerts and programs for families and our youngest listeners. Caramoor’s concert schedule is available at caramoor.org/events/concerts.
Caramoor is a place where music, history, and nature come together to create moments of beauty and connection for all who visit. Caramoor has expanded its Beyond the Music slate of community and family programming to include tours, teas, yoga, and more, giving visitors a wide variety of ways to experience this unique setting in addition to its world-class concerts. In addition to hearing concerts, visitors to Caramoor can tour the spectacular Rosen House, explore its intriguing collections, enjoy a picnic, and experience the lush gardens and grounds – including Caramoor’s unique collection of site-specific Sound Art, permanently installed sound sculptures that draw inspiration from their environment. Caramoor also offers a formal afternoon tea service year-round in the Music Room (by reservation), the seasonal summer concessions Bravo Bar, and a selection of public programs such as yoga, art classes, and large-scale community events. Beyond the Music programs are announced on a rolling basis at caramoor.org/events/beyond-the-music.
Caramoor’s official digital guide is available on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app from Bloomberg Philanthropies, via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The guide invites visitors to explore the estate at their own pace, with a 23-stop, one-mile walking tour. The app requires no ticket, login, or subscription. Visitors can walk the entire tour without a ticket or reservation.
At-a-Glance Calendar: 2026-27 Rosen House Concert Series Performances
Friday, October 2, 2026 at 7:30pm: Nobuntu
Friday, October 16, 2026 at 7:30pm: Bandits on the Run
Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 3:00pm: Countertenor Iestyn Davies and Harpist Oliver Wass
Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 3:00pm: Pianist Jonathan Biss
Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 3:00pm: Evnin Rising Stars
Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30pm: Pianist Aaron Diehl
Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet
Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 2:00pm and 4:00pm: Christmas with Cantus
Sunday, March 7, 2027 at 3:00pm: Schwab Vocal Rising Stars
Sunday, April 4, 2027 at 3:00pm: Viano Quartet
Friday, April 9, 2027 at 7:30pm: The Summer Camargo Quintet
Sunday, April 11, 2027 at 3:00pm: ACRONYM and Countertenor Reginald Mobley
Sunday, April 25, 2027 at 3:00pm: Pianist Inon Barnatan
Sunday, May 2, 2027 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet
Friday, May 7, 2027 at 7:30pm: Sister Sadie
Friday, May 14, 2027 at 7:30pm: Cabaret in the Music Room with Vocalist Mandy Gonzalez
For Caramoor's complete schedule, including the Rosen House Concert Series and Beyond the Music events: caramoor.org/events/calendar
Ticketing Information
Concert tickets are available for purchase online at caramoor.org; by phone at 914.232.1252 Tuesdays through Fridays from 10am-4pm; and on site from the Box Office two hours before each performance.
Caramoor is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road in Katonah, NY.
How to get to Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit-us/amenities
More information about visiting Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit
Beyond the Music: Yoga, Teas, Talks, & More
Caramoor has expanded its slate of community and family programming to include tours, teas, yoga and more, giving visitors a wide variety of ways to experience this unique setting in addition to its world-class concerts. Caramoor offers Rosen House Signature Tours on Fridays and Saturdays, inviting visitors to explore the historic Rosen House through a docent-led experience which shares the stories behind the House’s carefully assembled treasures. Caramoor will also continue its popular Afternoon Teas, offering a variety of tea sandwiches, scones with crème fraîche and preserves, delicious desserts, and a selection of fragrant teas. Tea is served in the Music Room, a unique opportunity to relax with friends and family in a breathtaking historic setting. In addition, Caramoor invites the community to unwind and restore in a serene setting with Sunset Yoga in the Sunken Garden in September and Yoga in the Music Room in January. This special yoga series is designed to nurture both body and mind. Each session offers a gentle, mindful practice led by an experienced instructor, with an emphasis on breath, alignment, and presence. Caramoor also offers family activities in all seasons including making Halloween treats and winter wreaths during Halloween Dessert Decorating Kids Cooking Class and Winter Wreath-Making for Families. Caramoor also offers Rosen House Studio Nights: Art and Aperitifs for adults on select Wednesday evenings, with themes including ceramic tile painting, stained glass mosaics, and jewelry design.
New this season, Caramoor is teaming up with The Juilliard School to offer a series of six Extension classes, no pre-requisite knowledge required, offering audiences the opportunity to dive deeper into the themes presented on stage throughout the Rosen House Concert Series. Participants will learn from some of the most acclaimed professors and lecturers and engage in thoughtful discussion with fellow music lovers. Classes can be taken individually or as an entire series. Topics include Beethoven to Bartók: The Expanding World of Chamber Music; The String Quartet Across Three Centuries; Music, Faith, and Power in the Baroque World; and more.
Please visit the Caramoor website for the full schedule of Beyond the Music programs, which are announced on a rolling basis: caramoor.org/events/beyond-the-music
About Caramoor
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY. Once the home of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor has evolved into one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performances, cultural engagement, and exploration – a sanctuary for music, art, and nature.
Each year, Caramoor presents an exciting array of concerts across genres – from classical, opera, and chamber music to jazz, American roots, global sounds, and the American songbook. Caramoor’s acclaimed Summer Season brings audiences together for unforgettable outdoor performances from June into August in five distinct settings (the Venetian Theater, Friends Field, Spanish Courtyard, Sunken Garden, and the Music Room), while the intimate Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May in the historic Rosen House, a Mediterranean-style villa listed on the National Register of Historic Places and filled with treasures from around the world. With a mission to engage audiences of all ages, Caramoor also offers a selection of concerts and programs for families and our youngest listeners.
Caramoor is a place where music, history, and nature come together to create moments of beauty and connection for all who visit. In addition to hearing concerts, visitors to Caramoor can tour the spectacular Rosen House, explore its intriguing collections, enjoy a picnic, and experience the lush gardens and grounds – including Caramoor’s unique collection of site-specific Sound Art, permanently installed sound sculptures that draw inspiration from their environment. Caramoor also offers a formal afternoon tea service year-round in the Music Room (by reservation), the summer seasonal concessions Bravo Bar, and a selection of public programs such as yoga, art classes, and large-scale community events.
Ticketing Information
Concert tickets are available for purchase online at caramoor.org; by phone at 914.232.1252 Tuesdays through Fridays from 10am-4pm; and on site from the Box Office two hours before each performance.
Caramoor is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road in Katonah, NY.
How to get to Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit-us/amenities
More information about visiting Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit
At-a-Glance Calendar: 2026-27 Rosen House Concert Series Performances
Friday, October 2, 2026 at 7:30pm: Nobuntu
Friday, October 16, 2026 at 7:30pm: Bandits on the Run
Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 3:00pm: Countertenor Iestyn Davies and Harpist Oliver Wass
Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 3:00pm: Pianist Jonathan Biss
Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 3:00pm: Evnin Rising Stars
Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30pm: Pianist Aaron Diehl
Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet
Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 2:00pm and 4:00pm: Christmas with Cantus
Sunday, March 7, 2027 at 3:00pm: Schwab Vocal Rising Stars
Sunday, April 4, 2027 at 3:00pm: Viano Quartet
Friday, April 9, 2027 at 7:30pm: The Summer Camargo Quintet
Sunday, April 11, 2027 at 3:00pm: ACRONYM and Countertenor Reginald Mobley
Sunday, April 25, 2027 at 3:00pm: Pianist Inon Barnatan
Sunday, May 2, 2027 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet
Friday, May 7, 2027 at 7:30pm: Sister Sadie
Friday, May 14, 2027 at 7:30pm: Cabaret in the Music Room with Vocalist Mandy Gonzalez
For Caramoor's complete schedule, including the Rosen House Concert Series and Beyond the Music events: caramoor.org/events/calendar
Caramoor’s Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May, held in the exquisite Music Room of the Rosens’ historic home – a Mediterranean-style villa from 1939 filled with treasures from around the world.
Photo by Gabe Palacio available in high resolution here.
Oct. 17 & 20: Telegraph Quartet Performs in Lafayette and Berkeley – Presented by Berkeley Chamber Performances
Oct. 17 & 20: Telegraph Quartet Performs in Lafayette and Berkeley – Presented by Berkeley Chamber Performances
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet
Performs in Lafayette and Berkeley on October 17 and 20
Presented by Berkeley Chamber Performances
“soulfulness, tonal beauty” – San Francisco Chronicle
“full of elegance” – The New York Times
Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 7:30pm
Lafayette Library | 3491 Mount Diablo Blvd. | Lafayette, CA
Tickets and More Information
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 7:30pm
Berkeley City Club | 2315 Durant Ave. | Berkeley, CA
Tickets and More Information
Lafayette and Berkeley, CA – Berkeley Chamber Performances presents the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) – a group The New York Times describes as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” – in two performances. On Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 7:30pm they will perform at the Lafayette Library (3491 Mount Diablo Blvd.) and on Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 7:30pm they will perform at the Berkeley City Club (2315 Durant Ave.).
The Telegraph formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire and rose quickly, winning the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Today, they perform across the United States and abroad, at venues including New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Town Hall; San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre; the Philharmonie de Paris; and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, and the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy. They are the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The Telegraph is known for its technical prowess and an appreciation for the history behind music. The celebrated group’s concerts in Lafayette and Berkeley feature three emotionally rich works which all draw inspiration from other works in the composers’ catalogs, including Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka; German composer Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?;” and Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
Shostakovich wrote Elegy and its companion piece Polka in a single night in 1931. Elegy is transcription of a haunting aria from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, while Polka is a version of a comical dance from his soccer-inspired ballet The Golden Age. These short pieces were lost for many years and not rediscovered until the 1980s when they were made available by the USSR State Copyright Agency. Mendelssohn wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in 1827 when he was just 18 years old. The passionate piece is heavily influenced by another great German composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, who had recently died. The title that Mendelssohn added, “Ist es wahr?" or “Is it true?,” quotes the first line of a song he had written just a few months earlier, "Is it true that you wait for me in the arbour by the vineyard wall?". Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 was his last chamber music work, completed in 1945. Korngold was one of the most influential composers in Hollywood, and in his third string quartet he quoted from his scores for films including Between Two Worlds (1944), The Sea Wolf (1941), and Devotion (1943).
Of the program, the Telegraph Quartet says:
“As always, we are so happy to be returning to Berkeley Chamber Performances, for a third time! This program mixes the earnest with the whimsical, juxtaposing Shostakovich's poignant Elegy and laugh-out-loud antics of the Polka as a microcosmic jumping-off-point for the program. This vein continues with Mendelssohn's youthfully earnest and masterful channelling of Beethoven's late quartet style in which Mendelssohn had immersed himself, while still retaining his characteristic scherzando nimbleness. And lastly, Korngold, the famed Hollywood composer of high adventure who imbedded themes of his popular scores into a work that contains the darkness and struggle of that war-time era, capped with the celebration of the victorious end of it!”
The Telegraph Quartet released its celebrated debut album Into The Light in 2018 and is currently recording an extensive three-album series titled 20th Century Vantage Points for Azica Records, exploring string quartets of the 20th century, including music by Ravel, Schoenberg, Britten, Bacewicz, and Weinberg. Of the first installment, Divergent Paths, The New York Times reported, “Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful.” The second installment, Edge of the Storm, was named Album of the Year by Chamber Music America in 2025. Volume three will be released in fall 2027. Committed to recording music by living composers as well, the Telegraph also releases the string quartets of Robert Sirota in summer 2026 (Azica Records) and of Kenji Bunch in spring 2027 (Phenotypic Records).
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes, served as artists-in-residence, and launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Berkley Chamber Performances
What: Music by Dimitri Shostakovich, Felix Mendelssohn, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold
When: Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Lafayette Library, 3491 Mount Diablo Blvd., Lafayette, CA 94549
Tickets and More information: https://www.berkeleychamberperform.org/telegraph-quartet
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Berkley Chamber Performances
What: Music by Dimitri Shostakovich, Felix Mendelssohn, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold
When: Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704
Tickets and More information: https://www.berkeleychamberperform.org/telegraph-quartet
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group described by The San Francisco Chronicle as being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” performs two concerts in Lafayette and Berkeley, presented by Berkeley Chamber Concerts. The emotionally rich, musically complex program features Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka, Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?” and Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s 2026-27 Season Highlights - Premiere Performances of New Symphony; New Production of Opera UR_; Residencies at Bozar and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra
Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s 2026-27 Season Highlights - Premiere Performances of New Symphony; New Production of Opera UR_; Residencies at Bozar and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra
Photo by Anna Maggy. High resolution photos available here.
Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s 2026-2027 Season Highlights
Premiere Performances of New Symphony Shadows of Solace
Co-Commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra
New Production of Opera UR_ by The Royal Ballet & Opera
Directed by Netia Jones, Associate Director of The Royal Opera
2026-2027 Composer-in-Residence with Bozar, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra
Continued Country and Local Premieres of Major Orchestral Works
METACOSMOS, CATAMORPHOSIS, ARCHORA, Before we fall
Season Includes the 50th Performances of CATAMORPHOSIS and ARCHORA
“Among the many wonders of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music — exquisitely honed timbres, an intricate play of shadow and light — perhaps the most mysterious is the way it can sound so static yet be in a state of constant (if sometimes glacial) change. . . By the time a long, deeply lyrical line unfolds about halfway through, the music is in a different world, even as you’re not quite sure how it left the old one.”
– David Weininger, The New York Times
Schedule: www.annathorvalds.com/performances
Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (The New York Times) and striking sound world has made her “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music” (NPR). Her music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyricism – it is written as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other so that the familiar becomes abstract and the abstract feels familiar.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s 2026-2027 season (July 2026 to June 2027) features performances of her music in more than 17 countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Iceland, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United States, with 22 orchestras performing her works in 13 countries. Her current schedule is available on her website and will be updated with additional performances throughout the year.
A major highlight of the season will be the premiere performances of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s new symphony, Shadows of Solace. The work is a critical addition to Thorvaldsdottir’s “ever-growing and ever more essential catalogue of orchestral pieces” (BBC Radio 3), her unique command of the orchestra on vivid display. Two of the co-commissioning orchestras, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska (world premiere, January 27-28, 2027) and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tabita Berglund (country premiere, March 11, 2027), will perform the monumental new 38-minute piece this season. The other two co-commissioners, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, will perform Shadows of Solace in future seasons.
“Shadows of Solace is a deeply personal piece but at the same time centers around shared human themes,” Anna says. “I invite the audience into this world and to make it their own.”
“Thorvaldsdottir is incapable of writing music that doesn’t immediately transfix an open-eared listener.” – The New York Times
In addition, Anna’s chamber opera UR_ will have its UK premiere in a new production directed and designed by Netia Jones, Associate Director of The Royal Opera, from 27 May to 2 June 2027 at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre. In addition to composing the opera, Anna also created the narrative, words, and phonetic textures with title and additional text by Mette Karlsvik. The one-hour opera was commissioned in 2015 by Far North in cooperation with Theater Trier in Germany, Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, and the Norwegian National Opera. These performances of UR_ follow The Royal Ballet’s performances in 2023 and 2026 of Wayne McGregor's Untitled, choreographed to Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s METACOSMOS and CATAMORPHOSIS.
Following her appointment as the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich’s Creative Chair in 2024-2025 and her role as Composer-in-Residence with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (HPO) in 2025-2026, Anna is now serving as Composer-in-Residence of Bozar, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels and the Composer-in-Residence of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra in Norway for the 2026-2027 season.
From September 2026 through June 2027, Bozar presents a wide range of Anna’s music as part of her 2026–2027 residency. The season opened on 11 September 2026 with Aeriality, performed by the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Michael Halls. On 15 November 2026, Quatuor Diotima will perform selections from Anna’s string quartet Enigma, followed on 25 November 2026 by Het Collectief's performance of Spectra for chamber ensemble. On 4 December 2026, the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Eva Ollikainen performs CATAMORPHOSIS, and on 16 January 2027 the Antwerpen Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Osmo Vänskä, brings METACOSMOS to Bozar. The residency continues on 28 May 2027 with the Belgian premiere of Anna’s cello concerto Before we fall performed by Julian Steckel with the Belgian National Orchestra, Michael Schønwandt conducting. The residency culminates on 21 June 2027 with Anna’s orchestral music-installation piece for deconstructed orchestra, METAXIS, performed by the Belgian National Orchestra under Tom De Cock at the multi-level Galerie Ravenstein. METAXIS is an immersive orchestral work which invites audiences to move freely among the musicians, who are spread throughout the space.
From August 2026 through May 2027, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra will feature three works by Anna Thorvaldsdottir as part of her residency. On 20 August 2026, the orchestra opened its season with METACOSMOS conducted by Andrew Manze at Stavanger Concert Hall. On 1 October 2026, the orchestra gave the Scandinavian premiere of Anna’s cello concerto Before we fall performed by Johannes Moser with Joshua Weilerstein conducting. For the concluding performance on 13 May 2027, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra will perform METAXIS, conducted by Ingar Bergby and assisted by Rui Marques, in the architecturally striking multi-level Stavanger Concert Hall foyer.
Anna’s large orchestral works METACOSMOS (2017), CATAMORPHOSIS (2020), ARCHORA (2022), and her cello concerto Before we fall (2025) continue to receive country and local premieres as well as repeat performances throughout the world:
Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s "volcanic" (The Times) cello concerto Before we fall was written for cellist Johannes Moser, and co-commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, BBC Proms, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, and Odense Symphony Orchestra. Of its world premiere by the San Francisco Symphony led by Dalia Stasevska in May 2025, the San Francisco Chronicle raved, “Thorvaldsdottir’s new cello concerto, Before We Fall, is a banger, sonically and intellectually. . . Moser played throughout with both thrilling splendor and fierce intimacy. . .Thorvaldsdottir’s sound world, both delicate and massive, is like no other. . . in [Dalia] Stasevska’s hands, [it] induced a trancelike sense of being outside of time.” The UK premiere at the BBC Proms by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ollikainen was similarly praised, with The Guardian reporting that “the concerto has an elemental, immersive quality, its symphonic textures seeming at times to breath as if a living organism.” Before we fall will have at least seven performances this season. In addition to the performances by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and Belgian National Orchestra, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, a co-commissioner of the piece, gives the Danish premiere conducted by Pierre Bleuse (8 October 2026); the Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg, with Valerie Fritz as soloist and conducted by André de Ridder, performs at the Konzerthaus in Freiburg, Germany (15 December 2026). The Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra, with Johannes Moser as soloist and conducted by Olari Elts, gives the piece’s Asian premiere at the National Concert Hall in Taipei (13 March 2027). The Real Filharmonía de Galicia, also with Johannes Moser and conducted by Baldur Brönnimann, performs the work twice in Spain at the Auditorio de Galicia in Santiago de Compostela (18 March 2027) and the Palacio da Ópera in A Coruña (20 March 2027).
ARCHORA will have at least ten performances this season, bringing the total number of performances of the work to over fifty since its premiere in 2022. The Oslo Philharmonic conducted by Dalia Stasevska performed the piece at Oslo Concert Hall (3 September 2026); the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Stasevska performs ARCHORA at the Berlin Philharmonie (8 November 2026); the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tabita Berglund gives three performances at Orchestra Hall in Detroit, Michigan (14-16 January 2027); the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Stasevska performs the work at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York City (31 March 2027); and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stasevska gives four performances in Sydney, Australia (21-24 April 2027). Of the world premiere of ARCHORA, The Guardian reported, “Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is about mass and density, how different planes of sounds collide and combine, and how intricately detailed textures evolve over time. Those qualities make the orchestra the obvious medium for her work, and it has largely been through her sequence of strikingly effective orchestral scores that the Iceland-born composer has become recognised as one of the most distinctive voices in European music today." ARCHORA was commissioned by the BBC Proms and co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and Klangspuren Schwaz, and was premiered in August 2022 at the BBC Proms by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Ollikainen in a concert selected as among The Guardian’s Classical Highlights of 2022.
CATAMORPHOSIS will be performed several times this season, bringing the total number of performances of the piece to over fifty since 2021. Performances this season include the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic conducted by Anna Sułkowska-Migoń at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław, Poland (30 April 2027); the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Eva Ollikainen at Bozar in Brussels, as part of Thorvaldsdottir's residency (4 December 2026); the Antwerpen Symphony Orchestra conducted by Karel Deseure at Queen Elisabeth Hall in Antwerpen (20 February 2027); and the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by André de Ridder at the Konzerthaus Berlin (10 June 2027), the third Berlin orchestra to perform the piece, the work having previously been performed by the Berlin Philharmonic (world premiere) and by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. CATAMORPHOSIS, premiered in 2021, was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Of the piece The Guardian reported, “Thorvaldsdottir’s impressive new work was detailed and powerful ... Lasting around 20 minutes, it’s a single movement of restrained power, a continuum of shifting, colliding layers of sound, which are minutely detailed in the score yet manage to seem simultaneously massive and delicate as they move from dense chromaticism to moments of almost lucid tonality ... this scrupulously prepared and wonderfully performed premiere showed that it’s a piece that stands entirely on its own feet, creating an utterly convincing musical world.”
METACOSMOS will have at least seven performances this season. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Tabita Berglund performed the piece twice at Konserthuset in Stockholm (23–24 September 2026); the Brockton Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Masko performs at Christ Congregational Church in Brockton, Massachusetts (18 October 2026); the University of Utah Philharmonia conducted by Robert Baldwin performs at Libby Gardner Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah (9 December 2026). The Antwerpen Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Osmo Vänskä, gives two performances at Queen Elisabeth Hall in Antwerpen (15 January) and at Bozar in Brussels as part of Thorvaldsdottir's residency (16 January). The Horsham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Steve Dummer performs the piece at The Capitol in Horsham, England (26 June 2027). METACOSMOS was premiered by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2018 and in Europe by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert in January 2019. The Boston Globe reported, “There is possibly no other composer working today who is so adept at channeling the massive forces of nature, and given a full orchestral sound palette to play with, [Thorvaldsdottir] goes wild. Writing lines that ride the knife edge of order and chaos and giving poetic but direct suggestions to the musicians, she immerses listeners in eerie, irresistible landscapes of sound.”
In addition, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s chamber orchestra piece Aequilibria will have three performances this season, all in Canada. Turning Point Ensemble conducted by Owen Underhill performs the piece twice at the Annex Theater in Vancouver (17-18 October 2026), and the University of Toronto's Contemporary Music Ensemble conducted by Wallace Halladay performs it at Walter Hall in Toronto (20 October 2026). Aequilibria was commissioned by BIT20 Ensemble and recorded by International Contemporary Ensemble on Sono Luminus. The Wall Street Journal writes of the piece, “A cello drone gives way to busy, distant-sounding string and wind passages; brass writing moves between ominous, sustained tone, textured buzzing and Wagnerian heft, and a mournful alto flute line hovers briefly over a bleak ensemble texture. Shortly before the piece ends, unexpected percussion bursts and delicate piano tracery push the music toward an eerie landscape – a musical equivalent of magical realism.”
Another of Anna’s chamber orchestra pieces, Hrím, was performed by Het Muziek at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam on 10 September. Hrím was premiered by CAPUT Ensemble at the National Gallery of Iceland in 2010. The piece is inspired by the notion of dispersion, represented as release and echoing in the sense that single elements in the music are released and spread through the ensemble in various ways throughout the process of the piece. The music is in one short movement. Of Hrím, the New York Times writes, “[Hrím] perfectly encapsulates her uncanny knack for conjuring the natural world. … Not through quaint, picturesque mimicry, but with potent evocations of elemental power, flux and potential.”
Anna’s chamber ensemble music will also be performed throughout the world during the 2026–2027 season. Illumine was performed by Het Nederlands Strijkersgilde at Plantagekerk in Zwolle (24 July 2026), at Paleiskerk in Den Haag (25 July 2026), and at Geertekerk in Utrecht (26 July 2026), and will be performed by Kammerakademie Potsdam conducted by Joshua Weilerstein at Nikolaisaal in Potsdam, Germany (13 March 2027). Additional chamber ensemble works performed this season include Spectra, performed by the New European Ensemble at The Dutch Church in Spitalfields as part of the Spitalfields Music Festival (2 July 2026), by musicians at Akolan Kuivuri in Ii, Finland as part of the Oulunsalo Soi Chamber Music Festival (8 August 2026), by the New European Ensemble again at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Festival (28 August 2026), and by Het Collectief at Bozar, Brussels (25 November 2026); Shades of Silence, performed at Præstø Church in Denmark as part of the Præstø Chamber Music Festival (4 July 2026); Transitions, performed by cellist Maria Isabel Edlund at Institute for X in Copenhagen (3 August 2026) and by cellist Megan Chartier with Ensemble for These Times at the Center for New Music in San Francisco (15 May 2027); Ad Genua, performed by the Norwegian Soloist Choir and members of the Arctic Philharmonic, conducted by Yuval Weinberg, at Stormen Concert Hall in Bodø, as the opening concert of the 2026 Nordland Music Festival (1 August 2026); Reflections, performed by Strings United at Lokhorstkerk in Leiden (13 November 2026) and at De Verbeelding in Zeewolde, The Netherlands (15 November 2026); Hvolf, performed by Désirée Mori and Þóra Kristín Gunnarsdóttir at Stanzerei in Baden, Switzerland (14 November 2026); Enigma, performed by Ensemble Phoenix Basel at Gare du Nord in Basel, Switzerland (12-13 December 2026); Rituals performed by the Varo String Quartet at Rosehill Cemetery’s May Chapel in Chicago, Illinois (27 October 2026); Scape, performed by pianist Kai Schumacher at Erzengel-Michael-Kirche in Köln-Rodenkirchen, Germany (7 October 2026) and by pianist Pasi Helin at Turku Music Centre Fuuga in Finland (18 April 2027); and Entropic Arrows, performed by Gageego conducted by Fredrik Burstedt at Gothenburg Concert Hall (14 March 2027).
In addition to these performances, Thorvaldsdottir’s choral works continue to be performed by choirs, professional and amateur alike, all over the world.
For Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s complete performance calendar, visit www.annathorvalds.com/performances.
All of Anna’s orchestral music and most of her other works are recorded on the Sono Luminus label, and featured on Apple Music’s Anna Thorvaldsdottir Essentials Playlist.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is frequently performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles, and arts organizations, including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Danish String Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, BBC Proms, and Carnegie Hall. Her “detailed and powerful” (The Guardian) orchestral writing has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the UK’s Ivors Academy. Anna was Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from 2018-2023, and was in 2023 also in residence at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. In 2024, she received the CHANEL Next Prize. In 2024-2025, she was the Tonhalle Orchestra’s Creative Chair, and in 2025-2026, Composer-in-Residence with Helsinki Philharmonic. In 2026-2027, she is Composer-in-Residence at Bozar, Brussels, as well as with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. She holds a PhD from the University of California in San Diego, and is currently based in South East England.
The music of Anna Thorvaldsdottir is published by Chester Music, part of Wise Music Group.
For more information about Anna Thorvaldsdottir: www.annathorvalds.com/bio
Oct. 23: Pianist Igor Levit Releases Erik Satie’s Complete Vexations – New Album on NO SILENCE RECORDS
Oct. 23: Pianist Igor Levit Releases Erik Satie’s Complete Vexations
Pianist Igor Levit Releases Erik Satie’s Complete Vexations
New Album on NO SILENCE RECORDS
Worldwide Release Date: October 23, 2026
Pre-Order Available Now
One of the most radical compositions in music history
To be issued as an exclusive limited edition featuring an NFC bracelet, complemented by a vinyl selection
On October 23, 2026 pianist Igor Levit will release one of the most extraordinary projects of his career to date: a complete recording of Erik Satie’s legendary Vexations on Levit’s label NO SILENCE RECORDS (in cooperation with Sony Classical). Presented in a unique format and limited to just 840 copies, the edition centres on an NFC bracelet designed by jewelry artist Saskia Diez, providing access to the complete recording. The release also includes a vinyl edition featuring a selection of 30 repetitions of the work, as well as a page of sheet music from Vexations, signed by Igor Levit. Pre-order is available now.
Satie’s Vexations occupies an almost mythical place in music history. Consisting of only a handful of bars, the piece is built around a brief and enigmatic sequence of notes which, according to the composer’s instructions, should be repeated 840 times. Depending on the chosen tempo, a performance can last anywhere between 13 and 20 hours. Believed to have been composed in the emotional aftermath of Satie’s short but intense relationship with the painter Suzanne Valadon, the work remained undiscovered until after the composer’s death and subsequently became a landmark of the musical avant-garde.
Through its radical simplicity, Vexations raises fundamental questions: what defines a piece of music? What role do performer and audience play? And how are our perceptions transformed by repetition and the passage of time? It is hardly surprising that the work later captivated composers such as John Cage, who organised the first public performance in 1963.
For Igor Levit, Vexations has long been part of his artistic thinking. He first performed the marathon work during the pandemic, when the exceptional circumstances of lockdown created new opportunities for experimentation. The purely audio recording now being released, however, posed an entirely different challenge.
“It truly felt like a torment for the first time,” says Levit. “The energy turned inward rather than outward. It was the most honest, most intense and also the slowest performance I have given so far.”
It is precisely here that the distinctive power of this recording lies. Free from the character of a live event and without any visual distraction, it focuses entirely on the music, on time, and on the act of listening itself. What appears to be a simple sequence of repetitions becomes an intense journey through concentration, perception and consciousness.
True to Satie’s spirit, the work resists any definitive interpretation. It tells no story, pursues no conventional dramatic goal and offers no obvious emotional point of entry. Instead, it opens a space for individual experiences and reflections. For Levit, this is exactly where the enduring fascination of the piece resides: “Conceptually, the work is revolutionary.”
Bringing together a complete recording of Satie’s groundbreaking masterpiece with an NFC bracelet specially created by Saskia Diez, Vexations becomes an unprecedented listening experience at the intersection of music, performance and object art.
Igor Levit
Erik Satie: Vexations
Exclusive LP-format edition featuring an NFC bracelet designed by Saskia Diez, a 180g vinyl record containing a selection of 30 repetitions of the work, and a sheet of music signed by Igor Levit. NO SILENCE RECORDS / Sony Classical.
Oct. 23: Pianist Lukas Sternath Plays Franz Schubert and Franz Liszt – Debut Album on NO SILENCE RECORDS
Oct. 23: Pianist Lukas Sternath Plays Franz Schubert and Franz Liszt
Lukas Sternath Plays Franz Schubert and Franz Liszt
Debut Album on NO SILENCE RECORDS
Worldwide Album Release Date: October 23, 2026
Pre-Order Available Now
The debut album by ARD Music Competition winner and BBC New Generation artist Lukas Sternath, featuring works by Franz Schubert and Franz Liszt, will be released on October 23, 2026 on NO SILENCE RECORDS, the new label founded by Igor Levit, in collaboration with Sony Classical.
“A young man walks onto the stage and seems to conjure magic from the piano.” This was how one of Germany’s leading newspapers described an early performance by the Viennese pianist Lukas Sternath.
Sternath first came to international prominence when he won the 2022 ARD International Music Competition, taking home an extraordinary seven prizes. Yet almost as remarkable as his success was his decision to decline the accompanying offer of a debut recording. At just 22, he felt the time was not yet right. Rather than rushing into the studio, he chose to wait until the project felt truly his own.
That moment has now arrived. This October, Lukas Sternath releases his debut album on NO SILENCE RECORDS, the label founded by Igor Levit in partnership with Sony Classical.
Levit, Sternath’s teacher at the University of Music, Drama & Media in Hanover, Germany as well as a close mentor and friend, gave him complete artistic freedom in shaping the programme. The first disc brings together five Schubert songs in Liszt’s celebrated piano transcriptions alongside Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy. The second is devoted entirely to Liszt, featuring Deuxième Année: Italie from Années de Pèlerinage, culminating in the vast and visionary Fantasia quasi Sonata: Après une lecture du Dante.
Sternath approached the recording with exceptional care and a clear artistic vision:
“I knew very early on that Schubert had to be part of my first album. His songs touch me more deeply than anything else he wrote. In them, I feel he is completely himself, in his sound world and musical language. Liszt’s transcriptions are extraordinary, and my aim has been to shape them so naturally that they retain the quality of the human voice.”
The importance of breathing in music is something Sternath has carried with him ever since his years with the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Even today, he sings through the songs as he practises.
“It helps me to understand their vocal flow and to bring that sense of breath and phrasing into my playing.”
The result is a deeply personal album. These songs explore states of mind, emotional landscapes and ways of seeing the world, not least that of the performer himself. Running through the programme is the recurring figure of the wanderer, a theme with which Sternath feels a profound affinity:
“The feeling of being ‘a stranger wherever I go’ is one I know well. You are always searching, always moving forward, never quite arriving. Yet when I sit at the piano, I feel at home.”
Throughout Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage, Sternath remains closely connected to the spirit of song and the expressive power of language. Drawing inspiration from Petrarch’s poetry, he seeks to translate its meaning directly into sound. Rather than treating Liszt’s virtuosity as an end in itself, he understands it as the outward expression of an inner necessity, an emotional and spiritual eruption. What emerges is an interpretation shaped by curiosity and reflection: a continual process of questioning, discovering, discarding and, ultimately, letting go.
Release date: October 23, 2026 on NO SILENCE Records / Sony Classical, available on CD and digital formats.
Caramoor Launches Free Digital Guide to the Estate's Gardens, Grounds and History on Bloomberg Connects
Caramoor Launches Free Digital Guide to the Estate's Gardens, Grounds and History on Bloomberg Connects
Caramoor Launches Free Digital Guide to the Estate's Gardens, Grounds and History on Bloomberg Connects
The Bloomberg Connects App is Available via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store
KATONAH, NY – Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts has launched its official digital guide on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app from Bloomberg Philanthropies. The guide invites visitors to explore Caramoor's 81-acre estate in Westchester County at their own pace, with a 23-stop, one-mile walking tour of the gardens, architecture, and outdoor performance venues that have defined the property since Walter and Lucie Rosen opened it to the public in 1946. Because Caramoor's grounds are free and open to the public daily, any visitor can now walk the estate with expert commentary in hand — no ticket, no guide, no admission fee. The guide is available in multiple languages and was made possible through the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The Caramoor guide is available now on Bloomberg Connects, a free digital guide to cultural organizations around the world, which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, and viewed online at guides.bloombergconnects.org. The app requires no ticket, login, or subscription. Caramoor's gardens and grounds are free and open to the public every day from 10:00am to 4:00pm, unless otherwise noted. Visitors can walk the entire tour without a ticket or reservation.
At the center of the guide is Caramoor's Gardens and Grounds, a self-guided tour of roughly 90 minutes that traces a one-mile loop across the estate. Stops include the Pegasus Gates by sculptor Malvina Hoffman, the open-air Venetian Theater designed by Frederick Kiesler, the Spanish Courtyard and Italian Pavilion by Christian Rosborg, the Sunken Garden and Tapestry Hedge laid out by landscape designer Flora MacDonald Potter, and Friends Field and Stage by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects with Avant Garden Designs. Along the way, visitors encounter the Dovecote and Marjorie Carr Adams Sense Circle, the Woodland Garden, and the bronze Caldwell doors that once hung in the Rosens' New York townhouse. The tour also introduces five permanent sound art installations sited across the grounds: Dyning in the Dovecote by Liz Phillips, t(ch)ime by Taylor Deupree, Wild Energy by Annea Lockwood and Bob Bielecki, in“C” by Trimpin, and Stone Song by Ranjit Bhatnagar.
The guide's second tour, Five Essays on Caramoor, a Sound Walk, is a five-stop, hour-long audio and visual work by artist Lisa Renée Coons. Created for the estate, the piece moves across the grounds through a sequence of essays that draw on Caramoor's history, its landscape, and the archival record, pairing Coons's compositions with collaged visual scores installed on site.
Throughout the guide, eighteen audio clips bring Caramoor's history and its people into the visitor's ear. Among them is an excerpt from a 1962 broadcast of the television program Camera Three, in which Lucie Rosen welcomes host James Macandrew to Caramoor and describes how music became central to the family's life. Anne Bigelow Stern, the Rosens' daughter, recalls the Italian-American gardeners who tended the estate's grounds. Caramoor trustee David Pogue explains what makes the Italian Pavilion noteworthy; Floy Kaminski, chair of the Rosen House Committee, discusses the Caldwell doors; and artists Liz Phillips and Taylor Deupree describe the thinking behind their installations. Lisa Renée Coons introduces the sound walk in her own voice.
A Welcome to Caramoor section orients first-time visitors with a message from President and CEO Gillian Fox, a short history of the institution, and a profile of Walter and Lucie Rosen — the art collectors and music patrons whose Mediterranean-style country house, built between 1929 and 1939 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, anchors the estate and remains a stop on the walking tour.
The guide also includes a detailed Accessibility at Caramoor section covering parking, complimentary wheelchairs, restrooms, service animals, and pathway surfaces across the grounds, along with a mapped location for Caramoor's wellness and sensory-friendly space — a quiet room with rocking chairs, children's books, and a changing table where guests can rest, take a break from live music, or nurse in privacy. Caramoor's accessibility work has been supported by Floy and Amos Kaminski and Nicole and Gerald Mayer.
Every audio clip in the guide is accompanied by a full text transcript. Content can be used on site while walking the grounds or explored remotely from anywhere.
About Caramoor
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY. Once the home of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor has evolved into one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performances, cultural engagement, and exploration – a sanctuary for music, art, and nature.
Each year, Caramoor presents an exciting array of concerts across genres – from classical, opera, and chamber music to jazz, American roots, global sounds, and the American songbook. Caramoor’s acclaimed Summer Season brings audiences together for unforgettable outdoor performances from June into August in five distinct settings (the Venetian Theater, Friends Field, Spanish Courtyard, Sunken Garden, and the Music Room), while the intimate Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May in the historic Rosen House, a Mediterranean-style villa listed on the National Register of Historic Places and filled with treasures from around the world. With a mission to engage audiences of all ages, Caramoor also offers a selection of concerts and programs for families and our youngest listeners. Caramoor’s concert schedule is available at caramoor.org/events/concerts.
Caramoor is a place where music, history, and nature come together to create moments of beauty and connection for all who visit. Caramoor has expanded its Beyond the Music slate of community and family programming to include tours, teas, yoga, and more, giving visitors a wide variety of ways to experience this unique setting in addition to its world-class concerts. In addition to hearing concerts, visitors to Caramoor can tour the spectacular Rosen House, explore its intriguing collections, enjoy a picnic, and experience the lush gardens and grounds – including Caramoor’s unique collection of site-specific Sound Art, permanently installed sound sculptures that draw inspiration from their environment. Caramoor also offers a formal afternoon tea service year-round in the Music Room (by reservation), the seasonal summer concessions Bravo Bar, and a selection of public programs such as yoga, art classes, and large-scale community events. Beyond the Music programs are announced on a rolling basis at caramoor.org/events/beyond-the-music.
Caramoor’s official digital guide is available on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app from Bloomberg Philanthropies, via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The guide invites visitors to explore the estate at their own pace, with a 23-stop, one-mile walking tour. The app requires no ticket, login, or subscription. Visitors can walk the entire tour without a ticket or reservation.
For Caramoor’s complete concert and events schedule, visit: caramoor.org/events/calendar
Caramoor is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road in Katonah, NY. How to get to Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit-us/amenities
More information about visiting Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit
Out Today: Sono Luminus Releases Her Only Light - Songs of Connie Converse - Vocalist Emmy Bean & Composer/Arranger Ronnie Kuller
Out Today: Sono Luminus Releases Her Only Light - Songs of Connie Converse - Vocalist Emmy Bean & Composer/Arranger Ronnie Kuller
Her Only Light: Songs of Connie Converse
Vocalist Emmy Bean | Composer/Arranger Ronnie Kuller
Out Today: October 2, 2026
Sono Luminus
Live in Concert in Ann Arbor, MI: November 12, 2026
Tickets & Information
13 brand new arrangements of the music of Connie Converse, a pioneering singer-songwriter whose work as a composer has been largely overlooked until now. The full scope of her genius is revealed in this album of chamber music arrangements that draws together the golden threads of Converse's legacy into a tapestry of wonder, sorrow, and whimsy.
www.heronlylight.com | www.sonoluminus.com
CDs or press downloads available upon request.
Chicago, IL — The generative, ten-year collaboration between vocalist Emmy Bean and composer/arranger Ronnie Kuller is making its recording debut with Her Only Light, a new album released worldwide today on Sono Luminus. Her Only Light features the folk songs and art songs of the enigmatic artist Elizabeth Eaton “Connie” Converse (b. 1924), whose music was largely unperformed and unrecorded in her lifetime, the pages lying dormant in the storied filing cabinet she left behind as an archive upon her mysterious disappearance in 1974.
Her Only Light realizes Converse’s harmonically adventurous, formally fluid works in newly orchestrated brilliance by Kuller, delivered empathetically by Bean with contributions by Sarah Plum, violin; Vannia Phillips, viola; Melissa Bach, cello; Lauren Hayes, harp; Emily Rach Beisel and Katherine Jimoh, clarinets.
Connie Converse was born in Laconia, New Hampshire in 1924. She was, according to her brother, a polymath genius, but dropped out of college to move to New York City. There she took up music, and — her biographer Howard Fishman writes — became “a master of the acoustic guitar,” writing tunes and lyrics that upend “the traditional format and subject of the song form.” Her efforts gained her the appreciation of musical connoisseurs, and in 1954 landed her an appearance on Walter Cronkite’s CBS morning show. In 1961, she moved to join her brother in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There she continued to compose music, play casually with friends and family, work as an editor, and engage in political activism until her disappearance in 1974, when — at the age of 50 — she wrote goodbye notes to friends and family and vanished, never to be heard from again.
While the fanbase for Converse’s folk-oriented oeuvre continues to expand exponentially, in part due to the recent re-release of her kitchen table recordings on Third Man Records (How Sad, How Lovely), her art songs have been heard with less frequency. Referred to by Converse as her “guitar songs” (folk song) and her “piano songs” (art song), Kuller and Bean discovered that these approaches had far more in common than their genre monikers might suggest. Bean writes:
“The guitar songs are no less solid, no less fully realized than the ones she wrote on piano. They completely stand on their own, and they welcome any singer with the imagination and humility to hear them and be with them. The reward of singing them is to be inside Connie's mind for a moment, to feel such great joy and such deep empathy, and to be able to smile at things that are so, so sad.”
Regarding the experience of inhabiting Converse’s deeply personal, often devastating but always witty writing, Bean goes on to explain:
“I was surprised to find how Connie's songs invite another singer into them. Some songs belong so intimately to their writer's voice—especially folk singers or singer-songwriters—that it feels wrong to sing them or hear them sung by others. It wasn't until we got into the studio that Ronnie and I figured out that I could be the same singer throughout; there was no need to over-stylize the art songs or under-sing the folk songs. Together we were able to find an approach that honored the depth of her writing in both contexts, and that kind of broke the spell of genre over the whole thing.”
“When How Sad, How Lovely was first released, I was captivated by the beauty and immediacy of Connie's songs to such a degree that they became part of me," says Kuller. “As I continued learning and singing them, I found that they rewarded close study: graceful chromaticism and time-stretching, unexpected harmonic shifts, every element carefully considered and in service of the deceptively simple whole. Connie's Piano Songs initially presented themselves as a radical departure, but as I listened more closely, I could hear how the compositional language of her guitar songs had developed into something even more adventurous, and I was excited to find the throughlines and connect the dots. During the dormancy of the pandemic, yearning for closeness and meaning and music, Emmy and I conjured up Her Only Light to save us from our solitude, a project in which we would use a carefully chosen palette of lush orchestral color to imagine for Connie's songs an alternate existence. It was a joy to build this pedestal that is also a bridge connecting the full breadth of Connie's incredible compositions.”
Bean says, “The song ‘Father Neptune’ became important to me during quarantine. Her lyrics paint a picture of a woman whose relationship to her man is defined by distance and longing and even queerness (all those bearded men on the ship, no need for wives ‘except on shore’...) and her own belief – he might as well be imaginary, but his presence, even if only in her imagination, keeps her alive, keeps her heart beating. She says so much in so few words here, and those words are so funny and so true; I felt a kind of kinship to her as I turned that song over and over in my head, and I wanted to sing it to everyone I knew. So I guess that was the moment I knew I wanted to take this on as a project.”
Between Kuller’s beautifully nuanced arrangements and Bean’s sumptuous delivery, the result is an entrancing one, illuminating an altogether new perspective of an artist unfairly neglected in her lifetime for both longtime devotees and new listeners alike.
Ronnie Kuller is a composer, arranger, pianist and accordionist who has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Joffrey Ballet, the Chicago Philharmonic, and Mister Tom Musick, and whose compositions have been performed at Ear Taxi Festival and recorded onto wax cylinder at Edison National Historical Park. She lives in Chicago with her wonderful husband Patrick and amazing daughter Sylvie.
Emmy Bean is a singer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist. She writes songs and performs as a soloist and with the trio 80 Foots. She has been seen in Facility Theater’s Little Match Girl Passion , Theater Oobleck’s Baudelaire in a Box, and The Carter Family Family Show with the Neo-Futurists. She has collaborated with ~Nois saxophone quartet, Stacy Rene Erenberg, Erica Mott, Naima Lowe, Opera-Matic, and Beyond This Point. She improvises with the vocal ensemble Tender.
Sarah Plum, violin
Vannia Phillips, viola
Melissa Bach, cello
Lauren Hayes, harp
Emily Rach Beisel, clarinets
Katherine Jimoh, clarinet
For more information, visit: www.heronlylight.com
[liner notes linked here]
[complete descriptions of each track linked here]
Her Only Light: Songs of Connie Converse
Sono Luminus Records | Release Date: October 2nd, 2026
1. Talkin Like You (Two Tall Mountains)
2. I Have Considered the Lillies
3. Vanity of the Vanities
4. The Rainmaker
5. Father Neptune
6. Incommunicado
7. anyone lived in a pretty how town (text by e.e. cummings)
8. Cassandra’s Entrance
9. The Age of Noon
10. Song for Old Wars
11. She Think of Heaven
12. She Devises a Lullaby
13. One by One
Engineered and mixed by Mathieu Lejeune at Lost Boy Sound, Chicago, IL
Produced by Ronnie Kuller and Emmy Bean
Assistant Producer: Emma Hospelhorn
Cover photograph by Elizabeth Converse
Artwork by Lizi Breit
Layout: Joshua Frey
Liner notes: Doyle Armbrust
Executive producer: Collin J. Rae
Out Today: ECM Releases Steve Reich Recordings on ECM - A 3-LP Box Set In Honor of Reich's 90th Birthday
Out Today: ECM Releases Steve Reich Recordings on ECM - A 3-LP Box Set In Honor of Reich's 90th Birthday
In Honor of Steve Reich's 90th Birthday, ECM Releases Steve Reich: Recordings on ECM
A 3-LP Box Set Including Reich's Albums That Were Released on the Label Between 1978-1982:
Music for 18 Musicians
Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase
Tehillim
Presented as Facsimile Editions Housed in a High-Quality Cardboard Box with a Booklet Containing Photos from the Archives, Manuscript Pages and Liner Notes by Paul Griffiths
Out Today: October 2, 2026
Available Now via the ECM US Store
Compiling “some of the minimalist composer’s finest works, including the definitive recording of his undisputed masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians" (Pitchfork), Steve Reich: Recordings on ECM comprises the three Steve Reich albums that were released on the label between 1978-1982, presented as facsimile editions housed in a high-quality cardboard box with a booklet containing photos from the archives, manuscript pages and liner notes by Paul Griffiths. Music for 18 Musicians has also been re-released digitally, divided into tracks.
Sourced from the original analogue master tapes and bearing the official AAA label, confirming their all-analogue provenance, these vinyl editions authentically re-introduced the listener to recordings that have since become staples in contemporary music. The works included on these three albums are Music for 18 Musicians, Octet, Music for a Large Ensemble, Violin Phase and Tehillim, tracing the influential early creative period of the composer and his development over the course of fifteen years. The box set arrives on the occasion of Reich’s 90th birthday in October 2026.
“About the famed ECM Recordings, much has already been written. Suffice to say that they confirm that Reich could convey the pulse and spirit of American urban life as brilliantly as Gershwin did 30 years earlier. Even the unity that arises from out of phase quasi-chaos is revelatory. Recorded 1976–1981, the works' emphasis on percussive sounds makes for anything but soothing background listening. It's all fabulous stuff. Although listening to multiple works in one sitting could possibly induce numbness – taken one at a time, they are as exhilarating as they are essential.” – Jason Victor Serinus, Stereophile Magazine
For more information on Steve Reich, please visit stevereich.com.
OUT TODAY: Ariel Quartet Completes Monumental Beethoven String Quartet Cycle on Orchid Classics – Feature Interview in The Strad
OUT TODAY: Ariel Quartet Completes Monumental Beethoven String Quartet Cycle on Orchid Classics – Feature Interview in The Strad
Ariel Quartet Completes Monumental Beethoven String Quartet Cycle
Three Volumes Over Two Years
Third Volume Out Today on Orchid Classics
Special Box Set in 2027 will Honor Beethoven’s
Legacy 200 Years After His Passing
Interview with The Strad - Read Here
Featuring String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 - Allegro
“The immediacy and commitment I noted in their playing in the first volume is even more evident here, with superb sound, dazzling fast passages and outstanding nuance, dynamics and phrasing.” – David Olds, The WholeNote on Vol. 2
Review CDs and downloads available upon request.
Ariel Quartet: www.arielquartet.com/the-cycle
Upcoming Performances: www.arielquartet.com/schedule
The Ariel Quartet (Alexandra Kazovsky, violin; Gershon Gerchikov, violin; Jan Grüning, viola; and Amit Even-Tov, cello) – distinguished by its virtuosity, probing musical insight, and impassioned performances – will release the complete Beethoven String Quartets over two years on the Orchid Classics label, culminating in 2027, the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. The Quartet released the first volume of the series on April 4, 2025 and volume two on November 7, 2025. Volume three arrives today, October 2, 2026, and a special box set follows in March 2027.
Accompanying today's release, The Strad has published an feature interview with Ariel Quartet, alongside a new video for Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 - Allegro – read here.
The Ariel Quartet’s first volume of this Beethoven Cycle was met with considerable critical acclaim, with positive reviews in The New York Times, Gramophone, The Whole Note, Classical Voice of North America, and more. Richard Wigmore wrote in Gramophone magazine that the album included, “supremely skillful, deeply considered performances . . . no one could deny the physical and intellectual energy of the Ariel’s playing, or their sheer technical brilliance.” Of the second volume, Jean-Yves Duperron of The Classical Music Sentinel writes, “There's just something about the Ariel Quartet that draws life out of every note on the page.”
The third volume of the cycle, recorded across three CDs, includes Beethoven’s Late Quartets – String Quartet in E-flat major, Op.127; String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op.131; String Quartet in A minor, Op.132; String Quartet in F major, Op.135; and String Quartet in B-flat major, Op.130, including the ‘Große Fuge’ Op.133. The first single from the album, Allegro from String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op.131, will be released on October 2, 2026.
Formed when the members were just teenagers studying at the Jerusalem Academy Middle School of Music and Dance in Israel, the Ariel Quartet has a long history with the quartets of Beethoven. His String Quartet in C minor, Op.18 No.4 was the very first piece that the group tackled together as thirteen year olds, and the members credit the work for hooking them on the genre, for life.
In 2013 to mark its 15th anniversary, the Ariel Quartet performed its first complete Beethoven cycle – a landmark for the group, which has been performing Beethoven’s music since its inception. Since then, the Ariel has performed the complete cycle on six occasions throughout the United States and Europe. They view the complete quartets as part of their personal life-long journey reflected in Beethoven’s music – works that are interwoven with the evolution of the string quartet genre as well as the group’s own genesis story.
Of their history with Beethoven’s late quartets, the Ariel Quartet writes in this volume’s liner notes:
“Our journey with [Beethoven’s] late quartets began with Op.132 in 2004, and despite encountering sentiments that young musicians shouldn’t readily dive into these worlds this work quickly became one of our favorites to perform. Truthfully, this music does not ripen in us without performing it incessantly, and the notion that our deep love and respect for art should be expressed by staying away from it really makes more sense for a museum. How a given section, theme or movement relates, a tempo feels and a character comes to life will only truly be put to the test in a concert, where the moment is everything. We feel especially with this [third] Volume, that recording it is a touch like capturing a rare creature in Himalaya-like territory and displaying it in the zoo – ethically as debatable as choosing to declare that one specific version of any given phrase or character should persist. The sole reason to jump over one’s own artistic shadow and proceed nevertheless is to make a record in the spirit of how we feel these masterworks should come to life.”
More about the Ariel Quartet: The Ariel Quartet was named a recipient of the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, granted by Chamber Music America in recognition of artistic achievement and career support. Recent highlights include the Quartet’s sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, a series of performances at Lincoln Center together with pianist Inon Barnatan and the Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as the release of a Brahms and Bartók album for Avie Records. In 2020, the Ariel gave the U.S. premiere of the Quintet for Piano and Strings by Daniil Trifonov, with the composer as pianist for the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati. The Quartet serves as the Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where they direct the chamber music program and present a concert series in addition to maintaining a busy touring schedule in the United States and abroad.
The Ariel Quartet regularly collaborates with today’s eminent and rising young musicians and ensembles, including pianist Orion Weiss, cellist Paul Katz, and the American, Pacifica, and Jerusalem String Quartets. The Quartet has toured with cellist Alisa Weilerstein and performed frequently with pianists Jeremy Denk and Menahem Pressler. In addition, the Ariel served as Quartet-in-Residence for the Steans Music Institute at the Ravinia Festival, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, and the Perlman Music Program, as well as the Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at the Caramoor Festival.
Formerly the resident ensemble of the Professional String Quartet Training Program at the New England Conservatory, from which the players obtained their undergraduate and graduate degrees, the Ariel was mentored extensively by acclaimed string quartet giants Walter Levin and Paul Katz. It has won numerous international prizes in addition to the Cleveland Quartet Award: First Prize at the prestigious Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition in Graz/Austria, Grand Prize at the 2006 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Székely Prize for the performance of Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4, and Third Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. About its performances at the Banff competition, the American Record Guide described the group as “a consummate ensemble gifted with utter musicality and remarkable interpretive power” and noted, in particular, their playing of Beethoven’s monumental Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, as “the pinnacle of the competition.”
The Ariel Quartet has received significant support from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation, Dov and Rachel Gottesman, and the Legacy Heritage Fund. Most recently, they were awarded a grant from the A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Family Foundation.
Follow the Ariel Quartet:
www.instagram.com/arielquartet
www.facebook.com/ArielQuartet
ALBUM TRACK LISTING:
Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets Vol. 3
Ariel Quartet
Orchid Classics | Release Date: October 2, 2026
Disc 1: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
String Quartet in E-flat major, Op.127
1 Maestoso – Allegro [6:55]
2 Adagio ma non troppo e molto cantabile [15:54]
3 Scherzo, Vivace [9:13]
4 Allegro [7:34]
String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op.131
5 Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo [6:25]
6 Allegro molto vivace [3:07]
7 Allegro moderato [0:51]
8 Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile [13:59]
9 Presto [5:08]
10 Adagio quasi un poco andante [1:57]
11 Allegro [7:03]
Total time: [78:06]
Disc 2
String Quartet in A minor, Op.132
1 Assai sostenuto – Allegro [9:49]
2 Allegro ma non tanto [9:55]
3 Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lidischen Tonart. Molto adagio – Neue Kraft fühlend. Andante [17:33]
4 Alla marcia, assai vivace [2:23]
5 Allegro appassionato [6:46]
String Quartet in F major, Op.135
6 Allegretto [6:57]
7 Vivace [3:27]
8 Assai lento, cantate e tranquillo [7:34]
9 Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß: Grave, ma non troppo tratto – Allegro [7:00]
Total time [71:24]
Disc 3
String Quartet in B-flat major, Op.130
1 Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro [13:57]
2 Presto [2:01]
3 Poco scherzoso. Andante con moto ma non troppo [7.37]
4 Alla Danza tedesca. Allegro assai [3:40]
5 Cavatina. Adagio molto espressivo [7:06]
6 Overtura. Allegro – Meno mosso e moderato – Allegro. Fuga* [16:13]
Total time [50:35]
Ariel Quartet:
Alexandra Kazovsky, violin
Gershon Gerchikov, violin
Jan Grüning, viola
Amit Even–Tov, cello
* This movement was later published separately as Op.133 under the title Grande Fugue, tantôt libre, tantôt recherchée.
Producer: Jesse Lewis
Recording Engineer: Shauna Barravecchio, Jesse Lewis
Editing Engineer: Caroline Shaffer Robin, Shauna Barravecchio, Alexandre Robin, Thiago Wolf
Mix Engineer: Jesse Lewis
Denoise Engineer: Mark Alletag
Mastering Engineer: Christopher Moretti
Immersive Producer: Jesse Lewis
Immersive Mixing and Mastering Engineer: Christopher Moretti
© 2025 Orchid Music Limited
OUT TODAY: String Collective ensemble132 Releases Masques and Marionettes – Steinway & Sons Debut Album
OUT TODAY: String Collective ensemble132 Releases Masques and Marionettes – Steinway & Sons Debut Album
ensemble132 Releases Masques and Marionettes
Steinway & Sons Debut Album
Featuring New Chamber Arrangements of
Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Robert Schumann’s Carnaval
Worldwide Release Date: Out Today
Today, October 2, 2026, internationally acclaimed chamber music collective ensemble132 (Sahun Sam Hong, Co-Artistic Director, arranger, piano; Zachary Mowitz, Co-Artistic Director, cello; Abi Fayette, violin; Maria Ioudenitch, violin; and Luther Warren, viola) releases its new album and Steinway & Sons recording debut, Masques and Marionettes - listen here.
The Strad shares a video feature for new single, Three Romances, Op. 22: I. Andante molto by Clara Schumann – watch here.
A convergence of world-class artists from around the globe, ensemble132 unites with a shared mission to reimagine the chamber music landscape. The only group of its kind to continually create and premiere new standards in the chamber music repertoire with its artist-crafted arrangements, ensemble132 excites the imagination of audiences with its uniquely genre-defying programs and programming.
This artistic vision is on full display with Masques and Marionettes, as Sahun Sam Hong, Co-Artistic Director of ensemble132, pianist, and arranger for the album, embraces intricate and adventurous energy in new imaginings of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka for piano quintet, Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9 for piano quartet; as well as Stravinsky’s Two Poems of Konstantin Balmont and Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22, each performed by different ensemble members.
“The music featured on Masques and Marionettes is a truly collaborative creation through and through,” writes Hong in the album’s liner notes. “By design, ensemble132 is a fluid collective; every rehearsal and performance is a fresh inquiry into a composer’s intent, our own evolving sonic landscape, and the nature of musical inevitability.”
In the time leading up to the creation of this album, Hong writes that a single principle steered and shaped how he approached his work writing arrangements for the ensemble: “Great music transcends the confines of instrumentation.” He and the rest of ensemble132 would come to know the depth of what “confines” could mean during the early days of the pandemic in spring 2020, which descended not long after ensemble132’s founding in fall 2019. However, the disruption and instability brought on by the pandemic itself ended up providing a sense of clarity for the ensemble and a sense of purpose to fuel their musical collaboration, strengthening their bond as an evolving group.
“During those unpredictable early days of the pandemic,” Hong says, “our close-knit musical family, then based in Boston, used our music-making as a means of connecting with one another, channeling our collective emotions and anxieties of a world in flux.”
Much the way the world turned to creativity and imagination to find reprieve from the fixed realities of social separation, on Masques and Marionettes, ensemble132 dives into the fantastical, the visionary, the intangible, and the boundless, through the poetry of Balmont, and the music of Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Igor Stravinsky.
“Konstantin Balmont’s poetry is steeped in the sensory, the fleeting, and the ethereal,” writes Hong, who explains that Balmont’s poems were included as part of the album “for their distinctive storytelling qualities, reflecting Stravinsky’s vision of storytelling.”
Stravinsky’s Petrushka meanwhile, explores the vast plains of imagination through the story of a puppet empowered by magic and sorcery. Mirroring the iconic harmonic clash of the “Petrushka chord,” the music is filled with wonderful contrasts – its complex rhythms, beautifully simple folk tunes, enchanting textures, jarring distortions make the piece uniquely evocative.
Robert Schumann chose to explore creative possibilities while looking inward. He juxtaposed his musical ideas with figures of his real life relationships with his closest friends and colleagues. Schumann then concludes his Carnaval with another fanciful scenario, driven by an imaginary music society called des Davidsbündler (the League of David), who triumph over the Philistines – a symbol for the music critics of Schumann’s time. Clara Schumann’s Romances take a much more intensely introspective dive into the open and abstract nature of human emotions, brought forth through the unique lens of each pair of ensemble132 artists.
Throughout each of these works, ensemble132 comes together to find new ways to embody the characters, places, feelings, motives, and stories reflected in the music – a goal with the potential to ever evolve, alongside the group’s own dynamics and shifting perspectives with the passage of time. “My hope,” writes Hong, “is that these virtuosic arrangements not only expand the chamber repertoire but push both the players and the listener to rethink the relationship between the artist and their instrument.”
Ensemble132’s debut album fits seamlessly with its mission. Chamber ballets, transcriptions of symphonies and jazz standards, and orchestrations of solo works comprise just a few of ensemble132’s programming highlights. Each member of ensemble132’s dynamic roster brings their unique blend of uncompromising individuality and collaborative spirit to traditional masterworks as well as unearthed gems. The artists of ensemble132 have collaborated closely at music festivals such as Marlboro, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Verbier, and Taos, and appear regularly with ensembles such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Catalyst Quartet, Borromeo Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. They are prizewinners at major competitions such as the Paganini, Joseph Joachim, Tibor Varga, Sibelius, Primrose, Beethoven Vienna, Vendome Prize, and American Pianists Awards. In 2025, ensemble132 became a Steinway Ensemble and was awarded an Artistic Projects Award from Chamber Music America.
ensemble132
Masques and Marionnettes
Release Date: October 2, 2026 | Steinway & Sons
Tracklist:
Igor Stravinsky: Two Poems of Konstantin Balmont (arr. Sahun Hong)
[1] Forget-me-nots (Nyezabudochka-tsvyetochek) [1:27]
[2] The Dove (Golub) [2:01]
Igor Stravinsky: Petrushka for piano quintet (arr. Sahun Hong)
[3] Petrushka, Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair [5:20]
[4] Petrushka, Scene I (The Magic Trick) [2:05]
[5] Petrushka, Scene I (Russian Dance) [2:49]
[6] Petrushka, Scene II: Petrushka's Room [4:21]
[7] Petrushka, Scene III: The Moor's Room [2:44]
[8] Petrushka, Scene III (Dance of the Ballerina) [0:45]
[9] Petrushka, Scene III (Waltz) [3:02]
[10] Petrushka, Scene IV: The Fair Towards Evening [1:12]
[11] Petrushka, Scene IV (Wet-Nurses' Dance) [2:24]
[12] Petrushka, Scene IV (Peasant with Bear) [1:42]
[13] Petrushka, Scene IV (Gypsies) [0:55]
[14] Petrushka, Scene IV (Dance of the Coachmen) [2:08]
[15] Petrushka, Scene IV (Masqueraders) [2:04]
Clara Schumann: Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22
[16] Andante molto [3:08]
[17] Allegretto [3:10]
[18] Leidenschaftlich schnell [3:55]
Robert Schumann: Carnaval, Op. 9 for piano quartet (arr. Sahun Hong)
[19] Préambule [2:16]
[20] Pierrot [1:54]
[21] Arlequin [1:05]
[22] Valse noble [2:09]
[23] Eusebius [1:59]
[24] Florestan [1:02]
[25] Coquette [1:53]
[26] Réplique [0:50]
[27] Sphinxes [0:39]
[28] Papillons [0:46]
[29] A.S.C.H. - S.C.H.A. (Lettres dansantes) [0:51]
[30] Chiarina [1:27]
[31] Chopin [1:05]
[32] Estrella [0:34]
[33] Reconnaissance [1:43]
[34] Pantalon et Colombine [0:58]
[35] Valse allemande [0:56]
[36] Paganini – Tempo I ma più vivo [1:23]
[37] Aveu [1:16]
[38] Promenade [2:19]
[39] Pause [0:18]
[40] Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins [3:47]
Total Time: 1:16:46
Sahun Sam Hong, Co-Artistic Director, arranger, piano
Zachary Mowitz, Co-Artistic Director, cello
Abi Fayette, violin
Maria Ioudenitch, violin
Luther Warren, viola
Executive Producers: Eric Feidner, Jon Feidner, Vivian Chiu
Producer: Jesse Lewis
Recording Engineer: Christopher Moretti
Mixing: Christopher Moretti
Mastering: Jesse Lewis
Piano Technician: Paul Rattigan
Art Direction: Jackie Fugere
Cover Design: Timea Kolozsvary
Booklet Design, Cover to Cover Design, Anilda Carrasquillo
Project Coordinator: Renée Oakford
Recorded August 14-17, 2025 at Futura Productions, Roslindale, Massachusetts
ensemble132 is a recipient of a 2025 grant from Chamber Music America’s Artistic Projects
program, funded through the generosity of The Howard Gilman Foundation, for the Recording.
Oct 18: The Gardner Museum Presents ACRONYM in Esther in the Age of Rembrandt - A Concert in Conjunction with the Museum’s Current Exhibition
Oct 18: The Gardner Museum Presents ACRONYM in Esther in the Age of Rembrandt - A Concert in Conjunction with the Museum’s Current Exhibition
ACRONYM, photo by Jeff Weeks. Press photos available here.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Presents ACRONYM in
Esther in the Age of Rembrandt on October 18, 2026
A Concert Coinciding with the Museum’s Current Exhibition
The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt
Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 1:30pm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall | 25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/acronym-20261018
For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com
BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continues its Fall 2026 Weekend Concert Series, presenting ACRONYM in Esther in the Age of Rembrandt on Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 1:30pm. This ten-concert autumn season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel runs from September 13 through November 22, 2026 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.
Baroque band ACRONYM’s performance is presented in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt, running from August 6, 2026 through January 18, 2027 in the Hostetter Gallery. The exhibition illuminates how the ancient story of a Jewish heroine became a source of inspiration for people across faiths in the 17th-century Netherlands. ACRONYM’s program offers rare performances of three Esther cantatas from Rembrandt’s time. It includes two works by women composers of the time – Esther from 1708 by the remarkable French composer Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre and Sinfonia à5, No. 5 from circa 1625–1650 by Flemish composer Leonora Duarte, who came from a Portuguese-Jewish converso family. The concert will also include Sinfonia grave à5 and Gagliarda Massara (c. 1607) by Jewish Mantuan composer Salamone Rossi, plus Regina Hester (c. 1640-50) by Giacomo Carissimi, Balletto, genandt das Narrenspitall (c. 1667) by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, and Historia Esther from 1677 by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. ACRONYM will perform with a roster of leading vocal soloists as special guests: Amanda Forsythe and Teresa Wakim, sopranos; Kim Leeds, alto; Aaron Sheehan, tenor; and Jesse Blumberg, baritone.
Founded in 2012, ACRONYM is dedicated to giving modern premieres of the music of the 17th-century. The group has recorded ten critically acclaimed albums, many of which are the first modern recordings of composers whose works were nearly lost to time. The ensemble has been praised by The New York Times for playing with “consummate style, grace, and unity of spirit” and by the Boston Musical Intelligencer for its “unadulterated joy and funk” and “spirit of spontaneous adventure.”
George Steel’s music programming for the Museum 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 2026 At-a-Glance Concert Schedule
September 13 Rachel Barton Pine, violin
September 20: Twelfth Night Ensemble
September 27: Chamber Music Celebration
This annual concert celebrates the life and legacy of Scott Nickrenz, first Abrams Curator of Music at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
October 4: Ivalas Quartet
October 18: ACRONYM: Esther in the Age of Rembrandt
October 25: Celebrating Chrysanthemums
This performance is made possible by the Anne Hawley Fund for Programs.
November 1: Eleanor Alberga with Green Room Ensemble
November 8: Poiesis Quartet
November 15: Lysander Piano Trio
November 22: Jean Rondeau, harpsichord
This concert is made possible by the generous support of David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder.
All concerts take place on Sundays at 1:30 pm in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA).
Ticketing Information
Tickets ($25-$99) go on sale to the general public on Wednesday, August 5, 2026 at 10:00 am 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 am to 5 pm, Weekdays from 11am to 5 pm, and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $25; Seniors $22; Students $15; Free for members, children 17 and under, and all named “Isabella” • For information 617 566 1401 • Box Office 617 278 5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org
Music at the Gardner is supported by the Nora McNeely Hurley Foundation. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Scott Nickrenz 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, Joseph Mari, Sallie and Jim McGregor, Nicie and Jay Panetta, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.
Oct. 30: Movie Night Recital Presented by Telegraph Quartet – University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Quartet-in-Residence
Oct. 30: Movie Night Recital Presented by Telegraph Quartet – University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Quartet-in-Residence
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet Presents Movie Night
University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Quartet-in-Residence
Friday, October 30, 2026, at 7:30pm
Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center
1226 Murfin Ave. | Ann Arbor, MI | Free and Open to the Public
More Information | Livestream Here
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication” – The Strad
Ann Arbor, MI – On Friday, October 30, 2026, at 7:30pm, the Telegraph Quartet, quartet-in-residence with the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, will present its first university recital of the season in Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center. The concert, titled Movie Night, features a screening of the 1924 Buster Keaton silent film Sherlock Jr., with a film score by composer Stephen Prutsman performed live by the Telegraph Quartet with recent U-M doctoral graduate, pianist Takeshi Nagayasu. The program also includes two other works influenced by film or staged works – Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
The Telegraph (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire; they rose quickly, winning the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Today, they perform across the United States and abroad, at venues including New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Town Hall; San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre; the Philharmonie de Paris; and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, and the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy.
A stylistically versatile composer, Prutsman has written scores to accompany several of Buster Keaton’s silent films – many of which are decidedly comedic. For this story, which involves a dream sequence, a secret theft, a wild villain chase, and pining after a love interest, Prutsman turns to an assortment of tones, rhythms, and musical techniques in order to emphasize the emotional stakes throughout the film. Shostakovich wrote Elegy and its companion piece Polka in a single night in 1931. Elegy is the transcription of a haunting aria from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, while Polka is a version of a comical dance from his soccer-inspired ballet The Golden Age. These short pieces were lost for many years and not rediscovered until the 1980s, when they were made available by the USSR State Copyright Agency. Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 was his last chamber music work, completed in 1945. Korngold was one of the most influential composers in Hollywood, and in his third string quartet he quoted from his scores for films, including Between Two Worlds (1944), The Sea Wolf (1941), and Devotion (1943).
The Telegraph Quartet released its celebrated debut album Into the Light in 2018 and is currently recording an extensive three-album series titled 20th Century Vantage Points for Azica Records, exploring string quartets of the 20th century. The first volume, Divergent Paths (2022), features two works that (to the best of the Telegraph Quartet’s knowledge) have never been recorded on the same album before: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. In August 2025, the Telegraph released the second volume, Edge of the Storm, which examines the turbulent years of war and its aftermath from 1941-1951 through string quartets by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg. Volume three will be released in fall 2027. In addition, the Telegraph released a recording of the string quartets of Robert Sirota in summer 2026 (Azica Records) and will release a recording of Kenji Bunch string quartets in spring 2027 (Phenotypic Records).
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Telegraph has given master classes, served as artists-in-residence, and launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, the Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet Presents Movie Night
Presented by the University of Michigan
What: Music by Stephen Prutsman, Dimitri Shostakovich, and Erich Korngold
When: Friday, October 30, 2026, at 7:30pm
Where: Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center, 1226 Murfin Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
More information: (Free and Open to the Public): https://smtd.umich.edu/event/30-october-2026-3/
Livestream: https://smtd.umich.edu/live-stream-stamps/
Description: The Telegraph Quartet – the quartet-in-residence at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance – presents Movie Night, the group’s first faculty recital of the 2026-2027 season. The program includes Sherlock Jr. by Stephen Prutsman, the score for Buster Keaton’s 1924 silent film of the same name; Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka; and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34. The latter will be performed live by Telegraph and recent U-M doctoral graduate Takeshi Nagayasu on piano, alongside a screening of the film.
Oct. 11: Telegraph Quartet Performs at The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma – Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music
Oct. 11: Telegraph Quartet Performs at The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma – Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet Performs at The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma
Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music
“soulfulness, tonal beauty” – San Francisco Chronicle
“full of elegance” – The New York Times
Sunday, October 11, 2026 at 3pm
The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma | 5195 Wi Ne Ma Road | Cloverdale, OR
More information
Cloverdale, OR – On Sunday, October 11, 2026 at 3pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The San Francisco Chronicle as being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” will perform at The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma (5195 Wi Ne Ma Road) presented by Neskowin Chamber Music.
The Telegraph formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire and rose quickly, winning the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Today, they perform across the United States and abroad, at venues including New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Town Hall; San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre; the Philharmonie de Paris; and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, and the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy. They are the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The Telegraph is known for its technical prowess and an appreciation for the history behind music. The celebrated group’s concert in Cloverdale features three emotionally rich works which all draw inspiration from other works in the composers’ catalogs, including Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka; German composer Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?;” and Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
Of the program, the Telegraph Quartet says,
“Very much looking forward to returning to Neskowin Chamber Music and performing in the Wi-Ne-Ma Chapel again! This program mixes the earnest with the whimsical, juxtaposing Shostakovich's poignant Elegy and laugh-out-loud antics of the Polka as a microcosmic jumping-off-point for the program. This vein continues with Mendelssohn's youthfully earnest and masterful channelling of Beethoven's late quartet style in which Mendelssohn had immersed himself, while still retaining his characteristic scherzando nimbleness. And lastly, Korngold, the famed Hollywood composer of high adventure who imbedded themes of his popular scores into a work that contains the darkness and struggle of that war-time era, capped with the celebration of the victorious end of it!”
Shostakovich wrote Elegy and its companion piece Polka in a single night in 1931. Elegy is transcription of a haunting aria from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, while Polka is a version of a comical dance from his soccer-inspired ballet The Golden Age. These short pieces were lost for many years and not rediscovered until the 1980s when they were made available by the USSR State Copyright Agency. Mendelssohn wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in 1827 when he was just 18 years old. The passionate piece is heavily influenced by another great German composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, who had recently died. The title that Mendelssohn added, “Ist es wahr?" or “Is it true?,” quotes the first line of a song he had written just a few months earlier, "Is it true that you wait for me in the arbour by the vineyard wall?". Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 was his last chamber music work, completed in 1945. Korngold was one of the most influential composers in Hollywood, and in his third string quartet he quoted from his scores for films including Between Two Worlds (1944), The Sea Wolf (1941), and Devotion (1943).
The Telegraph Quartet released its celebrated debut album Into The Light in 2018 and is currently recording an extensive three-album series titled 20th Century Vantage Points for Azica Records, exploring string quartets of the 20th century, including music by Ravel, Schoenberg, Britten, Bacewicz, and Weinberg. Of the first installment, Divergent Paths, The New York Times reported, “Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful.” The second installment, Edge of the Storm, was named Album of the Year by Chamber Music America in 2025. Volume three will be released in fall 2027. Committed to recording music by living composers as well, the Telegraph also releases the string quartets of Robert Sirota in summer 2026 (Azica Records) and of Kenji Bunch in spring 2027 (Phenotypic Records).
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes, served as artists-in-residence, and launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music
What: Music by Dimitri Shostakovich, Felix Mendelssohn, and Erich Korngold
When: Sunday, October 11, 2026 at 3pm
Where: The Chapel at Camp W-Ne-Ma; 5195 Wi Ne Ma Road; Cloverdale, OR 97112
Tickets and information: https://www.neskowinchambermusic.org/2026-2027-season.html
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group described by The San Francisco Chronicle as being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” performs a concert presented by Neskowin Chamber Music. The emotionally rich, musically complex program features Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka, Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?” and Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
Oct. 10: Telegraph Quartet Performs at Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx) – Presented by Chamber Music Corvallis
Oct. 10: Telegraph Quartet Performs at Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx) – Presented by Chamber Music Corvallis
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet Performs at
Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx)
Presented by Chamber Music Corvallis
“full of elegance” – The New York Times
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication”
– The Strad
Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 7pm
Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx)
470 SW 15th St. | Corvallis, OR
More information
Corvallis, OR – On Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 7pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The San Francisco Chronicle as being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” will perform at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx) (470 SW 15th St.), presented by Corvallis Chamber Music.
The Telegraph formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire and rose quickly, winning the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Today, they perform across the United States and abroad, at venues including New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Town Hall; San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre; the Philharmonie de Paris; and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, and the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy. They are the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The Telegraph is known for its technical prowess and an appreciation for the history behind music. The celebrated group’s Corvallis performance features three emotionally rich works which all draw inspiration from other works in the composers’ catalogs, including Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka; German composer Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?;” and Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
Shostakovich wrote Elegy and its companion piece Polka in a single night in 1931. Elegy is transcription of a haunting aria from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, while Polka is a version of a comical dance from his soccer-inspired ballet The Golden Age. These short pieces were lost for many years and not rediscovered until the 1980s when they were made available by the USSR State Copyright Agency. Mendelssohn wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in 1827 when he was just 18 years old. The passionate piece is heavily influenced by another great German composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, who had recently died. The title that Mendelssohn added, “Ist es wahr?" or “Is it true?,” quotes the first line of a song he had written just a few months earlier, "Is it true that you wait for me in the arbour by the vineyard wall?". Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 was his last chamber music work, completed in 1945. Korngold was one of the most influential composers in Hollywood, and in his third string quartet he quoted from his scores for films including Between Two Worlds (1944), The Sea Wolf (1941), and Devotion (1943).
Telegraph Quartet has this to say about the program:
“This program mixes the earnest with the whimsical, juxtaposing Shostakovich's poignant Elegy and laugh-out-loud antics of the Polka as a microcosmic jumping-off-point for the program. This vein continues with Mendelssohn's youthfully earnest and masterful channelling of Beethoven's late quartet style in which Mendelssohn had immersed himself, while still retaining his characteristic scherzando nimbleness. And lastly, Korngold, the famed Hollywood composer of high adventure who imbedded themes of his popular scores into a work that contains the darkness and struggle of that war-time era, capped with the celebration of the victorious end of it!”
The Telegraph Quartet released its celebrated debut album Into The Light in 2018 and is currently recording an extensive three-album series titled 20th Century Vantage Points for Azica Records, exploring string quartets of the 20th century, including music by Ravel, Schoenberg, Britten, Bacewicz, and Weinberg. Of the first installment, Divergent Paths, The New York Times reported, “Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful.” The second installment, Edge of the Storm, was named Album of the Year by Chamber Music America in 2025. Volume three will be released in fall 2027. Committed to recording music by living composers as well, the Telegraph also releases the string quartets of Robert Sirota in summer 2026 (Azica Records) and of Kenji Bunch in spring 2027 (Phenotypic Records).
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes, served as artists-in-residence, and launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Chamber Music Corvallis
What: Music by Dimitri Shostakovich, Felix Mendelssohn, and Erich Korngold
When: Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 7pm
Where: Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx), 470 SW 15th St., Corvallis, OR 97331
Tickets and information: https://prax.oregonstate.edu/events/chamber-music-corvallis-telegraph-quartet
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group described by The Strad as having “precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” performs a concert presented by Chamber Music Corvallis. The emotionally rich, musically complex program features Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka, Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?” and Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
Nov. 6: Composer and Multi-Instrumentalist Amir ElSaffar Announces Ashwaaq on Maqām Records – New Single Out Today
Nov. 6: Composer and Multi-Instrumentalist Amir ElSaffar Announces Ashwaaq – New Album on Maqām Records
Composer and Multi-Instrumentalist Amir ElSaffar
Announces New Album Ashwaaq
Out November 6, 2026 on Maqām Records
Pre-Order Available Now
AlHubbu Dini (Love is My Religion) الحُبُّ دِينِي وِإِيمَانِي
New Single Out Today - Listen Here
Ashwaaq Album Release Concert
Friday, November 6, 2026 at 5:00pm
Maqām Studio | 250 44th St. | Brooklyn, NY
More Information
CDs or press downloads available upon request.
On November 6, 2026, New York City-based Iraqi-American composer, trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and modular synthesist Amir ElSaffar will release his new album Ashwaaq on Maqām Records, part of Maqām Studio, of which ElSaffar is the founder and Artistic Director. Ashwaaq is Amir ElSaffar’s ninth studio album and his second on Maqām Records. This recording is comprised of an original seven-movement composition for string quartet, voice, and santur (Iraqi hammered-dulcimer) by ElSaffar, that pairs his music with verses of poetry by thirteenth-century poet Ibn Arabi. New single, AlHubbu Dini (Love is My Religion) الحُبُّ دِينِي وِإِيمَانِي, is out today - listen here.
Alongside ElSaffar, Ashwaaq features renowned Syrian vocalist Khaled AlHafez, a carrier of traditional singing from Aleppo, and a string quartet with whom ElSaffar has deep musical relationships: his sister, Dena El Saffar on viola, with whom he co-leads an Iraqi Maqam ensemble; violinist Megan Gould, a major player in the Arabic music scene in New York who has played with Dena for over 30 years; Eylem Basaldi, an innovative violinist and improviser rooted in Turkish music; and cellist Naseem AlAtrash, a virtuoso and composer in his own right and member of the Turtle Island String Quartet.
Amir ElSaffar works at the intersections of jazz, Western classical, electro-acoustic music, and Iraqi and Arabic Maqam. Described as “the celebrated trumpeter and composer who explores vital connections between jazz and Arabic music” (New York Times), and “The Innovator” (SPIN), ElSaffar has created a unique microtonal language that merges the Arabic maqam modal system with jazz and Western classical harmony.
Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, or simply Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), is one of the most revered Sufi philosophers and mystics, whose work embodies the ideals of love and transcendence. The epic Turjuman Al-Ashwaq (Translator of Desires) is a collection of 61 poems that explores the divine and ecstatic nature of unity amid the diversity and variety of the manifest world. On Ashwaaq, selections from Ibn Arabi’s verses are paired with voice and string quartet, using the natural and inherent sound of string instruments to interpret and reflect upon the deeper meanings of Ibn Arabi’s texts.
“My heart can take on any form: a meadow for gazelles, a cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground, Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah, the scrolls of the Qur'án.
I profess the religion of love; wherever its caravan turns along the way, that is the
belief, the faith I keep.”
The final lines of this poem are among the most widely read and quoted in Arabic poetry, about love of the divine in its constantly changing manifestations. Here, Ibn Arabi finds the unity in all religions, faiths, and philosophies from a place free of dogma. That which is infinite cannot be grasped or contained and is perceived through an open heart “capable of every form.”
The musical side of Ashwaaq is built on much more than the series of melodies and rhythms. ElSaffar is driven by a transcultural perspective which draws on the universality of composing, listening, and reacting to music, reflecting the sentiments of Ibn Arabi’s verses. In his approach to this composition, ElSaffar explores the vast possibilities of sound, melody, harmony, and rhythm through the combination of traditional Arabic singing with the string quartet, to create a work that’s less about conventional analysis or structure and more about expressing the ecstasy, spirituality, and emotion of the poetry.
In order to best achieve his artistic vision, ElSaffar embraced a musical language known as maqam, a system of modes that has been practiced for centuries in North Africa, Western Asia, and Central Asia. These modes – similar to Western scales but with microtones and greater melodic specificity – determine the feeling and spiritual quality of a piece of music.
“Rather than relying on Western harmony or counterpoint, two approaches that conflict with the maqam’s inherent logic,” says ElSaffar, “the harmonies of Ashwaaq emerge from sustained microtonal resonances inherent to the maqam, and heterophony — the simultaneous renderings of a single melodic phrase with variation.”
ElSaffar finds even more inspiration in Arab musicality for Ashwaaq, using overtones of the Arab takht – chamber ensemble – as well as rhythmic pulsations that conjure folk instruments and dance. He then brings these elements together with string techniques and aspects of contemporary music. The choice to include a string quartet of Western instruments, as opposed to traditional Arab musical instruments, was guided by ElSaffar’s desire to express the plurality and multitude of meanings in Ibn Arabi’s text, a departure from the single-melody approach characteristic of traditional Maqam music. The work proposes a new form of polyphony based on the microtonal maqam, a delicate undertaking few have attempted, making it a unique contribution in both maqam music as well as Western chamber music.
Composed in 2014 on a commission from the Royaumont Foundation in France, where ElSaffar was composer-in-residence for three years, the work premiered at the Festival d’Avignon and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and had follow-up performances throughout Europe.
Left to right: Eylem Basaldi, Naseem AlAtrash, Khaled AlHafez, Amir ElSaffar, Dena El Saffar, Megan Gould
More about Amir ElSaffar: Amir ElSaffar leads the acclaimed six-piece Two Rivers ensemble and 17-piece Rivers of Sound Orchestra, and recently founded his New Quartet featuring microtonal piano. He is also the santur player and musical director for vocalist Hamid Al-Saadi, one of the last living practitioners of the Iraqi Maqam.
ElSaffar is the founder and Artistic Director of Maqam Studio and Maqam Records, an initiative supported by the Mellon Foundation, which seeks to preserve and foster innovation within the Maqam musical tradition of the Middle East. He is also composing an Arabic-language Maqam opera, which will have its concert premiere in 2027.
ElSaffar’s compositional output includes works for jazz ensembles, string quartets, mixed chamber ensembles, and symphony orchestras. In addition, he has led numerous hybrid projects with Raga, Flamenco, Stambeli (Tunisian Gnawa) and Subsaharan African trance music. In his most recent works he has incorporated electronic elements, such as analog modular synthesizer.
He has premiered new works at the Newport Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Dream City Festival (Tunisia), Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Festival d’Avignon (France), Flamenco Biennale (Netherlands), the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, and Pierre Boulez Saal, among others.
ElSaffar’s awards and honors include a Mellon Foundation Arts and Culture grant (2023-2028), Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2013), United States Artists Fellowship (2018), a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (2020-2021), an Opera America IDEA Grant (2025-2026) and Creative Capital Award (2026), in support of hisopera. in Arabic.
Ashwaaq
Music by Amir ElSaffar
Release Date: November 6, 2026
Maqām Records
Featuring Amir ElSaffar (santur and composition); Khaled AlHafez (voice); Megan Gould, Eylem Basaldi (violin); Dena El Saffar (viola); Naseem AlAtrash (cello)
Tracklist:
1. Introduction - Nizam [1:36]
2. I - Layta Shi'ri [2:29]
3. II - Qif Bil-Manazili [6:09]
4. III - Tal'a Al-Badru [4:28]
5. VI - Qalat [3:20]
6. V - Lam’at Lana Bil-Abraqayn [4:17]
7. VI - Al Hubbu Dini (Love is My Religion) [7:32]
8. VII - Ala Ya Banat Al-Wadi [2:37]
Total Time: [32:31]
Poetry by Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 AD)
Music by Amir ElSaffar
Produced by Maqām Records
Recorded by Marc Urselli at EastSide Sound, New York, NY on November 10, 2025
Mixed & Mastered by Marc Urselli at Audio Confidential, New York, NY
Cover Art by Amina Ahmed
Design by Buyana Jargalsaikhan
Commissioned by the Royaumont Foundation in 2014
Premiered at Festival d’Avignon and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in July, 2014
Dedicated to the memory of Frederic Deval (1951-2016)
Excerpts from Ibn Arabi’s collection of mystical love poems, Turjumān al-Ashwāq (The Translator of Desires), written in Mecca in 1215. Excerpts from a translation into English by Michael Sells (Princeton University Press, 2021) are included in the linear notes.
Newport Classical Celebrates the Holiday Season with Six December Concerts over Two Festive Weekends
Newport Classical Celebrates the Holiday Season with Six December Concerts over Two Festive Weekends
Clockwise: Photos of Frisson by Lisette Rooney, Cantus by Nate Ryan, Messiah at the Mansion by Lisette Rooney. Available in high resolution here.
Newport Classical Celebrates the Holiday Season with Six December Concerts
Christmas with Cantus
Saturday, December 5, 2026 | 1pm and 3:30pm
Newport Classical Recital Hall | Newport, RI
Messiah at the Mansion
Sunday, December 6, 2026 | 1pm and 3:30pm
Rosecliff | 548 Bellevue Ave. | Newport, RI
Classical Christmas with Frisson
Saturday, December 12, 2026 | 1pm and 3:30pm
Emmanuel Church | 42 Dearborn St. | Newport, RI
Tickets On Sale October 6: www.newportclassical.org
Newport, RI – Newport Classical celebrates the holiday season with six performances across two festive weekends in December – Christmas with Cantus on Saturday, December 5, 2026 at 1pm and 3:30pm at the Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn St.); Messiah at the Mansion on Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 1pm and 3:30pm at Rosecliff (548 Bellevue Ave.); and Classical Christmas with Frisson on Saturday, December 12, 2026 at 1pm and 3:30pm at Emmanuel Church (42 Dearborn St.). Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at www.newportclassical.org.
After two sold-out performances in 2024, Cantus returns to Newport on December 5 for an afternoon of beloved Christmas carols and contemporary choral works. This premier low-voice ensemble is known worldwide for its incomparably rich and resonant blend. With music ranging from Silent Night and O Come, All Ye Faithful to fresh, new works from today’s acclaimed composers including Zanaida Robles and Eric Whitacre, Christmas with Cantus will be a warm and moving celebration of the season. Set in the intimate and acoustically exceptional Newport Classical Recital Hall, these two festive one-hour performances at 1pm and 3:30pm offer a beautiful mix of familiar traditions and new perspectives on the season.
Set in the stunning Rosecliff Mansion, Newport Classical invites you to experience Handel’s legendary oratorio Messiah on December 6, a cherished tradition during Newport’s holiday season, featuring Rhode Island’s acclaimed vocal ensemble Ensemble Altera and the Professional Choristers of The Choir School of Newport County conducted by Christopher Lowrey. A bold reimagining of a beloved masterpiece, this one-hour chamber version (to be performed at 1pm and 3:30pm) brings together some of the most moving moments of Handel's timeless oratorio, including the iconic Hallelujah Chorus – perfect for longtime Messiah lovers and first-time listeners alike. These performances are made possible through Cynthia Sinclair’s generous philanthropic support of The Choir School of Newport County.
Hailed as “the classical group that does it all,” the dynamic 11-piece chamber orchestra Frisson returns to Newport on December 12 for two holiday concerts at 1pm and 3:30pm in the stunning English Gothic Revival setting of Emmanuel Church. Featuring selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Vivaldi’s Winter, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, Carol of the Bells, and a Christmas sing-along, this festive program brings together classical favorites and seasonal traditions for a joyful afternoon of music audiences of all ages will enjoy.
Up next on October 9 as part of Newport Classical’s Chamber Series at the Newport Classical Recital Hall, the rising Trio Azura, a recent Grand Prize and Gold Medal winner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition that has been praised by Gramophone for “intelligence and imagination,” invites audiences to explore the world of the piano trio across eras from the Impressionist and Romantic works of Maurice Ravel and Felix Mendelssohn to the contemporary voice of Jennifer Higdon.
On October 18, Newport Classical presents two free concerts at 1pm and 3:30pm as part of its Community Concerts Series presented by BankNewport, performed by Ensemble Mélange at Newport Classical Recital Hall. Ensemble Mélange puts the audience in the driver's seat for a pair of interactive concerts unlike any other. With a menu of more than 30 selections spanning classical favorites, jazz, Latin, Broadway, and beyond, audience members are randomly chosen to select what the ensemble performs next. The result is an engaging, high-energy concert where no two performances are ever the same, offering an exciting musical adventure for concertgoers of all ages.
The Chamber Series continues on October 23 when the Boston-based Rasa String Quartet makes its Newport Classical debut with "Portraits of an American Patchwork," a musical quilt that weaves together the cultural traditions that have shaped the nation’s identity, spanning jazz, bluegrass, Latin pop, Indigenous traditions, global folk music, and classical favorites, including music by Billy Strayhorn, Shelley Washington, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, William Grant Still, Hong Nan-pa, and Bad Bunny. Pianist Michael Leonardo Davidman, winner of the 2025 American Piano Awards and praised by Upstage for his “thunderous authority and loads of interpretive nuance,” makes his Newport debut on November 6 with a program of J.S. Bach, Franz Schubert, César Franck, and Franz Liszt. On November 20, Raphaël Feuillâtre, hailed as one of the leading classical guitarists of his generation, performs “Latin Passions,” a vibrant survey of Spanish and Latin American repertoire by Francisco Tárrega, Isaac Albéniz, Astor Piazzolla, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and more.
The Newport Classical Chamber Series continues in 2027 with cellist Sterling Elliott and pianist Elliot Wuu on January 29, in the sonatas of Maurice Ravel, Richard Strauss, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Elliott, a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, has been described by The Millbrook Independent as a cellist who has "risen beyond hopeful promise," while Wuu, a 2018 Gilmore Young Artist, is recognized for his “power, speed and finesse” (Tribune Star). On February 19, flutist Anna Urrey and harpist Kristi Shade perform a program of Nino Rota, Lili Boulanger, Jules Mouquet, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Astor Piazzolla, exploring the coloristic possibilities of flute and harp across centuries and styles. Urrey has appeared at leading venues including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, and National Sawdust. A sought-after collaborator, Shade has appeared with artists ranging from Andrea Bocelli and John Legend to Florence + The Machine. The Dorian Wind Quintet, praised by the Los Angeles Times for delivering “chamber music as it was meant to be,” performs on March 12 in “Preludes and Variations,” pairing J.S. Bach chorale arrangements with Antonín Dvořák's Wind Quintet, Op. 105 and a set of Anniversary Variations by Richard Rodney Bennett, George Perle, Billy Childs, Bruce Adolphe, and Lee Hoiby on a theme from a wind quintet by Antonin Reicha written specifically for the Dorian Wind Quintet to celebrate the ensemble’s 40th anniversary. Versatile artist Chelsea Guo, the first musician to win the Young Concert Artists auditions in both voice and piano, and hailed by Gramophone as “clearly a special talent,” takes the stage on April 9 in a program of Frédéric Chopin, Pauline Viardot, Johannes Brahms, and Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe, singing while accompanying herself on piano.
On April 23, Newport Classical presents violinist Rubén Rengel and Friends, with pianist Gabriel Chakarji and percussionist Juan Diego Villalobos, who come together for an evening celebrating the music of Latin America, from their native Venezuela to the vibrant traditions displayed throughout the region. Rengel was the winner of the Robert F. Smith Prize at the 2018 Sphinx Competition, and has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and more. Accordionist Radu Ratoi, winner of the 2024 Young Concert Artists “Susan Wadsworth” International Auditions and recipient of Denmark’s prestigious Léonie Sonning Talent Prize, has established himself as a pioneer in expanding the accordion’s repertoire. He is joined by violinist Alexandra Tirsu, a 2021 ARD Competition prizewinner, on May 7 for a program of J.S. Bach, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Antonio Vivaldi, Astor Piazzolla, and more. The 2026-2027 Chamber Series concludes on June 4 with violinist Njioma Grevious, a Juilliard graduate and founding member of the Abeo Quartet, who appears regularly at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and the Concertgebouw. In Newport, she presents a program featuring the music of J.S. Bach, Johannes Brahms, W.A. Mozart, Oliver Messiaen, Edvard Grieg, and Clarence Cameron White. Grevious has been praised for her “violin pyrotechnics” and “sheer intensity” by the Washington Classical Review.
The 2027 Newport Classical Music Festival will take place from July 1-18, 2027.
Newport Classical 2026-2027 Chamber Series Schedule At-A-Glance:
September 18: Opening Night: Invoke performs "American Voices"
October 9: Trio Azura performs "Piano Trio Through Time"
October 23: Rasa String Quartet performs “Portraits of an American Patchwork”
November 6: Michael Leonardo Davidman, Winner of the American Piano Awards
November 20: Guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre performs "Latin Passions"
January 29: Cello Sonatas with Sterling Elliott and Elliot Wuu
February 19: Anna Urrey & Kristi Shade perform Works for Flute and Harp
March 12: Dorian Wind Quintet performs "Preludes and Variations"
April 9: Voice and Piano with Chelsea Guo
April 23: Rubén Rengel and Friends
May 7: Radu Ratoi & Alexandra Tirsu perform Vivaldi, Piazzolla, and more
June 4: Chamber Series Finale: Violinist Njioma Grevious
Complete concert details can be found at www.newportclassical.org/concerts. All Chamber Series concerts are held on select Fridays at 7:30pm at Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn Street).
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 Enrichment and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools and community organizations 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.
After a year-long community-driven process, and rooted in the organization’s mission “to celebrate the living art form of classical music in intimate and iconic locations,” Newport Classical released its 2025-2028 Strategic Plan, presenting a clear roadmap to become a stronger, healthier, and more vibrant organization that enhances its programs and community engagement, promotes responsible financial growth and sustainability, and centers artistic excellence in every decision, as the organization aspires to open its doors even wider.