COPLAND & TWAIN Theatrical Concert Premieres in New York at Chelsea Music Festival

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Director Bill Barclay leads five actors and conductor Ken-David Masur at Open Jar Studios.

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Chelsea Music Festival has announced Copland & Twain - A Theatrical Concert at Open Jar Studios, 1601 Broadway, Floor 11, NYC, set for Thursday, June 25, 2026 from 7-9pm.

Copland & Twain is a theatrical concert by director Bill Barclay (former Director of Music at Shakespeare's Globe), produced by Concert Theatre Works, that weaves Aaron Copland 's stirring incidental music - including Music for Movies and Music for Theatre - together with the wit and wisdom of Mark Twain 's Diaries of Adam and Eve and other writings.

Five diverse actors perform in costume before the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur in this NY Premiere with costumes, lighting, and projections bringing this uniquely American collision of voices to life. The production poses a timely question at the heart of the American experiment: will the nation grow from its wounds toward a deeper love of neighbor, or let its scars tear it apart?

Bill Barclay , writer and director

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Concert Theatre Works, producer

Arthur Oliver , Costume Designer

Caleb Mayo, actor

Chloe McFarlane, actress

Maurice Emanuel Parent, actor

Robert Walsh , actor

Carson Elrod , actor

Aaron Copland Music for the Movies (NY Premiere, chamber orchestration)

Aaron Copland Music for the Theater (NY Premiere, chamber orchestration)

Mark Twain Diaries of Adam and Eve

Reception by Niederegger to follow

Writer, director, and composer Bill Barclay is best known for his 25+ productions of concert-theatre including Secret Byrd, Romeo & Juliet, Markus Passion and The Chevalier. He is artistic director of Concert Theatre Works which tours his productions to 30 cities internationally each year. He was last at the MSO with his largest theatrical concert, Peer Gynt. As Director of Music at Shakespeare's Globe, he produced live music for over 130 productions and 100 concerts, composing original music for over a dozen which have toured to six continents. His Broadway and West End credits include Farinelli & The King, Twelfth Night, and Richard III, all starring Sir Mark Rylance . Barclay's original works have been described as "witty and incisive" (NY Times), "emotionally supercharged" (The Times, London), "quietly transfixing" (New Yorker), "effortless perfection" (The Observer) and "quite simply exquisite" (The Guardian). Orchestral partners include The LA Philharmonic (at The Hollywood Bowl), National Symphony Orchestra (Kennedy Center), BBC Symphony Orchestra (Barbican), London Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New World Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, symphonies in Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St Louis, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Indiana, Hartford, Harlem, Winston-Salem, and Chautauqua. He has been commissioned five times by The Boston Symphony Orchestra, staging his own original adaptations over 12 seasons including Romeo & Juliet,Peer Gynt, A Midsummer Night's Dream, L'Histoire du Soldat, The Chevalier, and The Magic Flute.

An early music specialist, his productions Death of Gesualdo, Secret Byrd, Markus Passion, Bach's Art of Fugue and others have variously featured The Gesualdo Six, Music of the Baroque, The English Concert, The Sixteen, Handel & Haydn Society, Fretwork, Academy of Ancient Music, Dunedin Consort, Barokksolistene, Orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment, St Martin-in-the-Fields, National Centre for Early Music, Oregon Bach Festival, Early Music Seattle, Portland Baroque, San Francisco Early Music Society, Abendmusik and others, at dozens of festivals around the world. As a composer, his original music has been performed for President Obama , for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and three times for the British Royal Family. He was the composer for Hamlet Globe-to-Globe which toured 197 countries, and Call of the Wild which toured to 42 states. He directed Silkroad's Heroes Take Their Stands, and conducted City of London Sinfonia on international tours. He has been commissioned by The Royal Albert Hall, Washington National Cathedral, The Hollywood Bowl, and four times by The Boston Symphony Orchestra.

A contributor to the Guardian and Songlines, Barclay is published on the music of Shakespeare by both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, and he lectures widely on Shakespeare and the music of the spheres. His newest work is What Music Is, aimed at revealing music's essential role on our planet (@whatmusicis). He is the recipient of a Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship, the largest grant for actors in the United States, and spent 12 years as a company member at both Shakespeare & Company and Actors' Shakespeare Project, where he collaborated on over 40 productions as an actor, director, composer, and educator. Barclay earned his MFA in playwriting at Boston University. He can be followed @barclayarts and concerttheatreworks.com .

Hailed as "fearless, bold, and a life-force" (San Diego Union-Tribune) and "a brilliant and commanding conductor with unmistakable charisma" (Leipzig Volkszeitung), Ken-David Masur is celebrating his seventh season as Music Director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Chicago Symphony's Civic Orchestra, and newly announced Artistic Partner of the Oregon Bach Festival.

In 2025-2026, Masur will lead celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, featuring performances of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis, as well as Bach's St. Matthew Passion as part of the third annual Bach Festival. Ken-David Masur and the MSO will reunite with longtime collaborators such as Augustin Hadalich, Orion Weiss, Stewart Goodyear, Nancy Zhou as well as a special project with Bill Barclay and Concert Theatre Works to celebrate America's 250th birthday with a program interweaving the music of Aaron Copland with the words of Mark Twain . In Chicago, Masur leads the Civic Orchestra, the premiere training ensemble of the Chicago Symphony, in a wide range of programs, including its annual Bach Marathon.

Masur has conducted distinguished orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Baltimore, Detroit, and San Francisco Symphonies, l'Orchestre National de France, Minnesota Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Norway's Kristiansand Symphony and Tokyo's Yomiuri Nippon Symphony. He has also made regular appearances at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Hollywood Bowl, Grant Park, and international festivals including Verbier. Recent highlights include subscription debuts with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the National Symphony as well as a triumphant return to the Oregon Bach Festival featuring a staged Carmina Burana.

Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned numerous new works over the years. Some notable pieces include Wynton Marsalis ' Harold Haller and Hallelujah, Augusta Read Thomas' Bebop Kaleidoscope - Homage to Duke Ellington with the New York Philharmonic, Mannequin by Unsuk Chin with the Boston Symphony, Rounds by Jessie Montgomery, and Alan Fletcher's Piano Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Additional U.S. premieres under his baton include works by James B. Wilson, Dobrinka Tabakova, Christopher Cerrone, Edmund Finnis, Eric Nathan, and Jacob Beranek among others.

Masur has made recordings with the English Chamber Orchestra and violinist Fanny Clamagirand, and with the Stavanger Symphony, the latter of which was named by WQXR, New York's classical music radio station, as a "Best New Classical Release." Masur also received a Grammy nomination from the Latin Recording Academy for Best Classical Album of the Year for his work as a producer of the album Salon Buenos Aires.

Born and raised in Leipzig, Germany, Masur was trained at the Mendelssohn Academy in Leipzig, the Gewandhaus Children's Choir, the Detmold Academy and the „ Hanns Eisler " Conservatory in Berlin. While an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, Masur became the first music director of the Bach Society Orchestra & Chorus with which he toured to Germany and recorded the music of J.S.Bach and his sons.

Music education and working with the next generation of young artists are of major importance to Masur. In addition to his work with Civic Orchestra of Chicago, he has conducted orchestras and led masterclasses at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Tokyo's Bunka Kaikan Chamber Orchestra, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and The Juilliard School. kendavidmasur.com

Arthur Oliver , Costume Designer , is a designer with 35 years of experience in the performing arts. His work has achieved praise from The London Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, The Boston Globe and Variety Magazine. Arthur's first design for Concert Theatre Works, Secret Byrd, premiered at the National Cathedral, Washington, DC and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in 2023. It continues to tour the United States and the United Kingdom. In the summer of 2025, he designed costumes for Romeo and Juliet, conceived and directed by Bill Barclay , Concert Theatre Works. It premiered with Maestro Andris Nelsons conducting The Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Shed. The production, commissioned by The Royal Albert Hall and The Boston Symphony Orchestra. Approximately 15,000 people were in attendance. International design work includes the Mikhailovsky Ballet Theatre (St. Petersburg, Russia) and The National Opera and Ballet (Kyiv and Odesa, Ukraine). He continues to design in the US for regional theatres, opera, ballet, and independent films. Arthur Oliver is a member of United Scenic Artists Local USA 829. arthuroliver.com

Caleb Mayo performed the title role of Peer Gynt in 2022 at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. A frequent collaborator with Concert Theatre Works (CTW), he originated Peer Gynt with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), later playing the role with the Symphony Orchestras of Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, and reprising it in Boston for the BSO's 2024 season. He has also appeared with the BSO at Tanglewood in CTW's 2017 Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, in 2025's debut of Romeo and Juliet, and with the BSO Chamber Players in 2026's The Soldiers Tale. Caleb began his classical training at age 11 and made his professional debut at 15 in the Huntington Theatre Company's To Kill a Mockingbird. He holds a B.A. in Drama from Vassar College , and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He has worked in film (One-Eyed Monster), television (Criminal Minds), new media (WTUFO), and regional theatre across the United States, including with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, the Knightsbridge Theatre in Los Angeles and the Stonington Opera House in Maine.

Chloe McFarlane (Boston): Romeo and Juliet (Actor's Shakespeare Project) as Juliet; Little Women (Actor's Shakespeare Project) as Amy; Film: Mr. Santa (Dir. Noel Calloway). Training includes Boston University School of Theatre, the British American Dramatic Academy, and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.

Maurice Emmanuel Parent is an award-winning actor, director, educator, and mentor with 20 years of professional experience. With over 40 acting credits, he has performed on stages across the nation and abroad, working with some of Boston's most esteemed theatre companies, including the Huntington Theatre Company, Actors' Shakespeare Project, Commonwealth Shakespeare Compan

_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/COPLAND-TWAIN-to-Make-NY-Premiere-at-Chelsea-Music-Festival-20260603)._