Press Release

October 26, 2025

For Immediate Release

Press Contact:

Gail Wein - (646) 484-9691

ClassicalCommunications@gmail.com

Baruch Performing Arts Center 2025-2026 concert season begins Monday, October 27

ACME – “contemporary music dynamos” (NPR) – performs Music for Film and Beyond by Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Michael Nyman, Ennio Morricone and more

Coming up on Baruch PAC's 25-26 concert season: Jazz pianist Sullivan Fortner, Baritone Joseph Parrish, and the Akshara music ensemble

On Monday, October 27 at 7 pm, American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) opens Baruch Performing Arts Center’s 2025-2026 concert season with Soundscapes: Music for Film and Beyond. The award-winning chamber group performs works by Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Michael Nyman, Ennio Morricone, Nico Muhly, Jóhann Jóhannsson and ACME’s Artistic Director, Clarice Jensen. Baruch PAC is located at 55 Lexington Ave (25th St, between 3rd and Lexington Aves). Tickets are $35 ($20 with CUNY ID), available at bpac.baruch.cuny.edu.

The program explores the intersection between contemporary classical music and cinema, including selections from Morricone's lush score for The Mission and the lyrical second movement of Nyman's String Quartet No. 2. Glass's String Quartet No. 3, Mishima, taken from his score for Paul Schrader’s 1985 film, features driving rhythms and hypnotic patterns. This is a Silberman Recital Series concert.

Complete details of Baruch PAC’s 2025-2026 concert season have just been announced. Coming up:

• Jazz virtuoso Sullivan Fortner - solo piano (Dec. 12)
• Baritone Joseph Parrish - Songs from the Harlem Renaissance (Feb. 10)
• World music ensemble Akshara (March 9)

Details are below.

Pictured: American Contemporary Music Ensemble (credit: Sachyn Mital)

Baruch Performing Arts Center

55 Lexington Ave, New York, NY

(enter on 25th Street, between 3rd and Lexington Avenues)

October 27, 7 pm: "Soundscapes: Music for Film and Beyond"
American Contemporary Music Ensemble

A Silberman Recital Series Concert

Details below.

December 12, 7:30 pm: Jazz pianist Sullivan Fortner solo recital

A Milt Hinton Jazz Perspectives Concert

GRAMMY Award-winning pianist and recent winner of the prestigious Jazz Artist Award from The Gilmore Foundation, Sullivan Fortner comes to Baruch PAC for his only solo recital in the region this year. Fortner is a frequent collaborator of Cecile McLorin Salvant, and has released four critically-acclaimed albums as a solo leader. TICKETS

February 10, 7 pm: “Songs from the Harlem Renaissance”

Baritone Joseph Parrish

Joseph Parrish returns to Baruch PAC following his critically-acclaimed performance in 2023, with an evening of art songs from the Harlem Renaissance, curated specially for his Baruch appearance. Parrish was a recipient of the 2024 Sullivan Grant, a member of the Salzburger Festspiele Young Singers Project for the 2024 festival season, a prize winner in the Opera Index Voice Competition 2024 and winner of the 2022 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions. TICKETS

March 9: Akshara

World music ensemble

A Silberman Recital Series Concert

Akshara is a dynamic music ensemble bringing together world music traditions on the rhythmic and modal foundations of Indian classical music. Along with NYC’s brightest musical talent, including two Grammy nominees, Akshara Music Ensemble’s leader and composer, Bala Skandan presents surprising and delightful interpretations of traditional ragas like Kamboji, Mohana, Gambira Natai and Shanmugapriya arranged for Carnatic, Hindustani, and Western classical and folk instruments.

Tickets on sale beginning early November.

Monday, October 27, 2025 at 7 pm

American Contemporary Music Ensemble

Soundscapes: Music for Film and Beyond

A Silberman Recital Series Concert

Tickets at bpac.baruch.cuny.edu

PROGRAM 

Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 3, “Mishima” 

Ryuichi Sakamoto: for Jóhann

Michael Nyman: String Quartet No. 2, Mvt. III 

Ennio Morricone: Gabriel’s Oboe from The Mission

Nico Muhly: Selections from The Reader 

Jóhann Jóhannsson: Film and Chamber Music Selections 

Clarice Jensen: “House Motif” from A Want in Her

PERFORMERS

Clarice Jensen, cello and artistic director

Ben Russell, violin

Laura Lutzke, violin

Kal Sugatski, viola

Claire Bryant, cello

Grey Mcmurray, guitar

Daniel Neumann, sound engineer  

Tickets: $35 ($20 with CUNY ID), available at bpac.baruch.cuny.edu 

Baruch Performing Arts Center is at 55 Lexington Avenue (enter on 25th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues, on the south side of the street) in the heart of Manhattan. Praised for its superb acoustics, the Rosalyn and Irwin Engelman Recital Hall has been called "a perfect hall for chamber music" by Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times.