GRAPHIC CONTENT: FELDMAN & BROWN AT 100 to Present 17 Concerts Across NYC
Performers include andPlay, Ekmeles, Flux Quartet and Wendy Eisenberg at venues including St. Michael's Church and Columbia University.
Composer and organizer Steve Long will present Graphic Content: Feldman & Brown at 100, a citywide festival celebrating the centennial birthdays of Morton Feldman and Earle Brown, with 17 concerts at six venues throughout New York City from September 11 through November 21, 2026.
Supported by MATA and the Earle Brown Music Foundation, Graphic Content will feature more than two dozen works by Feldman and ten by Brown, making it the largest festival devoted to either composer's music during their centennial year.
Feldman, born January 12, 1926, and Brown, born December 26, 1926, were influential figures of the New York School, alongside John Cage and Christian Wolff. The festival will explore the continuing impact of their approaches to form, notation, indeterminacy and listening through concerts, collaborations and interdisciplinary events.
The title Graphic Content references the composers' pioneering explorations of graphic notation, which challenged conventions of musical notation and reshaped the relationship between written scores, performers and interpretation.
Participating artists and ensembles include andPlay, Anthony Coleman, Laura Cocks, Anthony de Mare, Apmonia Quartet, BlackBox Ensemble, T J Borden, Wendy Eisenberg, Ekmeles, Flux Quartet, Conrad Harris, Karl Larson, Magpie Duo, Matt Mitchell, Blair McMillen, Roberta Michel, Orange Road Quartet, Zeena Parkins, Nate Wooley and Nils Vigeland.
Programs will range from intimate solo and chamber pieces to large ensemble works. Among the festival highlights is an evening devoted to works for five pianos, featuring Steve Long, Lisa Yui, Anthony de Mare, Nils Vigeland and Blair McMillen. The November 16 program at Yamaha Artist Services will include Brown's 25 Pages and Feldman's Five Pianos, alongside music by Webern, Schubert and György Kurtág.
Another signature event, taking place October 20 at Columbia University's St. Paul's Chapel, will bring together the Marginal Intersection Orchestra and Ekmeles for large-ensemble works by Feldman and Brown alongside a world premiere by Long commissioned by MATA.
The festival will also mark the centennial of Kurtág, with his music appearing on multiple programs. Other works by composers connected to or influenced by the New York School will include music by Christian Wolff, Stefan Wolpe, Pauline Oliveros and others, as well as premieres and newer works by composers including Long, Negar Soley and Steven Swartz.
“Rather than treating the centennials of Feldman and Brown as historical commemorations, I wanted to bring their work face-to-face with the living musical community of New York,” Long said.
“Across seventeen concerts, talks, and special events, Graphic Content brings together many of today's leading performers, ensembles, and composers not simply to preserve landmark works, but to encounter them anew—and, in doing so, to celebrate New York as a place where uncompromising ideas, unlikely relationships, and new forms can still take root.”
Graphic Content Festival Schedule
September 11 – Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet
Orange Road Quartet and Matt Schultheis will open the festival at St. Michael's Church with Feldman's late work, paired with new choreography by Annie Nikkunen.
September 12 – Morton Feldman: Trio
Conrad Harris, Alex Waterman and Stephen Gosling will perform Feldman's expansive chamber work at St. Michael's Church.
September 18 – BlackBox Ensemble
BlackBox Ensemble will perform at the Roerich Museum.
September 26 – Patterns in a Chromatic Field
Cellist T J Borden and pianist Mari Kawamura will perform Feldman's late chamber work at Loove Labs Annex, preceded by a talk with Borden.
October 6 – For Christian Wolff
Flutist Roberta Michel and pianist Matt Mitchell will perform Feldman's work at MISE-EN PLACE.
October 20 – Marginal Intersection Orchestra and Ekmeles
The ensembles will perform large-scale works by Feldman and Brown alongside a new MATA-commissioned work by Steve Long at St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University.
October 22 – Ekmeles and Marginal Intersection Orchestra
The program at St. Paul's Chapel will explore works for voices, percussion and harpsichord by Feldman and Brown, alongside a new work by Long.
October 24 – Numerous Voices and Apmonia String Quartet
Apmonia Quartet, Negar Soley and T J Borden will perform music by Soley, Brown and Feldman at St. Michael's Church.
October 27 – Short Solo and Chamber Works
Nate Wooley, Melinda Faylor, Wendy Eisenberg, Laura Cocks, Erica Dicker, Kate Goddard, Zeena Parkins, Lester St. Louis and Anna Abondolo will perform music by Wolpe, Feldman and Brown at MISE-EN PLACE.
November 5 – Three Voices
Nina Guo will perform Feldman's work for three sopranos at St. Michael's Church.
November 6 – BlackBox Ensemble and WIMIN
The program will pair Feldman's Viola in My Life I–III with Kurtág's Hommage à R. Sch. at St. Michael's Church.
November 7 – Brown, Wolff and Swartz
andPlay, Magpie Duo, Drew Wesely, Eli Wallace and Cleek Schrey will perform a program spanning three generations of experimental music, including the New York premiere of Steven Swartz's merger.
November 12 – For John Cage
Pianist Karl Larson and violinist Maya Bennardo will perform one of Feldman's final and most expansive works at St. Michael's Church.
November 13 – Morton Feldman & Kurt Weill
Anthony Coleman will direct a program bringing together music by Feldman, Weill, Oliveros, Brown and Coleman at St. Michael's Church.
November 16 – Works for Five Pianos
Steve Long, Lisa Yui, Anthony de Mare, Nils Vigeland and Blair McMillen will perform works by Feldman and Brown at Yamaha Artist Services.
November 20 – BlackBox Ensemble
BlackBox Ensemble will perform chamber works by Feldman and Brown at St. Michael's Church.
November 21 – Flux Quartet
Flux Quartet will close the festival at St. Michael's Church. Additional program information will be announced.
Graphic Content: Feldman & Brown at 100 will take place at St. Michael's Church, Columbia University's St. Paul's Chapel, MISE-EN PLACE, the Roerich Museum, Yamaha Artist Services and Loove Annex. The Roerich Museum and Columbia University events are free with registration. Other tickets are available through Eventbrite. All programs are subject to change.
