AYA PRESENTS From Classical to Jazz: A Little Bit of Everything
New York, March 21, 2026
The American Young Artists Association presented From Classical to Jazz: A Little Bit of Everything on March 21 at Hungarian House in New York, offering an evening that moved with unusual breadth and intention across classical repertoire, art song, musical theatre, jazz standards, Brazilian song, and original ensemble work. Conceived and led by Ted Lei as total director, the concert was shaped not simply as a mixed program, but as a carefully paced artistic experience in which different musical languages could unfold within a single curatorial frame.
Held at 213 East 82nd Street, the program brought together a distinguished group of performers from across New York’s classical and jazz communities. Rather than separating genres into disconnected segments, the evening invited the audience into a more fluid listening experience, one in which lyricism, contrast, intimacy, rhythm, and collaboration remained central throughout. The result was a concert that reflected AYA’s broader artistic vision: thoughtful presentation, strong individual voices, and a belief that meaningful dialogue can happen across disciplines when the program is built with care.
The evening opened with Why Love from Maybe Happy Ending by Will Aronson, performed by Elio Kennedy Yoon with Nicholas Alexander Kaponyas at the piano. That opening established an immediate sense of theatrical warmth and emotional directness. It was followed by a first movement from a work by Lera Auerbach, performed by Juhee Lim, bringing the audience into a more introspective and concentrated sound world. Juhee Lim continued with selected movements from Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, offering a shift into the poetic and psychologically nuanced language of the Romantic piano tradition.
From there, the program deepened in scale and dramatic intensity with Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, FP119, performed by Eliane Menzel and Juhee Lim. With its sharply contoured character, lyrical interiority, and structural drive, the sonata became one of the central classical pillars of the evening. Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s Deep River followed, also performed by Eliane Menzel and Juhee Lim, bringing a different kind of expressive clarity and resonance. Together, these works demonstrated the concert’s commitment not only to stylistic variety, but to repertoire that carries emotional and historical weight.
The second half of the evening broadened the program’s sonic language even further. Olivia Manna and Nicholas Alexander Kaponyas brought elegance and warmth to Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade and Antônio Carlos Jobim’s Dindi, moving gracefully into the world of jazz and song. These selections were not placed as novelty or contrast alone, but as part of the concert’s larger musical architecture, allowing the evening to open outward without losing coherence.
A major dimension of the program came through the jazz ensemble portion of the night, which featured original compositions by the ensemble, including Dybbuk, Spirit Gate, and Hey Lock, alongside Eddie Lockjaw Davis’s Hey Lock and Sam Cooke’s Bring It On Home to Me. Performed by Langston Hughes II on saxophone, Miles Keingstein on trumpet, Caelan Cardello on piano, Eytan Schillinger Hyman on bass, and Beckett Miles on percussion, this portion of the program introduced a vivid collective energy rooted in improvisation, rhythmic interplay, and a strong sense of ensemble identity. It brought a different pulse to the evening while remaining fully aligned with the concert’s curatorial spirit.
What made the concert especially distinctive was the seriousness with which each shift in repertoire was handled. From musical theatre inflection to classical sonata form, from lyrical piano writing to jazz ensemble language, each part of the program was presented with the same level of artistic respect and contextual care. Under Ted Lei’s direction, the evening avoided the feeling of a simple genre montage. Instead, it functioned as a continuous statement about artistic range, musical conversation, and the value of presenting different traditions in a shared space.
The concert also reflected the broader mission of the American Young Artists Association, which continues to build platforms for emerging and established artists through performance, collaboration, and carefully shaped public presentation. In this context, From Classical to Jazz: A Little Bit of Everything stood as more than a single event. It embodied AYA’s larger commitment to connecting artists and audiences through programs that are ambitious in scope, refined in execution, and grounded in real artistic substance.
With this March 21 presentation, AYA offered an evening that was both polished and expansive, one that honored the individuality of each artist while creating a unified experience for the audience as a whole. Guided by Ted Lei’s curatorial direction, the concert affirmed the Association’s growing role in shaping artist centered programming in New York through work that values depth, dialogue, and artistic integrity.
