Margaret Slovak is a guitarist, composer and painter. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, she began playing the guitar at age 11 and composing at age 14. Margaret studied jazz, classical music and visual art, receiving her BFA in music from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. Her teachers included guitarists John Abercrombie, Dale Bruning, Dave Peterson and Ralph Towner. Margaret has performed throughout the US, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic.
She has released five CDs, four of which feature her original music. In addition to public performances, Margaret plays for patients in cancer centers, hospitals and hospice; she also performed for wounded combat veterans at the Bronx VA hospital in NYC from 2009–2012. Margaret is also a painter, creating visual images which reflect her musical compositions; her artwork appears on her album packages and sometimes on stage!
Although Margaret is currently based in Austin, TX, she lived and performed in New York City from 1988–1993 and 2008–2012. In 1989, during her first stint in NYC, she recorded an album of eight of her original compositions; the project featured Margaret on electric guitar, along with three stellar NY musicians: pianist Fred Hersch, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Michael Sarin. This album, entitled For the Moment, was released on CD in 2007. Now, in 2026, Margaret is releasing a vinyl version of this acclaimed NYC album!
To celebrate the vinyl release, she will perform a quartet concert at Soapbox Gallery featuring the music from For the Moment. She will be joined by the exquisite drummer who was on the original 1989 recording session, Michael Sarin. The quartet will also include two wonderful NYC-based musicians, pianist Gary Versace and bassist Simón Willson.
Margaret Slovak: guitar; Gary Versace: piano; Simòn Willson: bass; Michael Sarin: drums.
www.margaretslovak.com; Instagram: @margaretslovakguitar
Ari Livne is a classically trained pianist, actor, and versatile performer based in New York City, who loves to tell stories with and about music. Ari cares deeply about creating a warm, welcoming environment for audiences. Whether his concerts center around a single composer, a theme, or a moment in history, he always provides a unifying principle that the audience can settle into. Some performances delve deeply into the repertoire of a single composer: he performed the complete Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux in Elebash Hall and presented a lecture-recital on the Goldberg Variations at the Bridenthal Concert Series. Others focus on new music: he has premiered new works by the composer Cyrus Von Hochstetter and performed the American premiers of works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Volodymyr Runchak, the latter at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in 2020.
Ari is also an avid collaborator and chamber musician. He recently completed a second tour of Japan with violinist Sho Omagari, performing in nine cities and doing outreach concerts at more than twenty schools and hospitals. He has appeared twice with the Aurea Ensemble in Providence, RI. His duo with cellist Clare Monfredo has spent two summers at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute and performed interactive recitals in New York, NY; Ellsworth, ME; Hudson, NY; and Philadelphia, PA.
He also recently presented programs centered around Schoenberg’s Book of Hanging Gardens and Faure’s La chanson d’Ève with mezzo-soprano Sophie Delphis in Brooklyn, NY and Concord, NH. Ari holds degrees from Yale University and The Juilliard School. He has studied acting with John Anthony and Eric Tucker, singing with Kayla Green, and more recently discovered the joy of clown school with Christopher Bayes.
What do we hear when a great composer writes amidst loss and decline? In this intimate concert-portrait, pianist Ari Livne pairs Brahms’s late piano miniatures (Opuses 116–119) with brief spoken vignettes that illuminate the composer’s daily routines, letters, friendships, and frustrations. Moving through tenderness and turbulence, the program penetrates Brahms’s public legend to reveal the private human being - one navigating loss, love remembered, and the stubborn comedy of daily life. Come spend an evening in close company with Brahms. You may never hear him the same way again.
arilivne.com; @arilivne
"A powerful trio of fearless jazz explorers who share a commitment to beauty & adventure"
They’re back. Soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, bassist Mark Helias and drummer Matt Wilson return to the Soapbox Gallery to perform music from Bloom’s songbook of zero Gs and beyond. Three master improvisors at the top of their game - whether performing Bloom’s compositions or improvisations in the moment these long-time bandmates find new ways to navigate the spaceways. Don’t miss this special one-time concert event.
Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom has been developing her unique voice on the soprano saxophone for over 45 years. Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, the Downbeat International Critics Poll & Jazz Journalists Association Award for soprano saxophone. She is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid: 6083janeirabloom). Her trio Cd “Early Americans” received a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and made numerous year end best lists. And her duo recording “Picturing the Invisible” inspired by the B & W photography of NYC photographer Berenice Abbott received a Grammy nomination for Best Immersive Audio. She has recorded and produced 26 albums of her music including the 2026 release of her duo recording “once like a spark” w/ percussionist/ drummer Brian Shankar Adler and trio recording w/ vibist David Friedman and bassist Ken Filiano “Light from a Person” (OTL147).
“veterans… at the peak of their game.”
- Delarue, Lucid Culture
“Jane Ira Bloom is back in orbit… with an instantly recognizable voice all her own.”
Steve Smith/ Night After Night
“she always seeks to make beauty tangible and to reach beyond time.”
- Steve Elman, Arts Fuse
COMING UP
Margaret Slovak is a guitarist, composer and painter. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, she began playing the guitar at age 11 and composing at age 14. Margaret studied jazz, classical music and visual art, receiving her BFA in music from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. Her teachers included guitarists John Abercrombie, Dale Bruning, Dave Peterson and Ralph Towner. Margaret has performed throughout the US, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic.
She has released five CDs, four of which feature her original music. In addition to public performances, Margaret plays for patients in cancer centers, hospitals and hospice; she also performed for wounded combat veterans at the Bronx VA hospital in NYC from 2009–2012. Margaret is also a painter, creating visual images which reflect her musical compositions; her artwork appears on her album packages and sometimes on stage!
Although Margaret is currently based in Austin, TX, she lived and performed in New York City from 1988–1993 and 2008–2012. In 1989, during her first stint in NYC, she recorded an album of eight of her original compositions; the project featured Margaret on electric guitar, along with three stellar NY musicians: pianist Fred Hersch, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Michael Sarin. This album, entitled For the Moment, was released on CD in 2007. Now, in 2026, Margaret is releasing a vinyl version of this acclaimed NYC album!
To celebrate the vinyl release, she will perform a quartet concert at Soapbox Gallery featuring the music from For the Moment. She will be joined by the exquisite drummer who was on the original 1989 recording session, Michael Sarin. The quartet will also include two wonderful NYC-based musicians, pianist Gary Versace and bassist Simón Willson.
Margaret Slovak: guitar; Gary Versace: piano; Simòn Willson: bass; Michael Sarin: drums.
www.margaretslovak.com; Instagram: @margaretslovakguitar
Ari Livne is a classically trained pianist, actor, and versatile performer based in New York City, who loves to tell stories with and about music. Ari cares deeply about creating a warm, welcoming environment for audiences. Whether his concerts center around a single composer, a theme, or a moment in history, he always provides a unifying principle that the audience can settle into. Some performances delve deeply into the repertoire of a single composer: he performed the complete Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux in Elebash Hall and presented a lecture-recital on the Goldberg Variations at the Bridenthal Concert Series. Others focus on new music: he has premiered new works by the composer Cyrus Von Hochstetter and performed the American premiers of works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Volodymyr Runchak, the latter at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in 2020.
Ari is also an avid collaborator and chamber musician. He recently completed a second tour of Japan with violinist Sho Omagari, performing in nine cities and doing outreach concerts at more than twenty schools and hospitals. He has appeared twice with the Aurea Ensemble in Providence, RI. His duo with cellist Clare Monfredo has spent two summers at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute and performed interactive recitals in New York, NY; Ellsworth, ME; Hudson, NY; and Philadelphia, PA.
He also recently presented programs centered around Schoenberg’s Book of Hanging Gardens and Faure’s La chanson d’Ève with mezzo-soprano Sophie Delphis in Brooklyn, NY and Concord, NH. Ari holds degrees from Yale University and The Juilliard School. He has studied acting with John Anthony and Eric Tucker, singing with Kayla Green, and more recently discovered the joy of clown school with Christopher Bayes.
What do we hear when a great composer writes amidst loss and decline? In this intimate concert-portrait, pianist Ari Livne pairs Brahms’s late piano miniatures (Opuses 116–119) with brief spoken vignettes that illuminate the composer’s daily routines, letters, friendships, and frustrations. Moving through tenderness and turbulence, the program penetrates Brahms’s public legend to reveal the private human being - one navigating loss, love remembered, and the stubborn comedy of daily life. Come spend an evening in close company with Brahms. You may never hear him the same way again.
arilivne.com; @arilivne
"A powerful trio of fearless jazz explorers who share a commitment to beauty & adventure"
They’re back. Soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, bassist Mark Helias and drummer Matt Wilson return to the Soapbox Gallery to perform music from Bloom’s songbook of zero Gs and beyond. Three master improvisors at the top of their game - whether performing Bloom’s compositions or improvisations in the moment these long-time bandmates find new ways to navigate the spaceways. Don’t miss this special one-time concert event.
Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom has been developing her unique voice on the soprano saxophone for over 45 years. Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, the Downbeat International Critics Poll & Jazz Journalists Association Award for soprano saxophone. She is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid: 6083janeirabloom). Her trio Cd “Early Americans” received a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and made numerous year end best lists. And her duo recording “Picturing the Invisible” inspired by the B & W photography of NYC photographer Berenice Abbott received a Grammy nomination for Best Immersive Audio. She has recorded and produced 26 albums of her music including the 2026 release of her duo recording “once like a spark” w/ percussionist/ drummer Brian Shankar Adler and trio recording w/ vibist David Friedman and bassist Ken Filiano “Light from a Person” (OTL147).
“veterans… at the peak of their game.”
- Delarue, Lucid Culture
“Jane Ira Bloom is back in orbit… with an instantly recognizable voice all her own.”
Steve Smith/ Night After Night
“she always seeks to make beauty tangible and to reach beyond time.”
- Steve Elman, Arts Fuse
Margaret Slovak is a guitarist, composer and painter. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, she began playing the guitar at age 11 and composing at age 14. Margaret studied jazz, classical music and visual art, receiving her BFA in music from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. Her teachers included guitarists John Abercrombie, Dale Bruning, Dave Peterson and Ralph Towner. Margaret has performed throughout the US, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic.
She has released five CDs, four of which feature her original music. In addition to public performances, Margaret plays for patients in cancer centers, hospitals and hospice; she also performed for wounded combat veterans at the Bronx VA hospital in NYC from 2009–2012. Margaret is also a painter, creating visual images which reflect her musical compositions; her artwork appears on her album packages and sometimes on stage!
Although Margaret is currently based in Austin, TX, she lived and performed in New York City from 1988–1993 and 2008–2012. In 1989, during her first stint in NYC, she recorded an album of eight of her original compositions; the project featured Margaret on electric guitar, along with three stellar NY musicians: pianist Fred Hersch, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Michael Sarin. This album, entitled For the Moment, was released on CD in 2007. Now, in 2026, Margaret is releasing a vinyl version of this acclaimed NYC album!
To celebrate the vinyl release, she will perform a quartet concert at Soapbox Gallery featuring the music from For the Moment. She will be joined by the exquisite drummer who was on the original 1989 recording session, Michael Sarin. The quartet will also include two wonderful NYC-based musicians, pianist Gary Versace and bassist Simón Willson.
Margaret Slovak: guitar; Gary Versace: piano; Simòn Willson: bass; Michael Sarin: drums.
www.margaretslovak.com; Instagram: @margaretslovakguitar
Ari Livne is a classically trained pianist, actor, and versatile performer based in New York City, who loves to tell stories with and about music. Ari cares deeply about creating a warm, welcoming environment for audiences. Whether his concerts center around a single composer, a theme, or a moment in history, he always provides a unifying principle that the audience can settle into. Some performances delve deeply into the repertoire of a single composer: he performed the complete Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux in Elebash Hall and presented a lecture-recital on the Goldberg Variations at the Bridenthal Concert Series. Others focus on new music: he has premiered new works by the composer Cyrus Von Hochstetter and performed the American premiers of works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Volodymyr Runchak, the latter at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in 2020.
Ari is also an avid collaborator and chamber musician. He recently completed a second tour of Japan with violinist Sho Omagari, performing in nine cities and doing outreach concerts at more than twenty schools and hospitals. He has appeared twice with the Aurea Ensemble in Providence, RI. His duo with cellist Clare Monfredo has spent two summers at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute and performed interactive recitals in New York, NY; Ellsworth, ME; Hudson, NY; and Philadelphia, PA.
He also recently presented programs centered around Schoenberg’s Book of Hanging Gardens and Faure’s La chanson d’Ève with mezzo-soprano Sophie Delphis in Brooklyn, NY and Concord, NH. Ari holds degrees from Yale University and The Juilliard School. He has studied acting with John Anthony and Eric Tucker, singing with Kayla Green, and more recently discovered the joy of clown school with Christopher Bayes.
What do we hear when a great composer writes amidst loss and decline? In this intimate concert-portrait, pianist Ari Livne pairs Brahms’s late piano miniatures (Opuses 116–119) with brief spoken vignettes that illuminate the composer’s daily routines, letters, friendships, and frustrations. Moving through tenderness and turbulence, the program penetrates Brahms’s public legend to reveal the private human being - one navigating loss, love remembered, and the stubborn comedy of daily life. Come spend an evening in close company with Brahms. You may never hear him the same way again.
arilivne.com; @arilivne
"A powerful trio of fearless jazz explorers who share a commitment to beauty & adventure"
They’re back. Soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, bassist Mark Helias and drummer Matt Wilson return to the Soapbox Gallery to perform music from Bloom’s songbook of zero Gs and beyond. Three master improvisors at the top of their game - whether performing Bloom’s compositions or improvisations in the moment these long-time bandmates find new ways to navigate the spaceways. Don’t miss this special one-time concert event.
Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom has been developing her unique voice on the soprano saxophone for over 45 years. Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, the Downbeat International Critics Poll & Jazz Journalists Association Award for soprano saxophone. She is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid: 6083janeirabloom). Her trio Cd “Early Americans” received a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and made numerous year end best lists. And her duo recording “Picturing the Invisible” inspired by the B & W photography of NYC photographer Berenice Abbott received a Grammy nomination for Best Immersive Audio. She has recorded and produced 26 albums of her music including the 2026 release of her duo recording “once like a spark” w/ percussionist/ drummer Brian Shankar Adler and trio recording w/ vibist David Friedman and bassist Ken Filiano “Light from a Person” (OTL147).
“veterans… at the peak of their game.”
- Delarue, Lucid Culture
“Jane Ira Bloom is back in orbit… with an instantly recognizable voice all her own.”
Steve Smith/ Night After Night
“she always seeks to make beauty tangible and to reach beyond time.”
- Steve Elman, Arts Fuse