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Violist Dana Kelley, celebrated chamber musician and associate principal of the National Symphony goes in depth exploring works being performed during the Schneider Concerts 2025-2026 season at The New School in four pre-concert talks in December, January, March, and April. Join us for one or all four.
Sunday, December 7 at 12:30p.m.
Dana introduces the works to be performed by Trio Eris at 2pm
Trio Eris
Katherine Balch: different gravities (2023)
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: Piano Trio (1847)
Franz Schubert: Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 100 (1828)
$5 entry fee for talk only
Separate ticket for 2pm concert $17-$20
This event is part of the Schneider Concerts 2025-26 season — 6 mainstage concerts featuring exceptional emerging ensembles, plus pre-concert talks, livestreams, and free short programs at community partner venues.
Explore the season here.
Presented by New School Concerts
$90: 6-concert season ticket
(includes livestreams for days you can't attend in person)
$20: general admission
$17: seniors and those with disabilities
$5: student stand-by
(available with presentation of student ID at box office on the day of the concert)
$5 - preconcert talk (not included with concert ticket)
$0-$20: simultaneous online broadcast (registration required)
New School students, faculty, and staff: Use your N# to register for a single, non-transferrable, free ticket. You will be asked to present New School ID upon entry to event.
Seats are not assigned and physical tickets will not be mailed. You will receive email confirmation and we will check in registered ticket holders at the venue starting one hour before the concert.
The Auditorium at 66 W. 12th Street address is accessible
step-free to the lobby and entry-level auditorium.
Large print programs and assistive listening devices available without advance request.
A wheelchair accessible unisex restroom is located on the lobby level; additional accessible restrooms are available on the 4th floor. Other bathroom facilities use steps for access.
Seats are not assigned. Use a wheelchair, a walker, or have other seating requirement? Please reserve accessible seating at time of ticket purchase so we can ensure you get the set you need.
Note that walkers cannot be left in theater aisles and theater representatives may be unable to assist patrons to their seats, so it is best for those with walkers to keep that in mind and make any needed seating requests at time of ticket purchase.
Requests for additional accommodations can be made at time of ticket purchase.
Recently appointed associate principal viola of the National Symphony, Dana has been a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke's and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and performed as guest principal viola of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and as a member of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Praised for her rich and beautiful tone, Dana has been a top prizewinner in the Sphinx Music Competition, the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition. She is a former member of the Argus String Quartet. She serves on the viola faculty of the Mannes School of Music at The New School.
Dana received an Artist Diploma in String Quartet Studies with the Argus Quartet as the 2017-2019 Graduate Quartet in Residence at The Juilliard School. Dana was a 2014-2016 Fellow in Ensemble Connect - a performance and teaching program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute. She received her Bachelor’s of Music from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, and completed her Master’s of Music degree as student of Kim Kashkashian’s at the New England Conservatory.
Founded at The New School in 1957 as New School Concerts with the mission to offer outstanding, affordable chamber music, the series was renamed in 1993 to honor its founding artistic director, Alexander “Sasha” Schneider—violinist, conductor, and member of the Budapest String Quartet.
The Schneider Concerts commitment to accessible, excellent chamber music still is anchored in affordable pricing, but now also includes support for early-career artists, outreach to older New Yorkers, and a strong commitment to accessibility and inclusion. The series now actively welcomes artists and audiences from all backgrounds, with programming that honors and celebrates tradition and embraces innovation.
Director Rohana Elias-Reyes is supported by an music advisory committee of esteemed musicians: John Dalley, Pamela Frank, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Anthony McGill, Kurt Muroki, Tara O’Connor, and Arnold Steinhardt.
Notable series alumni who made debuts and early career appearances on the series include Peter Serkin, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Guarneri, Dover, and Calidore string quartets. More recently, we've presented the New York debuts of the Viano, Balourdet, Isidore, and Ivalas string quartets.
"different gravities" is a musical take on ideas and images that have been rolling around in my head since reading Liu Cixin’s "Three Body Problem" trilogy. In this science-fiction saga, Cixin introduces readers to many concepts in theoretical physics and astrophysics, one of which is the trilogy’s namesake, the problem of solving the motion of three gravitationally interacting bodies.
Cixin’s book lend me down many delightful Wikipedia rabbit-holes, thinking about the way gravity looms omnipresent in my life on this planet and the fantastical number of other kinds of gravitational circumstances besides Earth’s little g. It also seemed an apt way to think about the relationships in chamber music: mutual attraction of greater or lesser strength between musicians or musical materials, the downward fall of a musical line or phrase towards some resolution, the push and pull of intonation.
"different gravities" imagines a kind of musical planet-hopping: each movement lets musical relationships play out according to their unique “gravitational” circumstances. This piece is written with affection for Longleash Trio: Pala Garcia, John Popham, and Julia Den Boer."
-Katherine Balch
The Fourth String Quartet of Béla Bartók is a landmark example of his compositional ethos, synonymous with all of the stylistic traits of his mature writing. It combines his sharp formal and technical mastery of pre-and post-twentieth century musical language and his devotion to folk music traditions of his native Hungary and beyond as one of the first modern ethnomusicologists. Above all else, his work reflects his prioritizing the myriad possible uses of symmetry in music. This quartet is groundbreaking in introducing various symmetries as the fabric of the main thematic material, the pitch centers of the five movements, and the function of each movement in the overall form of the piece. Bartok had a keen interest in arch form, congruous halves melded together around a central point, and the Fourth Quartet is the quintessential example of this form at all levels. All of these elements enhance a unique expressivity also apparent in the work’s scintillating energy and wide range of colors.
The first and the fifth movement pair as high energy movements presenting music as rhetoric — pitch motives going back and forth in discourse between voices, sometimes argumentatively.
They feature the same symmetrical motif throughout both movements, as well as an
Arabian-inspired tune heard gently in the first movement and roaringly in the last. Even within the intellectual discourse of the movements, a dance element is omnipresent. The second and fourth movements are hushed interludes which demonstrate music as a form of serious play, delicate yet full of inextinguishable energy. The second movement is a highly chromatic, eerie, and devilishly fast scherzo. The fourth is entirely plucked, with some of Bartók’s trademark snap-pizzicato and other extended techniques creating a unique sound world. At the center of the arch lies a serene and otherworldly slow movement that fits Bartók’s textural genre of “night music.” This third movement begins with the unfolding of a 6-note drone, featuring a delayed vibrato effect one can imagine as pulsating heat waves on a hot summer evening. The lengthy cello solo is said to emulate a Hungarian reed instrument called the Tárogató, and the subsequent solos of the other instruments vividly portray bird calls and even insects. The movement returns to tranquility at the end, with each instrument poetically dropping out in the reverse order they first entered.
Thank you to our audience, Jessie Montgomery, The New School, the Schneider Concert Series, and the New England Conservatory for allowing us to perform for you today. It is a pleasure to play these works and a very special occasion to perform “Strum” by the Mannes School of Music’s newest violin and composition faculty member, Jessie Montgomery.
— Notes by the Balourdet String Quartet, except where otherwise noted.
Cho-Liang Lin was born in Taiwan. A neighbor’s violin studies convinced this 5-year old boy to do the same. At the age twelve, he moved to Sydney to further his studies with Robert Pikler, a student of Jenő Hubay. After playing for Itzhak Perlman in a master class, the 13-year old boy decided that he must study with Mr. Perlman’s teacher, Dorothy DeLay. At the age fifteen, Lin traveled alone to New York and auditioned for the Juilliard School and spent the next six years working with Ms DeLay.
A concert career was launched in 1980 with Lin’s debut playing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta . He has since performed as soloist with virtually every major orchestra in the world. His busy schedule on stage around the world continues to this day. However, his wide ranging interests have led him to diverse endeavors. At the age of 31, his alma mater, Juilliard School, invited Lin to become faculty. In 2006, he was appointed professor at Rice University. He is currently music director of La Jolla SummerFest and the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival. Ever so keen about education, he was music director of the Taiwan National Symphony music camp and youth orchestra for four years.
In his various professional capacities, Cho-Liang Lin has championed composers of our time. His efforts to commission new works have led a diverse field of composers to write for him. The list includes John Harbison, Christopher Rouse, Tan Dun, John Williams, Steven Stucky, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bright Sheng, Paul Schoenfield, Lalo Schifrin, Joan Tower and many more. Recently, he was soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Nashville Symphony and Royal Philharmonic. He is a member of the New School Concerts music advisory committee.
Lin performs on the 1715 Stradivari named “Titian” or a 2000 Samuel Zygmuntowicz. His many concerto, recital and chamber music recordings on Sony Classical, Decca, BIS, Delos and Ondine can be heard on Spotify or Naxos.com. His albums have won Gramophone Record Of The Year, Grammy nominations and Penguin Guide Rosettes.
Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post).
Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, ballet, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn… (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Passage (2019) a ballet commissioned by Dance Theatre of Harlem, Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival.
The New York Philharmonic has selected Montgomery as one of the featured composers for their Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting equal voting rights in the United States to women. Other forthcoming works include a cadenza for the Brahms Violin Concerto, to be premiered by Hilary Hahn; a cello concerto for Thomas Mesa jointly commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, and The Sphinx Organization; and a new orchestral work for the National Symphony.
A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and recent member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist appearing regularly with her improvising duo Big dog little dog with bassist Eleonore Oppenheim.
Montgomery’s teachers and mentors include Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, Alice Kanack, Joan Tower, Derek Bermel, Mark Suozzo, Ira Newborn, and Laura Kaminsky. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University. Montgomery is on both the composition and violin faculty at Mannes.