Program
Sergei Prokofiev – Overture on Hebrew Themes
Stuart Greenbaum – The Drowned World (world premiere)
Anton Webern - Langsamer Satz for String Quartet
Alexandar von Zemlinsky – Trio in D minor
Guest Artists
Sophie Rowell, violin
Jamine Milton, violin
Hanna Wallace, viola
Ensemble Liaison
David Griffiths, clarinet
Svetlana Bogosavljevic, cello
Timothy Young, piano
Concert 1 – Echoes of Vienna
Ensemble Liaison opens its 2026 series with Echoes of Vienna, a program reflecting the rich musical currents that flowed through the cultural crossroads of fin-de-siècle Vienna.
The evening begins with Sergei Prokofiev’s spirited Overture on Hebrew Themes, written for Russian-Jewish musicians in New York and drawing on folk melodies whose roots stretch back to Eastern Europe. The program also features the world premiere of The Drowned World by Australian composer Stuart Greenbaum, a striking contemporary work inspired by the novel of J. G. Ballard and written for Ensemble Liaison.
Anton Webern’s youthful Langsamer Satz reveals the composer before his radical modernism, steeped in the lush expressive language of late-Romantic Vienna. The concert concludes with the richly lyrical Trio in D minor by Alexander Zemlinsky, a work of sweeping Romantic intensity that was endorsed by Brahms and captures the emotional world of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century.