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 holds a degree in Piano Performance (former USSR), another in English Literature (USA), and a third in Law (USA), which she put to use during ten years of international corporate law practice. It was, however, a Master’s in History of Art (UK) that provided the impulse to create Aspect. Her newly acquired cultural-historical perspective crystallized a long-held belief: that while music speaks for itself, our perception of it can be enhanced by a deeper understanding of its history and context. Irina set herself the goal of creating a concert series that would explore aspects of music often overlooked by the traditional recital, appealing not only to connoisseurs of classical music but to a wider audience as well.

This led her to develop Music in Context, a novel concert format in which performances are combined with illustrated lectures. Every work programmed is examined through the prism of art, history, literature, and the ideas and philosophies of its time. Musicians and speakers delve into composers’ lives and times, considering both the historical circumstances in which their works were written 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, tracing Schumann’s influence on Fauré, or exploring the ways in which Proust was inspired by the music of Saint-Saëns and Franck.

Since founding Aspect in 2011, Irina has devoted herself to its development. She has cultivated an international network of musicians and collaborates with prominent writers, musicologists, and cultural historians who regularly contribute to Aspect’s programming. She creates and curates its programs and, together with Irina Gandshu, the organization’s indispensable Production Director, supervises every aspect of its operations.

Since establishing its New York presence, Aspect has become one of the city’s finest and most respected music institutions, transforming the traditional recital into an intimate, engaging, and thought-provoking experience.