Opus & Wine · Atlanta Salon Series
TRANSCENDENTAL
September 12, 2026 · 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM · Atlanta, Georgia
An intimate prelude to Carnegie Hall. Twenty guests. One Hamburg Steinway grand. An evening built entirely around Franz Liszt — three works that pushed the piano to the limit of what music can contain, played at one metre's distance.
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, irresistible — a piece that has lived in the Western imagination for 170 years without losing its force.
Isolde's Liebestod
Wagner's supreme act of desire, transcribed for solo piano by Liszt. Where the orchestra dissolves into a single voice — and one instrument must carry what only love and death can hold.
La Campanella
Grande Étude de Paganini No. 3. The bell. The most celebrated technical impossibility in the piano repertoire, reimagined by Liszt as something both weightless and devastating.
This programme is drawn from 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
Liszt did not write for the piano. He wrote for an orchestra that happened to have 88 keys. To hear this programme in a room of twenty — with a Hamburg Steinway responding across every register, from the deepest bass to the highest bell-tone — is to understand what he was actually asking for.
Music and conversation
Boris introduces each work: its history, its difficulty, its meaning. Questions are welcome. The evening runs without a script.
French wines and German specialities
Selected French wines and a choice of German culinary specialities — a pairing that has its own logic: Liszt spent his formative years between Paris and Weimar. Tonight's table honours both. Wine and gastronomy are an integral part of the experience and are not offered separately.
Contribution
This is a cultural event, not a concert. There are no rows, levels, or 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 about access — it is about commitment.
Guest
$250Full participation in the evening: concert, wine, gastronomy, and conversation with Boris.
Patron
$500Everything the evening offers — plus your name as Patron in the printed and digital programme 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 receipt of contribution.
Become a Patron
Patrons of TRANSCENDENTAL do not receive a better seat or priority entry. They receive something more durable: a permanent listing in the programme of a Carnegie Hall debut.
The printed programme distributed at Weill Recital Hall on October 15, 2026 — and its digital equivalent — 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 Editions
TRANSCENDENTAL is the latest chapter of a series that has brought award-winning 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 does not repeat.
Opus & Wine is a series of the European Piano Academy of Atlanta.