The American Classical Orchestra (ACO), New York City’s leading period instrument orchestra, has announced its 41st season. Under the direction of founder and artistic director, Thomas Crawford, the ensemble will present a lineup of performances across four full-scale orchestral and three intimate chamber concerts.
Saloon Concert: Rococo Repast
The season is set to launch on Tuesday, September 16 at 7:00 p.m. with Rococo Repast, an evening of Rococo chamber music, preceded by a 6:00 p.m. reception in the Library Room of Manhattan’s Metropolitan Club. Completed in 1891 and described by the New York Times as a “Marble Palace,” the venue is one of the City’s most exclusive private clubs, offering a fitting scene to a program of Rococo-era music that reflects the stylistic shift composers in the 1730s to 1760s made, away from dense Baroque textures and towards simpler presentation.
ACO performers include conductor Thomas Crawford, Emi Ferguson (flauto traverso), David Dickey (oboe), Aisslinn Nosky (violin), and Myrin Lutzke (cello). The concert features Michael Haydn’s String Quintet in C Major, MH 187, Johann Christain Bach’s Quintet in D Major, Op. 22; and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Flute Quartet in G Major, K. 825a.
Tickets are limited, with a small number of single tickets available starting August 1 at aconyc.org. ACO Patron subscribers are guaranteed a seat.
Virtuosi Violini
On Tuesday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m., Virtuosi Violini will be performed at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. (921 Madison Avenue), showcasing virtuoso violin concerts from the Baroque era. Highlighting music from the 17th and 18th century Italy where composers were motivated to write highly technical works inspired by newly refined string instruments and a growing number of skilled musicians.
The program includes Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in B Minor, RV 580, Tomaso Albinoni’s Violin Concerto Op. 10 No. 12 in B-flat Major, Giuseppe Tartini’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, and J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043.
Performers include violinists Chloe Fedor, Augusta McKay Lodge, Aisslinn Nosky, and Edson Scheid, and conductor Thomas Crawford.
Tickets will be available beginning August 1 at aconyc.org, or by calling ACO at (212) 362-2727, ext.4.
Salon Concert: The Golden Harpsichord
ACO presents The Golden Harpsichord on Friday, November 21 and Saturday, November 22, at 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. in the Musical Instruments Gallery of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (1000 5th Avenue) The Met Museum’s ‘Golden Harpsichord’ in its Musical Instruments Gallery exemplifies both beauty and technology. Built in 1670 in Rome by Michele Todini, the harpsichord’s frame includes two large figures—Polyphemus and Galatea—which provide a backdrop for the salon concert of Italian Baroque music.
The intimate program includes two classic holiday cantatas written to celebrate the nativity of Jesus: Alessandro Scarlatti’s Christmas Cantata, (Cantata Pastorale per la Natività) and Arcangelo Corelli’s Christmas Concerto. (Concerto grosso in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 8) Also on the program is George Frideric Handel’s Il delinrio amoroso, HWV 99 (The Delirium of Love), about a woman who descends to Hades to rescue her deceased lover and take him to the Elysian fields. Performers include Baroque soprano Elisse Albian’s and oboist Caroline Giassi, with Thomas Crawford conducting.
Access to the Musical Instrument Gallery and the performances is free after purchasing admission to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Availability is limited but guaranteed for ACO Patron Subscribers.
Morning Stars
On Thursday, January 15 at 7:30 p.m., the ACO presents Morning Stars, a program showcasing early brilliance, at Alice Tully Hall. The evening opens with the overture for Mozart’s opera buffa La finta semplice (The Fake Innocent), followed by soprano Song Hee Lee’s performance of the composer’s timeless Exsultate, Jubilate– an aria originally written for castrato opera star Veranzio Rauzzini. Already destined for a major career, Ms. Lee is scheduled to perform in 2026 with Les Arts Florissants in Europe under the direction of William Christie.
The program concludes with Haydn’s Symphony No. 6, an example of program music evoking the morning sounds of nature, and the first of three early symphonies he composed for his new employer, Prince Paul Anton Esterházy.
Tickets will be available beginning August 1 at aconyc.org, by calling ACO at (212) 362-2727, ext.4, or by visiting lincolncenter.org or calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500.
Healing Bach
ACO continues its season on Thursday, February 26 at 7:30 p.m. with Healing Bach, presented at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (869 Lexington Avenue), one of Manhattan’s most spectacular architectural buildings. The all-Bach program includes Ich habe genug, BWV 82, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51 and the Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, BMV 1067.
Featured performers include baritone Edward Vogel- praised by The New York Times for his “appealing, midweight baritone,”- in the cantata Ich habe genug (“I have enough”), written for the Feast of the Purification of Mary. Soprano Nola Richardson- called “a vocal superstar in the making” by the Berkeley Daily Planet- in Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (“exult God in every land”) the only church cantata Bach scored for solo soprano and trumpet. Joining her is feature trumpeter Steven Marquadt. Bach’s well-known, secular dance Suite in B Minor will be performed by ACO principal flutist Sandra Miller. Also included are performers Marc Schachman (oboe), Steven Marquardt (trumpet), and conductor Thomas Crawford.
Tickets will be available starting August 1 at aconyc.org, or by calling ACO at (212) 362-2727, ext.4.
Chamber Music Concert: Genius
On Wednesday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m., ACO members will present Genuis, at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, a chamber concert centered on Schubert’s final instrumental work, his String Quintet. Composed in the last year and a half of his life, the piece is notable for adding a second cello rather than the usual viola in a quintet and its frequent and unexpected key changes.
The performance features violinists Krista Feeney and Laura Lutzke, violist David Cerutti, and cellists Myron Lutzke, Loretta O’Sullivan.
Tickets are available online starting on August 1 at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at (212) 247- 7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th & Seventh Avenue. Tickets are also available at aconyc.org.
Heroic
The season concludes on Tuesday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m. at Alice Tully Hall, with Heroic. Under conductor Thomas Crawford, young pianist Matthew Figel opens the ACO season finale and makes his Lincoln center debut with Mozart’s Concerto No. 17, which was written for Mozart’s student, Barbara Ployer. Soon after the work’s popular first performance, Mozart purchased a starling that sang a tune similar to the theme of the finale and later held a funeral when it died.
The program comes to a close with a period instrument performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, which presented a bold departure from the structured symphonic form of the time and laid the foundation for the passionate sounds of the Romantic era to come. The work released emotional themes of heroism and resilience that impacted the work of major composers for years to come.
Tickets are available at aconyc.org, by calling ACO at (212) 362-2727, ext.4, or by visiting lincolncenter.org or calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500.
Founded in 1984 as the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, the ensemble was renamed the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. Since relocating to New York City in 2005, it has become the city’s only full-scale orchestra dedicated to performing 17th, 18th, and 19th century music on period instruments.
Described by The New York Times as “simply splendid,” ACO’s musicians are among the finest in their field, with many also performing with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Handel and Haydn Society, and the New York Philharmonic. ACO’s principal players are faculty members at The Juilliard School, and the ACO collaborates with students enrolled in the its Historical Performance Program. The American Classical Orchestra Chorus, composed of professional vocalists from the New York metro area, joins ACO for larger works.
By using historical instruments and performance techniques, ACO strives to authentically recreate the sounds audiences would have heard when the music was first written and performed. The orchestra’s work has been critically praised for its recordings, educational programs, and concerts, including appearances at Alice Tully Hall and in Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for a sold-out 25th anniversary performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Thomas Crawford, ACO’s artistic director and founder, is a prominent advocate for historically accurate performance styles in Baroque, Classical, and Early Romantic music. He founded two Connecticut orchestras: the Fairfield Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, the period instrument offshoot of the Fairfield Orchestra, renamed the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. Crawford has commissioned numerous works by composers, including John Corigliano and William Thomas McKinley, and collaborated with artists such as Joshua Bell, Vladimir Feltsman, Richard Goode, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, André Watts, and Dawn Upshaw.
He also conducted the world premiere of Keith Jarrett’s Bridge of Light at Alice Tully Hall, subsequently recorded on the ECM label. Crawford won the prestigious BMI composition award for his organ work Ashes of Rose, which premiered at the American Guild of Organists. He is determined to bring the beauty of period music to a wider audience, and received a Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth award from the National Endowment for the Arts, in recognition of the ACO’s dynamic music outreach to New York City schoolchildren. A Pennsylvania native, he holds degrees in organ performance and composition from the Eastman School of Music and Columbia University.
Subscriptions for the four Orchestral concerts are priced at a 10% discount over individual ticket prices. Patron Society Members receive premium seating to all seven concerts in the season, including the intimate chamber concerts that are not included in the subscription package. Patron Society Membership includes a $225 tax-deductible donation.
More details of the American Classical Orchestra’s 2025-26 season, can be found at their official website.
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