Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — Upcoming Concerts & Performances

Boston · gardnermuseum.org

9 upcoming concerts and performances from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, with dates, venues and ticket links taken from the organization’s own pages and refreshed weekly. All classical in Greater Boston →

Empathy and Exoticism: Rembrandt's Multicultural Society

New

Thu Oct 15 · 7pm

Empathy and Exoticism: Rembrandt's Multicultural Society

· · · 25 Evans Way · · ·

Amsterdam in the 1600s was a trade hub and a refuge for persecuted groups, including a large Jewish population, and Protestant artists such as Rembrandt lived beside neighbours of many faiths whom their work could exoticize or stereotype. Scholars Nazanin Hedayat Munroe, Michele Frederick and Michael Zell of Boston University take up that history, with Gardner curator Diana Seave Greenwald moderating. The MFA’s Center for Netherlandish Art co-presents.

Details

Sun Oct 18

ACRONYM: Esther in the Age of Rembrandt

· · · ·

Three Esther cantatas from Rembrandt's century — by Carissimi, Charpentier and Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, among the few professional women composers of the French Baroque — with instrumental music by the Jewish Mantuan composer Salamone Rossi. The period-instrument band ACRONYM plays, in step with the museum's fall exhibition.

Details

Sun Oct 25 · 1:30pm

Celebrating Chrysanthemums

· · · ·

A programme built entirely on the chrysanthemum, tied to the museum's annual courtyard installation: songs and short pieces by Massenet, Delibes, Puccini (Crisantemi), Scott Joplin, Dora Pejačević and Takemitsu, among others. Mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan and pianist Peter Dugan lead an all-star cast, hosted by the Gardner's music and horticulture curators.

Details

Alarm Will Sound: Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain

Thu Oct 29 · 7:00pm

Alarm Will Sound: Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain

· · · 25 Evans Way · ·

Alarm Will Sound, the New York ensemble directed by Alan Pierson, performs Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain (2000), a work for 24 players in which the hall lights are switched off and on as part of the score, so long stretches are played in darkness. The Austrian composer built it from microtonal and overtone harmony, and has tied it to the far right's entry into Austria's government that year.

Details

Sun Nov 1 · 1:30pm

Eleanor Alberga with Green Room Ensemble

· · · ·

The Jamaican-British composer Eleanor Alberga plays her own chamber music: her three string quartets and the Second Piano Quintet, 'Stark,' on its world-premiere tour. The Green Room Ensemble — violinists Thomas Bowes and Nathan Meltzer, violist Jordan Bak and cellist Sterling Elliott — joins her.

Details

Sun Nov 8 · 1:30pm

Poiesis Quartet

· · · ·

Beethoven's last string quartet, Op. 135, and Prokofiev's First, Op. 50, with two recent works: Sky Macklay's Many Many Cadences and a new commission from Jeff Scott, the founding horn player of Imani Winds. The Poiesis Quartet, founded in 2022, plays.

Details

An Evening with Esther

New

Thu Nov 12 · 6pm

An Evening with Esther

· · · 25 Evans Way · · ·

An evening of Persian Jewish culture centred on Queen Esther, presented with the Vilna Shul alongside the Gardner’s exhibition on Esther in the age of Rembrandt. Chef and food historian Sara Gardner leads a tasting of Jewish Persian culinary traditions; vocalist Tutti Druyan’s Kantika set joins Sephardic melodies in Ladino with her songs in English and Hebrew; and digital storyteller Miriam Anzovin talks with Laura Mandel about Esther’s legacy.

Details

Sun Nov 15 · 1:30pm

Lysander Piano Trio

· · · ·

The Lysander Trio, formed at Juilliard, plays Dvořák's F-minor Piano Trio, Op. 65, alongside a trio by the Swedish composer Amanda Maier, who knew Brahms and Grieg, a Grieg andante, and Bongani Ndodana-Breen's Two Nguni Dances, a Gardner commission drawing on southern African music.

Details

Sun Nov 22 · 1:30pm

Jean Rondeau

· · · ·

A French Baroque keyboard programme: a Louis Couperin suite, a suite and prélude by Rameau, selections from François Couperin's L'Art de toucher le clavecin, and Royer's storming La Marche des Scythes. Jean Rondeau, among the most celebrated harpsichordists at work today, plays.

Details