Alchemy: Classical Meets Jazz

Including World Premieres of New Festival Commissions
Thursday, August 13, 2026 at 5:30 PM
Simon Center for the Arts, Falmouth Academy, 7 Highfield Drive, Falmouth

Harlem Quartet:

• Ilmar Gavilán, violin
• Melissa White, violin
• Jaime Amador, viola
• Felix Umansky, cello

Steve Wilson, alto and soprano saxophone
Renee Rosnes, piano
David Wong, bass

The GRAMMY®-winning Harlem Quartet and outstanding jazz musicians Steve Wilson, Renee Rosnes, and David Wong will fuse classical and jazz forms in an evening that will include three world premieres. One is a new work commissioned for the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival and composed by Rosnes for jazz trio and classical string quartet. The Festival also commissioned two new arrangements for jazz trio and classical string quartet by GRAMMY-winning composer and orchestra leader Maria Schneider of her pieces Sky Blue and Walking by Flashlight. Harlem Quartet will perform Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat Major and Aldo López-Gavilán’s Frère Jacques.

The Cincinnati Enquirer hailed the Harlem Quartet for “bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent.” Jazz Times calls award-winning Steve Wilson “the consummate saxophonist-composer” and “one of the finest alto and soprano saxophonists of our time.” The Jazz Report said, “Rosnes one of the finest pianists in jazz. Her playing is inventive, complex and always illuminating.” The Stanford Jazz Workshop said, “David’s mastery of the acoustic bass is remarkable” and cites his “wealth of experience he’s accumulated working with the world’s great jazz artists.” Together, these extraordinary musicians will create a special evening that combines classical and jazz into something altogether fresh, new, and exciting.

FANNY MENDELSSOHN                       (1805 – 1847)
String Quartet in E-flat Major

ALDO LÓPEZ-GAVILÁN                        (b. 1944)
Frère Jacques

MARIA SCHNEIDER                             (b. 1960)
Sky Blue
arrangement by Schneider for jazz trio and classical string quartet commissioned by the Festival

MARIA SCHNEIDER
Walking by Flashlight
arrangement by Schneider for jazz trio and classical string quartet commissioned by the Festival