Bargemusic, New York, © Photo: Etienne Frossard

Bargemusic

Nova Iorque, EUA

Since 1977, Bargemusic has presented chamber music in an unlikely and startlingly beautiful venue — a floating barge at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Both established and emerging musicians perform at Bargemusic on a small stage with the dramatic backdrop of the East River and lower Manhattan skyline.

Bargemusic Mission
From its inception, Bargemusic has been committed to attracting local audiences and enhancing the cultural life of New York by offering frequent, year‐round performances of chamber music in a fittingly intimate setting — the type of setting in which chamber music is meant to be heard. To make that unique musical experience available to as many people as possible, Bargemusic presents 220 chamber music concerts annually — four days a week, 52 weeks a year!

The Bargemusic Story
Founder Olga Bloom was 57 years old in 1976 when she gave up her career as a violinist and violist to create Bargemusic. For her 'floating concert hall', she chose a 100‐foot steel barge that had been built in 1899 and had served much of the last century as a working vessel in the New York harbor, delivering hand‐loaded sacks of coffee for the Erie Lackawanna railroad. Back then the barge was a somber railroad green; now it is painted white, and the last vestige of its prior life hauling coffee is the 'EL 375' embossed in the diamond plate steel deck facing the East River.