Opus & Wine · Atlanta Salon Series
TRANSCENDENTAL
September 12, 2026 · 5:00 – 9:00 PM · Atlanta, Georgia
An intimate prelude to Carnegie Hall. Twenty guests. One Hamburg Steinway grand piano. An evening built entirely around Franz Liszt — three works that pushed the piano to the edge of what music can contain, played from a distance of three feet.
The Program
The bell. The fire. The love-death. Liszt.
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor
The most celebrated of Liszt’s nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies. Wild, ceremonial, unstoppable — a piece that has lived inside Western imagination for 170 years without dimming.
Isolde’s Liebestod
Wagner’s supreme act of longing, transcribed for solo piano by Liszt. Where the orchestra dissolves into a single voice — and a single instrument must carry what only love and death can hold.
La Campanella
Grande Étude de Paganini No. 3. The bell. The most famous technical impossibility in the piano repertoire, reimagined by Liszt into something both weightless and devastating.
This program is drawn from highlights of the recital Boris Cepeda will perform at Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall, New York — October 15, 2026.
The Experience
20 Guests
No rows. No distance. No amplification. Twenty chairs around a concert grand, in the tradition of the European salon — where listening is not passive.
Hamburg Steinway Grand Piano
Liszt did not write for the piano. He wrote for an orchestra that happened to have 88 keys. To hear this program in a room of twenty people — with a Hamburg Steinway responding across every register, from the lowest bass to the highest bell — is to understand what he was actually asking for.
Music & Conversation
Boris introduces each work: its history, its difficulty, its meaning. Questions are welcomed. The evening moves without a script.
French Wines & German Specialties
Curated French wines and a selection of German culinary specialties — a pairing with its own logic: Liszt spent his formative years between Paris and Weimar. Tonight’s table honors both. Wine and food are integral to the experience and are not offered separately.
Contribution
This is a cultural event, not a concert. There are no rows, no tiers, no preferred seats. Every guest occupies the same intimate space with the same instrument and the same artist. The distinction between Guest and Patron is not one of access — it is one of commitment.
Guest
$250Full participation in the evening: concert, wine, food, and conversation with Boris.
Patron
$500Everything the evening offers — plus your name listed as Patron in the printed and digital program of TRANSCENDENTAL at Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall, New York, October 15, 2026.
This is not an upgrade. It is an act of cultural patronage. Your name travels to New York.
Capacity: 20–25 guests. Reservations are confirmed upon contribution.
Become a Patron
Patrons of TRANSCENDENTAL do not receive a better seat or an earlier door. They receive something more durable: permanent acknowledgment in the program of a Carnegie Hall debut.
The printed program distributed at Weill Recital Hall on October 15, 2026 — and its digital counterpart — will carry the names of those who made this evening possible in Atlanta. That record does not disappear.
If you believe in what this series represents, this is how you leave a mark.
Past Events
TRANSCENDENTAL is the latest chapter in a series that has brought together prizewinning Czech virtuosos, Schubert Lieder, Thomas Mann and the Devil’s Interval, Chopin and Schumann in salon, and a Parisian evening of Debussy and Ravel. Each edition is unique and unrepeated.