This week the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center launches Schubert Ascending, its three-concert festival devoted to the music of Schubert's prolific final year.  Developed and curated by 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant winner Inon Barnatan, this project has been presented to much acclaim at the Concertgebouw, the Library of Congress and in Mexico City.

"It seems almost impossible to think of someone who died at the tender age of 31 as having had a 'late period'," says Barnatan.  "All the featured pieces were written within a few months of each other.  Each and every one of them is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of its kind."  

At 30, Barnatan is the same age as Schubert when the composer wrote most of these works.  His young collaborators for the November 6, 8 and 10 concerts at Alice Tully Hall are the Borromeo String Quartet, pianists Jonathan Biss and Orion Weiss, violinist Lisa Ferschtman, cellist Nicholas Altsteadt, and baritone Randall Scarlata.

View this short video from the Chamber Music Society to hear Barnatan and his fellow artists on Schubert Ascending.


For more information, visit InonBarnatan.com or the Opus 3 Artists web site.  

"Pianist Kirill Gerstein is touring the world with a trio of grizzly bears. Make that three utterly ferocious, feral piano concertos," wrote critic John Pitcher in the Omaha World-Herald about the Russian pianist's jumbo-sized suitcase of repertoire.  In the past two months, Gerstein has played the Tchaikovsky Concerto in Italy, Brahms B-flat in Cologne and San Juan, and "Rach 3" in Omaha and Detroit, along with Bernstein's Age of Anxiety
in Portland and Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 for his Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra debut. 

The multi-faceted pianist talks about growing up with jazz and clasical music, his piano professorship in Stuttgart, making music with Gustavo Dudamel and Charles Dutoit, and more in this 21C Q&A profile: On the Road with Kirill Gerstein.

Listen to an encore from Gerstein's July recital at the Verbier Festival that aired last week on American Public Media's Performance Today.


For more information, visit KirillGerstein.com or CM Artists web site.