Festival Opening Night

Artistic Director Barry Shiffman leads an unforgettable Opening Night ensemble in a performance of one of the Romantic period’s foremost masterpieces—Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence—paired with the dramatic work Ayre by one of the world’s leading composers of today Osvaldo Golijov.  This song cycle reveals the musical intermingling of Christian, Arab and Sephardic Jewish cultures and is performed by an all-star 11-member ensemble and the dynamic soprano Miriam Khalil.

The evening’s ensemble features the highest caliber of artists with Clive Greensmith (of the Montrose Trio and Tokyo String Quartet), Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt of the Dover Quartet, brothers Andres Diaz and Roberto Diaz of the Diaz Trio (and Roberto is the CEO of Curtis Institute and recent winner of a 2018 Grammy), and several of Boston’s finest musicians.  The Ayre production brings the brilliant director Joel Ivany from Toronto’s Against the Grain theatre.

Miriam Khalil is an acclaimed Lebanese-Canadian soprano specializing in opera and concert performance. She has been lauded as a “skilled, versatile artist” with a “signature warm lyrical voice” by Musical Toronto and praised for “making her fine soprano express every emotion with exactness and feeling” by the Globe and Mail.