“When I sat down to write this string quartet, I was not trying to write something Black, I was just writing out of my experience,” said Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) about his…

In 1946, American composer George Walker (1922-2018) wrote what would become one of his most notable works at the young age of 24: String Quartet no. 1. Walker was introduced to music at 5 years…

The latest ASO Online release was performed live this past September during a socially-distanced chamber music performance at the Washington Lake Park Amphitheater in Sewell, NJ. A string quartet of…

United We Play is a short film inspired by the current turbulent times, and the belief that strength comes through adversity—where there is divide, there is also community. The project…

The middle movement of Samuel Barber’s String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 (1935), later arranged by the composer for orchestra as Adagio for Strings, is “one of the most…

A string quartet of ASO musicians performs the works of Italian-born Nino Rota (1911-1979). Born into a family of musicians, Rota was no stranger to music and was a child…

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This…

A great nation in turmoil after the abrupt end to a ruling dynasty leaving no clear path forward. This was Russia in the Time of Troubles, the seventeenth-century period in…

A contemporary of Saint-Saëns, Emmanuel Chabrier was an independent-minded and important innovator—many saw him as having paved the way for French modernism. With his comic opera The King in Spite…

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as a soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos. Taneyev was one…

Written by Dame Ethel Smyth, English composer and leader in the women’s suffrage movement, The Wreckers was first performed in Germany in 1906 and was mounted in the composer’s homeland…

In collaboration with Bard’s Fisher Center, ASO Online illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber, featuring his Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 and…

SummerScape’s production of Anton Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece Demon first premiered to great acclaim in 1871. Although performed frequently in Russia, the work remains something of a rarity in the West…

Set in an unnamed totalitarian state, The Miracle of Heliane (Das Wunder der Heliane) features an intricate, erotic triangle between a ruthless despot, The Ruler; his beautiful and neglected wife, Heliane; and…