Chelsea Music Festival announces Shelters in the Desert: An Evening with Hernández, León, Susman, Smirnov, Vu at St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church, 315 West 22nd Street, NYC, set for Friday, June 26, 2026 from 7-9pm. Tickets are $85 and can be purchased at https://www.chelseamusicfestival.org/2026-events/june26. 

The Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, presents an evening of five works by living composers united by themes of water, memory, and transformation. The program includes Ania Vu’s Water Realms, a sonic journey through water in its many physical states, followed by a movement for strings from Tania León’s Esencia — a work drawing on the waters and musical traditions of the Caribbean and Latin America. Desert Shelter by J.E. Hernández recounts stories of migrants who cross the Sonoran Desert. The World Premiere of William Susman’s Clouds and Flames is a haunting meditation on Philippe Petit’s legendary 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers, and Grigory Smirnov’s Impromptu complete an evening of music that is at once deeply personal and vividly evocative.

Program
J.E. HERNÁNDEZ Desert Shelter
Tania LEÓN Esencia
Grigory SMIRNOV Impromptu (NY Premiere)
William SUSMAN Clouds and Flames (World Premiere)
Ania VU Water Realms (NY Premiere)

Reception to follow by La Newyorkina.