Arc Ensemble to Revive Lost Masterworks At Merkin Hall in November

The ARC Ensemble, one of Canada’s most distinguished cultural ambassadors and a multiple Grammy, JUNO, and OPUS Klassik nominee, will present a program of rediscovered works by Jerzy Fitelberg, Frederick Block, and Arthur Willner. The concert will take place on November 15, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. at Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center.

The program features Fitelberg’s String Quartet No. 2 and Serenade for Viola and Piano, Block’s Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 26 and Piano Quintet, Op. 19, and Willner’s Clarinet Sonata, Op. 107.

Fitelberg and Block both fled Europe before World War II, settling in New York City. Their scores were unearthed by ARC Ensemble Artistic Director Simon Wynberg in the Special Collections of Lincoln Center’s Library for the Performing Arts. Willner, a Czech composer, spent his final years in London; his archive was later donated to the Leo Baeck Institute in New York.

“The rediscovery of composers who fled Europe, the dismissal of their music and the mutation of musical history is still being unraveled,” said Wynberg.

The ARC Ensemble is made up of senior faculty of The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School. Its members include violinists Erika Raum and Marie Bérard, violist Steven Dann, cellist Tom Wiebe, clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas, and pianist Kevin Ahfat.