Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott brings her open-hearted focus to a concert with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra this weekend. Throughout, McDermott exudes a generous spirit and love of playing with the musicians.

The last time pianist McDermott teamed up with the SPCO, it was for the Bravo! Vail Music Festival in Colorado in 2022, where she serves as artistic director. Together they played two works by J.S. Bach and the world premiere of a piece called “Samaa’” for solo piano, gongs and strings by composer Chris Rogerson. This weekend, McDermott and the orchestra play an expanded version of Rogerson’s “Samaa’,” co-commissioned by the SPCO, plus works by French composers Francis Poulenc and Ernest Chausson.

Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet begins the program. Written in the 1930s, it hovers between contemporary and classical styles, with hints of jazz throughout. Its first movement makes sudden shifts in tempo, and its melody travels between instruments. Among the most startling of these shifts is a somber line played by bassoon player Harrison Miller. The sextet’s second movement offers an upbeat, cheerful mood, with quick intervals and staccato sections. Then in the last movement, you really see McDermott’s skills as she races up and down the keyboard with her dexterous fingers.

The second piece not only reunites the SPCO and McDermott, but McDermott and Rogerson, who has in the past composed a Mozart cadenza for the pianist. Speaking with Rogerson before Friday morning’s concert, McDermott said Rogerson’s piece, expanded in a new SPCO commission into three movements, evokes her own personal memories. “It’s just deeply touching music,” she said.

Titled after the Arabic word for “sky,” “Samaa’” draws inspiration from Rogerson’s travels in Tehran, but he notes in the programs the music isn’t about the places he’s visited or the people he’s met, but rather about the personal experiences he’s felt on those journeys.

The work features percussionist Matthew McClung performing gongs as well as tuned crystal glasses. McDermott herself makes her piano chime at times in the piece, while the strings employ harmonics, minor seconds, pizzicato in music that moves between a sense of awe and feeling of danger.

The second two movements, “Interlude: Stars” and “Moon” are more meditative than the first, called “Sky.” The later, shorter movements respond to the mysteries and vastness of both nature and human existence, almost on a cellular level. The music evokes the sensations we feel in response to the world.

After intermission, McDermott performs Ernest Chausson’s Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet. Artistic director and principal violin Kyu-Young Kim stands for his solo role in the work, with concertmaster Steven Copes performing in a string quartet with Eunae Koh, Maiya Papach and Julie Albers.

Written in the late 19th century, Chausson’s music is more straightforward than the earlier works in the program. Where Rogerson and even Francis Poulenc embrace dissonance, Chausson’s music boasts a luxurious elegance. Kim demonstrates a velvety tone in his solo sections, even as the work highlights the six musicians as a collaborative. Tucked back behind the strings, even McDermott blends in with the ensemble, adding to the sublimity of the whole sound.

If you go

Who: The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra

What: Anne-Marie McDermott Plays Chausson, Poulenc and Rogerson

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: Ordway Concert Hall, 345 Washington St.

Tickets: $12-55 at thespco.org

Capsule: The SPCO reunites with Anne-Marie McDermott for an expansion of Chris Rogerson’s “Samaa’,” co-commissioned by the SPCO, plus works by French composers Francis Poulenc and Ernest Chausson.

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“Our findings also show jarring evidence that insurance carriers blatantly discriminate against affordable housing projects, in some cases completely refusing to provide coverage to homes just based on where they are located.”

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New York’s subsidized affordable housing is a critical tool to fight the housing crisis. It provides safe and decent homes for low-income New Yorkers who cannot afford market rate housing. But rising costs—specifically insurance costs—threaten this vital resource, putting the financial stability of these buildings at risk while driving up development costs and requiring more government funding.

In the face of this crisis, the New York Housing Conference recently completed an analysis of insurance costs for affordable housing. We found that insurance premiums have doubled over the past four years, increasing an average of 26 percent every year. The average annual cost to insure an affordable unit is now $1,770, compared to $869 just four years ago. In some instances, in the Bronx, we saw rates as high as $3,081 per unit.

Our findings also show jarring evidence that insurance carriers blatantly discriminate against affordable housing projects, in some cases completely refusing to provide coverage to homes just based on where they are located.  

In market outreach conducted for insurance coverage, nine of 23 insurance carriers declined to offer coverage due to Section 8 or subsidized affordable housing. One insurance company declined to cover a property in the Bronx, citing that it is “no longer writing new business in the Bronx.” Another wouldn’t offer coverage unless the housing provider acquired an additional $5 million in liability insurance just because the building included Section 8 tenants.

If discriminating against a renter who uses a Section 8 voucher is illegal in New York (thanks to the NYS Legislature’s statewide source of income discrimination ban in 2019), it should also be illegal for insurance providers to discriminate against buildings just for offering affordable housing. This is modern-day redlining. It continues a destructive legacy that segregates and excludes low-income renters and people of color.

Insurance premium increases are so steep that it is putting the financial stability of the buildings at risk. Based on our calculations, the average increase in insurance costs would decrease cash flow by 60 percent or more for affordable housing built in 2019 or earlier. Significantly reduced cash flow means less money for building reserves, repairs, and difficulty refinancing or selling the property.

As premiums are going up, coverage is decreasing. In both new policies and renewal options, owners are being forced into higher deductibles or lower coverage amounts while more items are being excluded from coverage.

We also saw no evidence that increasing costs are due to increased payouts of claims. For example, in the data we received for over 13,000 units, there are minimal losses for excess or umbrella insurance, while their premiums per unit doubled or tripled over that time.

A few years ago, the Legislature required the State Department of Financial Services to investigate the issue. In late 2022, the agency quietly offered very little information about either insurance costs or discriminatory practices and suggested no recommendations for holding insurance companies accountable or requirements for greater transparency. This complacent response is completely unacceptable given the urgency of the situation, and yet insurance providers can continue making unjust and offensive assumptions about low-income renters as an indicator of risk.

Thankfully, Gov. Kathy Hochul included housing insurance reform in her 2025 Executive Budget, banning insurance companies from using tenant insurance sources and levels or the presence of income-restricted units to discriminate against affordable housing.

As budget negotiations continue in Albany, we need the Legislature to put teeth behind its efforts to ban source of income discrimination and its harmful effects on our housing market, and that includes preventing insurance companies from discriminating against affordable housing. We need urgent government intervention to ban harmful practices and to start exploring alternative frameworks for insurance—including affordable housing captives and a public, state-run insurance option.

Escalating insurance costs have been a growing problem for years, and New Yorkers can literally no longer afford to be complacent. Insurance reform today is essential to ensuring residents have housing security and stability for years to come.

Rachel Fee is executive director of the New York Housing Conference.