Pianist Amy Grinsteiner, chair of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University Department of Music, will team up with violinist Stephanie Arado, a former assistant concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra, for “Echoes of the Divine: A Dialogue between Jewish and Christian Musical Traditions.”

The event is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 14 in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater, located on the SJU campus.

Presented by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, the program will use a salon format that includes both performance and conversation. It is free and open to the public.

David Jordan Harris, the interfaith arts special consultant to the Jay Phillips Center, will narrate and facilitate conversation between the musicians and the audience.

“Music can be a potent meeting place between religious traditions, offering a portal for audiences and musicians into another culture,” Harris said. “Religious traditions often turn to music to express the ineffable - the divine presence that suffuses the world.”

Among the composers whose work Harris has chosen to be performed are Joseph Achron, Ofer Ben-Amots, Gerald Cohen, Isabella Leonarda, Maurice Ravel and Arvo Pärt.

Grinsteiner is an associate professor of music at CSB/SJU, teaching studio piano, music through history and rock and roll music. She also serves as the faculty program coordinator at the Seattle Piano Institute, a summer program for aspiring young classical pianists at the University of Washington. 

Grinsteiner earned a Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Washington. As a recipient of both the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Award and the P.E.O. National Scholar Award, she has traveled extensively, building appreciation for the arts. She was the recipient of CSB’s Sister Mary Grell Teacher of Distinction Award in 2017.

Arado earned a Master of Musical Performance degree at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Dorothy Delay and Paul Kantor. In 2012, she resigned her position as assistant concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra, which she had held for twenty-two years, to devote more time to teaching and to performing chamber music.

Currently she is an assistant professor of violin at the University of Minnesota School of Music, an artistic director with the Twin Cities-based Bakken Ensemble and a member of The Isles Ensemble in Minneapolis. A recipient of a McKnight Foundation Grant for Performing Artists, Arado frequently collaborates with composers and has commissioned numerous compositions.

Harris, a graduate of the University of Chicago, is artistic director and co-founder of the Twin Cities-based performance ensemble Voices of Sepharad. Integrating his skills as a singer, actor and dancer, he has appeared as guest artist with many ensembles, including Zorongo Flamenco, Katha Dance Theatre, Corning Dances and Company, Illusion Theater, North Star Opera, Rose Ensemble, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Lyra Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Espaῆol and In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre.

Harris was the founding music director of Shir Tikvah Congregation, where he led music for 21 years and was the founding executive director of Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council.