SIRENS to Premiere at Church of St. Luke in the Fields
The Cygnus Ensemble will perform Bond's composition at Church of St. Luke in the Fields in Manhattan.
Composer Victoria Bond has two New York-area performances of her music coming up in late September and early October, including the premiere of 'Sirens,' a work inspired by James Joyce's 'Ulysses,' at the Church of St. Luke in the Fields.
Bond's program 'Tarot Magic in Music' opens the Morgan Library & Museum's 2026-27 classical concert season on September 23, 2026 at 7 p.m. at the Morgan (225 Madison Ave, Manhattan). The program is centered around the world premiere of the four-movement version of Bond's 'Instruments of Revelation,' a work inspired by the tarot cards the Magician, High Priestess, Fool, and The Wheel of Fortune. It opens with excerpts from the opera Carmen, in which Carmen reads her own tarot cards. The program also includes works by Claude Debussy, Pierre Boulez, Maurice Ravel, and Katherine Hoover that touch on folk magic themes and traditions. The concert draws inspiration from the exhibit Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions at the Morgan, on view through October 4. Tickets are $60.
James Joyce based his Ulysses on Homer's work and set it in Dublin. In her composition 'Sirens,' Victoria Bond was inspired by one of the episodes in which two alluring barmaids tempt customers into their bar. 'This episode, along with the overall theme of Joyce's Ulysses, is about being an outsider who is scorned and reviled,' says Bond. 'He is also everyman or everywoman who feels apart and alone in the midst of a world that has no use for him or her.'
On October 1 at 7:30 p.m., 'Sirens' will be performed by the Cygnus Ensemble, for whom it was written, at the Church of St. Luke in the Fields (487 Hudson St, Manhattan) as part of The Village Trip festival. Cygnus will be joined by soprano Amy Justman, mezzo-soprano Devony Smith, tenor Maximillian Jansen, baritone Patrick Wilhelm, and narrator Emmanuel Chumaciero. The program also features a world premiere by Samuel Adler, and music by Dina Kosta, and Nehemiah Luckett. Tickets are $30.
Elsewhere in the United States, Bond's 'Soul of a Nation' receives its Milwaukee premiere at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on September 28. The work is a violin concerto inspired by the writings of Thomas Jefferson and was written for former concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Frank Almond. Almond performs the solo part, with Ryan Tani conducting musicians of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Brian Mani narrates.
Calendar Listings
September 23, 2026 at 7 p.m. — Tarot Magic in Music, a program made in collaboration with Victoria Bond, at the Morgan Library & Museum (225 Madison Ave, New York, NY)
Performers
Carol Wincenc, flute
Charles Neidich, clarinet
Hahnsol Kim, violin
Michael Nicolas, cello
Mohamed Shams, piano
Program
Georges Bizet: Quintet Card Scene from Carmen
Pierre Boulez: Domaines
Maurice Ravel: Tzigane
Katherine Hoover: Kokopeli
Claude Debussy: Syrinx
Antonín Dvořák: Songs my Mother Taught Me
Victoria Bond: Instruments of Revelation (world premiere of four-movement version)
October 1, 2026 at 7:30 p.m. — America Sings a Siren's Song: Cutting Edge Concerts and the Cygnus Ensemble presented by The Village Trip, at Church of St. Luke in the Fields (287 Hudson St, New York, NY)
Performers
Cygnus Ensemble (Andrea Abel, flute; Megan Wojtyla, oboe; Curtis Macomber, violin; Peter Seidenberg, cello; William Anderson, guitar; Oren Fader, mandolin)
Amy Justman, soprano
Devony Smith, mezzo-soprano
Maximillian Jansen, tenor
Patrick Wilhelm, baritone
Emmanuel Chumaciero, narrator
Program
Samuel Adler: Between Lyra and Pegasus (world premiere)
Dina Koston: Quartet for Strings Bowed and Plucked
Nehemiah Luckett: Let It Be Told to the Future World
Victoria Bond: Sirens
Victoria Bond is known for her melodic gift and dramatic flair. Her works for orchestra, chamber ensemble and opera have been lauded by The New York Times as 'powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding.' Victoria Bond's discography includes Blue and Green Music featuring the Cassatt Quartet (2022), Illumination (2021), The Voices of Air (2020), Soul of a Nation (2018), and Peculiar Plants (2010), all on the Albany label, and Instruments of Revelation (Naxos, 2019). Victoria Bond's compositions have been performed by the New York City Opera, Shanghai, Dallas and Houston Symphonies, members of the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theater and the Cassatt and Audubon Quartets. The New York Times praised Victoria Bond's conducting as 'full of energy and fervor.' She is principal guest conductor of Chamber Opera Chicago, and has held conducting positions with Pittsburgh Symphony, New York City Opera, Roanoke Symphony, and Bel Canto and Harrisburg Operas. Bond is Artistic Director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival in New York, which she founded in 1998.
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