The Performance Will Be Held on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at 7:30 PM

The ASPECT Chamber Music Series continues its illuminating series of performances in its fourth season with Haunted Minds. 

This brilliant performance features an illustrated talk from musicologist Nicholas Chong about Bartók and Shostakovich complemented by the Ariel Quartet in Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1 and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8.

The performance, which will be held on Wednesday, November 13, 2019, at 7:30 PM at the Italian Academy of Columbia University, will take a deep dive into the trauma suffered by both Bartók’s and Shostakovich and explain how they used that trauma to transform themselves—and their music—into something truly inspiring. 

Profoundly hurt when rejected by violinist Stefi Geyer, Bartók turned inwards, weaving music from a ‘Stefi’ motif that passes from grief to energetic folk-inspired resolution. Half a century later, guilt-ridden at having been pressured into joining the Communist Party, Shostakovich wrote his Eighth Quartet as a kind of epitaph for himself, filling it with quotations from his own works. Both quartets reveal much about how confrontation with darkness can ultimately lead back to the light.

Founded by Irina Knaster in London in 2011, the ASPECT Chamber Music Series was relocated to New York in 2016. ASPECT is designed to present a new type of concert format to the public—a format that doesn’t just present a traditional recital, rather, transforms it into an engaging, thought-provoking, and intimate blend of speech, image, and performance. 

The series is proud to feature chamber music’s leading musicians and music experts in a delightful and insightful mix of illustrated talks which reveal fascinating details about composers, cultural history, and music itself. 

The ASPECT Chamber Music Series fall season won’t end with Haunted Minds. On December 4, 2019, at 7:30 PM, ASPECT will perform Russian Elegy at the Bohemian National Hall, featuring violinist Misha Keylin, cellist Zlatomir Fung and pianist Pavel Nersessian with an illustrated talk by Stephen Johnson.

Tickets for the Haunted Minds program begin at $45 and will include wine and refreshments.