PERSONAL NOTE: NEW YORK

Personal Note is a concert series conceived, curated, and performed by the students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie’s Concert Curation course. Under the direction of Prof. Yael Kareth, the course empowers young musicians to connect performance with storytelling, audience engagement, and cultural relevance. Participants are invited to rethink the concert as a social and cultural space, exploring what it can communicate and how it can resonate today, while refining their own artistic voices. Questions such as “What story do I want to tell with my music?”, “For whom is it meant?”, or “What kind of aesthetic and emotional experience do I wish to create?” are at the heart of the process. The result is a series of concerts in an intimate, open atmosphere that fosters a genuine connection between performers and audience.

This season’s series is dedicated to the theme “Musical Metropolises.” Four concerts focus on the cities of Vienna, Paris, New York, and Berlin—places with a rich musical history and a vibrant present. The programs explore composers, musicians, and movements from different eras that have shaped the cultural heritage of these cities, emerging from a process of collaboration in which the students contribute their individual perspectives and creative voices.

Program 3: New York

In New York, worlds collide and fuse into something radically new. Syncopations, sirens, and melodies coexist; jazz meets opera, Broadway meets the Philharmonic. For many people who came from Europe, this city was a new beginning—a place where American-born artists such as Gershwin, Copland, and Bernstein side by side with immigrants like Korngold and Weill invented the sound of modern life. In their footsteps, John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Elliot Carter created the American school. New York pulses with freedom and velocity, an ever-evolving musical laboratory.