Press Releases
Shelter Island, NY – August 8, 2025 – Shelter Island Friends of Music continues its 2025 season with an electrifying performance by Grammy-nominated clarinetist David Krakauer and South African pianist Kathleen Tagg on Sunday, August 31 at 6:00 PM at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church.
Krakauer and Tagg will present an adventurous and deeply expressive program of standards and original compositions. Their music, which sits at the crossroads of classical, klezmer, jazz, and world music, celebrates identity, communication, and cross-cultural connection. More…
Shelter Island, NY – May 6, 2025 – Shelter Island Friends of Music is thrilled to present acclaimed quintet WindSync in concert on Sunday, May 25 at 6:00 p.m. at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. Described by Arts and Culture Texas as “a major force in the American chamber music landscape,” WindSync will kick off a week-long residency on Shelter Island at the event, where they will perform music composed by Mozart, Viet Cuong, Nadia Boulanger and Philip Glass. A post-concert reception with the artists will follow the performance.
SIFM’s Artistic Director Richard Weinert calls WindSync, “very theatrical, with a tremendous sense of fun about them.” He’s known the group since they won the Concert Artists Guild Competition in 2012 when he was president of CAG. More…
Shelter Island, NY – April 7, 2025 – Shelter Island Friends of Music is thrilled to present award-winning pianist and composer Michael Stephen Brown in concert on Saturday, May 3 at 6:00 p.m. at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. Described by the New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers,” Brown will perform a program featuring works by Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Von Weber, Fauré, Beethoven, and original compositions.
Michael Stephen Brown is a First Prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition and a recipient of both an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Bowers Residency from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Brown has performed with leading orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony and Poland’s NFM Leopoldinum, and in solo recitals at iconic venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre, and Beethoven-Haus Bonn. More…
Shelter Island, NY – March 15, 2025 – The Shelter Island Friends of Music is thrilled to welcome the Catalyst Quartet for a special performance on Saturday, April 5, at 6:00 PM at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. Admission is free, with donations greatly appreciated to support future concerts.
Founded in 2010, the Catalyst Quartet has been praised for its “perfect ensemble unity” and “unequaled class of execution” (Lincoln Journal Star). The ensemble—Karla Donehew Perez (violin), Abi Fayette (violin), Paul Laraia (viola), and Karlos Rodriguez (cello)—seeks to redefine the classical music experience by blending technical brilliance with a deep belief in music as a tool for connection and social change. More…
Shelter Island, NY – February 24, 2025 – Shelter Island Friends of Music is set to host another notable concert featuring award winning virtuosos, Sirena Huang and Chih-Yi Chen on March 15 at 3 p.m. Attendees will have the opportunity to enjoy renowned music performed by the virtuosos, featuring works from artists like Beethoven, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Chen Gang, Coleridge-Taylor and more.
Sirena Huang is known best for her “Impeccable technique…deeply expressive phrasing… and poetic weight,” as noted by the Baltimore Sun. As one of her generation’s most celebrated violinists, she provides a night of outstanding art and connection to the audience. Huang has had the privilege of performing before world leaders, thinkers and humanitarians, at the the World Peace Conference held in Petra and at the Opening Ceremony of the “Forum 2000 World Conference” in Prague. More…
Shelter Island, NY – January 10, 2025 – The Shelter Island Friends of Music will open its nine-concert 2025 season on Sunday, February 16 at 3pm with a Chinese New Year concert celebrating opera and song East and West. Internationally acclaimed bass, Hao Jiang Tian and six iSING! Festival singers will perform a repertoire of Western arias and songs, Chinese folksongs and art songs, including an ancient Tang poem, a Jewish folksong, and more.
A 20-year veteran of the Metropolitan Opera, Tian has sung over 1,400 performances of 50 operatic roles worldwide. Since 2011 he has been the artistic director of iSING! Festival, founded by the Asian Performing Arts Council (APAC), a U.S. nonprofit fostering cultural exchange between U.S. and Asia. So far, nearly 400 iSING! artists from over 30 countries have performed in more than 50 major concerts, most recently, in January with the Philadelphia Orchestra. More…
