Classical

12 Concerts

America at 250: Centuries of Sound
Opening Night Orchestra Celebrating Pivotal Moments in Music
Saturday, June 27 • 7:00pm
Season 39 opens with a vibrant program conducted by Michael Sachs and featuring concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef, tracing 250 years of musical evolution from Carl Stamitz and Ludwig van Beethoven to the lush string writing of Antonín Dvořák and the lyrical modern voice of Samuel Barber.

Bluegrass and Beyond
The Modern American String Quartet
Wednesday, July 1 • 7:00pm
Classical minimalism meets American roots in this modern string quartet program featuring Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 5 and Mark O’Connor’s String Quartet No. 2 “Bluegrass,” performed by Nurit Bar-Josef, Milana Reiche, Erina Laraby Goldwasser, and Austin Fisher.

American Roots
The Evolution of Folk Featuring Mark and Maggie O’Connor
Friday, July 3 • 7:00pm
Grammy Award–winning duo Mark and Maggie O’Connor lead a Strings Music Festival ensemble in Strings and Threads Suite, presenting American folk traditions through the lens of classical composition and ensemble performance.

Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Silent Film with Live Music by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
Saturday, July 11 • 7:00pm
Step back into the golden age of cinema for a screening of Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Buster Keaton’s beloved silent-film comedy, presented with live musical accompaniment by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.

Aeolus Quartet
Masterworks and New Voices for String Quartet
Wednesday, July 15 • 7:00pm
Based in New York City, the Aeolus Quartet brings “high-octane” excitement (Strad) and “dusky lyricism” (The New York Times) with dedication to all of its artistic endeavors, placing new and lesser-known works side-by-side with the time-honored masterworks of the medium.

Counterpoint
A Piano and Tap Dance Duo with Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher
Wednesday, July 22 • 7:00pm
A unique and collaborative program where piano and tap dance function as equal partners, blending classical works by Bach, Brahms, and Mozart with original compositions and improvisations that explore rhythm, structure, and the shared musical language of sound and movement.

Café 1930s: Jazz, Tango and Cabaret
Featuring Chee-Yun
Narrated by Brian McWhorter • Conducted by Mark Gould
Saturday, July 25 • 7:00pm
A Strings Music Festival ensemble traces the jazz-infused café and cabaret culture of the interwar years, moving from American vaudeville and jazz clubs to the cabarets of Berlin, tango cafés of Buenos Aires, and London’s avant-garde salons through works by Paul Schoenfield, Zez Confrey, Kurt Weill, Astor Piazzolla, and William Walton’s Façade, conducted by Mark Gould with narration by Brian McWhorter.

Parisian Colors
Chamber Music for Piano Quintet and Flute
Wednesday, July 29 • 7:00pm
Be transported to turn-of-the-century Paris in a chamber program exploring the lyricism and color of French music, featuring works by Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, and Saint-Saëns, performed by Chee-Yun, Karissa Shivone, Benjamin Hochman, and featured flautist Jennifer Steele.

Brass Through the Ages
From Renaissance Masters to Bach, Debussy, Britten, and Böhme
Saturday, August 1 • 7:00pm
Journey through five centuries of brass music in a dynamic program led by Michael Sachs, revealing the instrument’s astonishing range from Renaissance dances and Bach to Debussy, Ewald, Britten, and Böhme. The performance features an all-star brass ensemble of principal players from the New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, San Francisco Ballet and Opera Orchestra, and the American Brass Quintet.

Cinematic Strings: An Ode to the Silver Screen
Iconic Film Scores Come to Life through Piano Quintet
Wednesday, August 5 • 7:00pm
Virtuosic chamber works and enduring themes, from animated classics and timeless love stories to Schindler’s List, trace the evolution of cinema’s sound, culminating in a sweeping piano quintet by Academy Award–winning composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, whose early-20th-century symphonic language became foundational to classic Hollywood film scoring.

Baroque Brilliance: An Orchestral Finale
Celebrating Bach, Handel, and Purcell
Saturday, August 8 • 7:00pm
An orchestral celebration of the Baroque era brings together the virtuosic brilliance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with the elegance and expressive spark of Purcell’s Abdelazer suite and Handel’s Concerto Grosso in D major, and with concertmaster Amy Lee leading a distinguished Strings Music Festival ensemble that includes flute, oboe, trumpet, and harpsichord, the performance offers a vibrant orchestral finale rich in color and texture.

Cliburn Silver Medal Winner
Vitaly Starikov Solo Piano Recital
Wednesday, August 12 • 7:00pm
Vitaly Starikov is a Russian/Israeli pianist acclaimed for “raw, deeply felt, and powerful” performances (La Scena), whose bold, unpretentious artistry earned him a Silver Medal in 2025 at the Seventeenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and widespread praise for his gripping interpretation of Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto.