An afternoon built around one of the great chamber works of the 19th century is heading to the Upper West Side this fall, and the lineup behind it runs a dozen pianists deep.
The New York Piano Society will present Dvorák’s Second Piano Quartet, Op. 87, on Sunday, September 27 at 2 p.m. at Merkin Hall inside the Kaufman Music Center, 129 West 67th Street. The performance caps an afternoon that also features society members, several of them making their Merkin Hall debut and others returning to the stage.
The quartet brings together three guest artists alongside the society’s pianists. Violinist Ana Isabella España, 20, is a graduate of Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School High School and is currently enrolled in the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange Program. She won the 2025 Aspen Music Festival and School’s Violin Concerto Competition and took first prize in the junior division of the 2024 Sphinx Competition.
She’s joined by violist Aditi Prakash and by cellist Gwen Krosnick, the daughter of the late Joel Krosnick, the formidable cellist who anchored the Juilliard String Quartet for 42 years.
The rest of the program moves through three centuries of the repertoire:
- J.S. Bach, Goldberg Aria and Variations 1-14
- Beethoven, Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, Op. 31 No. 2, “The Tempest”
- Sibelius, Etude, Op. 76 No. 2, from 13 Pieces for Piano
- Mendelssohn, Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14
- Debussy, Arabesque No. 1
- Ravel, Prelude and Menuet from Le Tombeau de Couperin
- Chopin, Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48 No. 1
- Rachmaninov, Prelude in G-sharp Minor, Op. 32 No. 12
- Liszt, Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth
- Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17
- Dvorák, Piano Quartet, Op. 87
The pianists performing are Carl Di Casoli, Alex Shapiro, Alok Dutt, Nate Warden, Stan Sisskin, Arpan Doshi, Lauren Kim, Alexander Weymann, Henri Delbeau, Giancarlo Facchi, Len Horovitz, and Yiran Wang.
The concert is presented under the artistic direction of acclaimed pianist Natasha Paremski, who has called the Upper West Side home for nearly 25 years. The New York Piano Society is a nonprofit dedicated to discovering and nurturing pianists who build careers outside of professional performance. Its members are doctors, lawyers, scientists, and more, united by a devotion to music at the highest amateur level.
Prime seats are $50 and regular seats are $40. Student tickets are available for $10 by calling the Merkin Hall box office at 212-501-3330. Tickets and additional information are available here.
