Hi! Jason here. By far one of my favorite concerts we’ve performed to date is at the incredible Morgan Library & Museum on Madison Avenue in New York City this past Tuesday, January 31st. Let me tell you about it!
Our view of the Empire State Building just outside our place.
First of all, NYC is one of my favorite cities and it’s always fun being there. Being a true food lover, it’s always difficult to decide where to eat and when we’re there to perform it’s extra difficult because we often don’t have very much free time. Although we were able to eat at a few great places, the stand-out for me was a Chinese restaurant called Chili. We ordered probably 14 dishes and shared them family-style. Highly recommend!
Truffle beef tenderloin.
I don’t remember the name, but this was an amazing cocktail from Osamil.
Uni bibimbap from Korean restaurant Osamil.
Strawberry and olive oil cronut from Dominique Ansel.
Truffle beef tenderloin.
The library itself is a pretty impressive place but unfortunately because we were so busy preparing for the concert with sound checks, etc, that I wasn’t able to devote much time to looking around. I guess that just means another trip in the future!
We opened the program with Missy Mazzoli’s Enthusiasm Strategies, a piece that we have performed many times and happens to be an excellent program opener. Coincidentally, our album 131 was also released on 1/31, the day of this concert, and this piece of music also opens the album! Shameless solicitation: if you haven’t already, go check out the album!
Second on the program were five movements from Bach’s Art of Fugue, including the final, incomplete contrapunctus. Performing this profound work is already a meaningful event in its own right, but while we were performing I remember distinctly thinking about how in that very room was Bach’s last hand-written letter and it somehow felt very moving that we were there, 273 years after his death, performing his music for a live audience.
Bach’s last hand-written letter, on display at the Morgan Library & Museum.
Following the Bach, we performed one of Sean’s pieces, People. You can read about it on an earlier blog post here. Finishing the program was Shostakovich’s moving 8th quartet. We’ve performed the piece quite a few times this season and to me it never gets old! We got two published reviews of the concert, The New York Classical Review and The New York Concert Review were both very generous with their words.
Great trip, great venue, great food, great company, and a great concert. What more can you ask for?
