Two-time GRAMMY-award winning Attacca Quartet is recognized and acclaimed as one of the most versatile and outstanding ensembles of the moment — a true quartet for modern times. Gliding through traditional classical repertoire to electronica, video game music and contemporary collaborations, they are one of the world's most innovative and respected ensembles. Passionate advocates of contemporary repertoire, the quartet are dedicated to presenting and recording new works. Their two releases 'Orange' and ‘Evergreen’ in collaboration with Caroline Shaw won the 2020 and 2023 GRAMMY awards for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.

Pairing new with classic, the quartet will perform their “Playlist” which includes selections from each of these two albums in addition to music by Finneas O’Connell (which they recorded for the TV series “Disclaimer”) and Radiohead, concluding the program with Beethoven’s "Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131."

The legendary American String Quartet opens our season with Mozart's elegant String Quartet, K. 589, one of his celebrated "Prussian" quartets. Artistic Director Linda Chesis will join the ensemble for Charles Bordes' colorful Suite Basque, inspired by rich folk traditions. The evening concludes with Brahms' breathtaking String Quintet No. 2 in G major, op. 111, a tour de force of sweeping grandeur, full of buoyant high spirits quite unlike any of his other chamber works.

Pulling from over 100 years of animation from around the world, The Queen’s Cartoonists bring animated films to life, perfectly synchronizing their performances with the films projected on stage. The band matches the energy of the cartoons, leading the audience through a world of virtuosic musicianship, multi-instrumental mayhem, and comedy. The band re-creates original soundtracks note-for-note, or writes their own fresh compositions to modern pieces, all the while breathing new life into two uniquely American forms of art: jazz and animation. Tying everything together is the TQC brand of comedy - anecdotes about the cartoons and their composers, stream-of-consciousness humor, and elements of a musical circus.

Violinist Rachell Ellen Wong returns to Cooperstown alongside harpsichordist David Belkovski and cellist Coleman Itzkoff, early music specialists of Twelfth Night, to showcase some of the Baroque era’s most groundbreaking composers. This performance begins with Biber’s dramatic Sonata No. 5 in F major, followed by Bach’s intricate Sonata in A major, where the violin and harpsichord engage in a lively dialogue. Veracini’s Sonata in D minor offers a rich tapestry of emotion, pitting the violin versus the cello. The haunting and technically demanding Devil’s Trill by Tartini takes center stage, in Rachell’s own arrangement for solo violin, which is immediately interrupted by Royer’s lively La Marche des Scythes for solo harpsichord. Closing the program are violinist Leclair’s joyful Tambourin and Corelli’s iconic La Folia, a masterclass in fiery violin ornamentation.

The Caroga Arts Ensemble returns to Cooperstown, featuring KASA Quartet, Linda Chesis, Graeme Steele Johnson, and Bixby Kennedy. In April 2020, clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson discovered the unpublished manuscript to a forgotten, 127-year-old Octet in the archives of the Library of Congress by the Berlin-born, Boston-based composer Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935), one of the most performed American composers of his time. The program centers around Loeffler’s Octet, which Johnson spent a year reconstructing from the 75-page manuscript, creating the first critical edition of the music and revealing a previously unheard kaleidoscopic masterpiece. Clarinetists Bixby Kennedy and Graeme Steele Johnson join forces for an early work by Poulenc, Sonata for Two Clarinets, written at the age of 19. Revel in the sounds of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, commissioned in 1905 to feature the latest harp model made by Parisian publisher Maison Erard, as well as Johnson’s arrangement of Debussy’s iconic Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

Trinidad-born Etienne Charles is a trumpeter, percussionist, and composer continuously on the search for untold stories and sounds with which to tell them. He is a firm believer in music and performance as tools for provoking thought and dialogue. As an Afro-descendant, his work is actively connecting the diaspora and drawing lines to regions at the roots of migrations. Etienne Charles is joined by Godwin Louis, alto sax, Alex Wintz, guitar, Axel Tosca, piano, Russell Hall, bass, and Harvel Nakundi, drums. In this final performance of the season, Charles leads his six-member band in fiery original compositions and covers inspired by Caribbean grooves.