New York’s choral and orchestral ensemble Musica Sacra performed “Classics for Christmas” at Carnegie Hall on December 17, 2025. The program featured Christmas-related works by Bach, Thompson, Corelli, and Handel, with soprano Kathryn Lewek and harpist Mariko Anraku as soloists. Highlights included Bach’s Gloria in excelsis Deo, excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, and Rachmaninoff’s Bogoroditse Devo, creating a rich, festive, and deeply moving concert. The performance was led by conductor Kent Tritle.

Trifonov’s program traced Russian modernism and Romantic expression, opening with Taneyev’s Prelude and Fugue, where he highlighted clarity, restrained lyricism, and transparent counterpoint. Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives revealed fleeting humor and delicacy, while Myaskovsky’s single-movement Sonata conveyed shadow, tension, and virtuosity with precise control. In Schumann’s Sonata, he contrasted Florestan and Eusebius through agile scherzos, lyrical arias, and a spirited finale, uniting improvisatory freedom with poetic depth. Across the program, Trifonov balanced technical mastery, expressive nuance, and psychological insight, illuminating the music’s inner voice and emotional breadth.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin's All Brahms at Carnegie Hall on December 9, 2025.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Conductor

Veronika Eberle, Violin

Jean-Guihen Queyras, Cello

Program

ALL-BRAHMS PROGRAM

Tragic Overture

Double Concerto

Symphony No. 1

Three Latvian musicians, Gidon Kremer, Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė, and Georgijs Osokins, had a trio recital at Zankel on 12.4.2025

11.21.2025 Musicians From Marlboro at Weill Recital Hall. A chamber music group made up of young musicians associated with the Marlboro Music Festival in the United States. The festival, established in 1951, is known as a place where young and experienced musicians come together to study and perform chamber music. Selected members of the group give concerts both in the U.S. and abroad.

The world of Nicolas Altstaedt, Cello and Thomas Dunford, Lute's "viol x cello x lute x Bach x modern."that means all contemporaries, an intimate and stimulating dialogue between the two and the audience. The Bourbon sophistication and Bach. It continues with Pärt and then Marais.

Christian Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France at Carnegie Hall on 11.9.2025. The program began with Elsa Barraine’s Symphony No. 2, Voïna (War), composed in 1938, just before the outbreak of World War II. Barraine’s work captivates with its modern French transparency condensed into a stable structure.

At 77, Giant Violinist, Chung Kyung Wha once again stood at Carnegie Hall. This marked the culmination of her musical career. After a long career, a quiet flame and prayer resonated in the hearts of the enthusiastic audience gathered in the dry Stern Hall. There was no hesitation in the rise of each note, but the quiet determination and resolve that accompanied each note. It wasn't the fiery passion of her youth, but the power to burn like a quiet flame. The violin spoke of strength and kindness that transcend technique. Each time she drew her bow, the silence seemed to breathe, as if decades had passed. And after the sound faded, a prayer lingered. Kevin Kenner let each note speak as if it were a serene melody. Their breathing overlapped, creating a conversation through sound. Kenner added a soft glow to Chung's single note, and Chung responded to Kenner's silence with a prayerful echo—a dialogue that transcended.

Ksenia Sidorova gave her debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall on 11.5.2025. Almost the entire program was arranged by Ksenia and friends, overflowing with respect for the works, musicians, and friends. As a result, the pieces were deeply connected, and Sidorova's world transcended time and style, unfolding through the accordion.

The program encompassed a wide range of genres, from American minimalism to Bach and numerous folk pieces, imitating a variety of instruments and voices, including organ, folk instruments, orchestra, and voice. The final piece was Schnittke's polystylism, the opera of satire and humor.

At Carnegie Hall on October 31, 2025, The Philadelphia Orchestra with Emanuel Ax offered a luminous journey through Still, Beethoven, and Brahms—a concert where nature, spirit, and human expression intertwined. William Grant Still’s Wood Notes (1947), inspired by Shelby Steele’s nature poetry, shimmered with dialogue between instruments like rippling water, blending blues, jazz, and Romantic colors into warmth reminiscent of Dvořák and Sibelius. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 followed—Ax’s 50th anniversary with the orchestra, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s birth year—bridging generations. Ax’s playing, breathing between each phrase, revealed Beethoven’s humanity with timeless tenderness, his cadenza rising to a Largo so intimate it brought tears. The finale’s laughter between violinist Kim and Yannick felt like Beethoven smiling from within. Ax’s encore, Schubert’s Serenade, was a whisper of love returned. After intermission, Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 unfolded as a spiritual heir to Bach’s Cantata No. 150, its sound rising and vanishing like mist. Yannick’s refined bass lines and luminous phrasing wove Still’s nature and Beethoven’s soul into Brahms’s deep serenity—a seamless celebration of Ax, Philadelphia, and the living continuum of music itself.

The Philharmonia’s 80th anniversary concert on 10.29.2025 opened with Gabriela Ortiz’s If Oxygen Were Green, a vivid 21st-century exploration of light, water, carbon dioxide, consonance, and dissonance. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 followed, with Víkingur Ólafsson’s playful, defiant piano weaving through the orchestra, while principal cellist Tim Hugh and the basses created tender, whispering tones that blended woodwinds and strings in intimate dialogue. Under Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the orchestra breathed with distinct shapes, colors, and intentions, alternating freedom and discipline like a modern Beethoven. Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 unfolded with microtonal patterns, off-beat syncopations, and evolving themes; bass and cello provided a living pulse, while horns, winds, and strings conversed with microscopic detail, merging human emotion and natural sublimity. The Andante mosso recalled Beethoven’s Ninth, the third movement rose like a creature shedding its skin, and the finale’s deep cello-flute resonance and bass drum strokes created a timeless, awe-filled silence. Over two days, the warmth of cello and double bass, especially in the Sibelius waltz encore, revealed the orchestra’s capacity to transform controlled technique into simple, joyful, Karajan-like radiance.