Wednesday, November 4, 2026 at 7:00 PM 
The Consulate General of the Republic of Poland
233 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Free admission: RSVP required

Tuesday, November 17, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Ressona
306 West 38 Street, New York, NY 10018
Free admission: RSVP required

Thursday, December 3, 2026 at 6:00 PM
The Consulate General of the Republic of Poland
233 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Free admission: RSVP required

You can reserve seats via website nydai.org – EVENTS or email chopinandfriends.reservations@gmail.com

The International Chopin & Friends Festival is an annual festival organized by the New York Dance & Arts Innovations, Inc. showcasing artists of various disciplines inspired by Chopin’s legacy and working across a variety of media uniting traditional and contemporary art forms.

The opening event on November 4 will begin with a special memorial honoring Ruth Slenczynska, the distinguished pianist of Polish heritage who passed away in 2026 at the age of 101. Slenczynska was the last living student of Sergei Rachmaninoff and an extraordinary figure in the history of both American and Polish musical culture.

Ruth Slenczynska also holds a particularly meaningful place in the history of the Chopin & Friends Festival. In October 2021, the festival had the great honor of presenting her in a historic recital at the Polish diplomatic mission in New York. Her artistry, her Polish heritage, and her remarkable connection to the musical traditions represented by the festival made her an important figure in our history. The opportunity to honor her once again within the Polish diplomatic community in New York is therefore especially significant for us.

The memorial will celebrate not only Slenczynska’s extraordinary artistic legacy, but also her contribution to the cultural dialogue between Poland and the United States and her special connection to the Polish-American cultural community.

The November 4 program will include a presentation by Dr. Moorman-Stahlman, a student of Slenczynska, who will speak about her teacher’s life, artistry, and legacy. Archival recordings of Slenczynska will also be presented, followed by Dr. Moorman-Stahlman’s performance of a work by Frédéric Chopin, bringing the evening back to the Polish musical tradition that stands at the heart of the festival.

The evening will continue with a performance by our distinguished guests from Poland, the Cracow Duo, cellist Jan Kalinowski and pianist Marek Szlezer. They will present a program devoted entirely to Polish repertoire, offering an opportunity to celebrate the depth and diversity of Poland’s musical heritage and to present it to an international audience in New York.

The participation of two leading Polish artists, traveling from Poland specifically for the festival, further strengthens the festival’s role as a platform for cultural exchange between Poland and the United States. Their all-Polish program will place Polish musical heritage at the center of the opening celebration and underscore the important role that Polish music continues to play on the international stage.

The middle festival event, taking place at Ressona Concert Hall, will continue the festival’s tradition of international cultural exchange by featuring the Italian ensemble Sound In Common, whose members are accomplished jazz musicians performing both original repertoire and works reflecting their international musical influences.

This program reflects the festival’s ongoing relationships with both Polish and Italian cultural institutions in New York. In particular, it continues our tradition of recognizing and celebrating the support of the Italian Consulate, which has graciously extended its Honorary Patronage to the festival for the past two years.

The event therefore represents another important dimension of the festival’s broader mission: bringing together different cultural traditions and diplomatic communities through music. While the Polish musical tradition remains at the heart of the festival, our international programs create opportunities for Poland to serve as a point of connection between artists and cultural communities from different countries.

The closing event on December 3, once again hosted by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, will have a particularly special significance as the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026. To mark this historic occasion, the Chopin & Friends Festival will present the music of one of America’s most prominent living composers, Lowell Liebermann.

The program will feature three of Liebermann’s major works representing different instrumental combinations—piano solo, flute and piano, and piano trio—spanning approximately 25 years of his creative career. Presenting these three works together will offer the audience a unique opportunity to experience the evolution and breadth of Liebermann’s compositional voice.

The evening will also include a discussion with the composer himself, followed by an opportunity for members of the audience to ask questions and engage directly with him about his music, artistic vision, and experiences as an American composer.

Liebermann’s participation carries a particularly meaningful Polish-American dimension. In 2014, he was a guest at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where his presence formed part of a broader Polish-American musical exchange organized by the Maestro Foundation. His visit to Poland was followed by an invitation extended to Polish composer Dariusz Przybylski to come to New York in the same year, creating a reciprocal artistic exchange between American and Polish composers.

The 2026 Chopin & Friends Festival seeks, in a small but meaningful way, to recreate and continue the spirit of that exchange. By inviting Liebermann to the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York and presenting three significant works from different periods of his career, we are bringing an important chapter of Polish-American musical dialogue back to New York.

The setting is particularly meaningful. The Polish diplomatic community once again becomes a place where American and Polish musical traditions meet, artists exchange ideas, and longstanding cultural relationships are renewed. In this sense, Liebermann’s participation is not simply a presentation of an American composer’s music, but a continuation of a cultural relationship that has already crossed the Atlantic.

Liebermann’s connection to Polish musical tradition extends further through his musical education. His studies include a direct connection to the Polish piano tradition through his work with a student of the renowned Polish pianist and pedagogue Theodor Leszetycki (Leschetizky). This creates an important historical link between one of America’s leading contemporary composers and the great Polish tradition of piano performance and pedagogy.

During the discussion, we will explore these connections in greater depth, including Liebermann’s experiences in Poland, his participation in the Polish-American musical exchange, and the influence of Chopin and the Polish piano tradition on his artistic development and compositional work.

His personal reflections will allow the audience to discover not only the music being performed that evening, but also the broader cultural connections that link American and Polish musical life. The opportunity to hear a composer of Liebermann’s stature speak personally about his music, his experiences in Poland, and his artistic inspirations represents a rare and valuable cultural experience.

His return to a Polish cultural setting in New York, more than a decade after his participation in the Polish-American exchange in Warsaw, gives the closing program a special sense of continuity. Presenting three important works that span approximately 25 years of his career within the Polish Consulate provides a meaningful framework for revisiting and renewing this artistic connection.

Taken together, the three events of the 2026 Chopin & Friends Festival reflect the festival’s longstanding commitment to celebrating Polish culture and its international influence, fostering meaningful connections between Polish and American artists, and creating opportunities for cultural diplomacy through music.

The opening program honors Ruth Slenczynska, an American pianist of Polish heritage whose life embodied the meeting of European and American musical traditions. The same evening brings leading artists from Poland to New York to perform an entirely Polish program. The closing event then reconnects the festival with an important Polish-American artistic exchange through the return of Lowell Liebermann, whose history with Polish musical institutions and artists provides a direct bridge between Poland and the United States.

The presence of these programs at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York is therefore especially meaningful. The Consulate is not simply serving as a venue, but as an important cultural setting in which Polish heritage, international artistic exchange, and American musical life can come together.

At its core, the Chopin & Friends Festival seeks to honor the legacy of Frédéric Chopin not only by presenting his music, but by continuing the spirit of cultural exchange that his artistic legacy represents. The 2026 edition builds on this mission by bringing together Polish heritage, Polish-American history, contemporary American composition, and international artistic collaboration.

Through these programs, the festival hopes to contribute to the continuing cultural dialogue between Poland and the United States, while presenting the richness of Polish musical traditions to a diverse New York audience and celebrating the enduring influence of Polish culture within the broader international artistic community.