Following two sold-out runs, Death of Classical returns to the magnificent Crypt under the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in a collaboration that critics have hailed as "revelatory," "emotional and spiritual," "exquisite," and "audacious."

May 1 & 2, we'll welcome a top-shelf string ensemble made up of alumni from the acclaimed Lake George Music Festival, performing a pair of works that explore the resilience of art in response to destruction.

Missy Mazzoli's Dark with Excessive Bright – here performed in its arrangement for string quintet with violin soloist – takes its title from a line in Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, where a blind man attempts to describe his vision of God. In a similarly surreal and evocative manner, Mazzoli's music twists, turns, and transforms, casting and chasing shadows across four centuries of musical expression from the Baroque era through to the present day. And as if she wasn't busy enough frolicking in the Crypt with us, Missy's opera Lincoln in the Bardo will receive its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera this October!

Written in the final days of World War II, Metamorphosen was a deeply personal lament from Richard Strauss, as he mourned the destruction of culture that he saw taking place around him. Heard here in its rarely-performed string septet arrangement, it unfolds as a single, continuous meditation on grief – an elegy for art lost to war.

Each performance includes a pre-concert reception with wine, food, and cocktails in the spectacular main space of the Cathedral, followed by a walk through the stone quarry before descending to the Crypt.