A DANCE OF LIFE:

Violin Music of the AIDS Era

CO-PRESENTED WITH The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Giancarlo Latta,
Violin and Curator
Robert Fleitz, Piano


JUNE 22, 2026
6—7:30 PM


The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

40 Lincoln Center Plaza,
New York, NY


About the Event

This performance revives an important but neglected repertoire of works for violin and piano by composers who died during the AIDS crisis, including rediscovered works from the Library for the Performing Arts' collections. Presented by violinist Giancarlo Latta, joined by pianist Robert Fleitz, the program brings together seven outstanding compositions written between 1975 and 1991, many of which have gone unrecorded and generally unperformed over the past several decades. Two larger-scale showcase works—Robert Savage’s Rhapsody and Meditation and Louis Weingarden’s Sonata: Les Violons du Bal—sit at the center of the performance, alongside a new transcription for violin and piano of Chris DeBlasio’s Serenade for Violin and Organ, Michael Seyfrit’s A Dance of Life, and shorter works by Charles Buel, Yvar Mikhashoff, and Robert Nofsinger.

A Dance of Life received generous early support from ChamberQUEER's Open Submission program.


About the Collaborators

Fiercely committed to the music of our time, violinist, composer, and writer Giancarlo Latta is interested in the intersection and convergence of music old and new. Through a broad repertoire and bold dedication to wide-ranging collaborative possibilities, he curates projects and programs that explore varied compositional voices and draw threads across styles and centuries. He has performed with flutist Claire Chase and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and in 2022 was the soloist in Tyshawn Sorey’s For Marcos Balter at the Spoleto Festival USA. He performs regularly with many ensembles in New York and across the country, including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the San Diego Symphony, Contemporaneous, and the Houston-based conductorless ensemble Kinetic, which he co-founded. Latta has been a member of the acclaimed Argus Quartet since 2019, with whom he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Morgan Library, and many other major chamber music venues across the country.

Robert Fleitz is a pianist, composer, researcher, and performer who views the piano as a space for illuminating what has been overlooked or misunderstood. His performances are idiosyncratic, combining rigor and humor in equal measure. He has performed everywhere from BAM’s Next Wave Festival to Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan to his debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall to a small cardboard house in a Lower East Side gallery. Recent highlights include The Silent Voice, an album of world-premiere recordings by composers from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia; solo appearances with Sinfonietta Rīga; and a residency with Stanford’s composition department. Fleitz studied at the Juilliard School and the Latvian Music Academy and is currently a doctoral researcher at the Sibelius Academy, where he explores the embodied experience of hybrid musical environments.


Location

 

The event will be held at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza (entrance at 111 Amsterdam between 64th and 65th), New York

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Thanks & Support

We are honored to co-present this program with the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Banner image: Sean Salamon