At Carnegie Hall, Diplomacy Finds Harmony — and Beethoven Gets the Last Word
- bowenwang6
- Dec 8, 2025
- 8 min read
NEW YORK, December 8, 2025 — Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium has hosted heads of state, world premieres, and the occasional moment of political theater. On Friday night, it became a diplomatic salon animated by music, as ambassadors, educators, cultural leaders, and invited guests gathered for “Better Together,” a concert honoring the work and global agenda of the 80th United Nations General Assembly.
The event, co-presented by the International Academy for Arts and Cultural Studies (IAA) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research – New York Office (UNITAR-NYO), carried supporting sponsorship from the Permanent Missions of El Salvador, Singapore, Monaco, Oman, Paraguay, and Portugal, alongside artistic support from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, the Boston String Academy, the Columbia University Teachers College Choir, and the Wings of Music.
The framing of the evening was distinctly diplomatic — a cultural commemoration for a year of multilateral deliberation — yet the program unfolded with the pacing and ambition of a full-scale concert, not a ceremonial interlude.
“Diplomacy cannot rely only on documents and negotiation,” said an UN official during intermission. “It needs the slower tools — listening, patience, imagination — that music continues to offer better than anything else.”
The program began in near-whisper with Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, performed by violinist Alicia Rando Ibáñez and pianist Kelly Runfeng Zhang, with stage movement by choreographer Marco Pelle. The piece can feel repetitive in less careful hands, but here the performers leaned into its austerity: the violin lines floated with glassy calm, while the piano’s steady triads created a sense of suspended breath.
It served as more than a musical overture. Unlike the brassy beginnings of a gala or the ceremonious prelude of diplomatic pageantry, Pärt’s meditative minimalism quieted the audience before it engaged them. The performance suggested that listening — deliberate, extended, unhurried — might be a requisite civic skill.
The hall, famously unforgiving to emotional overstatement, rewarded understatement instead. Moments later, diplomats still sitting with hands folded remarked that they could “feel the room’s exhale,” an unusual feat in a space accustomed to applause long before contemplation.
The mood pivoted sharply with Pablo de Sarasate’s Jota Aragonesa, Op. 27, as Rando Ibáñez returned with pianist Thomas W. Burrill. Here the rhythmic elasticity of Aragón’s folk idioms was handled with bright articulation and a lithe sense of dance, buoyed by Burrill’s cleanly etched accompaniment.
The violin’s quicksilver runs — executed with pinpoint intonation and a satisfying bite — contrasted effectively with the evening’s opening restraint. What might have veered toward showmanship instead felt communal, joyous without theatrical excess. The work’s folkloric vitality reminded the audience that virtuosity, when grounded in cultural memory, can exceed spectacle.
A delegate seated three rows up whispered, not entirely jokingly, “If international negotiations had this kind of rhythmic momentum, they might move faster.”
Formal remarks punctuated the musical arc of the evening. H.E. Annalena Baerbock, President of the 80th General Assembly, spoke briefly about the enduring necessity of unity at a time when international cooperation continues to be tested by conflict, economic strain, and fractured public discourse. “Unity”, she suggested, “is not a static aspiration but a daily practice, one strengthened by sustained listening and a willingness to encounter difference.”
Her remarks were echoed by H.E. Omar Said Omar Al Kathiri, Permanent Representative of the Sultanate of Oman, who emphasized Oman’s continuing commitment to the idea of being “better together,” noting that cultural encounters often succeed where policy alone cannot. Ambassador Al Kathi pointed out that Oman has been a consistent supporter of the concert series since 2021, viewing cultural diplomacy as an extension of the country’s approach to dialogue and regional stewardship.
Both speakers thanked UNITAR–NYO and the IAA for convening the evening and for producing a space in which artistic expression and diplomatic reflection could share the same stage. Their tone was neither ceremonial nor congratulatory; rather, it underscored a sense of institutional gratitude — that the work of diplomacy is rarely accomplished through legislation alone, and that evenings like this one make cooperation feel less abstract and more lived.
Before intermission, the evening turned decisively toward American music with two short works by Florence Beatrice Price — Desire and Winter Idyl — interpreted by soprano Karen Slack with the Boston Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, led by Jorge Soto.
Slack is an artist of palpable authority: her tone was warm and generously projected, yet she resisted operatic inflation, letting Price’s harmonic soft edges come through without adornment. Desire had a delicate inwardness, and Winter Idyl — subtly pastoral and deceptively simple — revealed the composer’s gift for melodic clarity without sentimentality.
Price’s presence on the program was quietly radical. Once marginalized by an establishment that prized European lineage over American diversity, she has in recent years reclaimed her space in the concert hall. Hearing her voice in a diplomatic setting added a layer of restorative justice.
“Price is not only a musical rediscovery,” Slack said later. “She enlarges the vocabulary of who gets to define the American classical tradition.”
Her performances were among the concert’s most emotionally grounded moments — neither rhetorical nor didactic, simply luminous.
The evening’s technical summit arrived with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, featuring pianist Byron Wei-Xin Zhou and the Boston Conservatory orchestra, again under Soto.
Zhou approached the opening theme with understated lyricism rather than bravura, letting the melody feel like a private confession before it expanded outward. As the concerto escalated, he shaped its structures with architectural patience, resisting the temptation to rush climactic passages. Where some pianists aim for sheer velocity in the first-movement cadenza, Zhou delivered clarity over bombast, maintaining line and intention.
Soto, who has worked regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, kept the ensemble taut but not rigid, allowing Rachmaninoff’s thick textures to feel dimensional without sacrificing balance.
The final movement — often a display of athletic stamina — felt instead like argument and counterargument between soloist and orchestra, culminating in a finale that earned the evening’s most sustained applause.
Neil Fankhauser, a former executive director from a New York institution, overheard at the seat, remarked, “Zhou plays Rachmaninoff as if the concerto is a living story, not a technical hurdle.”
The second half broadened the evening’s frame with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, performed by the Boston Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, the Columbia University Teachers College Choir, and soloists Karen Slack, SarahAnn Duffy, Corey Leak, and Sidney Outlaw, under the direction of Jorge Soto.
Beethoven’s Ninth is so loaded with historical and political associations that it can feel less like a piece of music than a public monument — a work enlisted by revolutions, European state ceremonies, and countless civic rituals across two centuries. Friday’s reading resisted that posture. Soto led the opening movements with a consistently transparent texture, allowing inner lines to speak without rhetorical inflation. Tempos were steady but not rigid, and the orchestra avoided the thick, oversized sound that often accompanies grand occasions.
The orchestra, made up largely of students from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, played with a level of discipline and ensemble cohesion that belied their age. Sections that frequently challenge emerging players — the exposed winds in the second movement, the rapid string tremolos in the first — were handled with clarity and a notable absence of strain. The brass, often overzealous in student ensembles, entered with restraint and blended effectively into the wider symphonic texture. Their sound carried the unmistakable energy of a young orchestra but was shaped by attentive preparation rather than exuberance alone. Liang Chai, the noted violinist who attended the concert, remarked afterward that what struck him was “the feeling of everyone listening to each other.” He added, “You can hear when musicians are playing together because they want to, not because they have to. That’s what gave the Ninth its shape tonight.”
The Teachers College Choir entered with an assured, well-centered sound that supported Beethoven’s choral writing without pushing for volume. Their articulation in the inner choral passages — often the first to blur in mixed student ensembles — remained clean and coordinated, giving the movement a quieter, more reflective contour. Jeanne Goffi-Fynn, who directs the ensemble, said afterward that what mattered most was the singers’ attentiveness to one another. “In the Ninth,” she noted, “unity is a musical requirement before it becomes a message. You can’t deliver the idea unless you’re actually listening across the ensemble.”
The choral finale, “Ode to Joy,” arrived without theatrical staging. The Teachers College Choir sang with clear diction and a pleasingly unified sound; the four soloists contributed with balance rather than prominence, blending into the choral fabric instead of asserting operatic dominance. Soto maintained a brisk, conversational momentum, keeping Beethoven’s phrases articulated rather than declamatory and allowing the symphony’s narrative to feel cumulative rather than ceremonial.
Mr. Jorge Soto with Boston Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and Teachers College Choir / Photo Credit: Jackie Du
Soto later described the experience as “different but exciting” He added, “In a hall full of diplomats and students, you feel a kind of shared listening that isn’t about spectacle. The Ninth becomes less of an anthem and more of a genuine exchange.” His point reflected a noticeable quality in the room: an attentiveness that felt collective, not dutiful.”
A distinctive element of this performance was the participation of the Wings of Music String Ensemble and Choir, made up of young volunteers from Hong Kong. Their presence gave the concert a grassroots texture, contrasting with the institutional weight carried by the conservatory, the university, and the diplomatic missions. Their involvement — rehearsing across borders and at their own expense — underscored that cultural diplomacy often begins at a community scale before it enters official channels.
From an educational standpoint, the evening’s collaborative structure left a meaningful impression on students. Matthew Marsit, Chair and Artist Director for Instrumental Studies at the Boston Conservatory, noted that the rehearsal process itself functioned as a diplomatic experience. “You watch singers, instrumentalists, and delegations share rehearsals without hierarchy,” he said. “It demonstrates, in real time, that cooperation is a practiced behavior. For many students, that may be more instructive than any speech.”
The Ninth Symphony, presented here without ceremonial pageantry, served as the evening’s interpretive anchor. Rather than closing with grandeur, it closed with a sense of deliberation — suggesting that Beethoven’s plea for brotherhood might be less a triumphant declaration than an open question: whether harmony is sustainable when lived rather than merely invoked.
As the last chord faded, the audience did not rush for coats. The lingering stillness suggested that the evening’s purpose had landed: to make space for contemplation in a world preoccupied with urgency.
There was nothing performative or ceremonial about the music. If anything, the programming made a quiet argument: that diplomacy is, at heart, a practice in listening across difference — not a slogan, not mere sentiment, but a skill cultivated over time and through contact.
“When we share a sound, even before we agree on language, we have already begun the work of cooperation,” one diplomat said while leaving the hall.
The evening balanced celebration with inquiry, spectacle with intimacy, virtuosity with patience. Beethoven had the last word, but the premise — that cultural diplomacy works best when it is lived rather than proclaimed — remained the evening’s steady refrain
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