Opening Night with Clara Osowski

Mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and pianist Melinda Lee Masur open the 2026 Chelsea Music Festival with an evening that weaves together the American immigrant experience, the poetry of Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and the theme of dreaming across cultures and generations. The program pairs Aaron Copland and Erich Wolfgang Korngold — two composers living and working almost congruently, one American-born, one an immigrant from Vienna — alongside New York Premieres by Reinaldo Moya, Frederick Piket, Mark Carlson, and Steven Ward, and Libby Larsen's This Unbearable Stillness, a song cycle celebrating the everyday lives of Palestinian-American women in its NYC Premiere. Damien Sneed's luminous spiritual arrangements provide the thread connecting the evening's two halves, from Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry to Langston Hughes's timeless I Dream a World, scored for string quartet and piano — an opening night that asks what it means to dream in America, and who gets to dream.

Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano
Melinda Lee Masur, piano
Claire Bourg, violin
Yuyu Ikeda, violin
Angela Lee, cello

Program

Mark CARLSON III. Stars -The Dream Keeper (poem by Langston Hughes) (NY Premiere)

Aaron COPLAND Three Old American Songs

Eric Wolfgang KORNGOLD Three Songs

Libby LARSEN This Unbearable Stillness: Songs from the Balcony (NYC Premiere)

Reinaldo MOYA DREAM Songs (NY Premiere)

Frederick PIKET The Dream Keeper (NY Premiere) (poem by Langston Hughes)

Damien SNEED All Night, All Day

Damien SNEED I Dream A World (poem by Langston Hughes)

Steven WARD Invitation to Love (poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar) (NY Premiere)

Reception to follow

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Host or Publisher Chelsea Music Festival