2025
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Sun26Jan2025
Schubertiade
3pmThe 12th-annual Mead Witter School of Music Schubertiade, a concert of Schubert’s songs, piano music, and ensembles, will take place on Sunday afternoon, January 26, 2025, at 2 pm in Collins Recital Hall. The theme this year is “Favorites and Discoveries”
The program celebrates the works of the great Viennese composer Franz Schubert in homage to the original “Schubertiades,” evenings at the homes of Schubert’s friends and admirers who gathered to hear Schubert’s sublime music, often with the composer himself at the piano.
Schubertiade is being hosted again by Professor Martha Fischer, who teaches piano and collaborative piano at the School of Music, and her pianist husband Bill Lutes. They will perform as accompanists and in piano duets on a modern copy of an 1828 Viennese fortepiano, built by Rodney Regier of Freeport, Maine.
The concert will include a mix of some of the most familiar and best-loved Schubert lieder, alongside songs that are beautiful, but lesser known. All three of the “Marches Militaires (No. 1 being one of the composer’s most recognizable tunes) will be heard at various points in the program. And for a performance of “The Shepherd on the Rock” for soprano, clarinet and piano, we welcome guest clarinetist Elise Bonhiver, who will perform on a modern copy of an 1820s-era clarinet.
The program will be a showcase for the School of Music’s voice faculty: Sarah Brailey, Julia Rottmayer, Mimmi Fulmer, Jessica Schwefel, and Matthew Treviño, along with guest artist and School of Music alumnus Wesley Dunnagan, who currently serves on the voice faculty of St. Olaf College. Each of them will present his or her group of lieder, based on a particular poetic theme.
More details here
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Wed05Feb2025
Lang: love fail (with Pilobolus Dance)
7:00pmLorelei Ensemble and Pilobolus Dance
David Lang's love fail
Denison University
More details here
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Thu06Feb2025
Lang: love fail (with Pilobolus Dance)
7:00pmLorelei Ensemble and Pilobolus Dance
David Lang's love fail
Denison University
More details here
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Thu13Feb2025
Poulenc: Figure Humaine
6:30pmFebruary 13, 6:30pm at St. Paul’s Chapel
Figure Humaine
Benjamin Britten Advance Democracy
Ilsa Weber Wiegala
Jacob Beranek Abendgebet
Francis Poulenc Un soir de neige and Figure Humaine
Elsa Barraine Prelude
Trinity Choir; Melissa Attebury, DirectorNew York, NY
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Thu27Feb2025
In Her Voice: LunART String Quartet with Sarah Brailey
7pmWorks for voice and string quartet by composers Caroline Shaw, Eliza Brown, and Danaë Xanthe Vlasse
Art + Literature Lab
Madison, WI
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Sat01Mar2025
In Her Voice: LunART String Quartet with Sarah Brailey
7pmWorks for voice and string quartet by composers Caroline Shaw, Eliza Brown, and Danaë Xanthe Vlasse
Mineral Point Opera House
Mineral Point, WI
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Sat15Mar2025
Breathe - World Premiere
7:30pmLorelei Ensemble with composer performers Charlotte Greve, Wendell Patrick, Ken Thomson, Jason Treuting
2640 Space
Baltimore, MD
More details here
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Sat22Mar2025
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Sun23Mar2025
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Fri28Mar2025
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Sat29Mar2025
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Sun30Mar2025
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Thu01May2025
Mead Witter Faculty Recital Series: Dan Cavanagh
7:30pmDan Cavanagh world premiere for soprano and string quartet
Sarah Brailey, soprano
Pro Arte Quartet
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Sat10May2025
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Sun11May2025
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Sun01Jun2025
BASS: New Voices Festival
5pmThe Brooklyn Art Song Society's New Voices Festival finale explores a brave new world of sonic possibilities in song. A world premiere by Tonia Ko examines the immigrant experience, while bold works by some of today’s most innovative composers chart a new frontier for music and words
Katherine Balch: Phrases
Fang Man: Partridge Sky
Tonia Ko: New Work (world premiere, BASS commission)
Samy Moussa: The Sick Rose
Andrew Staniland: Execution Songs
Kate Soper: The Fragments of ParmenidesSarah Brailey, Charlotte Mundy soprano
Kristin Gornstein mezzo soprano
Jeremy Chen, Mila Henry, Nathaniel LaNasa piano
Doug Balliett double bassMore details here
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Sat26Jul2025
Carmel Bach Festival
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
More details here
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Fri22Aug2025
Samtalä: Sonder
7pmSonder (n.) — A term coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, describing the profound realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — filled with their own ambitions, routines, worries, and unseen stories
Inspired by the definition above, this program alternates between the voice of the individual and the response of the many. At the core lies a fight to be understood, and the gradual emergence of compassion through imagination.
Taking place at the Chorus Public House, Sonder features a string sextet plus voice, sitting in a circle at the center of the room. Book-ended by two original compositions by Micah Behr, the program moves through works that span decades including compositions by Handel, Brahms, Ligeti, Satie, Dutilleux and Caroline Shaw.
Musicians:
Sarah Brailey, Voice
Vini Sant’ana, Violin
Madlen Breckbil, violin
Micah Behr, viola
Laila Zakzook, viola
Phil Bergman, cello
Aaron Fried, celloChorus Public House 154 W Main St, StoughtonMore details here -
Sat23Aug2025
Samtalä: Sonder
3:30pmSonder (n.) — A term coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, describing the profound realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — filled with their own ambitions, routines, worries, and unseen stories
Inspired by the definition above, this program alternates between the voice of the individual and the response of the many. At the core lies a fight to be understood, and the gradual emergence of compassion through imagination.
Taking place at the Chorus Public House, Sonder features a string sextet plus voice, sitting in a circle at the center of the room. Book-ended by two original compositions by Micah Behr, the program moves through works that span decades including compositions by Handel, Brahms, Ligeti, Satie, Dutilleux and Caroline Shaw.
Musicians:
Sarah Brailey, Voice
Vini Sant’ana, Violin
Madlen Breckbil, violin
Micah Behr, viola
Laila Zakzook, viola
Phil Bergman, cello
Aaron Fried, celloChorus Public House 154 W Main St, StoughtonMore details here -
Wed27Aug2025Thu28Aug2025
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Thu28Aug2025
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Sat30Aug2025
Esmail: Subah Shaam
10:30Reena Esmail Subah Shaam (Morning and Night)
Anton Webern Six Bagatelles
Toru Takemitsu Rocking Mirror DaybreakSarah Brailey soprano
Tara Helen O’Connor flute
Daniel Phillips, Emily Cole, David Felberg violin
Laura Steiner viola
Mihai Marica cello
Kathleen McIntosh harpsichordJohn Bing spoken word
Reena Esmail’s composition Subah Shaam (text by Mirabai) was commissioned by Backshore Artists’ Project, Inc. in memory of Lynne S. Mazza and underwritten through heartfelt donations from her family, many friends and colleagues, and with additional generous support provided by Music from Angel Fire.
Chatter North
Center for Contemporary Arts
Santa Fe
More details here
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Sun31Aug2025
Esmail: Subah Shaam
10:30Reena Esmail Subah Shaam (Morning and Night)
Anton Webern Six Bagatelles
Toru Takemitsu Rocking Mirror DaybreakSarah Brailey soprano
Tara Helen O’Connor flute
Daniel Phillips, Emily Cole, David Felberg violin
Laura Steiner viola
Mihai Marica cello
Kathleen McIntosh harpsichordJohn Bing spoken word
Reena Esmail’s composition Subah Shaam (text by Mirabai) was commissioned by Backshore Artists’ Project, Inc. in memory of Lynne S. Mazza and underwritten through heartfelt donations from her family, many friends and colleagues, and with additional generous support provided by Music from Angel Fire.
Chatter Sunday
912 3rd St NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico
More details here
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Thu09Oct2025
Harbison: Milosz Songs
7:30pmSarah Brailey, soprano
Clara Osowski, mezzo
Tomasz Lis, piano
Harbison: Milosz Songs (2006; 2024) / texts by Czeslaw Milosz (US PREMIERE of the newly restored complete edition)
Harbison’s intensely moving cycle, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for Dawn Upshaw, on poems of poet laureat Czeslaw Milosz, whose words drew Harbison not just for their content, but also for their essential musical qualities. The lyrics are fragmentary; the melodies are elusive; and everyday images have dissonant elements. Harbison’s lucid and precisely wrought music complements Milosz's gripping words…in audible textures and essentially tonal harmonic language. “A significant new work,” wrote the The New York Times.
The piano version of Milosz Songs originally included only six of the eleven poems; the new version restores the cycle to completion. Polish pianists Tomasz Lis brings to this reading a sensitivity only possible through his nationalistic afflitiation.
Harbison: The Next Subject (2024) / texts by Michael Fried (WORLD PREMIERE)
Bach’s cantatas are, in the main, about death. After a lifetime living in the world of Bach cantatas—studying, conducting, performing—this setting of six of Michael Fried’s poems is Harbison’s own “Bach cantata,” a form that increasingly absorbs him.
Harbison: Songs After Sappho (2025) / texts by Sappho-Carman (WORLD PREMIERE)
“In my practice, texts will arrive, unsought, at the right moment. The essential ‘opening of the curtain’ occurs when a lived experience links up insistently with a writer’s words, which then seem ready, even destined for a new role.” —John Harbison
Token Creek Festival Barn
4037 Hwy. 19, Village of DeForest, Wisconsin
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Sun02Nov2025
Toward the Sea
5pmToward the Sea: A Concert for Climate Change Awareness
Blachly: excerpts from Songs of Ishmael
with David Kaplan, piano
New York City
More details here
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Wed05Nov2025
Lang: love fail
7pmThis breathtaking and fresh performance of Lang’s 2012 work features an expanded 8-voice version, with new choreography by acclaimed Pilobolus Co-Artistic Director Renée Jaworski, heightening this live performance with contemporary, physical expressions of love lost, and endured.
Lorelei Ensemble
Bowling Green State University
More details here
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Mon10Nov2025
Lorelei Ensemble: Look Up
1pmThe program features Christopher Cerrone’s Beaufort Scales, a new 36-minute oratorio for eight voices and live electronics, commissioned by Lorelei Ensemble, that draws inspiration from various iterations of the Beaufort Wind Force Scale created by Sir Francis Beaufort in 1805, along with texts from Melville, Fitzgerald, and Anne Carson. According to composer Christopher Cerrone, “The piece tries to posit—through both historical sources and technological intervention—what increasingly tempestuous weather is doing to our lives.”
The first half of the program includes Meredith Monk’s “Other Worlds Revealed” and “Earth Seen from Above,” from Atlas, Molly Herron’s “Stellar Atmospheres,” and Elijah Daniel Smith’s “Suspended in Spin” (Lorelei commission).
“The idea of ‘Look Up’ is about looking up to the sky and seeing we are one entity in this expansive universe, but also looking up and seeing what is happening on the planet right here,” says Artistic Director Beth Willer.
More details here
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Sun07Dec2025
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Tue23Dec2025