Old First Concerts Festival Gala 2026

Just like last year, we will have three sets of amazing music, two intermissions filled with food and beverages, and admission is free! This year, we are excited to welcome the 2025 Opera America Composer of the Year Jake Heggie, who debuted his work at Old First Concerts nearly 30 years ago! The program also includes performances by pianists Elizabeth Dorman, Thomas Schultz, Robert Schwartz, Jeffrey laDeur, Keisuke Nakagoshi, Sarah Cahill, and Monica Chew, as well as chamber ensembles Sixth Station Trio, Broderick Ensemble, Strobe, and a special performance by composer Sahba Aminikia, who has had numerous works of his premiered on our series over the years.

Admission to this event is FREE! However, if you would like to sponsor the event, please make a donation in any amount. All donations made before November 1 will be included in our program acknowledgements! Donations help keep Old First Concerts going!

Lieder Alive! presents

Olivier Zerouali, baritone
Ji Youn Lee, piano

A program of Schubert, Strauss, and Fauré

Olivier Zerouali, a current Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera, where he was featured soloist on their recent chamber music recital. He will also make his debut with LIEDER ALIVE! Zerouali completed his undergraduate studies at SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Music, is currently completing his master’s degree at Yale University, and has received training with the Merola Opera Program, Glimmerglass Festival, Young Artists Vocal Academy of Houston Grand Opera, Highlands Opera Studio, and Berlin Opera Academy.

First-year Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera, Ji Youn Lee, also making her debut with LIEDER ALIVE!, is an accomplished pianist who recently completed her Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano at The Juilliard School. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory (NEC), graduating with honors in 2020. While at NEC, she was awarded first place in the Concerto Competition and performed with the New England Conservatory Symphony at Jordan Hall.

Ensemble for These Times

Exile | Banishment | Home

Nanette McGuinness, soprano
Megan Chartier, cello
Margaret Halbig, piano

joined by Grace Wahlen, conductor
Carina Kahane, soprano
Melinda Martinez Becker, mezzo-soprano
Alex Malinas, narrator
Aria Shum, violin
Taylor Robinson, flute/piccolo
Zoe King, clarinet
Eddie Virtgaym, percussion

This concert is co-presented by KlezCalifornia

Dmitri Shostakovich From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79 (selections)
Alex Malinas Skazka World Premiere
Andrea Casarrubios Armadura
David Garner Unter dayne vayse Stern (from Vilna Poems)
Stella G. Gitelman Willoughby Stories of My Mother
Mary Bianco new work for cello and piano World Premiere

Please join us for a pre-concert talk with composers Alex Malinas and Mary Bianco at 3:30

Award-winning new music group E4TT explores this duality musically with Shostakovich’s From Jewish Folk Poetry, (selections, sung in the poetry’s original language of Yiddish),  the World Premiere Skazka (a multimedia work of twisted Russian folktales reinterpreted and narrated in Russian) by Alexander Malinas, Armadura by Andrea Casarrubios (inspired by writings of Frida Kahlo), Stories of My Mother (a narrative of a woman’s escape to freedom) by  Stella G. Gitelman Willoughby, Unter dayne vayse Stern by David Garner to poetry by Avrom Sutskever, and a World Premiere for cello and piano by Mary Bianco.

Winners of The American Prize for Chamber Music Performance, Ensemble for These Times focuses on underrepresented and unheard musical voices, particularly women composers. The group has performed internationally at the Krakow Culture Festival (2016 and 2022), Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid (2017), was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest (2014) and made its international debut in Berlin (2012). E4TT has released five award-winning albums, The Guernica Project, Surviving: Women’s Words, Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan, and The Hungarians: from Rozsa to Justus, and Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood, with a sixth album, El Tiempo Latine, music by today’s Latine composers, just out on Aerocade Music in May 2026, and produces a weekly podcast of conversations with women and BIPOC creatives, “For Good Measure.”