For our next Artist Spotlight, meet Isabel Merat! She will be singing the role of Chaim in Letters to Rivka from Galicia. Originally from Queens, New York and now residing in Boston, lyric coloratura soprano Isabel Merat is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice and Opera at the New England Conservatory. She earned her Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from Oberlin Conservatory. At NEC, Isabel has performed with the Graduate Opera department and is an active member of Song Lab, where she studies and performs art song repertoire and has participated in masterclasses with leading artists. This Season, Isabel performed Michael Gandolfi’s Lowell Songs in the NEC’s Composer’s Series with the Ecce Ensemble at Jordan Hall. She also performed with Anna Sunmin Park in their curated concert program To Keep My Love Alive with the Federation of the Art Song at the Zimmerli Art Museum. Isabel also sings as a Soprano Choral Fellow with Old South Church in Boston. In addition to performing, Isabel is passionate about Arts Administration and Music Education. She serves as Administrative Intern of Bloch Performing Arts and works as a Teaching Assistant in NEC’s Voice for Non-Majors program. Come hear We Will Outlive Them: Letters to Rivka from Galicia Saturday April 18th at 7:30 PM. More information can be found through the link in our bio. #bostonconcerts #bostonnewmusic #newenglandmusic #bostonevents #bostonmusic

Have you gotten tickets for We Will Outlive Them yet? Go to the link in our bio! This is a pay what you can event, so come listen to some incredible, moving, and important music! #backbayevents #bostonconcerts #bostonnewmusic #bostonmusicscene #newenglandmusic #newmusic #boston #bostonmusicians #bostonevents #bostonmusic

Today we're highlighting Jessica Bloch, soprano in We Will Outlive Them: Letters to Rivka from Galicia. Jessica Arielle Bloch-Moisand from Boston, MA is a versatile soprano singing opera, art song, musical theater, and more. This spring, Jessica performed in concert with the Hawaii International Musical Festival, and was the featured soprano in Gena Branscombe Project’s Winds of Change, Songs of Time, reviving and publicly recording several works by The Pen Women. Jessica is honored to perform Brontzi’s letters in We Will Outlive Them, a project she is producing with Horizon Ensemble that tells her family’s story as victims of The Holocaust. Previously, she has performed with Opera51: 2nd Lady (Die Zuaberflöte), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), and Lola (Cavalleria Rusticana). Other recent credits include performing with Opera del West, the Brockton Symphony Orchestra, Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, Opera Fusion, Hartford Opera Theater, VOICES Boston and more. Other role highlights include Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica), Noemie (Cendrillon), Princess Gilda (The Three Feathers), and Concepcion/Young Juana (Juana). Jessica was the 2nd place Winner of the 2023 Music International Grand Prix New York semifinals for Adult Popular music, and previously a finalist in competition: Professional Women in Opera with the American Prize, Corsica Lirica Competition and the Lucine Amara Art Song Competition. Outside of performing, Jessica was the Interim Artistic Director for MassOpera (2024-2025), and is also a voice educator and theater instructor for students of all ages. Credits include: Founder & Voice Teacher at Bloch Performing Arts, Voice Teacher & Vocal Theater Lab Assistant Director at New England Conservatory’s Prep School, Artistic Director at New England Conservatory’s Summer Vocal Institute. Come hear her April 18th at 7:30 PM! More information can be found through the link in our bio. #bostonmusic #bostonevents #bostonmusicians #newenglandmusic #bostonconcerts

Steve Reich (b. 1936) is an American composer who pioneered the style known as minimalism, a type of music marked by repeated figures, slow harmonic progressions, and rhythmic techniques such as phasing. We will be performing his string quartet "Different Trains" accompanied with dancers from the Janelle Gilchrist Dance Troupe. As a young boy, Reich's parents were divorced and agreed to split custody of him. One parent lived in New York, and the other in Los Angeles. Due to this, Reich spent a lot of time on trains crossing the United States, accompanied by his governess. Years later, Reich looked back on this period of his life and pondered that, as a Jew, had he been in Europe during that time he might have been traveling in very different trains - the trains used to transport victims of the holocaust to concentration camps. The piece includes a prerecorded electronic track of 3 other string quartets and snippets of speech taken from interviews Reich conducted. The first part, "America - Before the War" features interviews with Reich's governess and a Pullman porter, each reminiscing on train travel. The second part, "Europe - During the War" features interviews with three holocaust survivors who speak about their experience in camps and in trains. The third part, "After the War," features the survivors speaking about their experience after the war, as well as reprisals of the interviews from Before the War. We find this piece incredibly moving, and we look forward to sharing it with you at We Will Outlive Them, April 18th at 7:30 PM. #bostonconcerts #newenglandmusic #bostonevents #bostonmusic #bostonnewmusic

We are excited to announce the next Horizon Ensemble concert, "We Will Outlive Them" on April 18th at 7:30 PM. This concert begins with Steve Reich's string quartet Different Trains, performed by the Horizon Quartet in collaboration with the Janelle Gilchrist Dance Troupe. The second piece on the program is the premiere of Quinn Gutman's We Will Outlive Them... Letters to Rivka from Galicia, which we are incredibly honored to share with you. This program was created to observe Yom Hashoah and honor Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and we look forward to sharing more information about each of the pieces, composers, and performers in the coming weeks. For now, find more information about the concert and register for (free!) tickets in advance through the link in our bio. #newenglandmusic #newmusic #bostonevents #bostonmusic #bostonnewmusic #bostonconcerts

Stronger Together was a great time, thank you to all who braved the cold as well as those of you who watched from home! We enjoyed premiering two new pieces by our friends Gaston Gosselin and Veronica Kao, and made the first ever recording of Ulysses Kay's Southern Harmony, which will soon be shared to our YouTube - we'll let you know when it's up! We reflected on how music makes us stronger together, sharing our thoughts via sticky note, and donated food and winter clothing to the Women's Lunch Place. Thank you to everyone who brought goods to donate! We'll see you all at the next concert! #newenglandmusic #newmusic #bostonmusicscene #bostonevents #bostonmusic #bostonmusicians

Our friend Hannah Elizabeth has an amazing project, For Her: Under the Skin Concert Series! The preview performance is today at Unbound Visual Arts in Brighton. In addition to hearing incredible new works, there is also a wonderful donation drive, which you can find information for on the second and third slides. Go support our friend in this wonderful project and catch some great new music! #newenglandmusic #newmusic #bostonconcerts #bostonevents #bostonmusic

Stronger Together is just a day away! Come hear some great music and reflect with us on ideas of musical community and what it means to come together. In addition, we are having a food and clothing drive for Women's Lunch Place. Bring Non-perishable foods, such as canned & dried beans, pasta, rice, peanut butter, & spices, clean winter clothes such as hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, and socks (new, like-new, or used gently) or toiletries such as shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. Find more information about the event through the link in our bio! #bostonmusicscene #newenglandmusic #bostonmusic #bostonevents #backbayevents #bostonmusician

For the last of our Composer Spotlights, it's Ulysses Kay! Ulysses Kay was born in 1917 in Tucson, Arizona. As a child, he played violin, piano, and saxophone. He Attended the University of Arizona, where he met the composer William Grant Still and was encouraged to continue his musical pursuits. He then went to Eastman School of Music for graduate pursuits, and studied with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. His studies didn't end there! He met Paul Hindemith at the Berkshire Music Center in 1941, then went to Yale to study with him for a year. Following his studies with Hindemith, he attended Columbia studying with Otto Leuning, during which he won he won several significant awards for pieces such as "A Short Overture" and "Suite for Orchestra." Even after this, he had not had enough studying, and thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship studied in Rome for an additional 4 years. We will be performing his piece "Southern Harmony," of which there are no available recordings. Seeing as we record and upload all of our concerts on YouTube, ours will be the first ever publicly released recording of "Southern Harmony", which we think is pretty neat! Be sure to come hear it in person TOMORROW, Sunday February 8th, at 3:00 PM at Church of the Covenant. But if you can't make it, at least check it out on YouTube! More information for the concert can be found through the link in our bio. #bostonmusic #bostonevents #backbay #newenglandmusic #bostonmusicscene