Three Tang Poems: Violinist Patrick Yim with Composers Chen Yi & Zhou Long at Notre Dame presents a concert of world premieres and contemporary music inspired by Chinese poetry, memories, and visual art. Featuring Zhou Long, Pulitzer Prize winner and Grammy nominee, and Chen Yi, Pulitzer finalist and Grammy nominee, the program includes the world premiere of Zhou's Three Tang Poems, a violin concerto written for Patrick Yim, and the premiere of Chen's My Childhood Memories, adapted for Yim. The concert follows the release of Yim's new album Bamboo Grove (Pentatone, 2026), featuring world-premiere recordings created in collaboration with the composers during their 2024 residency at Notre Dame. Rooted in Chinese folk, philosophical, and spiritual traditions while engaging contemporary Western musical language, the music of Chen Yi and Zhou Long embodies a distinctive transcultural aesthetic that reimagines the expressive possibilities of modern instruments and ensembles. Moving beyond older paradigms of exoticism and cultural otherness, the concert fosters creative dialogue, mutual exchange, and a shared artistic space where Chinese and Western traditions meet while maintaining their distinct voices.  Patrick Yim, solo violin and solo viola Chen Yi, composer Zhou Long, composer Natalie Lin Douglas, violin Eric Wong, viola Jamie Clark, cello Cynthia Katsarelis, conductor (Zhou Long's Three Tang Poems) Presented by the  Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and the Arts Initiative at the University of Notre Dame. For tickets call 574-631-2800 or performingarts.nd.edu

For its fall concert, the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra goes to the movies, with both classical warhorses featured in films, and great film music, with composers including Mozart and John Williams.For tickets call 574-631-2800 or performingarts.nd.edu.

Trio Caspar is an innovative union of three individual voices, and the first group named the Colburn Conservatory inaugural Honors Chamber Music Ensemble. Founded in 2024 by clarinetist Andrea Caputo, violinist Jason Moon, and pianist Bogang Hwang, Trio Caspar aims to bring a fresh perspective of the highest standard to less frequently performed chamber works. The trio was awarded the Gold Medal, Lift Every Voice Prize, and Horszowski Trio Prize for Piano Ensemble at the 2026 Fischoff Competition in the Senior String Division, as well as the Audience Award and 2nd Prize at the 2026 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition.The name pays homage to the German painter Caspar David Friedrich, whose exploration of the complexity of individualism inspires the ensemble's distinctive sound. For tickets call 574-631-2800 or performingarts.nd.edu

SMND Concordia presents Chiaroscuro, the first performance under Notre Dame’s new Director of Choral Activities, Amanda Quist. Chiaroscuro- the interplay of light and dark in art, music, and the voice- explores struggle and hope, lament and renewal. J. S. Bach’s Jesu Meine Freude forms the cornerstone of a program spanning four centuries, with works by Vittoria Aleotti, Henry Purcell, William Byrd, Zanaida Robles, Ayanna Woods, Sarah Quartel, and David Caldarella. In Reyes Choral and Organ Hall at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Concordia explores how musical contrast illuminates our shared humanity and faith. View live-stream. View program. Event is free free but ticketed.Reserved tickets must be claimed 15 minutes prior to the start of the event or unclaimed tickets may be redistributed to other patrons.For tickets call 631-2800 or performingarts.nd.edu. Originally published at sacredmusic.nd.edu.

SMND Concordia presents Chiaroscuro, the first performance under Notre Dame’s new Director of Choral Activities, Amanda Quist. Chiaroscuro- the interplay of light and dark in art, music, and the voice- explores struggle and hope, lament and renewal. J. S. Bach’s Jesu Meine Freude forms the cornerstone of a program spanning four centuries, with works by Vittoria Aleotti, Henry Purcell, William Byrd, Zanaida Robles, Ayanna Woods, Sarah Quartel, and David Caldarella. In Reyes Choral and Organ Hall at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Concordia explores how musical contrast illuminates our shared humanity and faith. View live-stream. View program. Event is free free but ticketed.Reserved tickets must be claimed 15 minutes prior to the start of the event or unclaimed tickets may be redistributed to other patrons.For tickets call 631-2800 or performingarts.nd.edu. Originally published at sacredmusic.nd.edu.

Guest Lecture: Simon Morrison will present Margarita and the Master: What We Know, and Don’t Know, About Dmitri Shostakovich’s Second Marriage In the late 1950s, Shostakovich’s musical style changed, shifting toward a lighter, more playful idiom in the score to the movie The First Echelon, his operetta about the Cheryomushki housing development, his Sixth String Quartet, and his Romances to texts by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky. These works were composed during his second marriage to Margarita Kainova, a senior Komsomol official and (later) director of the RSFSR museum system. The first part of this paper considers Shostakovich’s Komsomol musical aesthetic and whether the marriage might have influenced his new style. The second part is more explicitly political. The marriage lasted from 1956 to 1959 and is described in the Shostakovich literature as a bad decision. But who was Kainova and what were her ambitions? Did she meet Shostakovich by chance, or was the encounter contrived? Kainova was in the Komsomol hierarchy when she married Shostakovich: did she need political permission for the relationship? A final, more disquieting question: Kainova must have reported on Shostakovich to security officials when they traveled abroad. As a Party activist, she would have done so with enthusiasm. It would have been a condition of her, and his, authorization to travel. Did this matter to Shostakovich? Should it matter to us? Bio: Simon Morrison is Professor of Music and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. His history of Moscow, A Kingdom and a Village, was published by Knopf last spring. This event is free and open to the public.

Notre Dame’s flagship vocal ensemble presents a whimsically titled Olde England/Cool Britannia theme, with works by Handel, Byrd, and Vaughan Williams, among others.For tickets call 574- 631-2800 or performingarts.nd.edu.