Irina knaster

Founder and Artistic Director

Irina Knaster is the Founder and Artistic Director of Aspect Chamber Music Series, a non-profit organization established in London in 2011 and expanded to New York in 2016. Irina’s background and education are richly varied: she has a degree in Piano Performance (former USSR), in English Literature (USA), and in Law (USA), followed by ten years of international corporate law practice. However, it was a Master’s in History of Art (UK) which translated into the impulse to create Aspect and develop a novel concert format Music in Context, a blend of performance and illustrated lecture, in which music is explored through the prism of the art, history, literature, and philosophies of its time. Aspect has become one of New York’s finest and most respected music institutions, one that transforms the traditional recital into an intimate, engaging, and thought-provoking experience. 

Irina Knaster is the Founder and Artistic Director of Aspect Chamber Music Series, a non-profit organization
established in London in 2011 and expanded to New York in 2016. Irina’s background and
education are richly varied: she has a degree in Piano Performance (former USSR), another
in English Literature (USA), and third in Law (USA), which she put to use in ten years of
international corporate law practice. However, it was a Master’s in History of Art (UK) which
translated into the impulse to create Aspect: her newly acquired cultural-historical
perspective crystallized her existing belief that while music speaks for itself, our perception
of it can be enhanced if we understand more about its history and context. It was then that
Irina set herself the goal of creating a concert series that would explore aspects of music
overlooked by the traditional recital, and would appeal not just to connoisseurs of classical
music but to a wider audience as well.

This led to her developing Music in Context, a novel concert format in which performances
are combined with illustrated lectures. Every work programmed is examined through the
prism of the art, history, literature, and ideas and philosophies of its time, as the musicians
and speakers delve into composers’ lives and times, considering the historical circumstances
of the works they wrote and the connections between their music and other contemporary
forms of artistic expression. This might mean, for example, looking at Rameau in the context
of the intellectual milieu of eighteenth-century Paris, Schumann’s influence on Fauré, or the
ways in which Proust was inspired by the music of Saint-Saëns and Franck.

Irina has dedicated the last twelve years of her life to developing Aspect – she has cultivated
an international network of musicians; collaborates with prominent writers,
musicocologists, and cultural historians, who regularly contribute to Aspect’s programming;
creates and curates programs; and, together with Irina Gandshu, the organization’s
indispensable Production Director, supervises every aspect of its operations. In its seven
years in New York, Aspect has become one of the city’s finest and most respected music
institutions, one that transforms the traditional recital into an intimate, engaging, and
thought-provoking experience.