The Miró Quartet and Soprano Karen Slack Premiere Tamar-kali’s Pleasure Garden

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact: Katy Salomon | Primo Artists | VP, Public Relations 
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The Miró Quartet and Soprano Karen Slack

Premiere Tamar-kali’s Pleasure Garden 

Co-Commissioned and Presented by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music
and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

January 28, 2026 – Leo Rich Theater | Tucson, AZ

February 22, 2026 – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center | Philadelphia, PA

 

 

www.miroquartet.com | www.sopranokarenslack.com

 

New York, NY (December 15, 2025) – The GRAMMY-nominated Miró Quartet teams up with GRAMMY-winning soprano Karen Slack for the world premiere performances of genre-defying composer Tamar-kali’s Pleasure Garden, co-commissioned by Arizona Friends of Chamber Music (January 28) and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society (February 22).

 

Tamar-kali’s Pleasure Garden features inspirational writings from writers Jessie Redmon Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimke, and Helene Johnson. Speaking of the work, Tamar-kali discusses her “commitment to mining text from women of the Harlem Renaissance whose work was not as commonly known as their male counterparts.” She continues, “In researching works from a number of writers and poets of the day, I stumbled upon some texts that were particularly moving in the imagery they provoked, and a theme started to emerge: nature. The juxtaposition of the burgeoning metropolitan grandeur of Harlem and this longing for the simple pleasures of nature draws a parallel to the Pleasure Gardens of Old New York.”

 

Through this work, Tamar-kali hopes to pay homage to the music and poetry of that time, bringing to the fore her own unique voice as a contemporary composer. She adds, “New York City was home to various stately gardens... Consistent restriction of admittance for African Americans inspired the opening of the African Grove Garden which laid the ground for The African Grove Theater, a financially successful Black-owned Theater that staged Shakespearean and original plays, musicals, and opera in pre-abolition New York.”

 

The world premiere takes place in a presentation by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 7:30 PM at the Leo Rich Theater. This program is made possible in part through a collaboration with the Tucson Desert Song Festival, with Tamar-kali expected to be in attendance. On Sunday, February 22, 2026 at 3:00 PM, Miró Quartet and Slack perform the Philadelphia premiere of Pleasure Garden at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater, presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

 

The performances of Pleasure Garden are paired with the Creek-Freedman Songs by the mid-century composer Margaret Bonds, one of the first Black composers to gain recognition in the United States and a frequent collaborator of Langston Hughes, a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. The first half of the program uses the Barber String Quartet to frame a general mid-twentieth-century context for Bonds’ work. The concert also features works by Bonds’ teacher, Florence Price, her friend William Grant Still, and her younger contemporary George Walker. These relationships are integral to telling a more complete story about Bonds’ life, as well as painting a broader picture of the African American classical music community during that era.

 

Program Information

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 7:30pm

Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Presents the Miró Quartet with Karen Slack

Leo Rich Theater | Tucson, AZ

Link: www.arizonachambermusic.org/events/miro-slack/

 

Samuel Barber – String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 [I. Molto allegro e appassionato]

William Grant Still – Songs of Separation (arr. John Largess)

Tamar-kali – Pleasure Garden [World Premiere]

Samuel Barber – Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 [II. Molto adagio; III. Molto allegro]

George Walker – Lyric for Strings

Florence Price –  Quartet No. 2 in A Minor [III. Juba. Allegro]

Margaret Bonds – Creek-Freedman Songs [with string quartet]

 

Karen Slack, soprano

Miró Quartet

Sunday, February 22, 2026 at 3:00pm

Philadelphia Chamber Music Society Presents the Miró Quartet with Karen Slack

Perelman Theater | Philadelphia, PA

Link: www.pcmsconcerts.org/concerts/miro-quartet-karen-slack/

 

Samuel Barber – String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 [I. Molto allegro e appassionato]

William Grant Still – Songs of Separation (arr. John Largess)

Tamar-kali – Pleasure Garden [Philadelphia Premiere]

Samuel Barber – Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 [II. Molto adagio; III. Molto allegro]

George Walker – Lyric for Strings

Florence Price –  Quartet No. 2 in A Minor [III. Juba. Allegro]

Margaret Bonds – Creek-Freedman Songs [with string quartet]

 

Karen Slack, soprano

Miró Quartet

 

About Miró Quartet

The Miró Quartet is one of America’s most celebrated string quartets, praised as "furiously committed" by The New Yorker and recognized for its "exceptional tonal focus and interpretive intensity" by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Marking its 30th anniversary in 2025, the GRAMMY®-nominated quartet has performed on the world’s most prestigious concert stages, earning accolades from critics and audiences alike. Based in Austin, TX, and thriving on the area’s storied music scene, the quartet takes pride in finding new ways to communicate with audiences of all backgrounds while cultivating the longstanding tradition of chamber music. Since 2003, Miró has served as the quartet-in-residence at the University of Texas at Austin Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music.

 

Miró Quartet’s current and recent projects include a touring and recording project with pianist Lara Downes titled Here on Earth, featuring musical depictions of our planet, its evolution, and the lives of its inhabitants; the premiere of a new version of Kevin Puts’ Credo with the Naples Philharmonic; and collaborations with composers Steven Banks, Tamar-Kali, and Gabriel Kahane; as well as soprano Karen Slack and the Isadore Quartet. During the 2025-2026 season, the quartet’s engagements include a 30th anniversary appearance at Oberlin College, where the group was formed, as well as performances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Austin Chamber Music Festival, and more.

 

The Miró Quartet’s newest album, a recording of Ginastera’s complete String Quartets released on PENTATONE in July 2025, was lauded by Gramophone as “the most technically polished accounts yet of these extraordinary works … a stunning achievement.” Among its many previous recordings for a variety of global labels, the quartet was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for its album Home (PENTATONE, 2024), featuring two new commissions by Kevin Puts and Caroline Shaw, as well as works by George Walker and Samuel Barber. The group was nominated for a 2024 GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance for House of Belonging, created in collaboration with Austin-based choral group Conspirare. They recently produced an Emmy Award–winning audiovisual multimedia project titled Transcendence, a documentary centered around a performance of Franz Schubert’s Quartet in G Major on rare Stradivarius instruments, available on livestream, CD, and Blu-ray.

 

Formed in 1995, the Miró Quartet has been awarded first prize at several national and international competitions, including the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. Deeply committed to music education, members of the quartet have given masterclasses at universities and conservatories throughout the world. In 2005, the quartet became the first ensemble ever to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant.

 

The Miró Quartet took its name and inspiration from the Spanish artist Joan Miró, whose Surrealist works – with subject matter drawn from the realm of memory, dreams, and imaginative fantasy – are some of the most groundbreaking, influential, and admired of the 20th century. Visit miroquartet.com for more information.

 

About Karen Slack

Praised as "one of opera’s strongest voices at present – both as a singer and a shaper of its culture” (The Washington Post), GRAMMY® Award-winning soprano Karen Slack is celebrated as both an extraordinary performer and a change-maker in classical music.

 

Recently, Slack has been on a nationwide tour for her critically-acclaimed African Queens, which continues into her 25-26 season, including an orchestral version presented by the Naples Philharmonic in Naples, Florida. Slack’s season engagements include world premieres of Tamar-kali’s new work with the Miró Quartet for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Kathryn Bostic’s Drag, and Brittany J. Green’s Letters to America, part of American Composers Orchestra’s program Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us. She also appears with the Orlando Philharmonic, Chamber Music Cincinnati, the Iris Collective, and Spivey Hall.

 

Slack’s Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price with pianist Michelle Cann in collaboration with ONEcomposer on Azica Records, won the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. In 2025, Slack was featured on Shawn Okpebholo’s album Songs in Flight, released with Cedille Records.

 

Slack has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Scottish Opera and many others. In concert, her credits include the Melbourne and Sydney symphonies, Bergen Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, and Philadelphia Orchestra. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in May 2024.

 

A recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence and 2025 MPower Artist Grant, Slack is an Artistic Advisor for Portland Opera, serves on the board of the American Composers Orchestra, and holds a faculty position at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. In the 2024-2025 season, she served as Artist-in-Residence at both Lyric Opera of Chicago and Babson College.

 

A native Philadelphian, Slack is a graduate of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, as well as the Adler Fellowship and the Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera. For more information, please visit www.sopranokarenslack.com

 

About Tamar-kali

Brooklyn-born and bred artist Tamar-kali (she/her) is a second-generation musician with roots in the coastal Sea Islands of South Carolina. As a composer and performer, Tamar-kali defies boundaries to craft her own unique sound and speak her lyrical truth with a supreme passion, voice, and soulful intensity that will shake your foundation and shatter your expectations.

 

Her debut original score for Dee Rees’ Oscar-nominated Mudbound was classified by Indiewire as one of the Best Film Scores of the 21st Century. The soundtrack for her score to Josephine Decker’s Shirley was named The Guardian’s Contemporary Album of the month. Her original score for history making cinematographer Rachel Morrison's directorial debut The Fire Inside made 2025’s Oscar Shortlist.

 

Tamar-kali has been commissioned and presented nationwide by LA Opera, MOMA, Beth Morrison Projects, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Primavera Project, Catapult Opera, Harlem Stage, and more. She is the co-curator and co-producer of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, a multi-day residency and orchestral concert event tracing the African American fight for freedom, supported by Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City Festival in July 2023. The concert features Sea Island Symphony: Red Rice, Cotton and Indigo, an orchestral love letter to her Gullah Geechee roots. In November 2023, her theatrical work Watch Night, conceived and directed by Bill T. Jones, and composed by Tamar-kali with a libretto by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, premiered as part of Perelman Performing Arts Center’s inaugural season. Upcoming projects include The Swann, a chamber opera based on the life and times of William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved gender bending denizen of our nation’s capital with libretto by Carl Hancock Rux. Swann was the first known person to dub themself a “queen of drag” and the first American on record to pursue legal and political action to defend the LGBTQIA community's right to gather.

 

*Photo Credits: Kia Caldwell (Karen Slack) and Dagnushka (Miró Quartet)

 

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