Musicians Of Ensemble Connect Kick Off Fourth Season Of Innovative UP CLOSE Performances Next Month

Ensemble Connect kicks off the fourth season of its Up Close series with Up Close: space(s) on Monday, March 27 at 7:30 PM in the Weill Music Room of Carnegie Hall's Resnick Education Wing. This innovative concert is curated by the fellows of Ensemble Connect and the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), featuring violinist Miranda Cuckson, pianist Conor Hanick, and dancer and choreographer Julia Eichten.

space(s) invites audiences to an evening of close listening and engagement with sound, silence, movement, and space. Through compositions by Michael Pisaro, Jennifer Walshe, Jürg Frey, Carolyn Chen, and more, the concert explores physical awareness, attention to each other, and the spontaneity of personal and collective responses. Listeners are encouraged to arrive when doors open at 7:00 p.m. to engage with Pisaro's space and other pieces of music in Carnegie Hall's Resnick Education Wing. Collaborators Miranda Cuckson, Conor Hanick, and Julia Eichten are all featured on the concert, alongside the fellows.

Ensemble Connect's Up Close performances explore different approaches to presenting classical music by experimenting with concert formats, audience engagement, and multimedia to activate the performance space in exciting new ways. On Monday, May 8 at 7:30 p.m., the Sandeep Das-Mike Block Duo-tabla player and cellist members respectively of the Silkroad Ensemble-join the fellows for a second Up Close performance that celebrates improvisation and joyful music-making. Tickets for the May 8 performance will go on sale later this season.

Other upcoming Carnegie Hall performance highlights include Ensemble Connect's return to Weill Recital Hall next Tuesday, February 21 at 7:30 p.m. to offer the New York premiere of Michi Wiancko's 7 Kinships (commissioned by Carnegie Hall), alongside Jennifer Higdon's Dark Wood, Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, K. 452, and R. Schumann's Piano Quintet.

The fellows will offer their final performance of the season in Weill Recital Hall on Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m., opening with Valerie Coleman's Rubispheres, a series of chamber trios dedicated to urban life and landscapes-including New York's Lower East Side and Washington Heights. Also featured on the program are Dvořák's Terzetto, J. Strauss Jr.'s Kaiser Waltz (arr. Schoenberg), and Dohnányi's Sextet in C Major, Op. 37.

Ensemble Connect is made up of extraordinary young professional classical musicians residing in the US who take part in a two-year fellowship program created in 2007 by Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. The program prepares fellows for careers that combine musical excellence with teaching, community engagement, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and leadership by offering top-quality performance opportunities, intensive professional development, and partnerships throughout the fellowship with New York City public schools.

On the concert stage and in schools and communities, Ensemble Connect has earned accolades from critics and audiences alike for the quality of the concerts, the fresh and open-minded approach to programming, and the ability to actively engage any audience.

Exemplary performers, dedicated teachers, and passionate advocates of music throughout the community, the forward-looking musicians of Ensemble Connect are redefining what it means to be a musician in the 21st century.

For more information about Ensemble Connect, visit ensembleconnect.org.