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Before a word is spoken, the room reveals a story. Calliope music— “Roll Out the Barrel” among them—fills The Chain Theatre, evoking summer afternoons on imagined boardwalks. A beach umbrella, a straw hat, and a vendor’s apron set a scene as unpretentious as the man at its center. Within moments of Michael Quinn’s entrance, this simple stage becomes a portal—not only to nineteenth-century Coney Island, but to what it has always meant to arrive in America with only hunger and nerve.

Feltman: World’s First Hot Dog is, at heart, about a sausage in a bun. More profoundly, it’s a meditation on reinvention, a love song to immigrant grit, and among the most moving solo shows now in New York. Directed with restraint by Peter Michael Marino and formed by story consultant Jason Bash, this 70-minute production delivers a narrative as rich and satisfying as Feltman’s frankfurter.

Michael Quinn in Feltman: World's First Hot Dog, at The Chain Theatre NYC. Photo by Mikiodo.

From a Pushcart to the Playground of the World: Charles Feltman’s Improbable Rise. Having understood the essence of the show, we now step back in time to witness how Feltman’s journey began.

In 1846, young German immigrant Charles Feltman stepped off a ship into New York Harbor. Quinn inhabits Feltman with a tender, disarming presence and gives him an affectionate, anachronistic Brooklyn accent, honoring his scrappy essence. Feltman works in a bakery, learns breadmaking, and by 1867 sells buns from an umbrella-shaded cart on Brighton Beach. Bread alone isn’t enough. The beachgoers want something faster, hotter, and portable—a meal for walking, carousel rides, or gazing at the Atlantic.

And so, with the instinct of a born innovator, Feltman conceives his masterpiece. He envisions the frankfurter—that beloved sausage of Frankfurt in his native Germany—tucked snugly inside a soft roll. He calls them “hot bites.” He orders a coal-fired cart with drawers to keep the bread fresh and the sausages warm. He wheels his invention to Coney Island, and the rest, as they say, is culinary history. Quinn narrates all of this with the practiced cadence of a natural raconteur, shifting between immigrant pathos and deadpan comedy with the ease of a man who has clearly told this tale in his bones before telling it on a stage. As Kenneth Tynan once observed of great solo performers, the finest among them are those who can make an audience forget they are watching one person, because that person contains multitudes.

Feltman's of Coney Island. Courtesy feltmansofconeyisland.com

Michael Quinn: A Performer Who Contains Multitudes

What makes this production extraordinary is not simply its subject but its vessel. Michael Quinn is a New York–born actor and writer who studied at HB Studio and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He trained in both classical technique and contemporary performance. He left the stage 25 years ago after losing his younger brother Jimmy in the September 11 attacks. The play addresses that wound with aching understatement, not sentiment for sentiment’s sake. When Quinn tells us he felt “unfinished business” pulling him back, you believe him the way you believe a tide returning to shore. Not because it chooses to, but because it must.

Quinn plays every role in this production—Feltman, the Tammany Hall fixers, a crooked police chief demanding payoffs, the competitors who coin the term “hot dog” as a sneer before the language itself reclaims it with endearment. He shifts between characters with fluency that recalls the great tradition of solo performance from Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain to Anna Deavere Smith’s documentary theater. There is a particular moment—I will not spoil it—in which Quinn’s voice catches as history collapses into personal memory, and the entire room inhales as one. That is not a technique. That is the truth.

At 50, Quinn returned to performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2025, where the production played to packed houses and earned a four-star review from The Scotsman. He described the experience as “an emotional journey,” identified by doubt and ultimately triumph. That journey seems discernible in every moment of his performance here in New York; you feel a man not just playing a part but fulfilling a promise—to his brother, his city, and himself.

More Than a Hot Dog Story: Immigration, Capitalism, and the Architecture of Dreams

Feltman rises above nostalgia by confronting the darker sides of the American Dream. Success attracts Tammany Hall operatives, corrupt officials, and rivals quick to undercut prices. Nathan Handwerker—a Polish immigrant, Feltman’s former bun slicer—opens a stand across the street. This is handled without bitterness, only the wry observation of capitalism’s pattern: inventors watch the next wave erase their work.

Yet the play never turns cynical. Quinn describes Feltman’s empire at its peak—two city blocks, 2,000 workers, 10,000 seats, nine restaurants, a hotel, rides, entertainment, and an oceanfront stage where Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante once waited tables. Mel Brooks visited as a boy. These details serve as testament: what grew from a pushcart briefly defined democratic leisure—a place for everyone to share a meal by the sea.

The second half of the play draws a powerful parallel between Feltman’s story and Quinn’s own. Together with his brother Joe, Quinn revived the Feltman’s of Coney Island brand in 2015—honoring both Charles Feltman’s memory and the memory of their brother Jimmy. The company’s all-natural, all-beef hot dogs, prepared with Feltman’s original spice recipe rediscovered in a long-overlooked box, are now available in more than 3,400 grocery stores nationwide. That parallel—nineteenth-century dreamer and twenty-first-century entrepreneur, separated by 150 years yet bound by the same stubborn faith in an idea, gives the play a structural elegance that would make a novelist proud.

Michael Quinn in a scene from Feltman World's First Hot Dog at The Chain Theatre in NYC. Photo courtesy of production.

Direction and Craft: The Invisible Art of Making It Look Easy

Director Peter Michael Marino brings restraint and carefulness to the staging. The 70 minutes never lag; transitions seem natural, and the emotional arc is finely calibrated. Marino knows that in solo theater, less is more; one well-placed gesture does as much as an ensemble. Story consultant Jason Bash helped Quinn build a narrative as sturdy as Feltman’s original cart.

Why This Story Matters Now More Than Ever

In an era when the immigrant experience is too often reduced to political abstraction, Feltman: World’s First Hot Dog offers something radical in its simplicity. It is a true story about a real person who arrived with nothing, invented something beautiful, and created a world. The play reminds us—through humor, heartbreak, and the unmistakable fragrance of history—that the American Dream was never about wealth alone. It centered on the audacity to believe that a sausage in a bun, served with love on a windswept beach, could change everything. In the apparently small things of life, we encounter the extraordinary—if only we have the courage to look.

Quinn doesn’t want audiences to leave simply wanting a hot dog—though many do. He wants them to “feel something.” Trust me: they will. The show sneaks past your defenses using laughter and, when you least expect it, opens a door in your chest you forgot was there.

Michael Quinn, Star of Feltman: World First Hot Dog at The Chain Theatre, inspecting a Feltman Hot Dog. Photo by Mikiodo.

Funny, Fierce, and Achingly Human

Feltman: World’s First Hot Dog is that rarest of theatrical experiences: a solo show that feels as expansive as a Broadway epic and as intimate as a conversation with your favorite uncle over a summer meal. Michael Quinn’s performance is magnificent—funny, fierce, and achingly human. In case you are a history lover, a foodie, or someone who believes that one person’s dream can illuminate an entire nation’s story, this production at The Chain Theatre is unmissable. Get your tickets. Grab a hot dog afterward. If you’re a Zen master, ask the vendor to “make me one with everything!” And remember the name: Feltman.

Feltman: World’s First Hot Dog at the Chain Theatre

A One-Man Love Letter to Coney Island, the American Dream, and the Food That Changed Everything

Written and Performed by Michael Quinn | Directed by Peter Michael Marino

Story Consulting by Jason Bash

Photos by MIKIODO | Additional Photos by DMLK Video | Cover Art by John Cooper

At The Chain Theatre, 312 West 36th Street, (Between 8th and 9th Avenues) New York, NY Through June 14 Running Time: 70 minutes (no intermission) Tickets Available at www.feltmanworldsfirsthotdog.com

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This was a night of illuminated musical time travel. Some evenings in the concert hall announce themselves, even before the first note sounds, as something out of the ordinary. The evening of May 5, 2026, at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center was precisely such a night. The American Classical Orchestra presented a program entitled Heroic, and the title was, in every sense, earned. The pairing of Mozart's luminous Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, KV 453, with Beethoven's monumental Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, the “Eroica,” delineated the arc of Western music's most consequential stylistic transformation: the passage from the placid, crystalline certainties of the Classical period to the turbulent grandeur of the Romantic. And yet, for all its historical gravity, the evening was utterly, irresistibly alive.

Matthew Figel Performs Mozart's Concerto No. 17 in G Major on the fortepiano with the American Classical Orchestra. Photo by Edward Kliszus

Joyful, Intrepid Time Travel

What the ACO accomplishes—and what continues to set it entirely apart—is a form of joyful, intrepid time travel. Listening to these two magnificent works performed on period instruments is an experience that thwarts easy description. One does not simply hear the music; one inhabits it, suddenly aware that this is something like the very sonic world in which early nineteenth-century audiences first encountered these masterpieces. To close one's eyes, accordingly, in the full and generous radiance of Alice Tully Hall is to feel transported—back, perhaps, to that June morning in Döbling when, as Mozart himself described in a letter, "Fräulein Babette is playing her new concerto in G" at Ployer's house. Breathtaking, in the truest sense of the word.

Thomas Crawford: The Maestro Who Makes Music a Conversation

Before a single note was played, Thomas Crawford—Founder and Artistic Director of the ACO, organist, composer, and one of the most compellingly charismatic musical personalities in New York—came forward for his customary pre-concert remarks, and the audience, as it invariably does, leaned in with undivided attention. Crawford's introductory commentaries have become one of the most beloved and distinctive features of the ACO experience—a kind of animated symposium where musicology meets dry wit meets authentic passion.

Maestro Thomas Crawford conducts the American Classical Orchestra. Courtesy aconyc.org

A Guided Illumination

On this evening, Crawford opened by inviting the orchestra to demonstrate the main theme of the Mozart concerto—a gentle, luminous gesture that immediately oriented the ear and warmed the hall. He then pivoted, with characteristic expressive flair, to a guided illumination of the Beethoven to come. Through brief orchestral illustrations, he mapped the famous four-note figures that Beethoven deploys to build a mighty symphonic architecture, the sweeping Romantic theme of the first movement, and the paralyzing intensity of the funeral march. The audience chuckled at his wry asides, nodded at his deeper observations, and emerged from the introduction not simply informed but truly eager. Crawford possesses, not unlike Leonard Bernstein's legendary Young People's Concerts at Lincoln Center, the rare and invaluable gift of making the meaningful feel personal and accessible—as though he alone has discovered something marvelous, and is sharing it with you in confidence. Indeed, many in the full house evidently regard Crawford's commentary as an event in itself, a curtain-raiser worthy of the works that follow.

Moreover, Crawford’s conducting was precise, articulate, expressive, and effective. And it’s always remarkable to see a conductor lead an orchestra without a score, demonstrating his confidence born of a complete understanding of the music.

Matthew Figel and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major: Hidden Laughter, Hidden Sadness

The Fortepiano Master Takes the Stage

Then came Matthew Figel—and what a revelation he proved to be. Currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music under the guidance of Marina Lomazov and Joseph Rackers, Figel is also a prizewinner of the International Bach Leipzig, the Rosalyn Tureck International Bach Competition, the Harold Protsman Classical Period Competition, and the Eastman Concerto Competitions. He has performed fortepiano recitals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Concertgebouw Brugge, and participated in a Mozart piano concerto workshop led by Mitsuko Uchida as part of Carnegie Hall's Perspectives series. That impressive résumé was, on this occasion, richly justified.

Matthew Figel, pianist. Courtesy matthewfigel.com

A Concerto of Opalescent Feeling

As program annotator John Thiessen explains, the concerto was "composed in 1784 for Mozart's student Barbara Ployer," scored for solo piano, strings, flute, oboes, bassoons, and horns—an intimate palette that Mozart converted into something radiant. "The effervescent lyricism of the opening movement," Thiessen writes, "is followed by the composer's ingenious use of wind instruments as quasi-operatic characters in wordless dialogue with the piano in the middle Andante." Figel navigated all three movements with a balance of intellectual care and expressive tenderness entirely befitting the fortepiano's character: lighter of touch than the modern concert grand, more silvery in its upper register, with a natural transparency that makes every inner voice audible and every ornament sparkle. Cuthbert Girdlestone, in his authoritative study of Mozart's piano concertos, observed of this very work that "no words can describe the continuous iridescence of feeling of the first movement, or the passionate tenderness of the second"—and sitting in Alice Tully Hall, one experienced the truth of that formulation with uncommon immediacy.

A Starling Faithfully Singing a Tune

Furthermore, the finale's "humorous Papageno-like melody," as Thiessen aptly describes it, brought smiles to many faces—not least because the program notes likewise remind us of the charming biographical footnote: that Mozart later visited a Viennese bird seller's shop and, hearing a starling sing a tune faithfully mimicking the Allegretto's rondo theme, purchased it as a treasured household pet. That story, in its very absurdity as well as sweetness, is pure Mozart—a genius who could find the comic and the cosmic within a few bars of music, and who never forgot that music is, above all, for the delight of human beings. New York Concert Review has described Figel's playing as possessing "a tone and approach entrancing from the outset," and on this evening, that characterization felt, if anything, understated.

Beethoven's Eroica: The Symphony That Changed the World

A Turning Point in Musical History

After intermission, the evening shifted decisively toward the heroic in the fullest and most consequential sense. Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major is, as musicologist Harold Schonberg wrote, "one of the turning points in musical history." And yet—even knowing this, even having read about the Eroica, listened to it on recordings, encountered it in lecture halls—nothing quite prepares one for the experience of hearing it live, performed on period instruments by an ensemble that has made this music its life's work. As Schonberg observed, "with one convulsive wrench, music entered the nineteenth century."

Beethoven in 1814. (etching by Blasius Höfel after a drawing by Louis Letronne). Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons The Full Abandonment of French Revolution Ideals

Program annotator John Thiessen situates the work's genesis with admirable clarity: Beethoven composed the Eroica between 1803 and 1804, originally intending it as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte. Then, when Bonaparte declared himself Emperor—an act of self-aggrandizement that Beethoven interpreted as "the full abandonment of French Revolution ideals"—the dedicatory title page was dramatically torn from the score. Thiessen notes, moreover, that this act of political disillusionment may even have influenced Beethoven's decision to remain in Habsburg Vienna for the remainder of his life, abandoning any plans for a Paris residency. The composition that emerged from this forge of political idealism and personal betrayal is accordingly more than music: it is a manifesto.

The ACO's Performance: Transparency, Power, and Poignant Clarity

What the ACO brought to the Eroica under Crawford's direction was precisely what one hopes for and rarely receives in such full measure: the translucence and fullness of period instruments allowing every voice, every harmonic shadow, to register with exquisite clarity. The opening movement's famous early dissonance—that startling E-flat chord against the cellos—landed with the force of something genuinely unexpected, reminding one that Beethoven's original audiences had never heard anything like this. The Marcia funebre (Adagio assai) was devastating in its restraint; on gut strings and with natural horns, the timbre has an honesty and vulnerability that make the mourning feel immediate rather than monumental. The Scherzo seethed with irresistible energy, and the great Finale, with its variations on a theme from Beethoven's own ballet Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, arrived with the inevitability of a conclusion that nonetheless astonishes afresh.

Young Mozart holding a music book 1768. By Johann Eusebius Alphen, (Vienna 1742-1772). Elektromagikum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Concertmaster Cynthia Roberts led the violin section with poise and musicality; principal cellist Myron Lutzke and the cello section provided the emotional bedrock of the evening; and the winds—including Marc Schachman on oboe, Nina Stern on clarinet, principal flutist Sandra Miller, and the natural horns of R.J. Kelley and colleagues—were superb throughout. The full roster of musicians brought nothing less than their very best to a program which demanded, and received, everything.

Support the American Classical Orchestra: Keep This Music Alive

The work of the American Classical Orchestra depends vitally on the generosity of music lovers, educators, and philanthropists who believe, as its musicians so clearly do, that historically informed performance of Baroque, Classical, and Early Romantic repertoire is not simply a scholarly exercise yet a living, breathing, irreplaceable form of cultural inheritance. To support the ACO and ensure that future seasons continue to bring this extraordinary music-making to New York, please visit americanclassicalorchestra.org/support.

Additionally, the ACO's upcoming La Serenissima Benefit Concert—Vivaldi & Vino—takes place on May 13, 2026, from 6:30–8:30 PM at the Columbus Citizens Foundation, 8 E. 69th Street, New York City. Fundraiser tickets are $800 per person, and all attendees will be named as "Season Supporters" in all Season 42 concert programs. A magnificent evening of Vivaldi awaits—along with the knowledge that your giving directly sustains one of New York's most remarkable musical institutions.

American Classical Orchestra performs "Heroic" at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center NYC. Photo courtesy American Classical Orchestra Season 42: What Awaits

Season 42 of the American Classical Orchestra is certain to be nothing short of magnificent. From Haydn's “Lord Nelson” Mass and transcendent J.S. Bach motets to Mozart, Berwald, and not one but three more Beethoven symphonies—including the thunderous Fifth—the coming season is a banquet for the historically curious and the passionately musical alike. These are concerts to circle on your calendar, to bring a friend, and above all, do not miss a single note.

Heroic at Alice Tully Hall: The ACO Ignites Lincoln Center

Venue: Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center Address: 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023 Tickets & Season Information: americanclassicalorchestra.org Donate to the ACO: https://aconyc.org/donate/

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Music can transcend mere performance and become something approaching revelation. Thursday night at Alice Tully Hall was such an evening—a radiant encounter in which sound itself seemed animated by divine inspiration. The American Classical Orchestra, under the baton of its founder and artistic director, Thomas Crawford, presented "Morning Stars," a program tracing the luminous ascent of eighteenth-century genius through the works of W. A. Mozart, Boccherini, and Haydn. What emerged was not an antiquarian exercise, but a living affirmation of artistic rectitude: historically informed, intellectually alert, and glittering with expressive purpose.

Crawford's Illuminating Concert Preview: Scholarship Rendered with Wit and Lucidity

From the moment Crawford stepped before the ensemble, one sensed the particular alchemy that distinguishes an ACO evening. Following a vigorous, superbly articulated reading of Mozart's Overture to La finta semplice, he embarked on his signature Concert Preview. This was not bloviation but eloquent exegesis—scholarship rendered with wit, charm, and lucidity. With the ease of a raconteur and the precision of a seasoned pedagogue, Crawford illuminated each work's provenance, stylistic grammar, expressive intention, amusing anecdotes, and historical contexts, while inviting his players to demonstrate key passages. In doing so, he made audible the syntax of music itself: music not as a decorative surface, but as a disciplined language of emotional meaning. One was reminded of Adorno's insistence that genuine musical understanding lies in apprehending a work's historical truth content. Crawford's gift is to render such understanding accessible without ever diluting its intellectual gravity.

Conductor Thomas Crawford delivering a concert preview with the American Classical Orchestra in the program Morning Stars, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Photo by Edward Kliszus

Period Instruments and the Pursuit of Authentic Sound

The ACO's commitment to historically informed performance practice proved central to the evening's character. Period instruments—gut strings, wooden winds, and valveless brass produced a sound world of translucent intelligibility and pliant warmth. Textures were transparent yet resonant; cantabile passages breathed with delicacy, while dramatic climaxes carried a pungent, almost astringent bite. This was not antiquarian pedantry, but a hermeneutic recovery of original expressive horizons. Alice Tully Hall's warm acoustic became an ideal vessel for this luminous palette, allowing color, articulation, and phrasing to speak with unerring precision. The orchestra's collective sound suggested not a museum exhibit, but a living language—classical in its proportion, yet freshly articulate in its affect.

Song Hee Lee's Transcendent Mozart: Youthful Mastery Revealed

The emotional apogee of the evening arrived with soprano Song Hee Lee in Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate. From her first phrase, Lee revealed a command at once youthful and consummate. Her technique was immaculate: every melisma unfurled with legato grace, every phrase shaped by breath, intelligence, and instinctive poise. The voice itself—graceful yet capable of thrilling amplitude—dazzled equally in hushed pianissimo and ringing fortissimo. What distinguished the performance, however, was not virtuosity alone, but communion. Lee did not merely execute Mozart's writing; she inhabited it. The motet's architecture emerged as luminous joy—pure celebration, lifted on sound. Her vocal pyrotechnics never tipped into exhibitionism; instead, they served an expressive line of rare coherence and radiance. This was not simply a star turn, but the apotheosis of youthful mastery, a moment when technique and meaning became indistinguishable.

Song Hee Lee, Soprano, soloist with the American Classical Orchestra in the program Morning Stars, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Courtesy opus3artists

Boccherini's Noble Symphony: Aristocratic Poise and Expressive Nuance

If Mozart provided the evening's spiritual center, Boccherini and Haydn supplied its structural and dramatic arc. Boccherini's Symphony No. 26 in C minor—still too rarely heard—unfolded with aristocratic poise and expressive nuance. Its varied deployment of solo instruments suggested a composer quietly testing the boundaries of orchestral color, presaging the more overt concertante brilliance to follow. The ACO's reading emphasized elegance without blandness: lines were shaped with clarity, inner voices articulated with care, and harmonic tensions allowed to register without excess. It was a portrait of a composer often misunderstood as merely decorative, here revealed as thoughtful, balanced, and subtly inventive.

Haydn's "Le Matin": The Crowning Achievement of Concertante Brilliance

The crowning achievement of the evening was Haydn's Symphony No. 6 in D major, "Le Matin." Written during his early years at Esterházy, the work remains a marvel of unfailing variety and imagination. Its opening evocation of dawn—soft sonorities emerging from darkness into light—was rendered with remarkable poise, each instrumental entrance precisely weighted, each phrase breathing naturally within the whole. The symphony's concertante design became a living tableau of musical character. Concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky brought incisive brilliance and rhetorical clarity; violist Jessica Troy offered a glowing inner voice of rare warmth; cellist Myron Lutzke shaped lines with resonant eloquence; and bassist John Feeney anchored the texture with firm, expressive authority. Their dialogues sparkled with vivacity, wit, and structural coherence. Haydn's invention—at once playful and architectonic—unfolded as both drama and delight, the orchestra illuminating every turn of phrase with precision and style.

Soprano Song Hee Lee performing Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate with the American Classical Orchestra in the program Morning Stars, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Photo by Edward Kliszus

Historical Awareness as Expressive Liberation

Crawford's approach throughout the evening underscored a central principle: historical awareness need not constrain expressive freedom. On the contrary, the ACO's performance suggested that fidelity to period practice can liberate the music's innate rhetoric. Ornamentation was purposeful, articulation finely etched, and tempo relationships conceived with a keen sense of proportion. One heard not merely accuracy, but insight—a reading shaped by what might be called musical hermeneutics, in which sound becomes a medium of meaning rather than surface effect. The result was neither academic nor precious, but bracingly alive.

A Legacy of Excellence: Cultural Stewardship at the Highest Level

Since its founding in 1984, the American Classical Orchestra has established itself as New York's preeminent period-instrument ensemble. With principal players drawn from the faculty of Juilliard's Historical Performance Program and an educational mission that has reached hundreds of thousands of young listeners through its Classical Music for Kids program, the organization embodies cultural stewardship at the highest level. In an era when classical music is too often treated as either a museum artifact or background decoration, the ACO offers something rarer: performances that unite scholarship, imagination, and expressive truth.

The American Classical Orchestra in the program Morning Stars, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Photo by Edward Kliszus

Authenticity as Revelation: A Concert That Speaks to the Present

"Morning Stars" was such an evening—lucid, radiant, and intellectually alive. Through Crawford's illuminating guidance, Song Hee Lee's transcendent Mozart, and the orchestral playing of distinction and vitality, the concert reaffirmed the enduring power of historically informed performance not as nostalgia, but as revelation. Here, authenticity did not constrain imagination; it released it. And in that release, the music spoke not only of the past, but vividly, urgently, to the present.

Morning Stars: American Classical Orchestra Illuminates with Radiance

American Classical Orchestra

Thomas Crawford, Conductor and Artistic Director

Guest Artist: Song Hee Lee, Soprano

Orchestra Musicians

Violin: Aisslinn Nosky (Concertmaster), Theresa Saloman (Principal Second), Keats Dieffenbach, Jimmy Drancsak, Karl Kawahara, Peter Kupfer, Leah Nelson, Anca Nicolau, Jessica Park, Jeremy Rhizor, Edson Scheid, Mark Zaki Viola: Jessica Troy (Principal), Annie Garlid Cello: Myron Lutzke (Principal), Ezra Seltzer Bass: John Feeney (Principal), Motomi Igarashi Flute: Sandra Miller (Principal), Melanie Williams Oboe: Marc Schachman (Principal), Sarah Davol Bassoon: Andrew Schwartz (Principal), Stephanie Corwin Horn: R. J. Kelley (Principal), Alex Cook Personnel Manager: Alex Cook

Address: PO Box 366, New York, NY 10025-0007 Phone: (212) 362-2727 Email: [email protected] Website: aconyc.org Season Tickets: Purchase tickets for the 2025-26 season Support the ACO: Make a tax-deductible donation

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Well, “The Approach” by Mark O’Rowe. now at Irish Rep is a puzzlement.  Not just for its title, but for the message it is delivering – or not.  Three women meet for a cuppa, two at a time.  They have known each other for decades.  There is bad blood between two of them.  And buried secrets all around.

The two obvious spots of bad blood involve a man.  Surprise… In fact most of the conversations we witness have to do with men.  Men IN these women’s lives or OUT of them.  We never meet the men, but we hear plenty about them.  We also hear enough from these women to know that, at one time, the three of them were very, very good friends in a town outside Dublin called Ranelagh.  They refer to this as their “celibate period”.  There is a lot of water under the dam for these three.

Danielle Ryan and Kate MacCluggage in a scene from The Approach at the Irish Rep. Photo by Carol Rosegg

 This focus on their relationships with men felt limiting.  On the other hand, it may be a true center of the fragmented state of this trio.  They rarely meet, and when they do, there are awkward moments to beat the band while they figure out how to bridge the gap that old friendships can deliver.  When was the last time we saw one another?  Why are we talking now?  Is there a point to continuing Thai conversation?  How soon can we leave this tea and escape with promises of phone calls to catch up – calls that will never be made.  What else do they have to talk about other than men?

Been there.  Done that.  Over and over and over.  Score one for O’Rowe.

Kate MacCluggage and Danielle Ryan in a scene from The Approach at the Irish Rep. Photo by Carol Rosegg

 Cora (Carmen M. Herlihy) is the peacemaker of the three.  She broaches the subject of reconciliation to her mates, which causes the respective outbursts of indignation from Anna (Danielle Ryan) and Denise (Kate MacCluggage).  O’Rowe does a fine job of laying out the particulars of the feud with a light touch.  We also get to see that each of these women possesses secrets they reveal one centimeter at a time.  Some are circumstantial and one is dangerous.

Conor Bagley‘s direction is solid and makes the most of this postage-stamp of a stage.   These very fine actors are precise in every way and lead us all on a merry chase through time and location.  The connection between these women brought me back to the rich friendships with my women chums that started decades ago.  Some are gone.  Some are vibrant still.

Where I got lost was where the story ended up.  My theatre guest and I disagreed on the facts of the conclusion (always a good sign) while we agreed on the general final situation.  I cannot say more here because that would defeat the purpose of the tale – and this trio is definitely worth a look-see.

There are, however, gaping holes in this story that leave us scrambling.  How did such-and-such an event happen?  Who knew?  What are they not saying?  This is such an intimate story that the slightest omission sets us adrift.  There were quite a few of those omissions. Kind of a Swiss Cheese approach with the emphasis on the holes.

I left thinking about my women chums and confused about the conclusion of this play. The answer to the question of the “Why” in the omnipotent sense, where we see what the characters may not, was never answered.

The Approach by Mark O’Rowe. Directed by Conor Bagley,

Carmen M. Herlihy (The Apiary) as Cora, Kate MacCluggage(Left on Tenth) as Denise, and Danielle Ryan(Aristocrats) as Ann

Set design by Daniel Prosky (An Ideal Husband), costume design by Stephanie Bahniuk (Kokum’s Babushka), and lighting design by Emma Deane (Can’t Drink Salt Water). Dialect Coaching is by Karen Killeen.

Through May 10 at Irish Rep – 132 W 22nd St.  Tickets HERE.

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When Garrick Ohlsson struck the first note, one understood immediately that something extraordinary was about to unfold. So it was at the 92nd Street Y's historic Kaufmann Concert Hall, where Garrick Ohlsson opened the evening with Franz Schubert's Impromptu in C Minor, Op. 90, No. 1, D. 899 (1827). From the majestic opening gestures — those dotted rhythms rising with ceremonial gravitas — it was clear that Ohlsson intended nothing less than a philosophical meditation on Schubert's singular genius.

Finesse of a Master Colorist

Ohlsson's pianistic command, honed through decades of collaboration with the great Steinway concert grands he has championed since winning the International Chopin Competition in 1970, was magnificent and flawless. Each theme emerged with radiant phrasing, every dynamic subtlety balanced with the finesse of a master colorist. The hall's meticulously maintained Steinway concert grand — touch-up tuned during intermission with characteristic care — sang under his hands with a burnished, bell-like clarity that filled the intimate space. One recalled, in these moments, what the philosopher Theodor Adorno once suggested: that Schubert's music occupies a landscape of wandering, a terrain where beauty and melancholy are indistinguishable.

Garrick Ohlsson, Piano. Courtesy garrickohlsson.com

Two Souls in Dialogue: The Schubert Lieder and Arpeggione Sonata

Richard O'Neill, the Grammy and Emmy Award-winning violist of the Takács Quartet, then joined Ohlsson for two of Schubert's most beguiling Lieder, arranged here as wordless songs for viola and piano. In "Du bist die Ruh," Op. 59, No. 2, D. 776 (1823) — that exquisite setting of Friedrich Rückert's devotional love poem — O'Neill's rich, velvety tone was evident from the very first bow stroke, capturing the sonic poetry of the music with an eloquence that transcended the absence of text. His playing was at once beautiful and deeply expressive, each phrase shaped with a cantabile warmth reminiscent of the finest Lieder singers.

Meeting of Artistic Minds and Kindred Musical Souls

Subsequently, in "Nacht und Träume," Op. 43, No. 2, D. 827 (1825), O'Neill's sublime control and expressivity proved altogether mesmerizing. The oscillating piano figurations, those active undulations Schubert deployed to energize his extraordinarily long, arcing melodic lines, flowed beneath O'Neill's viola like moonlit water beneath a bridge. Ohlsson, for his part, was virtuosic yet wonderfully collaborative — a true meeting of artistic minds and kindred musical souls. The music arrived not as sound alone but as sensation, as the feeling of dusk settling over a familiar landscape.

Richard O'Neill, Viola. Courtesy richardhongjaeoneill.com

Pure Schubertian Song

The first half concluded with the Sonata in A Minor, Op. Posth., D. 821, the beloved "Arpeggione" (1824), originally composed for an obscure hybrid instrument that combined the tuning of a guitar with the bowing technique of a cello. Here, the duo performed in impeccable ensemble, navigating the slurred leaps and arpeggiated passages with seamless unanimity. The central Adagio, pure Schubertian song channeled through the viola's dusky timbre, was heartbreakingly tender, while the rustic finale bounded forward with an infectious, folk-inflected energy. Throughout, O'Neill — performing on one of his rare instruments, a Matteo Goffriller viola crafted in Venice in 1727 — demonstrated why the Juilliard School honored him as the first violist ever to receive its Artist Diploma, and why the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has long counted him among its most treasured artists.

Crossing the Stylistic Rubicon: From Schubert to Rachmaninoff

One of the evening's most intellectually stimulating aspects was the programmatic journey itself — the leap from Schubert's early nineteenth-century Viennese lyricism to the dense chromaticism and unabashed Romanticism of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Consider the span: Schubert, who died in 1828 knowing nothing of the harmonic upheavals to come, and Rachmaninoff, who composed well into the twentieth century while remaining gloriously impervious to the atonal experiments of the Second Viennese School. Where Schoenberg dismantled tonality, Rachmaninoff deepened it, expanding the Romantic tradition's emotional vocabulary without abandoning its tonal foundations.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1900. Public Domain

A Conversation Between Eras

The effect of juxtaposing these two composers was refreshing and profoundly stimulating, illuminating how the thread of lyrical expression stretches, unbroken, across a century of seismic musical change. As Leonard Bernstein once eloquently argued, the best concert programming creates not merely a sequence of works but a narrative — a conversation between eras that reveals unexpected kinships.

Ohlsson's Rachmaninoff: Grandeur, Passion, and Fire

After intermission, Ohlsson returned alone for Rachmaninoff's Études-Tableaux in E-flat Minor, Op. 39, No. 5 (1917), one of the last works the composer penned before exile forced him from Russia forever. Ohlsson's interpretation was superb in every dimension — he expressed the grandeur, the virtuosity, and above all the smoldering passion so characteristic of Rachmaninoff's pianistic canon.

Intelligence and Structural Clarity

The incredibly rich and dense textures of this étude-painting demanded extraordinary technical command, and Ohlsson delivered with a grand finesse that illuminated form, mood, and dramatic contrast in equal measure. One sensed the pedagogical lineage at work: Ohlsson, a student of the legendary Claudio Arau, bringing to Rachmaninoff the same searching intelligence and structural clarity that defined his mentor's art. Furthermore, the hall's exemplary acoustics — a hallmark of the 92nd Street Y since its founding in 1874 by visionary Jewish community leaders — allowed every pianistic detail to register with crystalline precision.

The Rachmaninoff Sonata: A Summit of Collaborative Artistry

The evening's culmination arrived with Rachmaninoff's Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19 (1901) for viola and piano, composed in the first flush of the composer's creative recovery following his legendary hypnotherapy sessions. The Lento opening was dramatic and expansive, with broad chords and sweeping phrases that unmistakably announced the exquisite character of late Romantic musical thought. Once more, O'Neill's control, finesse, and extraordinary richness and beauty of sound proved remarkable — his viola sang with a transcendent luminosity that matched the virtuosic demands of Rachmaninoff's piano partnership note for note, phrase for phrase. Together, this world-class duo brought every expressive element to the foreground with the assurance of musicians operating at the very summit of their art.

Franz Schubert by Wilhelm August Rieder, 1875. Public Domain

Operatic Emotional Depth

The ensuing Allegro blazed with fire, soaring melodies cascading over virtuosic accompaniment in passages that seemed almost cinematic in their sweeping grandeur. Indeed, a fleeting thought arose: certain passages in Rachmaninoff's oeuvre seem to reflect the evolutionary arc of Chopin's own compositional journey — that same marriage of pianistic brilliance with an almost operatic emotional depth. The Andante movement, by contrast, offered more of Rachmaninoff's characteristic pathos — that unmistakable sonic beauty, at once lush and restrained, that hovers somewhere between melancholy and transcendence.

Compelling Chamber Musicians

Finally, the Allegro mosso opened in grandiose fashion, expressing the composer's extraordinary rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic craftsmanship with an authority that left no doubt: O'Neill and Ohlsson are, individually and collectively, among the most compelling chamber musicians performing today. As Harold Schonberg might have noted in one of his magisterial New York Times reviews, the hallmark of great collaborative music-making is not uniformity but the capacity of two distinct artistic temperaments to arrive, through dialogue, at something neither could achieve alone.

An Encore to Remember: The Vocalise

After an extended, deeply felt standing ovation — the audience rising almost as one — the pair returned with a final gift: Rachmaninoff's exquisite "Vocalise," adapted from its original vocal setting into a wordless viola and piano meditation of aching beauty. It was, in every sense, the perfect coda to an evening that had traced the arc of Romantic expression from Schubert's intimate lyricism to Rachmaninoff's symphonic grandeur. The audience departed into the Upper East Side evening carrying, one suspects, the kind of interior luminosity that only the greatest music-making can bestow.

The 92nd Street Y: A Legacy of Excellence

It bears noting, finally, that evenings like this do not happen by accident. The 92nd Street Y, founded over 150 years ago, has long sustained a tradition of presenting the world's finest performing artists in its intimate, acoustically superb Kaufmann Concert Hall. Its programming reflects a mission rooted in the conviction that the arts possess the power to enrich, enlighten, and transform lives — and that the gathering of a community around shared aesthetic experience is itself an act of profound cultural significance. In an era when such convictions are too often treated as quaint, the 92nd Street Y remains a vital and irreplaceable institution, a beacon on Lexington Avenue where the life of the mind and the life of the heart converge with uncommon grace.

Richard O'Neill and Garrick Ohlsson Deliver Musical Transcendence at the 92nd Street Y

The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY)

Address: 1395 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10128 Phone: (212) 415-5500 Website: www.92ny.org Current Season Tickets: 92NY 2025–2026 Season Calendar & Tickets Support 92NY: Donate to the 92nd Street Y Richard O'Neill — Official Website & Upcoming Concerts: www.richardyongjaeoneill.com Garrick Ohlsson — Official Website & Upcoming Concerts: garrickohlsson.com Takács Quartet: www.takacsquartet.com

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There are evenings in the theater when one witnesses something so quietly revolutionary, so deceptively simple in its architecture and so devastating in its emotional reach, that the critical faculties surrender entirely to the human ones. Ed Schmidt's Edward, performed with luminous conviction at McNally Jackson Books in New York's South Street Seaport, is precisely such an evening—a work of theatrical prestidigitation that transforms the detritus of one man's unremarkable life into something approaching the sublime. Here, amid the reassuring aroma of new books and old coffee, Schmidt achieves what the finest dramaturgists have always pursued: the elevation of the particular into the universal, of the quotidian into the numinous.

Honest Intelligence and a Well-Turned Phrase

To paraphrase the great critical sensibility of Max Beerbohm, the truest test of theatrical genius lies not in spectacle but in the capacity to hold an audience spellbound with nothing more than honest intelligence and a well-turned phrase. Schmidt passes that test with such unassuming grace that one hardly notices the formidable craft at work beneath the surface. Moreover, the conviction that great theater illuminates the shared fabric of human experience—Edward stands as a quietly towering achievement, even more powerful for its refusal to raise its voice.

Ed Schmidt in a scene from EDWARD. Photo by Emma Callahan

The Ingenious Conceit: Audience as Dramaturge

The premise is elegantly, almost mischievously simple. Edward O'Connell, a former high school English teacher from New England, has died at seventy-three, leaving behind a cardboard box containing twenty-seven objects. A spirometer. A hotel ashtray. A set of garish neckties. A one-eared Mr. Potato Head. A well-thumbed copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. A Hummel Goose Girl figurine. A St. Christopher pendant. Maps of Italy. A baseball glove. A Bible. Audience members, seated around a table upon which these talismanic remnants lie, select objects one by one, and Schmidt—part raconteur, part medium, part grief counselor to the human condition—delivers the associated narrative in whatever order chance and collective intuition dictate.

An Unrepeatable Reconstruction of a Life

The dramaturgical implications are staggering. With twenty-seven objects and the mathematical permutations they generate—ten octillion possible sequences, Schmidt informs us, a number equivalent to every grain of sand on Earth multiplied by every star in the Milky Way—no two performances can ever be identical. Each evening constitutes a singular, unrepeatable reconstruction of a life. Consequently, the audience becomes not merely a witness but a co-author, and the theatrical experience assumes a quality of sacred contingency, as though fate itself were collaborating with the playwright. "We look before and after, and pine for what is not," wrote Shelley. In Edward, Schmidt asks us to look beside and within—at the ordinary relics we all carry—and find there a beauty we had forgotten to notice.

Ed Schmidt in a scene from EDWARD. Photo by Emma Callahan

Schmidt the Raconteur: A Masterclass in Solo Performance

What Bernard Shaw once observed of the actor's highest calling—that the performer must become the transparent vessel through which truth passes undistorted—finds its living embodiment in Schmidt's work here. Dressed formally, positioned at his stool like a sage at his lectern, Schmidt commands ninety-five uninterrupted minutes with nothing but his voice, his timing, and the inexhaustible emotional reserves of a seasoned theatrical artist. His delivery possesses the unhurried cadence of a man who understands that the silences between words can carry as much meaning as the words themselves. There is, furthermore, a quality to Schmidt's performance that recalls the essential gift of the great soloist: the ability to populate a space with an entire world through sheer imaginative commitment. Schmidt summons Edward's children, his colleagues, his lovers, his regrets, and his fleeting joys with such verisimilitude that one forgets entirely that this is a one-man show. The pathos is never forced, the humor never strained. When he recounts Edward's doomed romance with Yasmin—the dark-haired, regal Persian woman who declares that it is too late in life to truly know another person, and that there have been too many sunrises and sunsets—the audience exhales in unison, wounded by recognition.

A Lived Authority

Similarly, his rendering of Edward's agonized silence when his son Eddie comes home to confess his terror during the AIDS crisis—a scene of almost unbearable emotional complexity, in which love, prejudice, and paralysis converge at a card table over an unfinished jigsaw puzzle—achieves a kind of cathartic verisimilitude that the finest naturalistic drama aspires to but rarely attains. Schmidt does not merely perform these stories; he inhabits them with the lived authority of someone who has metabolized every shade of human frailty and emerged with his compassion not merely intact but deepened.

Ed Schmidt in a scene from EDWARD. Photo by Emma Callahan

The Crisscrossing Tapestry of Narrative

Because the order of stories is determined by audience selection, life events crisscross in what appears to be random juxtaposition, yet these collisions produce revelations that feel almost providential. At this particular performance, a spirometer yielded to an ashtray from the Hotel Monteleone, which gave way to neckties named "Night Landing" and "Homeric Steed," then onward through a jigsaw puzzle of the Pemigewasset River, a school flag, Shakespeare's Complete Works, and a watercolor painting that conceals a love affair of devastating poignancy. The effect is cumulative and deeply musical—a kind of thematic polyphony in which motifs of love, loss, regret, and resilience weave through one another like voices in a fugal exposition, each entry illuminating the others in unexpected counterpoint.

The Caprice of Sensory Triggers

Audience members respond audibly to these convergences. We hear of a person mentioned in one story and later, when another object drives the narrative forward, learn that the person has died. The structural innovation is not merely clever; it mirrors the actual texture of memory, which is associative rather than chronological, governed by the caprice of sensory triggers rather than the tyranny of the calendar. As Virginia Woolf understood so profoundly, the inner life proceeds not in orderly sequence but in luminous moments of perception, each one trailing filaments of connection to a thousand others.

Memory Boxes and the Archaeology of a Life

One cannot sit through Edward without reflecting on one's own memory box—that private reliquary we all maintain, whether in a physical container or in the vaulted attic of remembrance. I recall, with sudden and almost startling vividness, my own late father's treasures: his World War II victory medal, pocket watch, photographs, a Vernier caliper, an Ansco Clipper camera, and engineering books that smelled of graphite and ambition. Or perhaps my own box of temporal keepsakes—Polaroid photographs of high school and college friends whose faces have softened in my memory, a high school ring, a trumpet mouthpiece, letters from youthful dalliances penned in handwriting I can no longer identify, a ticket to Woodstock, recordings on reel-to-reel and cassette that preserve voices now silenced by time. I looked around and wondered at the variety and intrigue of my fellow theater attendees' own boxed collections.

Ed Schmidt in a scene from EDWARD. Photo by Sophie Blackall

Ghost of a Childhood Afternoon

Schmidt's genius lies in making Edward's box our box. The objects function as what the Romantics might have called correlatives of the spirit—humble, tangible anchors to the ineffable. When Keats wrote of the truth found in beauty and the beauty found in truth, he was speaking, in his way, of precisely this phenomenon: the capacity of the material world to reveal the immaterial one. A baseball glove is not merely leather and stitching; it is the ghost of a childhood afternoon, the echo of a friend's name not spoken in decades, the bittersweet archaeology of who we were before time had its way with us.

Vanity, Legacy, and the Quiet Heroism of the Unremarkable

Beyond the warmth and sentiment, however, one senses through this play the haunting undertone of Ecclesiastes—vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Edward O'Connell did not walk on the moon, develop a vaccine for polio, or invent the electric light. He was a high school English teacher who wore neckties, argued about Shakespeare, loved and lost, raised children, and died alone in his apartment finishing dinner. He was, in other words, most of us.

Unremembered Acts of Kindness

And yet, is that appraisal entirely just? What are our real legacies if we did not change the world in ways that history records? That is a question Edward wisely declines to answer definitively, leaving each audience member to wrestle with it according to their own emotional constitution and capacity for empathy. Some will leave the bookstore suffused with hope and sentimental reflection; others may feel the chill of mortality's indifference. Perhaps, as Wordsworth opined, the best portion of a good person's life consists of the small, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. Edward's legacy, Schmidt suggests, is woven into precisely such acts—visible only to those who were paying close enough attention. I recall an older family member who loved music and books and, whenever he saw in the obituaries that one of his old teachers had passed, would drive past their home and, with quiet delight, sort through the piles of books and objects left at the curb by the survivors. So much for the treasures we collect during our lives. And yet, so much is contained within them.

A Bookstore as Sacred Space: The Perfect Venue

It must be said that McNally Jackson's Seaport location—housed within the historic Schermerhorn Row building at 4 Fulton Street—provides an ideal mise-en-scène for this production. Edward O'Connell, after all, was a man who believed in the vital role that literature plays in the development of a well-rounded life, and to encounter his story surrounded by thousands of volumes, with cobblestoned streets visible through the windows and the East River shimmering beyond, is to experience a harmony of content and context that most traditional theaters cannot replicate. The intimacy is essential; Schmidt performs for audiences small enough that every sigh, every murmur of recognition, becomes part of the evening's acoustic texture.

Ed Schmidt in a scene from EDWARD Photo by Emma Callahan

Rapturous Notices

Edward arrives at these New York City bookstores following sold-out runs in private homes across Brooklyn and Manhattan, forty performances in intimate apartments, and a triumphant sixteen-performance engagement in Los Angeles. Schmidt's previous solo works—The Last Supper, performed in his own kitchen; My Last Play, staged in his book-lined living room; and Our Last Game, set in an East Village locker room—have earned rapturous notices from the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and others. This latest work may be his most accomplished and emotionally resonant yet.

A Show Not to Be Missed: The Extraordinary in the Everyday

To borrow the spirit of Shelley—that poetry, and by extension great theater, lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar—Edward achieves this transfiguration with exquisite delicacy. This is not a show to be missed. The extraordinary, magical journey into a life-based narrative, adorned with gentle humor, quiet mishaps, unrequited love, and a lifetime of effort to survive and find meaning, makes it more relevant than ever in an age when we are all, in our own ways, searching for connection amid the noise. Schmidt has created something rare: a work of theater that does not demand your attention so much as earn it, story by story, object by object, until the cardboard box is full, the life is told, and the lights come up, and you realize, with a catch in your throat, that the story was also yours.

A Life Unfolds from a Cardboard Box: Ed Schmidt's Magnificent EDWARD

Ed Schmidt Theater Company Production: Edward — A Solo Play Written & Performed by: Ed Schmidt Running Time: 95 minutes, no intermission Tickets: $40 — Available at edschmidttheater.com/tickets Performance Schedule: January 22 – March 1, 2026, at independent bookstores across Brooklyn, Manhattan & Queens Current Season Information: Visit edschmidttheater.com/tickets for the full schedule and added dates Mailing List & Waitlist: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Instagram: instagram.com/edschmidttheater McNally Jackson Books — South Street Seaport Address: 4 Fulton Street, New York, NY 10038 Phone: (646) 964-4232 Website: mcnallyjackson.com Instagram: instagram.com/mcnallyjackson The Seaport (South Street Seaport) Website: theseaport.nyc Instagram: instagram.com/theseaportnyc

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There are concerts, and then there are consecrations—moments in which music reveals not only its architecture but its inner life. Such was the case when the Brentano String Quartet—Mark Steinberg (violin), Serena Canin (violin), Misha Amory (viola), and Nina Lee (cello)—returned to 92NY on the David Geffen Stage at the Kaufmann Concert Hall for an evening of string quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn, Béla Bartók, and Antonín Dvořák.

A transcendent evening on the David Geffen Stage at the Kaufmann Concert Hall

To program three quartets is already to signal seriousness of purpose; after all, as Donald Francis Tovey and Hans Keller both insisted, the string quartet is the composer’s ultimate proving ground, the place where technique stands without ornamentation, the soul without disguise. The Brentano, true to their reputation as one of the most intellectually probing and musically refined ensembles performing today, approached the challenge not as curators but as illuminators, uncovering the spiritual threads that bind these works across centuries.

Brentano String Quartet. Photo by Jurgen Frank

The Brentano Legacy: A Tradition of Excellence

Since their founding in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has become synonymous with probity, imagination, and technical radiance. They were the inaugural ensemble-in-residence at Princeton University, later held the same distinction at Yale, and continue to inspire new generations through performances, commissions, recordings, and collaborations with some of the most celebrated artists of our time. Their discography—ranging from Bach to contemporary voices—reflects a group dedicated not merely to playing music but to thinking through it, revealing its inner logic and poetic resonance.

On this evening, their legacy was not merely referenced; it was made present.

Mark Steinberg, Violin. Member, Brentano String Quartet. Courtesy brentanoquartet.com

Haydn’s Op. 54, No. 2: Creation, Doubt, and Transcendence

Where wit meets revelation

Haydn, often called the father of the string quartet, becomes in the Brentano’s hands something more intimate: the genre’s first philosopher-poet. In the opening movement of the C-major Quartet, Op. 54, No. 2, they captured the composer’s delightful paradoxes—the genial opening, the unexpected silences, the sense of a melody searching for its own footing. As Misha Amory observes in his program writing, Haydn’s silences are rhetorical winks from “a higher intelligence teasing the presumptions of ordinary mortals.”

The Brentano honored this, playing with a feather-light articulation that nonetheless bore architectural clarity, allowing each interruption to feel both mischievous and metaphysically charged. Throughout, Mark Steinberg’s upper-line dialogue shimmered with conversational spontaneity, while Serena Canin supplied a luminous counter-poise, her tone warm yet clear as river-glass.

Serena Canin, Violin. Member, Brentano String Quartet. Courtesy brentanoquartet.com

Then came the astonishing slow movement—Haydn at his Romani-inflected most soulful—where Nina Lee’s cello lifted the violin’s improvised lament “heavenwards,” precisely as Amory describes. Here, the Brentano played with a kind of whispered intensity, as though the music were being discovered in real time.

The Finale, an unorthodox slow movement, unfolded like a meditation on memory and transcendence. When the sudden Presto burst in—children racing past the cathedral doors, perhaps—the Brentano rendered it with comic brilliance before dissolving back into the dignified quiet from which the piece emerged.

It was Haydn, not as Classical decorum but as existential drama, rendered with uncommon intelligence and heart.

Bartók’s Fourth Quartet: Fire in the Architecture

Symmetry, strangeness, and the night’s inner voice

If Haydn invents the cosmos, Bartók fractures it into dazzling geometry. The Brentano’s performance of the String Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91 was nothing less than electrifying.

The opening movement—a thicket of mirrored lines, invertible counterpoint, and chromatic ecstasy—was shaped by the ensemble with virtuosic control. The Brentanos play Bartók as though the music were carved in glass: sharply etched, translucent, and forever shifting with the light.

In the scherzo-like second movement, their fleet, muted textures seemed to evaporate into the hall, “cirrus clouds scudding about the sky,” in Amory’s unforgettable formulation. The pizzicato fourth movement was delivered with rustic joy—the famous “Bartók pizzicato” snapping like sparks from a bonfire.

But the emotional summit was the third movement, Bartók’s signature “night music.” Nina Lee offered a cello line of wrenching depth, ascending like a solitary figure illuminated by moonlight, while Steinberg’s answering violin hovered with spectral delicacy. The Brentanos have long excelled in music that requires both structural understanding and emotional vulnerability; here, their mastery was profound.

Misha Amory, Viola. Member, Brentano String Quartet. Courtesy brentanoquartet.com

Dvořák’s Op. 106: The Return Home and the Healing of Memory

A luminous journey through nostalgia and renewal

Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in G Major, Op. 106 does not fit into the mythic Old Testament/New Testament dichotomy of Beethoven and Bartók, yet it completes the evening’s cosmology beautifully. As Mark Steinberg notes, the quartet is suffused with stesk—the Czech form of yearning that is deeper, more existential than mere nostalgia.

The Brentano captured this duality with grace: the opening movement radiated optimism, but its silences and suspended phrases hinted at unspoken longing. Serena Canin shone here with her characteristically elegant phrasing, shaping Dvořák’s melodies with both tenderness and strength.

The slow movement unfolded like a folktale told in murmurs, the Brentano drawing upon essential terms—doubleness, organic unfolding, memory-transformation—to reveal how Dvořák layers innocence and danger within a single gesture.

By the Finale, when the first movement’s theme returns “as if from afar,” the Brentano delivered the transformation with luminous warmth, fulfilling Steinberg’s image of a melody “fully debarbed, glowing with a radiant luminescence.”

Dvořák’s homecoming became ours.

Nina Lee, Cello. Member of the Brentano String Quartet. Courtesy brentanoquartet.com

A Testament to the Power of the Quartet

By night’s end, one felt that the Brentano String Quartet had not merely performed three masterworks—they had reenacted the evolution of the quartet itself:

- Haydn: the birth of form - Bartók: the shattering and remaking of structure - Dvořák: the healing embrace of memory

In doing so, they affirmed why the medium remains, as Tovey and Keller insisted, the hallmark of a composer’s authentic voice. And they reaffirmed their own place among the world’s most searching, soulful ensembles.

Contact Information & Ticket Links

92NY (92nd Street Y) 1395 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10128 Tickets and Season Information

Brentano String Quartet

https://www.brentanoquartet.com/ Booking & Information: [email protected]

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The internationally acclaimed Park Avenue Chamber Symphony has announced its 2025-26 season of immersive concert events powered by the Patented InsideOut Concerts® format. For the 2025-2026 season, Maestro David Bernard has selected programs that focus on a single composer, offering audience members an in-depth perspective on that composer.

Step inside the music this season! Visit the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony 2025–26 Season Events page on Eventbrite to discover programs that will inspire, uplift, and transform your concert experience.

"While it is always enjoyable to hear programs that offer tastes from many composers, sometimes it feels as though we only skimmed the surface of individual composers," says Music Director David Bernard. "This season, we focus each concert on a single composer, with works selected to draw the audience into a broader and deeper perspective. Paired with our InsideOut format, it’s a total musical immersion and exploration."

Maestro Bernard’s patented InsideOut Concerts approach transforms concerts into fully immersive events that not only place audience members among the musicians but offer a unique artistic opportunity.

Maestro David Bernard conducting the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at an InsideOut Concert at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. Photo Courtesy Park Avenue Chamber Symphony

A Season of Explorations

The 2025-26 season celebrates three towering figures of classical music through carefully curated programs that offer in-depth explorations of each composer's genius. Each program is offered in both family-friendly and full evening experiences, ensuring accessibility for music lovers of all ages.

Scintillating Saint-Saëns - November 22nd

Scintillating Saint-Saëns kicks off the season on Saturday, November 22nd, with performances at 2:00 PM (Family Experience) and 5:00 PM (Full Experience). Audiences will be transported into the exotic worlds and brilliant orchestrations of Camille Saint-Saëns, experiencing firsthand the French master's gift for melody and his revolutionary approach to orchestral color.

"The combination of Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 and his Organ Symphony gives audiences a complete perspective on his genius. The concerto dazzles with virtuosic brilliance, beginning with what almost sounds like an organ prelude—a beautiful foreshadowing of the Organ Symphony. That symphony, in turn, is innovative, exhilarating, and emotionally sweeping. Together, these works showcase the full range of Saint-Saëns’ creativity, from intimate lyricism to monumental orchestral color." – David Bernard

Maestro David Bernard conducting the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at an InsideOut Concert at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. Photo Courtesy Park Avenue Chamber Symphony Sublime Schubert - February 7th

Winter continues with Sublime Schubert on Saturday, February 7th (2:00 PM Family Experience and 5:00 PM Full Experience). Franz Schubert's profound emotional depth and lyrical genius will surround audiences as they discover why this composer's music continues to move hearts nearly two centuries after his passing.

"Pairing Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony with his Ninth Symphony—the Great—allows audiences to experience the full breadth of his musical imagination. The Eighth Symphony is magical, otherworldly, and strikingly innovative, while the Ninth embodies the quintessential Viennese symphonic tradition. Together, they provide a deep and comprehensive exploration of Schubert, capturing both his lyricism and his grand, architectural vision." – David Bernard

Spellbinding Strauss - May 16th

The season concludes with Spellbinding Strauss on Saturday, May 16th (2:00 PM Family Experience and Full Experience times to be announced). Whether exploring the waltzing elegance of Johann Strauss II or the dramatic power of Richard Strauss, this final celebration promises to send audiences home with melodies that linger long after the last note fades.

"The program of Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, and the Four Last Songs offers a thorough journey into Richard Strauss’ musical world. The works Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, and the Four Last Songs each demonstrate different aspects of a twentieth-century composer's range. These pieces illustrate characteristics such as dynamic character development, technical skill, reflection, and lyricism, offering insight into the emotional and stylistic diversity present in the composer’s output.  -David Bernard

In addition to these three Explorations, Maestro Bernard and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony offer two fantastic musical events:

David Bernard leads the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony in an Immersive Concert celebration of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. Photo Courtesy Park Avenue Chamber Symphony

THE NUTCRACKER:

The InsideOut Concerts™ Experience - December 13,  2 PMEglevsky Ballet presents The Nutcracker – December 20, 1 PM and 7 PM, December 21, 2 PM

The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony offers two Nutcracker experiences. On Saturday, December 13th at 2 PM, the holiday season brings a special treat with THE NUTCRACKER: The InsideOut Concerts™ Experience for Everyone! This beloved Tchaikovsky masterpiece comes alive when experienced from within the orchestra, allowing audiences to feel the magic of the Sugar Plum Fairy's theme and the thunderous excitement of the battle scene as never before.

On Saturday and Sunday, December 20th and 21st, the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony joins the Eglevsky Ballet at Tilles Center for the Performing Arts for the complete ballet.

Special Music School Concerto Competition Showcase

In partnership with NYC’s Special Music School, the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony hosts a concerto showcase featuring winners of the SMS concert competition.

The Revolutionary InsideOut Concerts® Experience

What sets the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony apart is its groundbreaking InsideOut Concerts format, where traditional concert hall barriers dissolve and the audience becomes an integral part of the musical fabric itself. Seated among the musicians, concertgoers experience orchestral music with an intimacy and immediacy that has earned acclaim from WQXR, Newsday, Classical World, The Epoch Times, and the digital publication OpeningNight.Online.

"This innovative approach brings an unsurpassed experience and level of engagement for audiences of all ages," notes the orchestra's season description. The format has proven particularly effective in growing new audiences for classical music, engaging families through schools, and presenting multi-media concert presentations that make classical music accessible to contemporary audiences.

Maestro David Bernard conducting the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at an InsideOut Concert at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. Photo Courtesy Park Avenue Chamber Symphony

Award-Winning Excellence

Since its founding in 1999, the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony has built an impressive legacy of excellence. The orchestra is a three-time FIRST PRIZE Winner of The American Prize in Orchestral Performance (2011, 2012, 2013), with judges describing their performances as "extremely impressive, well-shaped. This ensemble is good enough to surpass many professional orchestras, performing challenging repertoire on a professional level."

New York critics have consistently praised the orchestra's performances as "Triumphant...polished…exquisite…with a strong sense of style and commitment…with the depth and fervor of the old school European orchestras." This critical acclaim extends to their extensive catalog of recordings, available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify, which has built a loyal following both in New York City and worldwide.

Visionary Leadership

At the helm of this exceptional ensemble stands Music Director David Bernard, whose dramatic and incisive conducting has gained recognition in the United States and over 20 countries on four continents. A multiple First Prize winner of the Orchestral Conducting Competition of The American Prize, Bernard has been described by judges as "a first-rate conductor…phenomenal performance…masterly in shaping, phrasing, technique and expressivity."

Bernard's artistic leadership extends beyond the podium. He serves as Music Director of both the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony and the Massapequa Philharmonic. He is recognized as an acclaimed orchestra builder sought after for his artistic leadership and innovation in community engagement. Under his guidance, both orchestras have experienced growing audiences, expanded ensembles, and increased critical acclaim.

Maestro David Bernard conducting the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at an InsideOut Concert at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. Photo Courtesy Park Avenue Chamber Symphony

Prestigious Performance History

The orchestra's reputation has been solidified through performances at the world's most prestigious venues. Recent highlights include a transcendent Lincoln Center performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, with LucidCulture noting that "Conducting from memory, David Bernard led a transcendent performance…vivid…expertly choreographed." Their Carnegie Hall performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was praised as "taut and dramatic" by the conductor. OpeningNight.Online has praised Bernard's artistry, noting his "clear, expressive, compelling" conducting style.

Critical Recording Success

Bernard's recorded legacy has garnered enthusiastic critical praise from international publications. Gramophone Magazine lauded his Tchaikovsky Pathétique as "an impressively elegant, thoughtful, well-balanced and sophisticated Tchaikovsky Pathétique." The Arts Desk proclaimed his Beethoven Symphony No. 9 release "Scintillating Beethoven…Edge-of-the-seat playing…it's a winner: dramatic, witty, eloquent and boasting some startling choral work in the last movement."

His complete recorded Beethoven symphony cycle earned praise from Fanfare magazine for its "intensity, spontaneity, propulsive rhythm, textural clarity, dynamic control, and well-judged phrasing." Most recently, The Art Music Lounge proclaimed his premiere recording of new editions of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and The Firebird as "THE preferred recording of The Rite because of its authenticity as well as the almost startling boldness of approach."

Accessibility and Community Engagement

True to their mission of making classical music accessible to all, the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony offers these extraordinary experiences starting from just $0.00, removing financial barriers that might prevent music lovers from attending. This commitment to accessibility reflects Bernard's innovative approach to growing new audiences for classical music through community engagement, school partnerships, and family-oriented programming.

The Art of the Immersive InsideOut Audience Experience by Conductor David Bernard and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. Courtesy Park Avenue Chamber Symphony

Experience Music Like Never Before

The 2025-26 season represents more than just concerts; it's an invitation to experience classical music in its purest and most immediate form. When audiences sit inside the orchestra during InsideOut Concerts®, they don't just hear the music—they feel the vibrations of the double basses, witness the precise coordination between conductor and musicians, and experience the collective breathing of an ensemble creating art in real time.

This immersive approach has proven transformative for both seasoned classical music lovers and newcomers to the genre. Families discover that classical music can be interactive and engaging, while longtime enthusiasts gain new appreciation for the intricate details and collaborative nature of orchestral performance.

Looking Forward – The 2025-26 Season

As the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony embarks on its 2025-26 concert series, it continues to push boundaries while honoring classical music's greatest traditions. Each InsideOut Concert® represents a unique opportunity to witness musical mastery up close, creating memories that last a lifetime and potentially inspiring the next generation of classical music enthusiasts.

For tickets and complete season information, visit the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony 2025-26 Season Events page on Eventbrite.

Children helping Maestro Bernard conduct the Waltz of the Flowers with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. Photo by Edward Kliszus

About the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony

Founded in 1999, the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony is a three-time FIRST PRIZE winner of The American Prize Competition in Orchestral Performance. Under the leadership of Music Director David Bernard, the orchestra has gained international recognition for its innovative programming, exceptional artistry, and revolutionary InsideOut Concerts® format, which places audiences inside the orchestra for immersive musical experiences.

Media Contact Information

Park Avenue Chamber Symphony David Bernard, Music Director 875 5th Ave, New York, NY 10065 Phone: (917) 740-7227 Website: chambersymphony.com

All performances take place at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, located at 450 West 37th Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues, in New York City.