Brooklyn Rider’s spring: residencies with Dawn Upshaw & European tour
Fresh off a second tour with banjo icon Béla Fleck, Brooklyn Rider has a red-letter spring ahead with residencies that include performances with beloved soprano Dawn Upshaw at the University of Texas in Austin (March 19, 26) and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (April 6). From April 22 to May 2, Brooklyn Rider will be touring northern Europe, with five concerts in Sweden plus performances in Copenhagen, Berlin and London; the tour repertoire includes works by Schubert and Philip Glass, as well as pieces from the group’s acclaimed Mercury Classics album A Walking Fire. The group will also be performing concerts in Florida (at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center on March 14-15 and the Celebration Foundation Classical Series on March 16), at the University of Wisconsin (March 29) and in Connecticut (George Flynn Classical Concerts in Clinton, April 13), as well as two more Florida concerts at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival (May 8-9.) The repertoire for these performances will range from Glass to Gilberto, underscoring NPR’s declaration that Brooklyn Rider is “re-creating the 300-year-old form of the string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.”
Residencies and performances with Dawn Upshaw
In March and April, Brooklyn Rider – violinist Johnny Gandelsman, violinist Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Eric Jacobsen – takes up residence at two American universities that share a commitment to the arts and performance. The quartet’s week-long residency at the University of Texas in Austin (March 19-26) begins with a concert focused on music from A Walking Fire. For the second concert, Brooklyn Rider welcomes groundbreaking soprano Dawn Upshaw – “one of the most consequential performers of our time,” according to the Los Angeles Times – in a program that takes inspiration from the group’s near-namesake, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), an early 20th-century Munich-based arts collective that included the likes of Kandinsky and Schoenberg. With Upshaw, Brooklyn Rider will perform Schoenberg’s epochal String Quartet No. 2, as well as a suite from Colin Jacobsen’s composition Chalk and Soot. The program will also include works from the “Brooklyn Rider Almanac,” the quartet’s ongoing commissioning project.
Brooklyn Rider and Upshaw team up again on April 6 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with the program mirroring that of their Austin performance – including Schoenberg’s Second Quartet and the suite from Chalk and Soot. For several seasons, this university has served as an incubator for many of Brooklyn Rider’s most ambitious projects. Last season featured a preview of the quartet’s partnership with Béla Fleck as well as a “sensational marathon of newness” (Huffington Post) that included world premieres by John Zorn and Shara Worden, as well as the world premiere of Chalk and Soot, in collaboration with choreographer John Heginbotham and Dance Heginbotham. Brooklyn Rider will join forces with Dance Heginbotham again this summer when the two ensembles premiere the evening length version of Chalk and Soot at Jacob’s Pillow from July 30 through August 3.
While Brooklyn Rider is on tour in the U.S., the ensemble will launch a Kickstarter campaign for the next phase of the group’s “Brooklyn Rider Almanac” project. “Brooklyn Rider Almanac” is an open-ended commissioning project, which brings together composers from across the spectrum of contemporary music – from jazz, rock, pop and beyond – to create short works for the quartet. The next phase will even extend to non-musical, multimedia artworks, potentially including animations, essays, choreography and more.
Acclaim for Tour with Béla Fleck
Brooklyn Rider’s tour with Fleck has garnered warm reviews across the country. Alabama’s Birmingham News concluded: “Their encounter was a cross-pollination of ideas, stretching from avant-garde Americana to Romanian Gypsy music, from Ireland to South America. Whether a flash in the pan, a growing fad or the future of music, it formed a unique, eminently listenable bond.” In its review, the Seattle Times encapsulated the group’s achievements: “Something seems inevitable about the recent partnership of innovative string quartet Brooklyn Rider and pioneering banjo master Béla Fleck. … For more than a decade, Brooklyn Rider – its young members graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School – has been called the future of chamber music, with their embrace of new compositions and envelope-pushing collaborations with other global artists.”
Jazz Weekly described one concert this way: “The opening 18-minute Rain Dance mixed sounds reminiscent of Copland, Bartók and bluegrass, while The Landing had Fleck and the quartet mix pastoral pizzicatos and ‘Shenandoah’-long bowed tones with Gypsy caravan swing. Dramatic swoops and sounds flew around before Fleck joked about his trying to ‘prove that a banjo can be a depressing instrument’ on the melancholic Quintet for Banjo and Strings. … While not completely classical, jazz or folk, Fleck and Brooklyn Rider proved their points that seeming incongruity can still produce inspiration.”
Brooklyn Rider’s spring engagements
March 14, 15
Cutler Bay, FL
South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center
Ljova: Culai
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Music of the Roma
March 16
Celebration, FL
Celebration Foundation Classical Concert Series
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Ljova: Culai
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
March 19
Austin, TX
Texas Performing Arts
Ljova: Budget Bulgar
Ljova: Culai
Music of the Roma
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
March 26
Austin, TX
Texas Performing Arts
With Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Dana Lyn: Maintenance Music
Evan Ziporyn: Qi
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 (with Dawn Upshaw)
Colin Jacobsen: Suite from Chalk and Soot (with Dawn Upshaw)
March 29
Stevens Point, WI
University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Gilberto, arr. Jacobsen: Undiu
Ljova: Culai
Bartók: Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 6
Chapel Hill, NC
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
With Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Dana Lyn: Maintenance Music
Evan Ziporyn: Qi
Schoenberg: Quartet No. 2 (with Dawn Upshaw)
Colin Jacobsen: Suite from Chalk and Soot (with Dawn Upshaw)
April 13
Clinton, CT
George Flynn Classical Concerts
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Evan Ziporyn: Qi
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 22
Copenhagen, Denmark
Mogens Dahl Koncertsal
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Ljova: Culai
Romanian traditional, arr. Ljova after Dinicu: Doina Oltului
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 23
Malmö, Sweden
Malmö Palladium
Musik i Syd
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Tobias Brostrom: String Quartet No. 1
Romanian traditional, arr. Ljova after Dinicu: Doina Oltului
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 24
Kristianstad, Sweden
Kristianstad Konserthuset
Musik i Syd
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Tobias Brostrom: String Quartet No. 1
Romanian traditional, arr. Ljova after Dinicu: Doina Oltului
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 25
Vara, Sweden
Vara Konserthus
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Ljova: Culai
Romanian traditional, arr. Ljova after Dinicu: Doina Oltului
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 26
Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholms Konserthus
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Ljova: Culai
Romanian traditional, arr. Ljova after Dinicu: Doina Oltului
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 27
Lund, Sweden
Magle Konserthus
Musik i Syd
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Ljova: Culai
Romanian traditional, arr. Ljova after Dinicu: Doina Oltului
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
April 28
Berlin, Germany
Watergate
May 2
London, UK
Wigmore Hall
Ljova: Culai
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
May 8
Fernandina Beach, FL
Boys & Girls Club
Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival
Free family concert
May 9
Fernandina Beach, FL
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival
Schubert: Quartettsatz
Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company”
Ljova: Culai
Brooklyn Rider: Seven Steps
Grau: premiere
Gilberto, arr. Jacobsen: Undiu
Colin Jacobsen: Three Miniatures for String Quartet
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© 21C Media Group, March 2014