Swimming Against the Stream — Chamber Music Concert

2:00 p.m. in the Montgomery Auditorium

“My desire is always to rebel, to swim against the stream!”

— Sofia Gubaidulina

Swimming Against the Stream: Exiled and Controversial Composers of the 20th Century is presented by the Music Department in collaboration with the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music and Network for New Music, as part of the Free Library Special Collections’ exhibition . Showcasing selections from the Music Department’s Chamber Music Collection, including some recent acquisitions, this program highlights works by exiled and controversial composers written for a wide range of instruments and performed by musicians from Network for New Music. This concert seeks to shine a light on names you likely have never heard before—names that have been hidden from the collective culture for far too long.

Join us at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 6 in the Montgomery Auditorium at Parkway Central Library for an afternoon of live chamber music sourced from scores which can be borrowed from the Music Department, alongside an engaging discussion exploring composers whose music was suppressed or overlooked during their diverse careers.

Julie Kang, Assistant Principal Violin of the Philadelphia Orchestra

Tom Kraines, Cello for Network for New Music and Daedalus String Quartet

Hannah Rose Nicholas, Viola for Network for New Music and Host of WRTI

Thomas Schuttenhelm, Guitar and Artistic Director of Network for New Music

Rachel Segal, Violin and Executive Director of the Primavera Fund

Dan Spratlan, Baritone for The Crossing Choir and Director of Music of Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Registration is encouraged but not required for this free event.

Presented in conjunction with Book Complaints and the Defense of Intellectual Freedom, on view from Thursday, April 23, 2026 through Saturday, August 29, 2026 in the Dietrich Gallery on the Third Floor of Parkway Central Library.

The Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music is the world’s largest circulating collection of orchestral performance sets – with over 22,000 titles – and provides materials to recognized performance groups around the globe (this includes academic and amateur ensembles) for concerts and recordings. It houses virtually the entire standard repertoire, and is also known for its many rare and out-of-print works available for lending around the world. It is a unique source of 19th and 20th century American music, and has a longstanding commitment to promoting new, noteworthy, and overlooked works.

Network for New Music, which the Philadelphia Inquirer has called the city's "premier new music organization," presents passionate, meticulously rehearsed performances of music by emerging and established composers from the United States and abroad. The Network Ensemble is a flexible, 20-member group whose players also perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Since its inception in 1984, the Ensemble has presented more than 650 works and recorded 4 CDs for the Albany and Innova labels.

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