Concert: in a dark blue night by Sara Schabas and Isabelle David

Acclaimed soprano and pianist duo Sara Schabas and Isabelle David perform in a dark blue night | אין אַ טונקל בלויער נאַכט, a song cycle by Pulitzer-nominated composer Alex Weiser. The evening of music also includes music by such 20th century composers as Alban Berg, Alma Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg and Erich Korngold.

Weiser’s music is set to poems written in Yiddish by newly arrived immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900: Morris Rosenfeld, Anna Margolin, Naftali Gross, Celia Dropkin, and Reuben Iceland. The poems capture the realities of life as a Jewish immigrant to New York City, and reflect on the city at night — glowing, quiet, majestic.

in a dark blue night is a love letter to New York City. As Weiser writes, “Today, the Yiddish-language world of Jewish immigrants in New York is often remembered with nostalgia and kitsch. But in reality it was rich and multifaceted, encompassing the full range of human experience from the quotidian to the sublime.”

To contextualize the work, University of Toronto professor and musicologist Robin Elliott, provides narration interspersed between the pieces.

About the performers

Toronto born Sara Schabas (soprano) performs a range of operatic repertoire from the traditional to contemporary, as well as performing as a soloist with orchestras and other ensembles. She studied voice with a literature minor at the University of Toronto, and went on to earn an M.Mus at Roosevelt University with a Siragusa Endowed Scholarship. Sara premiered the title role in Maxime Goulet’s The Flight of the Hummingbird with Pacific Opera Victoria and Vancouver Opera. In 2026, she will perform with Little Opera Company of Winnipeg, Victoria Philharmonic Choir, and Chapelle musicale du Bon-Pasteur. Nominated for the Dora Award for Outstanding Performance by an Individual, Sara is the 2024 winner of the Wirth Vocal Prize, a three-time laureate of the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques, and a recent alumna of Barbara Hannigan's Equilibrium Young Artists.

A fun coincidence: Sara is a second generation cousin of artist William Kentridge, and this performance will take place during Koffler Arts’ presentation of Kentridge’s Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot.

Born into a family of musicians, Isabelle David (pianist) is the youngest in a five-generation lineage of pianists. She champions both forgotten figures of musical history and contemporary composers, bridging past and present. Praised for her “poetic and flexible virtuosity” (Helsingin Sanomat), she debuted with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at 17 and has since performed with orchestras in Canada, Poland, and Switzerland.

In 2019, she recorded The Wild Swans with violinist Yolanda Bruno, highlighting works by eleven women composers, including the first recording of Alexina Louie’s Beyond Time.

A frequent collaborator of Barbara Hannigan (Equilibrium Young Artists), she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall, Musiikkitalo, and Zipper Hall.

She has received numerous awards, including the Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award and Hnatyshyn Foundation Award. Completing her doctorate in 2020, Isabelle revived the piano works of Quebec composer Auguste Descarries, recording Souvenirs d’Auguste Descarries, nominated for a 2023 Opus Award.

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Host or Publisher Koffler Centre of the Arts