SHELTERS IN THE DESERT to be Presented at Chelsea Music Festival

Chelsea Music Festival will present Shelters in the Desert: An Evening with Hernández, León, Susman, Smirnov, Vu at St. Paul's German Lutheran Church, set for Friday, June 26, 2026 from 7-9pm. Tickets are $85 and can be purchased now.


The Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, presents an evening of five works by living composers united by themes of water, memory, and transformation. The program includes Ania Vu's Water Realms, a sonic journey through water in its many physical states, followed by a movement for strings from Tania León's Esencia - a work drawing on the waters and musical traditions of the Caribbean and Latin America. Desert Shelter by J.E. Hernández recounts stories of migrants who cross the Sonoran Desert. The World Premiere of William Susman's Clouds and Flames is a haunting meditation on Philippe Petit's legendary 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers, and Grigory Smirnov's Impromptu complete an evening of music that is at once deeply personal and vividly evocative.

Program

J.E. HERNÁNDEZ Desert Shelter
Tania LEÓN Esencia
Grigory SMIRNOV Impromptu (NY Premiere)
William SUSMAN Clouds and Flames (World Premiere)
Ania VU Water Realms (NY Premiere)

Reception to follow by La Newyorkina.

Ken-David Masur is celebrating his seventh season as Music Director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Chicago Symphony's Civic Orchestra, and newly announced Artistic Partner of the Oregon Bach Festival.

In 2025-2026, Masur will lead celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, featuring performances of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis, as well as Bach's St. Matthew Passion as part of the third annual Bach Festival. Ken-David Masur and the MSO will reunite with longtime collaborators such as Augustin Hadalich, Orion Weiss, Stewart Goodyear, Nancy Zhou as well as a special project with Bill Barclay and Concert Theatre Works to celebrate America's 250th birthday with a program interweaving the music of Aaron Copland with the words of Mark Twain. In Chicago, Masur leads the Civic Orchestra, the premiere training ensemble of the Chicago Symphony, in a wide range of programs, including its annual Bach Marathon.

Masur has conducted distinguished orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Baltimore, Detroit, and San Francisco Symphonies, l'Orchestre National de France, Minnesota Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Norway's Kristiansand Symphony and Tokyo's Yomiuri Nippon Symphony. He has also made regular appearances at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Hollywood Bowl, Grant Park, and international festivals including Verbier. Recent highlights include subscription debuts with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the National Symphony as well as a triumphant return to the Oregon Bach Festival featuring a staged Carmina Burana.

Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned numerous new works over the years. Some notable pieces include Wynton Marsalis' Harold Haller and Hallelujah, Augusta Read Thomas' Bebop Kaleidoscope - Homage to Duke Ellington with the New York Philharmonic, Mannequin by Unsuk Chin with the Boston Symphony, Rounds by Jessie Montgomery, and Alan Fletcher's Piano Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Additional U.S. premieres under his baton include works by James B. Wilson, Dobrinka Tabakova, Christopher Cerrone, Edmund Finnis, Eric Nathan, and Jacob Beranek among others.

Masur has made recordings with the English Chamber Orchestra and violinist Fanny Clamagirand, and with the Stavanger Symphony, the latter of which was named by WQXR, New York's classical music radio station, as a "Best New Classical Release." Masur also received a Grammy nomination from the Latin Recording Academy for Best Classical Album of the Year for his work as a producer of the album Salon Buenos Aires.

Born and raised in Leipzig, Germany, Masur was trained at the Mendelssohn Academy in Leipzig, the Gewandhaus Children's Choir, the Detmold Academy and the „Hanns Eisler" Conservatory in Berlin. While an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, Masur became the first music director of the Bach Society Orchestra & Chorus with which he toured to Germany and recorded the music of J.S.Bach and his sons.