Pamela Laws with Thad DeBrock and Konrad Meissner
Pamela Laws celebrates the release of Blindspot, the first single from her new album, co-written in Nashville with Jeff Trott (Sheryl Crow) and Jeff Cohen (Josh Groban). She’ll be joined by guitarist Thad DeBrock and drummer Konrad Meissner, who have played with everyone from Graham Nash, Judy Collins and Katy Perry to Ari Hest and the Mammals.
Doors 7:30 pm · Show 8:00 pm · $20
Can’t be in Brooklyn? Watch the livestream; pay what you can.
“Lucky for New Yorkers, Pamela is the real thing.” — Interview Magazine
Signed to Warner Chappell Publishing by Judy Stakee, Pamela made two albums with her band Seven Day Diary for Warner Bros./Reprise before moving to New York to pursue her solo career. Her story-driven songs combine the beats she heard blasting from cars past her East Village apartment with the Northern California coast she grew up on. Pamela's songs, swirling guitars, and mellow beats promise are a transformative evening you do not want to miss.
pamelalaws.com · @pamelalawsmusic
Thad DeBrock on Guitar and Konrad Meissner on Drums and Percussion
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
PROGRAM
Ernest Bloch - Suite for Viola & Piano (1919)
Kenji Bunch - Blue Hour Duo (2022)
Rebecca Clarke - Morpheus (1917)
Florence Price - Elfentanz (1937)
Astor Piazzolla - Le Grand Tango (1982)
Jay Julio - Viola, Ari Livne - Piano
JAY’S BIO
From Uniondale, New York, first-generation Filipino-American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and writer Jay Julio (b. 1997) splits time between NYC, Philadelphia, and on tour. Jay serves as Assistant Principal Violist of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and as a substitute musician for the New York City Ballet, the Philadelphia Ballet, the American Composers Orchestra, and on Broadway, including over 300 performances on tour with Hamilton. Solo appearances include concertos with the Ocala Symphony, the Marquette Symphony, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, as well as recitals on the Dame Myra Hess Concert series, at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and at the University of the Philippines’ Abelardo Hall. Jay has recorded for Parma, Nonesuch, and Broadway Records, including releases nominated for 2025 and 2026 Grammy Awards, and has been heard on radio and TV across the US, Australia, and Europe both as musician and advocate, from appearances on nationally syndicated Performance Today with pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen to interviews on major media affiliates regarding Asian-American issues.
They are a 2025 recipient of an Interdisciplinary New York State Council for the Arts grant and a 2025 YoungArts Alumni Microgrant to support the development of their original musical/literary/visual work america is in the heart, and served as a Tell Your Story fellow at the 2026 Spoleto Music Festival; in 2026, they were also named the recipient of the American Federation of Musicians’ Charles McDaniel Youth Award for their work towards equity in the industry. A prizewinner in competitions held by the Music Teachers National Association, the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the YoungArts Foundation, Jay is indebted to the Virtu Foundation and the American Viola Society for past support in the form of instrument and bow loans during their studies. They are an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, with other festival appearances at Aspen (New Horizons Fellow), Pacific, Spoleto, Lucerne, and Cabrillo.
As educator, Jay has served as a Teaching Fellow at the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, on faculty at the Stony Brook University Chamber Strings Camp, and as substitute viola & chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. They have been invited to serve on grant panels for the New York State Council for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the MAP Fund. After starting formal musical training at 14, Jay graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy, received a BM from the Manhattan School of Music at 20 and a MM from the Juilliard School as a full-tuition Susan W. Rose Fellow, studying with Renee Skerik, Karen Ritscher, Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Matthew Lipman. Other important mentors include Leilehua Lanzilotti, Todd Low, and Saskia Hamilton. Away from the instrument, Jay is an award-winning poet; their work can be found in the Cincinnati Review, the Mississippi Review, and elsewhere.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne jayjulio.com, @jayjulio
PROGRAM
Gabriel Fauré - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 117 (1921)
Ludwig van Beethoven - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 5 No. 2 (1796)
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Cello Sonata in G minor Op. 19 (1901)
Andrew Briggs - Cello and Ari Livne - Piano
ARI’S BIO
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.
ANDREW’S BIO
Praised as “an artist with an already expanding reputation and a bright future” (The Well-Tempered Ear), cellist Andrew Briggs has recently appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the Radio France Montpellier Festival, the Bridging Arts Festival (Nuremberg, Germany), and the Opus 16 Concerten (Netherlands).
Highlights of recent seasons include solo and chamber music performances at the Fontainebleau Festival, performances of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with several orchestras, and concerts at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra Seminar. He has also performed chamber music with Gregor Horsch, principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and has served as principal cellist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra.
A graduate of the Juilliard School, Andrew moved to Paris as a recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship from the Fondation des États-Unis, where he further explored the works of Duport, Debussy, and Poulenc. He later joined the Cité internationale des arts, dedicating two years to projects centered on Beethoven’s works for cello and world music collaborations with Ensemble Kimya. He performs regularly as a soloist, as principal cellist of Ensemble Atmosphères, and with the cello sections of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, as well as appearing as co-principal cellist with the Orchestre National de Metz.
arilivne.com; @arilivne andrewbriggscello.com, @andrewbriggscello
PROGRAM
Sensual America is a concert-portrait of desire and repression, built for baritone and piano and conveyed exclusively through the words of Walt Whitman. Staged as a fluid weave of classical song and spoken word, Sensual America explores the sacredness of desire, longing, and human connection through the lens of one of our greatest poets and thinkers.
Come spend an afternoon celebrating life, love, and sensory experience with text by Walt Whitman and music by Leonard Bernstein, Frank Bridge, Jake Heggie, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Kurt Weill, Ned Rorem, Charles Ives, Lee Hoiby, George Crumb, Charles Naginski, Craig Urquhart, Elinor Remick Warren, and Harry Somers.
Jeremy Weiss - Baritone, Ari Livne - Piano
JEREMY’S BIO
With a "heart-wrenchingly beautiful" voice (Interludes) possessing an "indigo-tinged sensuousness" (Opera News), baritone Jeremy Weiss brings human stories to life through radically open-hearted performances. A vocal chameleon and crossover artist, his operatic and musical theater roles range from Schaunard (La Bohème) and Steve Jobs (The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs) to Curly (Oklahoma!) and Garibaldo (Rodelinda).
His career spans two continents, featuring credits with L’Opéra National de Paris, Carnegie Hall, and the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights include house debuts at Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, and San Diego Opera in Fellow Travelers, alongside an upcoming debut with Austin Opera. Weiss is also an acclaimed maker of multidisciplinary work.
He co-created The Wandering, an immersive queer visual album based on Schubert’s lieder that headlined the Innovation in Art Song Summit. He also co-composed and wrote Infinitesimal, a genre-shattering chamber opera for voice, piano, and electronics blending memoir with the science of mortality, which premiered at National Sawdust in 2026 before touring internationally.
A prizewinner in the Lotte Lenya and Handel Aria competitions, Weiss earned his undergraduate degree at Yale University and holds a Master’s in Music and Performer Diploma from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne jeremyweissperformer.com, @jeremyweissperformer
COMING UP
Pamela Laws with Thad DeBrock and Konrad Meissner
Pamela Laws celebrates the release of Blindspot, the first single from her new album, co-written in Nashville with Jeff Trott (Sheryl Crow) and Jeff Cohen (Josh Groban). She’ll be joined by guitarist Thad DeBrock and drummer Konrad Meissner, who have played with everyone from Graham Nash, Judy Collins and Katy Perry to Ari Hest and the Mammals.
Doors 7:30 pm · Show 8:00 pm · $20
Can’t be in Brooklyn? Watch the livestream; pay what you can.
“Lucky for New Yorkers, Pamela is the real thing.” — Interview Magazine
Signed to Warner Chappell Publishing by Judy Stakee, Pamela made two albums with her band Seven Day Diary for Warner Bros./Reprise before moving to New York to pursue her solo career. Her story-driven songs combine the beats she heard blasting from cars past her East Village apartment with the Northern California coast she grew up on. Pamela's songs, swirling guitars, and mellow beats promise are a transformative evening you do not want to miss.
pamelalaws.com · @pamelalawsmusic
Thad DeBrock on Guitar and Konrad Meissner on Drums and Percussion
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
PROGRAM
Ernest Bloch - Suite for Viola & Piano (1919)
Kenji Bunch - Blue Hour Duo (2022)
Rebecca Clarke - Morpheus (1917)
Florence Price - Elfentanz (1937)
Astor Piazzolla - Le Grand Tango (1982)
Jay Julio - Viola, Ari Livne - Piano
JAY’S BIO
From Uniondale, New York, first-generation Filipino-American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and writer Jay Julio (b. 1997) splits time between NYC, Philadelphia, and on tour. Jay serves as Assistant Principal Violist of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and as a substitute musician for the New York City Ballet, the Philadelphia Ballet, the American Composers Orchestra, and on Broadway, including over 300 performances on tour with Hamilton. Solo appearances include concertos with the Ocala Symphony, the Marquette Symphony, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, as well as recitals on the Dame Myra Hess Concert series, at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and at the University of the Philippines’ Abelardo Hall. Jay has recorded for Parma, Nonesuch, and Broadway Records, including releases nominated for 2025 and 2026 Grammy Awards, and has been heard on radio and TV across the US, Australia, and Europe both as musician and advocate, from appearances on nationally syndicated Performance Today with pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen to interviews on major media affiliates regarding Asian-American issues.
They are a 2025 recipient of an Interdisciplinary New York State Council for the Arts grant and a 2025 YoungArts Alumni Microgrant to support the development of their original musical/literary/visual work america is in the heart, and served as a Tell Your Story fellow at the 2026 Spoleto Music Festival; in 2026, they were also named the recipient of the American Federation of Musicians’ Charles McDaniel Youth Award for their work towards equity in the industry. A prizewinner in competitions held by the Music Teachers National Association, the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the YoungArts Foundation, Jay is indebted to the Virtu Foundation and the American Viola Society for past support in the form of instrument and bow loans during their studies. They are an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, with other festival appearances at Aspen (New Horizons Fellow), Pacific, Spoleto, Lucerne, and Cabrillo.
As educator, Jay has served as a Teaching Fellow at the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, on faculty at the Stony Brook University Chamber Strings Camp, and as substitute viola & chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. They have been invited to serve on grant panels for the New York State Council for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the MAP Fund. After starting formal musical training at 14, Jay graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy, received a BM from the Manhattan School of Music at 20 and a MM from the Juilliard School as a full-tuition Susan W. Rose Fellow, studying with Renee Skerik, Karen Ritscher, Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Matthew Lipman. Other important mentors include Leilehua Lanzilotti, Todd Low, and Saskia Hamilton. Away from the instrument, Jay is an award-winning poet; their work can be found in the Cincinnati Review, the Mississippi Review, and elsewhere.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne jayjulio.com, @jayjulio
PROGRAM
Gabriel Fauré - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 117 (1921)
Ludwig van Beethoven - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 5 No. 2 (1796)
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Cello Sonata in G minor Op. 19 (1901)
Andrew Briggs - Cello and Ari Livne - Piano
ARI’S BIO
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.
ANDREW’S BIO
Praised as “an artist with an already expanding reputation and a bright future” (The Well-Tempered Ear), cellist Andrew Briggs has recently appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the Radio France Montpellier Festival, the Bridging Arts Festival (Nuremberg, Germany), and the Opus 16 Concerten (Netherlands).
Highlights of recent seasons include solo and chamber music performances at the Fontainebleau Festival, performances of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with several orchestras, and concerts at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra Seminar. He has also performed chamber music with Gregor Horsch, principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and has served as principal cellist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra.
A graduate of the Juilliard School, Andrew moved to Paris as a recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship from the Fondation des États-Unis, where he further explored the works of Duport, Debussy, and Poulenc. He later joined the Cité internationale des arts, dedicating two years to projects centered on Beethoven’s works for cello and world music collaborations with Ensemble Kimya. He performs regularly as a soloist, as principal cellist of Ensemble Atmosphères, and with the cello sections of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, as well as appearing as co-principal cellist with the Orchestre National de Metz.
arilivne.com; @arilivne andrewbriggscello.com, @andrewbriggscello
PROGRAM
Sensual America is a concert-portrait of desire and repression, built for baritone and piano and conveyed exclusively through the words of Walt Whitman. Staged as a fluid weave of classical song and spoken word, Sensual America explores the sacredness of desire, longing, and human connection through the lens of one of our greatest poets and thinkers.
Come spend an afternoon celebrating life, love, and sensory experience with text by Walt Whitman and music by Leonard Bernstein, Frank Bridge, Jake Heggie, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Kurt Weill, Ned Rorem, Charles Ives, Lee Hoiby, George Crumb, Charles Naginski, Craig Urquhart, Elinor Remick Warren, and Harry Somers.
Jeremy Weiss - Baritone, Ari Livne - Piano
JEREMY’S BIO
With a "heart-wrenchingly beautiful" voice (Interludes) possessing an "indigo-tinged sensuousness" (Opera News), baritone Jeremy Weiss brings human stories to life through radically open-hearted performances. A vocal chameleon and crossover artist, his operatic and musical theater roles range from Schaunard (La Bohème) and Steve Jobs (The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs) to Curly (Oklahoma!) and Garibaldo (Rodelinda).
His career spans two continents, featuring credits with L’Opéra National de Paris, Carnegie Hall, and the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights include house debuts at Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, and San Diego Opera in Fellow Travelers, alongside an upcoming debut with Austin Opera. Weiss is also an acclaimed maker of multidisciplinary work.
He co-created The Wandering, an immersive queer visual album based on Schubert’s lieder that headlined the Innovation in Art Song Summit. He also co-composed and wrote Infinitesimal, a genre-shattering chamber opera for voice, piano, and electronics blending memoir with the science of mortality, which premiered at National Sawdust in 2026 before touring internationally.
A prizewinner in the Lotte Lenya and Handel Aria competitions, Weiss earned his undergraduate degree at Yale University and holds a Master’s in Music and Performer Diploma from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne jeremyweissperformer.com, @jeremyweissperformer
PROGRAM
Robert Schumann - Adagio and Allegro in Ab Major Op. 70 (1849)
Felix Mendelssohn - Cello Sonata in D Major Op. 58 (1842)
Frédéric Chopin - Cello Sonata in G minor Op. 65 (1847)
Clare Monfredo - Cello, Ari Livne - Piano
CLARE’S BIO
Clare Monfredo is a cellist and scholar of performance practice. Across fields, her work is motivated by the same underlying question: how are individual voices expressed across art forms? This question guides her approach to performance, research, curation, and teaching.
As a cellist, Clare has performed stylistically wide-ranging music across the United States and Europe, including with Ensemble Intercontemporain, A Far Cry, Lucerne Contemporary Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Heartbeat Opera, and Wet Ink Ensemble; alongside jazz musicians including Ron Carter and Jon Batiste; and in collaboration with artists including Nene Humphrey and Miya Masaoka. She has performed at an array of New York City venues—from Carnegie Hall to Little Island—and across Europe, including in the Paris Philharmonie, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Brussels’ Bozar, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and KKL Luzern. Clare’s festival appearances include Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival (UK), Lucerne Festival (CHE), Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, and Kurt Weill Fest (DE).
Her primary mentors include Norman Fischer, Peter Bruns, David Gebor, Julia Lichten, and Natasha Brofsky, as well as masterclasses with Yo-Yo Ma, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Paolo Pandolfo. Clare received a Doctor of Musical Arts with distinction from the City University of New York Graduate Center, where she was the recipient of the Dissertation Fellowship, Provost's Fellowship, and 5 Year Graduate Center Fellowship. She studied in Leipzig, Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship with cellist Peter Bruns, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Yale University, as well as a Master of Music degree from the Shepherd School at Rice University where she studied with Norman Fischer. Her work has been featured in Strad Magazine and Strings Magazine, and her scholarship has been accepted at the Music Theory Society of New York State and Society of Music Theory conferences and the Timbre Conference. Clare currently is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester.
A dedicated chamber musician, Clare is co-founder and co-artistic director of DownEast New Music, Maine's first chamber music ensemble focused exclusively on contemporary music.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne claremonfredo.com @cmonfredo.
PROGRAM
Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux Op. 33 (1911)
Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux Op. 39 (1917)
Come experience Rachmaninoff's complete Etudes Tableaux alongside stories of his exile from Russia and his cherished home estate of Ivanovka
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne
Pamela Laws with Thad DeBrock and Konrad Meissner
Pamela Laws celebrates the release of Blindspot, the first single from her new album, co-written in Nashville with Jeff Trott (Sheryl Crow) and Jeff Cohen (Josh Groban). She’ll be joined by guitarist Thad DeBrock and drummer Konrad Meissner, who have played with everyone from Graham Nash, Judy Collins and Katy Perry to Ari Hest and the Mammals.
Doors 7:30 pm · Show 8:00 pm · $20
Can’t be in Brooklyn? Watch the livestream; pay what you can.
“Lucky for New Yorkers, Pamela is the real thing.” — Interview Magazine
Signed to Warner Chappell Publishing by Judy Stakee, Pamela made two albums with her band Seven Day Diary for Warner Bros./Reprise before moving to New York to pursue her solo career. Her story-driven songs combine the beats she heard blasting from cars past her East Village apartment with the Northern California coast she grew up on. Pamela's songs, swirling guitars, and mellow beats promise are a transformative evening you do not want to miss.
pamelalaws.com · @pamelalawsmusic
Thad DeBrock on Guitar and Konrad Meissner on Drums and Percussion
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
PROGRAM
Ernest Bloch - Suite for Viola & Piano (1919)
Kenji Bunch - Blue Hour Duo (2022)
Rebecca Clarke - Morpheus (1917)
Florence Price - Elfentanz (1937)
Astor Piazzolla - Le Grand Tango (1982)
Jay Julio - Viola, Ari Livne - Piano
JAY’S BIO
From Uniondale, New York, first-generation Filipino-American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and writer Jay Julio (b. 1997) splits time between NYC, Philadelphia, and on tour. Jay serves as Assistant Principal Violist of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and as a substitute musician for the New York City Ballet, the Philadelphia Ballet, the American Composers Orchestra, and on Broadway, including over 300 performances on tour with Hamilton. Solo appearances include concertos with the Ocala Symphony, the Marquette Symphony, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, as well as recitals on the Dame Myra Hess Concert series, at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and at the University of the Philippines’ Abelardo Hall. Jay has recorded for Parma, Nonesuch, and Broadway Records, including releases nominated for 2025 and 2026 Grammy Awards, and has been heard on radio and TV across the US, Australia, and Europe both as musician and advocate, from appearances on nationally syndicated Performance Today with pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen to interviews on major media affiliates regarding Asian-American issues.
They are a 2025 recipient of an Interdisciplinary New York State Council for the Arts grant and a 2025 YoungArts Alumni Microgrant to support the development of their original musical/literary/visual work america is in the heart, and served as a Tell Your Story fellow at the 2026 Spoleto Music Festival; in 2026, they were also named the recipient of the American Federation of Musicians’ Charles McDaniel Youth Award for their work towards equity in the industry. A prizewinner in competitions held by the Music Teachers National Association, the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the YoungArts Foundation, Jay is indebted to the Virtu Foundation and the American Viola Society for past support in the form of instrument and bow loans during their studies. They are an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, with other festival appearances at Aspen (New Horizons Fellow), Pacific, Spoleto, Lucerne, and Cabrillo.
As educator, Jay has served as a Teaching Fellow at the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, on faculty at the Stony Brook University Chamber Strings Camp, and as substitute viola & chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. They have been invited to serve on grant panels for the New York State Council for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the MAP Fund. After starting formal musical training at 14, Jay graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy, received a BM from the Manhattan School of Music at 20 and a MM from the Juilliard School as a full-tuition Susan W. Rose Fellow, studying with Renee Skerik, Karen Ritscher, Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Matthew Lipman. Other important mentors include Leilehua Lanzilotti, Todd Low, and Saskia Hamilton. Away from the instrument, Jay is an award-winning poet; their work can be found in the Cincinnati Review, the Mississippi Review, and elsewhere.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne jayjulio.com, @jayjulio
PROGRAM
Gabriel Fauré - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 117 (1921)
Ludwig van Beethoven - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 5 No. 2 (1796)
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Cello Sonata in G minor Op. 19 (1901)
Andrew Briggs - Cello and Ari Livne - Piano
ARI’S BIO
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.
ANDREW’S BIO
Praised as “an artist with an already expanding reputation and a bright future” (The Well-Tempered Ear), cellist Andrew Briggs has recently appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the Radio France Montpellier Festival, the Bridging Arts Festival (Nuremberg, Germany), and the Opus 16 Concerten (Netherlands).
Highlights of recent seasons include solo and chamber music performances at the Fontainebleau Festival, performances of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with several orchestras, and concerts at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra Seminar. He has also performed chamber music with Gregor Horsch, principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and has served as principal cellist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra.
A graduate of the Juilliard School, Andrew moved to Paris as a recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship from the Fondation des États-Unis, where he further explored the works of Duport, Debussy, and Poulenc. He later joined the Cité internationale des arts, dedicating two years to projects centered on Beethoven’s works for cello and world music collaborations with Ensemble Kimya. He performs regularly as a soloist, as principal cellist of Ensemble Atmosphères, and with the cello sections of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, as well as appearing as co-principal cellist with the Orchestre National de Metz.
arilivne.com; @arilivne andrewbriggscello.com, @andrewbriggscello
PROGRAM
Sensual America is a concert-portrait of desire and repression, built for baritone and piano and conveyed exclusively through the words of Walt Whitman. Staged as a fluid weave of classical song and spoken word, Sensual America explores the sacredness of desire, longing, and human connection through the lens of one of our greatest poets and thinkers.
Come spend an afternoon celebrating life, love, and sensory experience with text by Walt Whitman and music by Leonard Bernstein, Frank Bridge, Jake Heggie, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Kurt Weill, Ned Rorem, Charles Ives, Lee Hoiby, George Crumb, Charles Naginski, Craig Urquhart, Elinor Remick Warren, and Harry Somers.
Jeremy Weiss - Baritone, Ari Livne - Piano
JEREMY’S BIO
With a "heart-wrenchingly beautiful" voice (Interludes) possessing an "indigo-tinged sensuousness" (Opera News), baritone Jeremy Weiss brings human stories to life through radically open-hearted performances. A vocal chameleon and crossover artist, his operatic and musical theater roles range from Schaunard (La Bohème) and Steve Jobs (The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs) to Curly (Oklahoma!) and Garibaldo (Rodelinda).
His career spans two continents, featuring credits with L’Opéra National de Paris, Carnegie Hall, and the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights include house debuts at Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, and San Diego Opera in Fellow Travelers, alongside an upcoming debut with Austin Opera. Weiss is also an acclaimed maker of multidisciplinary work.
He co-created The Wandering, an immersive queer visual album based on Schubert’s lieder that headlined the Innovation in Art Song Summit. He also co-composed and wrote Infinitesimal, a genre-shattering chamber opera for voice, piano, and electronics blending memoir with the science of mortality, which premiered at National Sawdust in 2026 before touring internationally.
A prizewinner in the Lotte Lenya and Handel Aria competitions, Weiss earned his undergraduate degree at Yale University and holds a Master’s in Music and Performer Diploma from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne jeremyweissperformer.com, @jeremyweissperformer
PROGRAM
Robert Schumann - Adagio and Allegro in Ab Major Op. 70 (1849)
Felix Mendelssohn - Cello Sonata in D Major Op. 58 (1842)
Frédéric Chopin - Cello Sonata in G minor Op. 65 (1847)
Clare Monfredo - Cello, Ari Livne - Piano
CLARE’S BIO
Clare Monfredo is a cellist and scholar of performance practice. Across fields, her work is motivated by the same underlying question: how are individual voices expressed across art forms? This question guides her approach to performance, research, curation, and teaching.
As a cellist, Clare has performed stylistically wide-ranging music across the United States and Europe, including with Ensemble Intercontemporain, A Far Cry, Lucerne Contemporary Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Heartbeat Opera, and Wet Ink Ensemble; alongside jazz musicians including Ron Carter and Jon Batiste; and in collaboration with artists including Nene Humphrey and Miya Masaoka. She has performed at an array of New York City venues—from Carnegie Hall to Little Island—and across Europe, including in the Paris Philharmonie, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Brussels’ Bozar, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and KKL Luzern. Clare’s festival appearances include Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival (UK), Lucerne Festival (CHE), Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, and Kurt Weill Fest (DE).
Her primary mentors include Norman Fischer, Peter Bruns, David Gebor, Julia Lichten, and Natasha Brofsky, as well as masterclasses with Yo-Yo Ma, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Paolo Pandolfo. Clare received a Doctor of Musical Arts with distinction from the City University of New York Graduate Center, where she was the recipient of the Dissertation Fellowship, Provost's Fellowship, and 5 Year Graduate Center Fellowship. She studied in Leipzig, Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship with cellist Peter Bruns, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Yale University, as well as a Master of Music degree from the Shepherd School at Rice University where she studied with Norman Fischer. Her work has been featured in Strad Magazine and Strings Magazine, and her scholarship has been accepted at the Music Theory Society of New York State and Society of Music Theory conferences and the Timbre Conference. Clare currently is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester.
A dedicated chamber musician, Clare is co-founder and co-artistic director of DownEast New Music, Maine's first chamber music ensemble focused exclusively on contemporary music.
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne claremonfredo.com @cmonfredo.
PROGRAM
Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux Op. 33 (1911)
Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux Op. 39 (1917)
Come experience Rachmaninoff's complete Etudes Tableaux alongside stories of his exile from Russia and his cherished home estate of Ivanovka
ARI’S BIO
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.
arilivne.com; @arilivne