The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY), one of New York’s leading cultural venues, presents Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio & Friends – Fauré I on Wednesday, July 9, 2025 at 7:30pm ET and Fauré II on Saturday, July 12, 2025 at 7:30 pm EDT on the Geffen Stage at Kaufmann Concert Hall and streaming online.

The chamber music dream team of Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, and Jeremy Denk gives their first NYC performances in six years, performing two evenings of gorgeous music by Gabriel Fauré.

The concerts follow the trio’s rapturous performances of this music in sold-out concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall in November and the Aspen Music Festival last summer, and feature some of the most luminous chamber music to be experienced.

Bell and Denk open the first program with one of Fauré’s best-loved chamber works, the elegant and passionate A-Major Violin Sonata, with the artists performing in multiple configurations: trio, duo, solo, quartet, and culminating in the D-Minor Piano Quintet – a Fauré gem, and a treat for anyone who loves Brahms – in which they’re joined by acclaimed Fauré interpreters violinist Irène Duval and violist Blythe Teh Engstroem.

The second program features Bell, Duval, Teh Engstroem, and Isserlis performing Faure’s only string quartet and final work, the ethereal E-Minor String Quartet. The evening culminates with the sublime C-Minor Piano Quintet, performed by all.

JOSHUA BELL, violin

STEVEN ISSERLIS, cello

JEREMY DENK, piano

IRÈNE DUVAL, violin

BLYTHE TEH ENGSTROEM, viola

July 9, 2025 Program – All-Fauré

Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Op. 13

Barcarolle No. 5 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 66

Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 120

Sicilienne, Op. 78

Berceuse, Op. 16

Piano Quintet No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 89

July 12, 2025 Program – All-Fauré

Violin Sonata No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 108

Nocturne No. 13 in B Minor, Op. 119

String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 121

Romance, Op. 69

Élégie, Op. 24

Piano Quintet No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 115

With a career spanning almost four decades, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Bell has performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world, and continues to maintain engagements as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and as the Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Bell’s highlights for the 2024-25 season included the release of two new albums: Thomas De Hartmann Rediscovered, which featured the World Premiere recording of Ukrainian composer Thomas De Hartmann’s Violin Concerto, with conductor Dalia Stasevska and the INSO-Lviv Orchestra on Pentatone, as well as an album of Mendelssohn piano trios, which Bell recorded with longtime friends and collaborators Jeremy Denk and Steven Isserlis on Sony Masterworks. Bell also rejoined Denk and Isserlis for a series of concerts at Wigmore Hall. An avid recitalist, Bell tours internationally to South America, Australia, and mainland China, and performs his beloved “Voice and the Violin” program with soprano Larisa Martínez throughout North America. As guest soloist this season, Bell will appear with the New York Philharmonic, and appeared with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recently, he both conducted and played with the DSO Berlin, as well as in his role as Music Director of the Academy of St. Martin of the Fields. https://joshuabell.com/

Acclaimed worldwide for his profound musicianship and technical mastery, British cellist Steven Isserlis enjoys a unique and distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, author, and broadcaster. As a concerto soloist, he appears regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including the Berlin Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, London Philharmonic, and Zurich Tonhalle orchestras. He gives recitals every season in major musical centres, and plays with many of the world’s foremost chamber orchestras, including the Australian, Mahler, Norwegian, Scottish, Zurich and St Paul Chamber Orchestras, as well as period-instrument ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Unusually, he also directs chamber orchestras from the cello in classical programmes. Recent and upcoming highlights include performances with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Salzburg Mozartwoche; the US premiere of Thomas Adès’s Lieux retrouvés with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, following world and UK premieres in Lucerne and at the BBC Proms, and a further performance of the work in Amsterdam with the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by the composer; Prokofiev’s Concerto Op. 58 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, in London, and at the Dresden Music Festival; and Haydn’s C major Concerto with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Adam Fischer. As a chamber musician, he has curated series for many of the world’s most famous festivals and venues, including the Wigmore Hall, the 92nd Street Y in New York, and the Salzburg Festival. These specially devised programmes have included ‘In the Shadow of War’, a major four-part series for the Wigmore Hall to mark the centenary of the First World War and the 75th anniversary of the Second World War; explorations of Czech music; the teacher-pupil line of Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Ravel; the affinity of the cello and the human voice; varied aspects of Robert Schumann’s life and music; and the music of Sergei Taneyev (teacher of Steven’s grandfather, Julius Isserlis) and his students. For these concerts, Steven is joined by a regular group of friends which includes the violinists Joshua Bell, Isabelle Faust, Pamela Frank, and Janine Jansen, violist Tabea Zimmermann, and pianists Jeremy Denk, Stephen Hough, Alexander Melnikov, Olli Mustonen, Connie Shih, and Dénes Várjon. https://stevenisserlis.com/

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists, proclaimed by the New York Times as "a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs". Denk is also a New York Times bestselling author, the recipient of both the MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the 2024/25 season, Denk continued his collaboration with longtime musical partners Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis, including performances at the Tsindali Festival and Wigmore Hall, on the heels of his multi-concert artist residency at the Wigmore in 2023/24. Denk also returned to the Lammermuir Festival in multiple performances, including the complete Ives violin sonatas with Maria Wloszczowska, and a solo recital featuring female composers from the past to the present day. He continues to perform this same solo programme on tour across the US, furthering his exploration of Bach in ongoing performances of the complete Partitas. Furthermore, the pianist is known for his interpretations of the music of American visionary Charles Ives — and in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, Nonesuch Records released a collection of his Ives recordings in 2024. Denk’s album of Mozart concertos, released in 2021, was deemed “urgent and essential” by BBC Radio 3. His recording of the Goldberg Variations reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, and his recording of Beethoven and Ligeti was named one of the best discs of the year by The New Yorker, NPR, and The Washington Post, while his account of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available recording on the modern piano. Denk has performed frequently at Carnegie Hall, and in recent years has worked with such orchestras as Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony. Meanwhile, he has performed multiple times at the BBC Proms and Klavierfestival Ruhr and appeared in such halls as the Köln Philharmonie, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Boulez Saal in Berlin. https://www.jeremydenk.com/

Born in France, to a French father and Korean mother, Irène Duval grew up in Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong before returning to France at the age of 11. Since graduating from the Conservatoire de Paris and Kronberg Academy, Irène is firmly establishing herself as a compelling and versatile performer with a strong interest in combining little-known works with works central to the repertoire. Praised for “her mastery of phrasing and of the dramatic dimension” (Diapason), “astonishing virtuosity” (Revelation Classiques) and her “infinite delicacy” (Le Populaire du centre), Irène has won multiple international competitions and is an active performer of concerti, recitals, and chamber music. Recent highlights include her debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the first symphonic concert given by an international orchestra in Mauritius, her debut in Australia at Bendigo Chamber Music Festival, at the Verbier Festival, replacing Lisa Batiashvili at short notice, in Budapest at Kamara.hu Festival, and her debut with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the inauguration concert of the Casals Forum in Kronberg. This season, she gives concerts at the Festival de Musica de Canarias with Joshua Bell, Blythe-Engstroem, and Steven Isserlis; at Wigmore Hall with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Steven I., with Angus Webster; she returns to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Mendelssohn Concerto; she plays in Sheffield for a celebration of Gabriel Fauré’s music. Fauré is the central composer of her next recital recording with Angus to be released by Capriccio this year Irène has performed widely in Europe, giving recitals at major venues and festivals including the Konzerthaus Berlin, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Salle Gaveau, Dresdner Kulturpalast, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Philharmonie de Paris, and Les Folles Journée de Nantes. Solo highlights include collaborations with the Dresdner Philharmonie, Orchestre d’Auvergne, Sinfonia Varsovia at the National Forum in Tokyo, Kremerata Baltica, working with such conductors as Maxim Emelyanychev, Jamie Phillips, Michael Sanderling, Robert Trevino, and Roberto Fores Veses. https://ireneduval.com/en/

Blythe Teh Engstroem, the American violinist and violist did the majority of her studies at Indiana University in Bloomington where she studied with Nelli Shkolnikova, Mimi Zweig, and Josef Gingold for the violin and Atar Arad for the viola. She later continued her studies with Andres Cardenes in Pittsburgh. Blythe is a passionate chamber musician and has had the honor of collaborating with many artists including Menahem Pressler, Yuja Wang, Lisa Batiashvili, Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Kim Kashkashian, Lawrence Power, Nobuko Imai, Gautier Capuçon, Gary Hoffman and the Quatuor Ebène. She is currently a member of the Serafino Quartet. She has performed in numerous festivals, such as the Miyazaki Festival in Japan, Schloss Elmau and Cappenberg in Germany, and Bellerive and Verbier Festivals in Switzerland. She was instrumental in creating the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and works closely with the orchestra’s music director, Gábor Takács-Nagy. The Chamber Orchestra tours internationally with such prominent artists as Martha Argerich, Joshua Bell and Martin Fröst, and made its first recording with Maxim Vengerov for EMI. She has been the Chamber Orchestra’s concertmaster, and currently leads the viola section.

Dates: July 9 and 12, 2025

Location: Geffen Stage at Kaufmann Concert Hall and also streaming online.

July 9 concert tickets start at $50 and July 12 concert tickets start at $40 for in-person and $30 for online streaming. Tickets are available at https://www.92ny.org/event/bell-isserlis-denk-trio-and-friends-faure-i & https://www.92ny.org/event/bell-isserlis-denk-trio-and-friends-faure-ii. Online streaming is also available for 72 hours following the performance.

Click Here for more information.