Hosted by WQXR’s Terrance McKnight and showcasing some of the classical world’s most acclaimed and celebrated artists, these intimate evenings of insightful conversation and virtuosic performances will enlighten and inspire, deepening the audience’s understanding and appreciation of the music, the composers, and the artists’ creative process.

Congratulations to Terrance McKnight on being named one of Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year!

Featuring the Cassatt String Quartet
Renowned pianist and five-time Grammy nominee Ursula Oppens performs solo piano works written for her by Elliott Carter, John Corigliano and Tobias Picker (World Premiere). The program also includes Ravel’s masterful, revolutionary String Quartet – his first and only string quartet – performed by the Cassatt String Quartet, one of the great ensembles of our age” (ConcertoNet).

Oppens and the Quartet will give the world premiere of a piano quintet by Laura Kaminsky, commissioned by the pianist for the occasion with production support from the Newburgh Institute for The Arts & Ideas. Cited in The Washington Post as “one of the top 35 female composers in classical music,” Laura Kaminsky’s music is “full of fire as well as ice, in an idiom that contrasts dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection…It is strong stuff” (American Record Guide).

“The piano quintet is my favorite chamber combination,” says Ursula Oppens. “Friendship and chamber music are almost indistinguishable from one another: playing the world premiere of a piano quintet by the wonderful composer Laura Kaminsky with the Cassatt Quartet, music by the late Elliott Carter, whom I sorely miss, a new piece written by my lifelong friend Tobias Picker, and a work by my dear friend and colleague John Corigliano seems like a culmination of my musical life up to now.”