Dear Friends
I’m thrilled to invite you to our glorious 50th Anniversary Season.
Over 500 concerts, MB1800 has become a pillar in New York’s musical life and a beacon for musician-scholars around the world. This is the legacy of our indefatigable founder, Louise Basbas. But if we are leaders, it is because of YOU. Each of you plays a vital role in supporting artistic risk with your curiosity and passion, and it shows: attendance last year increased a remarkable 115%. Your loyal patronage and generous donations directly assist the livelihoods of our beloved musicians who illuminate our shared history, one concert at a time.
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We present our most ambitious series of all for this golden anniversary. While we continue to expand the canon of early music from Peru to Palestine, this year we celebrate music’s stories with wildly creative programs that showcase music’s role on the stage of humankind. Welcome to our new season: Music Telling Story.
Name a great story from history, and music was there. Musicians have seen it all and have the best tales to share, but aren’t always the best storytellers. Each of these programs leans on other disciplines to tell our stories more dynamically to new audiences. Ten bold concerts highlight music’s role as keeper of secrets, and explore history’s eerie penchant for rhyming with the current moment.
Nuovo Aspetto makes their MB1800 debut with Il Gondoliere Veneziano featuring recorded soundscapes with baritone Holger Falk. Vox Luminis returns with A German Baroque Requiem, a newly designed companion to Brahms’ seminal work. Benjamin Bagby’s great medievalists Sequentia are back with a rare world premiere. And in their annual concert, Juilliard415 offers a captivating look at neglected Baroque gems from the Catholic missions of Bolivia and Peru.
New venues and partners will spread our work across the city. The Cathedral Church of St John the Divine hosts The Gesualdo Six and Abendmusik in the immersive concert, Secret Byrd. The Poetry Society of New York co-presents Letters to a Young Poet at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, featuring the Diderot String Quartet – a rare chance to hear Ravel and Debussy performed on the gut strings for which they were written.
On Palm Sunday, we present Bach’s lost Markus Passion, a bold reconstruction of this missing masterpiece. A supergroup of The Sebastians and Chatham Baroque join with legendary actor Joseph Marcell to present this staged ‘pocket passion’ in both Pittsburgh and NYC.
Two particularly special events buttress our anniversary year. In Vino Musica launches us at The Riverside Church with wine and music pairings by La Chapelle Harmonique, making their American debut from Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Finally, our grand 50th anniversary gala is headlined by a solo recital from Thomas Dunford, the most exciting lutenist performing today. Space is limited for both!
Last season, on the day that Constantinople and Accademia del Piacere performed From Seville to Isfahan (pictured above), Iran bombed Israel. All of us felt the world outside crashing in on this loving examination of Persian music. In introducing the program, I reiterated our commitment to our values. People are not their governments. Musicians are musicians, and it is culture which reminds us of the shared space above our differences.
Following last year’s sold-out Mali Before 1800 concert, our second collaboration with The World Music Institute presents the virtuosic duo Sabîl, born in Palestine and Israel. This performance, featuring the chameleonic cellist Vincent Ségal, will be paired with our September, 2025 concert, Days of Awe: A Jewish Musical Journey. It is vital that we continue to explore music that helps us process the world outside. History is being rewritten all around us, and the stories we tell about it matter.
We continue our popular pay-what-you-can model, and will be streaming three concerts for our vital supporters around the world. I hope to see each of you along this parade of wonders, lending your critical voice in support for another 50 years of life-sustaining music.
