Star-Crossed (2025-26)

Enmeshed in the world of meteoric love stories, Star-Crossed explores three passionate bonds spread across time and geography. Revisiting an audience favorite from Brooklyn Rider’s earliest days, Colin Jacobsen’s Beloved, do not let me be discouraged borrows a line from 16th-century Turkish poet Fuzuli referencing the tragic story of Layla and Majnun, ill-fated lovers with parallels to Romeo and Juliet.

In a very special 20th anniversary commission for Brooklyn Rider, Gabriela Lena Frank explores the tumultuous relationship between Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, a further exploration following her acclaimed 2021 opera El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego).

And the intimate bond between Robert and Clara Schumann, one of the 19th century’s most storied classical music romances (cut short by Robert’s early demise), is immortalized in the indelible and loving String Quartet in A Major, opus 41, no. 3.

With generous support from: Carnegie Hall, Carolina Performing Arts, The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Yale Schwarzman Center, Wigmore Hall