2026 FIU Music Festival Opening Night: Amernet Performs Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 + Mendelssohn’s Octet

The 2026 FIU Music Festival opens with an extraordinary anniversary performance celebrating 30 years of the Wertheim Performing Arts Center and the Wertheim School of Music & Performing Arts.

The Amernet String Quartet, FIU’s Artist-in-Residence ensemble, anchors an evening of masterworks, opening with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and continuing with Mendelssohn’s Octet, performed alongside Wertheim alumni and current students.

Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto is brilliant, precise, and full of motion—an intricate conversation among instruments that still feels alive more than 300 years later. Mendelssohn’s Octet answers with youthful fire: sweeping, urgent, and astonishingly assured for a composer just sixteen years old.

This milestone concert celebrates the full reach of Wertheim’s musical community: students beginning their professional journeys, alumni returning with the depth of experience, and faculty mentors whose leadership continues to shape the next generation. On one stage, past, present, and future come together in a powerful reflection of what the Wertheim has built over three decades.

More than a festival opening, this performance is a celebration of excellence, mentorship, and community—a portrait of a living institution where talent is developed, relationships endure, and music continues to connect generations of musicians and audiences.