With a pre-concert talk, by Marco Donato Tomassi, at 6:15pm.
Louis Arques, Alexander Franco Goldberg, Allen Liang, and Joseph Vaz perform Messiaen’s masterwork Quatuor pour la fin du temps, written and first performed in a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1941.
Louis Arques is a clarinet soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra principal. He commissions and champions new works by European and American composers and also performs as a saxophonist, singer, and conductor. He created the Avalanche Orchestra to cross musical boundaries and foster education through music and arts. Louis has taught at Ithaca College, Cornell University, and Diller-Quaile School of Music.
Alexander Franco Goldberg is a violinist devoted to chamber and contemporary music, who integrates literature and poetry into his programming. A Fulbright research fellow and Yale graduate in violin and philosophy, he is pursuing a doctorate with Mark Steinberg at the Graduate Center of CUNY. Alexander has performed worldwide, including at the Berlin Philharmonie and the Accademia Chigiana.
Taiwanese cellist Allen Liang is an active soloist, chamber musician, and composer. He has performed with the Eastman Philharmonia, premiered works with Silkroad artists, and appeared at Music@Menlo, Taos, and Heifetz. Allen studied at Yale, Eastman, and Colburn, and is pursuing his DMA at CUNY.
Pianist Joseph Vaz has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in North America and Europe, in venues from Weill Recital Hall in New York to the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna. He is the 2025-2027 piano fellow for Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, and his debut album, “Galanteries,” was released by PARMA Recordings in January 2025.
Live at St. Paul’s Chapel — or, watch on YouTube.
If you don’t have a current Columbia ID, you MUST register by clicking the blue "register" button below. (Please do not use the same email address to register multiple people; this will confuse the system.) Registration will close at 11am sharp the day before the concert.