Podcast appearances and mentions of Brooklyn Rider

The string quartet known as Brooklyn Rider features the usual two violins, viola and cello.  And that's about all that's usual with this band. Over the past two decades they have played with Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Mexican singer Magos Herrera, Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, and banjo wiz Bela Fleck.  They've commissioned a bunch of new pieces, and now, to celebrate their 20th anniversary, they've released a new record called The Four Elements - a wide range of music from the past and the present which is representative of, or directly inspired by Earth, Air, Fire, Water. And in parallel, the record is also designed to raise the alarm and bring “attention to the powerful forces of climate change which represent the single greatest challenge of our time”, (Bandcamp). Brooklyn Rider plays new works and an older piece, in-studio.Set list: 1. Colin Jacobsen - A Short While To Be Here... - I. Whoa, Mule!  2-3 Colin Jacobsen - A Short While To Be Here... - IV.- The Old Cow Died-V. Little Birdie," 4.Osvaldo Golijov: Tenebrae

Shara Nova is a composer, vocalist, and producer currently creating from Detroit, Michigan. Shara has released six albums under the monikerMy Brightest Diamond and has composed works for The Crossing, Conspirare, yMusic, Brooklyn Rider, Roomful of Teeth, Aarhus Symfoni, and American Composers Orchestra among many others. In 2024 she starred in the Tony Award Winning musical “Illinoise” on Broadway, directed by Justin Peck, co-written by Jackie Sibblies Drury with music by Sufjan Stevens, witha live album released on Nonesuch Records.

Johnny Gandelsman is not only one of the world's finest violinists, as comfortable playing contemporary works as he is interpreting pieces from the Western classical canon. He is also an inveterate musical innovator. A long-time member of Silkroad Ensemble and a co-founder of string quartet Brooklyn Rider, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this past year, Johnny has long championed the dissolution of genre boundaries to celebrate music's unique power to bridge cultural divides. Over the years he has collaborated with and played the works of musicians from the Middle East to Appalachia, along the way stretching his own skills to adapt his instrument to a host of musical traditions.Johnny has also been a driving force in the commissioning of new works for the concert stage, founding his own label, In a Circle Records, to produce and release new compositions. In the doldrums of the COVID lockdown, when musicians saw a year's worth of scheduled work vanish, he hatched a plan. He set out to find dozens of arts institutions and music presenters to partner with him to commission 22 composers from all over the country to create new works for the solo violin. Four years later, the project has now resulted in an album titled “This Is America: an Anthology 2020-2021,” a three-CD set with a 40-page booklet produced by In a Circle Records. Pitchfork raves, “This Is America stirs feelings about our country that are almost hard to recognize: pride, hope, and the simple relief of consensus reality.” Since the album's release, Johnny himself has been playing sections of the album all over the country in marathon performances at many of the institutions who partnered with him on the project. In this interview, Johnny describes how he shifted from being a young talent focused on a traditional soloist's career to becoming an adventurer, challenging classical music's conventions to prove that experimentation and community are as essential to music as technique.https://johnnygandelsman.bandcamp.com/album/this-is-america-an-anthology-2020-2021-icr023https://www.inacircle-records.com/

A new 'Craftwork' episode about how to write a poem. My guest is Matthew Zapruder, author of the poetry collection I Love Hearing Your Dreams, available from Scribner. Zapruder is the author of six collections of poetry, including Come on All You Ghosts, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Father's Day; Why Poetry; and Story of a Poem, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award, a May Sarton Award from the Academy of American Arts and Sciences, and a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship. His poetry has been adapted and performed by Gabriel Kahane and Brooklyn Rider and Attacca Quartet at Carnegie Hall and San Francisco Performances and was the libretto for Vespers for a New Dark Age, a piece by Missy Mazzoli commissioned for the Ecstatic Music Festival at Carnegie Hall. He was Guest Editor of Best American Poetry 2022, and from 2016 to 2017, he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the weekly Poetry Column for TheNew York Times Magazine. He lives with his wife and son in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is editor at large at Wave Books, and teaches in the MFA in creative writing program at Saint Mary's College of California. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Twitter Instagram  TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Playlist: Dominick DiOrio, VoNo - The Visible WorldMargot George, Paramorph Collective - Fruiting BodiesFrancisco Mignone, Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra - Guitar ConcertoKatie Madonna Lee, Cecily Turhune, Carly Hood - Boon BestowedEric Nathan, Adam Zinatelli, Aaron Hodgson - 4 SculpturesKinan Azmeh, Brooklyn Rider, Mathias Kunzli - In the ElementGeorge E Lewis, The Crossing & Donald Nally - A Cluster of Instincts

Playlist: Rachael Lavelle, Crash Ensemble - This is the space between your hand and mineAlex Weiser, Ashley Bathgate - ShimmerGabriela Ortiz, Lara Deutsch, Adam Cicchillitti - 5 pa'2Outi Tarkiainen, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra - Songs of the IceTyondai Braxton, Third Coast Percussion - Sunny XJekabs Jancevskis, Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica - LignumColin Jacobsen, Brooklyn Rider, Kinan Azmeh - StarlighterErno Dohnanyi, Trio Lirico - Serenade for String TrioOsmanthus - In Early Spring

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"In choir we have a chance to learn to embody a different culture through its language. When you're singing pieces in another language, there's a moment where you have to feel that you speak that language if only for a few words, if only a few moments. I think that has the capacity to create a kind of empathy regardless of whether that's your culture or not. To embody it does create this empathy that I really believe in as a way to make our world a little closer for the right reasons."Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. Esmail's life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale,  Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Kronos Quartet, and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider. Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press.Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony's 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She also holds awards/fellowships from United States Artists, the S&R Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Kennedy Center.Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM'05) and the Yale School of Music (MM'11, MMA'14, DMA'18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers.Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.She currently resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, California.To get in touch with Reena, you can find her on Instagram (@reenaesmail) or check out her website: https://www.reenaesmail.com.Choir Fam wants to hear from you! Check out the Minisode Intro episode from September 16, 2022, to hear how to share your story with us. Email choirfampodcast@gmail.com to contact our hosts.Podcast music from Podcast.coPhoto in episode artwork by Trace Hudson from Pexels

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Brooklyn Rider — The Wanderer (Icy Cold Records) Jump to giveaway form New Classical Tracks - Nicholas Cords by “We think of the string quartet as a laboratory and learning experience of which there is no end,” says Nicholas Cords the violist for Brooklyn Rider. “We've done so much over our nearly 20-year history, and I think it would be as interesting to us if we only stayed in the world of what we knew.” Cords says Brooklyn Rider is a string quartet that always has irons in the fire. The ensemble's latest album, The Wanderer, is its first digital-only release and live album. “These things often come about through happenstance and opportunity. One of those opportunities was that we knew we would be on tour in Europe last spring,” Cords says. “We would be in Lithuania. We had heard through a friend that there's this amazing place to record there called police. It's about ten kilometers from the Russian border. “This was a very interesting time to be there as the conflict in Ukraine was not so old at that point. Everybody was on edge,” he says. “But here we were in this amazing retreat that used to be a horse stable. It was enclosed in glass. It turns out this was an amazing place to record.“ Can you talk about the themes in the recording? “The album is called The Wanderer. We chose this title because it's a famous song by Franz Schubert. Also on this recording is his Death in the Maiden for string quartet. We've all experienced that life has changed over the last few years. This album combines certain dualities in life, such as memory, remembrance, melancholy and bliss, old and new, and life and death, as represented by Schubert's work. It's an album about life's journey.” Can you talk about Gonzalo Grau's Aroma a Distancia? “Gonzalo is a Venezuelan composer but has called many places home. You can hear those influences, from Venezuelan music to Afro-Cuban music to the flamenco. “The more you dig into any work, you discover it's a web of influences that created that music. All these traditions we have musically are living traditions that continue to change and morph because of other outside influences. That is on display in Aroma a Distancia.” Can you talk about Osvaldo Golijov's work he commissioned for Brooklyn Rider? “This five-movement work depicts a life story from morning to midnight and beyond. It's sort of a metaphor told in the day. A metaphor for life's journey that also ties to the theme of this album.” Is this the first time Brooklyn Rider has recorded Death and the Maiden? “Absolutely. It is our first time. This felt like a natural connection, especially with Osvaldo Golijov's music. We were workshopping both quartets at the same time. Osvaldo's favorite thing to do was sit in the room and be a fly on the wall as we rehearsed this Schubert quartet. Schubert is one of his favorite composers.” Watch now To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Giveaway Time For Three New Classical Tracks Giveaway You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about things like our programs, products and services. See Terms of Use and Privacy. This giveaway is subject to the Official Giveaway Rules. Resources Brooklyn Rider — The Wanderer (Amazon Music) Brooklyn Rider — The Wanderer (Bandcamp) Brooklyn Rider (official site)

Matthew Zapruder is the author of the memoir Story of a Poem, available from Unnamed Press. Zapruder is the author of five collections of poetry, including Come On All You Ghosts, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Father's Day (Copper Canyon, 2019), as well as Why Poetry, a book of prose. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing at Saint Mary's College of California. Zapruder has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a William Carlos Williams Award, a May Sarton Award from the Academy of American Arts and Sciences, and a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship in Marfa, TX. His poetry has been adapted and performed at Carnegie Hall by Composer Gabriel Kahane and Brooklyn Rider, and was the libretto for "Vespers for a New Dark Age", a piece by composer Missy Mazzoli commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the 2014 Ecstatic Music Festival. In 2000, he co-founded Verse Press, and is now editor at large at Wave Books, where he edits contemporary poetry, prose, and translations. He was the founding Director of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series. From 2016-17 he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the Poetry Column for the New York Times Magazine and Guest Editor of Best American Poetry 2022. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  YouTube TikTok Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if a magical place existed in an undisclosed location; a place of great beauty, serene and quiet enough to capture a whisper in the breeze. Imagine this place as one that serves as a light to the future, but existing in the present. Carbon neutral, energy producing, and state-of-the-art, a musical sanctuary that combines old-school acoustics with modern technologies and a recording process that honors both artistic performance and authentic audience experience.                                             That place exists.    Manifold Recording is, in fact, located in an undisclosed location near Pittsboro, North Carolina. It is the brainchild of  Michael Tiemann, a professional singer as a child who - as an adult - turned “open source” software creator and in 1989 revolutionized the software industry paving the way for the popularization and commercialization of the Internet.     So, how did this eclectic background lead to a a recording  Nirvana in the woodlands of North Carolina that's hosted artists from across the musical spectrum, from Béla Fleck and Brooklyn Rider, to Sirintip, to Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo, Nnenna Frelon,  to the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, the Indigo Girls, Carole King, and James Taylor? We find the answer to this, and more, in our conversation. 

Hear unpredictable and graceful melodic lines traded by sax and strings, as tenor sax superstar Joshua Redman and string quartet Brooklyn Rider, along with all-star rhythm section of Scott Colley (bass) and Satoshi Takeishi (percussion) take over the studio. It's chamber music with swoops, dives, groove and bite in original and newly-arranged music with one foot in the jazz world where sharps are optional. (This session is from the Archives, 2018.)  -Caryn Havlik Watch the full session here:

Shara Nova has released five albums under the moniker My Brightest Diamond and has composed works for The Crossing, Conspirare, Cantus Domus, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Roomful of Teeth, many community choirs, as well as yMusic, Brooklyn Rider, violist Nadia Sirota, Aarhus Symfoni, North Carolina Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra, among others.In 2019, she composed for over 600 community musicians and the Cincinnati Symphony in celebration of their 125th season, a piece entitled "Look Around," with director Mark DeChiazza. Her baroque chamber p'opera “You Us We All” premiered in the US in October 2015 at BAM Next Wave Festival. With co-composer and performer Helga Davis, Nova created a four-screen film entitled “Ocean Body,” along with director Mark DeChiazza, which premiered at The Momentary in August 2021, shortly followed by the premiere of “Infinite Movement,” her baroque masque for 100 musicians, set to text by artist Matthew Ritchie, which premiered at The University of North Texas in November 2021.Ms. Nova is the featured singer on “The Blue Hour” with the string orchestra A Far Cry and co-composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Caroline Shaw on Nonesuch Records (Sept ‘22). A collection of songs by Nico Muhly with Detroit's acclaimed wind ensemble Akropolis Quintet also features Ms. Nova's voice entitled Hymns for Private Use (Oct ‘22). A number of music composers, including Sarah Kirkland Snider, Bryce and Aaron Dessner, Steve Mackey and David Lang have created works specifically for her voice. She has collaborated with Matthew Barney, The Decemberists, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Sufjan Stevens, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, and many others.Shara has a couple different branches to her life:Singer and Composer Branch: https://shara-nova.com/Pop Music Branch: https://www.mybrightestdiamond.com/Instagram: @mybrightestdiamondTwitter: @MyBrightestDmndWriting on Substack: https://substack.com/profile/91251132-shara-nova

I'm joined in the backyard this week by Violympian and VMC participant Travis Maril, as well as his fellow USC alum and my Director of Operations, Kate Reddish. Our wide-ranging conversation includes no small measure of pedagogical geekery, as well as such diverse topics as Tae Kwon Do bribery and Michael Jordan's private Space Jam gym. Violist Travis Maril is String Coordinator and Viola Faculty at San Diego State University (SDSU), where he has taught since 2007. At SDSU he also serves as Co-Director of the Community Music School's String Academy, a pre-college program for young musicians, which he co-founded in 2012.  As violist with the Hyperion Quartet, Travis was a prizewinner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Over the years he has collaborated in chamber music projects with principal players of the LA Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Miró Quartet, and Brooklyn Rider, among others.  Locally he performs frequently with Camarada, Art of Elan, and with the San Diego Symphony. Inspired by the Violympics in 2021, Travis started String Gym, his own online program for violinists and violists. Through String Gym, Travis works with players across the US, Australia, Germany and Taiwan.  From time to time he also writes about music-related topics on his blog, String Theory. You can also follow Travis on Instagram. If you're interested in joining us for the fifth iteration of VMC, starting in 2023, you can find out more information here, and apply here.

I'm joined in the backyard this week by Violympian and VMC participant Travis Maril, as well as his fellow USC alum and my Director of Operations, Kate Reddish. Our wide-ranging conversation includes no small measure of pedagogical geekery, as well as such diverse topics as Tae Kwon Do bribery and Michael Jordan's private Space Jam gym. Violist Travis Maril is String Coordinator and Viola Faculty at San Diego State University (SDSU), where he has taught since 2007. At SDSU he also serves as Co-Director of the Community Music School's String Academy, a pre-college program for young musicians, which he co-founded in 2012.  As violist with the Hyperion Quartet, Travis was a prizewinner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Over the years he has collaborated in chamber music projects with principal players of the LA Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Miró Quartet, and Brooklyn Rider, among others.  Locally he performs frequently with Camarada, Art of Elan, and with the San Diego Symphony. Inspired by the Violympics in 2021, Travis started String Gym, his own online program for violinists and violists. Through String Gym, Travis works with players across the US, Australia, Germany and Taiwan.  From time to time he also writes about music-related topics on his blog, String Theory. You can also follow Travis on Instagram. If you're interested in joining us for the fifth iteration of VMC, starting in 2023, you can find out more information here, and apply here.

Thanks for joining me, Dr. Benjamin Harding, on the Piano Explored Podcast. Follow us at www.benjaminharding.net.I am so thrilled to welcome Dr. Paul Barnes on the podcast today. His website is at www.paulbarnes.netPraised by the New York Times for his “Lisztian thunder and deft fluidity," and the San Francisco Chronicle as “ferociously virtuosic,” pianist Paul Barnes has electrified audiences with his intensely expressive playing and cutting-edge programming. He has been featured seven times on APM's Performance Today and on the cover of Clavier Magazine with his recordings streamed worldwide.Celebrating his twenty-five-year collaboration with Philip Glass, Barnes commissioned and gave the world premiere of Glass's Piano Quintet "Annunciation." The work is Glass's first piano quintet and first work based on Greek Orthodox chant. Barnes recording of the quintet with string quartet superstars Brooklyn Rider was released in October of 2019 to critical acclaim.  ResMusica in Paris wrote: "Paul Barnes, whose pianistic lines are always clear, is a marvel of dialogue with Brooklyn Rider." Barnes twelfth CD New Generations: The New Etudes of Philip Glass and Music of the Next Generation has also received rave reviews. Gramophone Magazine wrote, "Pianists of Barnes's great technique and musicality are a boon to new music." And American Record Guide commented, "This disc provides further proof of Barnes's ability to communicate new music with flair and passion." Produced by Orange Mountain Music, the recording features the world-premiere recording of Dreaming Awake, a selection of Glass's etudes and works by N. Lincoln Hanks, Lucas Floyd, Jason Bahr, Zack Stanton, Ivan Moody, and Jonah Gallagher. Barnes is Marguerite Scribante Professor of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music. He was recently appointed Artistic Director of the Lied Center Piano Academy which welcomes several high-school pianists to Lincoln each summer for an intensive week of piano, composition, improvisation and collaboration. He will also be teaching this summer in Greece at the Piano Plus Summer Institute. In great demand as a pedagogue and clinician, Barnes has served as convention artist at several state MTNA conventions, most recently at Virginia and was recently named "Teacher of the Year" by the Nebraska Music Teachers Association.Barnes latest recital Illumination features a contemplative and cathartic program of piano works inspired by the mystical world of chant. Barnes, also a Greek Orthodox chanter, has collaborated most recently with Philip Glass and Victoria Bond to create piano works based on ancient byzantine and Jewish chant. New chant-based works by Native flutist Ron Warren and David von Kampen were also given their premiere performances. Barnes gave the world premiere of Victoria Bond's Illumination on Byzantine Chant at New York's Symphony Space in April of 2021. Barnes released his fourteenth recording last fall on Albany Records entitled Illumination: The Piano Works of Victoria Bond including the world-premiere recording of Illuminations on Byzantine Chant. American Record Guide wrote "he sings with haunting musicality...and plays with fervid virtuosity...the music is calm and meditative, perfect for these troubled times." Barnes' recordings are available on Spotify, Pandora, ITunes, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon.

On this month's INTERPLAY, my talk is with the remarkable violinist and composer COLIN JACOBSEN. Co-founder of Brooklyn Rider and The Knights, Colin is a pathbreaking artist always seeking a vibrant path of expression in whatever he does. This Conversation in Music explores his many views on repertoire, chamber music, solo and orchestral playing. Every note he plays is magical, organic, and deeply felt. And all this comes through in our thrilling and touching INTERPLAY. www.michaelshapiro.com

Join the ‘Conversations On Dance' podcast in an exploration of two art forms and how they coalesce into a single harmonious ballet. Join musician, Johnny Gandelsman of Brooklyn Rider and Choreographer Justin Peck as they will talk about how the ways in which their art forms intersect and diverge and how the collaborative process informs […] The post (303) Choreographer, Justin Peck, and musician, Johnny Gandelsman, LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.

Join the ‘Conversations On Dance' podcast in an exploration of two art forms and how they coalesce into a single harmonious ballet. Join musician, Johnny Gandelsman of Brooklyn Rider and Choreographer Justin Peck as they will talk about how the ways in which their art forms intersect and diverge and how the collaborative process informs […] The post (303) Choreographer, Justin Peck, and musician, Johnny Gandelsman, LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.

Te comparto mi experiencia en el concierto Motomami de La Rosalía en Guadalajara, México, también mi opinión de el primer episodio de 'She Hulk: Defensora de Héroes' en Disney Plus. En mi paseo por las librerías encontré: Mandíbula de Mónica Ojeda de Ed. Candaya & Cómo acabar con la escritura de las mujeres de Joanna Russ Prólogo de Jessa Crispin. Te platico qué me pareció 'Renaissance', el nuevo disco de Beyonce y te invito a el concierto de 'Magos Herrera & Brooklyn Rider' en Conjunto Santander, el Festival Tecate Coordenada de Ocesa, al espectáculo 'Kooza' del Circo de Soleil y al Dreamfields México.

Johnny Gandelsman — This Is America – An Anthology 2020-2021 (In a Circle Records) Jump to giveaway form New Classical Tracks - Johnny Gandelsman by “I was born in Russia into a family of musicians. Both of my parents are musicians. My only sibling, my older sister, is a violinist as well,” says violinist Johnny Gandelsman, who has been living in Brooklyn since 1999. “I've been playing since I was 5 years old, and my family moved to Israel when I was a kid. Then I came to the United States to go to school and have been living here ever since.” You might recognize Gandelsman as one of the violinists with the ensemble Brooklyn Rider. He also has played in the world music collective Silk Road Ensemble. Most recently, he has been commissioning new works for his three-CD solo project, This Is America – An Anthology 2020-2021. “This is a project that was born a few months into the height of the pandemic. I was just trying to think if there was anything I can do about the situation in the world. One thing that occurred to me was to commission new works from American composers,” he said about his inspiration for the project. “I wanted composers who live here and to ask them to reflect on the times.” Can you talk about the composers, pieces and themes we hear in the project? “One piece that comes to my mind is a work by a composer from Tatarstan, Adeliia Faizullina. Her piece is Dew, Time, Linger. When the pandemic struck, she was a student in Los Angeles studying composition. Her piece captures this incredibly beautiful feeling of isolation. She finds really beautiful ways to depict silence, such as a drop of water in the sink or a gust of wind. “I asked Rhiannon Giddens to write a piece. She created New to the Session. It was about her experience attending music sessions where people come together and play tunes. And her experience was that she was a beginner in that world. It's this succession of fiddle tunes, which are full of joy. “The opening piece is by Clarice Assad. It's simply titled O, which represents oxygen. That seems to encompass so much of what we were experiencing, people struggling to breathe, just being able to breathe and maybe a sigh of relief if you did feel safe.” Can you talk about O? “We were struggling to breathe. She also mentions the killing of George Floyd as forcibly denying his breath. It was not planned that way, but the piece that closes the album set is Breathe, by Kojiro Umezaki. His work also deals with the same themes, but a very different way of expressing it. It's a bookend for this almost four-hour release.” Watch now To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. More on Johnny Gandelsman New Classical Tracks: Yo-Yo Ma and Johnny Gandelsman Johnny Gandelsman, 'O' Time for Three Giveaway Time For Three New Classical Tracks Giveaway You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about things like our programs, products and services. See Terms of Use and Privacy. This giveaway is subject to the Official Giveaway Rules. Resources Johnny Gandelsman — This Is America – An Anthology 2020-2021 (Amazon) Johnny Gandelsman — This Is America – An Anthology 2020-2021 (Bandcamp)

Mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter & Nicholas Cords of string quartet Brooklyn Rider bring their Songs of Love and Death to Kilkenny Arts Festival - In the latest of his book-to-screen adaptations, Declan Burke looks at 2001: A Space Odyssey - Brian Boyd & Andrea Cleary on the latest albums from, Calvin Harris - Maggie Rogers - Jamie T

Platiqué con Melisa Corbetto de VR Editoras YA y la serie de libros Heartstopper, te comparto mi opinión de dos películas 'La Gran Libertad' de Cine Caníbal y 'La Huésped Maldita' de Cinépolis, también de la tercera temporada de 'The Umbrella Academy' en Netflix. Te platico qué me pareció el libro 'Mi hermano derecha' de la escritora mexicana 'Pamela Pulido' con Ediciones SM. Te invito al último concierto de la 2da temporada de la Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco y en noticias: Magos Herrera con el ensamble Brooklyn Rider en Conjunto Santander, Daniela Romo, Ha*Ash y Cafe Tacvba en Auditorio Telmex con OCESA y te platico de 'Anónima Media, la casa productora de la emprendedora Bárbara Arredondo Ayala, la actriz Eréndira Ibarra y la guionista Natasha Ybarra-Klor.

The former front man of experimental rock band Battles, Tyondai Braxton has since ventured out into composing a wide array of wildly inventive original music. He has been commissioned to write pieces for ensembles such as The Bang on a Can All Stars, Kronos Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, and Brooklyn Rider. Host Austin Williams plays a few of his favorites.

Part 1 - The National Weather Service's David Sanchez provides a forecast for the weekend ahead and Neville James unpacks what he identifies as the fallout from St. Croix's St. Patrick's Day parade. Next, Neville sits down with Michael Nicholas of Brooklyn Rider, an American String Quartet, ahead of their Forum VI performance at the Prior Jolleck Hall. 

Hailed as the "future of chamber music," string quartet Brooklyn Rider is a powerful force for musical creativity. Matt Dosland talks with cellist Michael Nicolas about several recent projects.

In this episode of La Montaña Rusa: Chico Hamilton. South Pacific in Hi-FI, 1958 (11:42) Joshua Redman & Brooklyn Rider. Sun on Sand, 2019. (18:38) GoGo Penguin. GoGo Penguin, 2020. (25:27) Jorge Cabadas. Poemario, 2021. (38:42) Felix Baigon. MaDRUGADA, 2021. (48:58) Kevin Hays, Lionel Loueke. Hope. 2019. (55:59) Chico Hamilton. South Pacific in Hi-FI, 1958

En este episodio de La Montaña Rusa: Chico Hamilton. South Pacific in Hi-FI, 1958 (11:42) Joshua Redman & Brooklyn Rider. Sun on Sand, 2019. (18:38) GoGo Penguin. GoGo Penguin, 2020. (25:27) Jorge Cabadas. Poemario, 2021. (38:42) Felix Baigon. MaDRUGADA, 2021. (48:58) Kevin Hays, Lionel Loueke. Hope. 2019. (55:59) Chico Hamilton. South Pacific in Hi-FI, 1958

Bill Frisell's instrumental voice is instantly recognizable, no matter whether he displays its skronky side in John Zorn's Naked City or his sublime and delicate voicings infused of high-end Americana. Equally distinctive are his compositions which more and more of his peers have been incorporating in their repertoires, in a process of metabolization that goes back to the 1990s but--as it always happens for musicians whose style is so distinctive--started to really take off later in Frisell's career and is now reaching a healthy cruising speed. In this part of the show we'll feature renditions of Frisell's tunes by The Spellcasters; Rope; JP Schlegelmilch; Matt Brewer; Leni Stern; Arto Lindsay; David Sylvian; Danny Barnes; David Halliday; Unscientific Italians; Allen Ginsberg; Hal Willner; Gabriela; Angela Davis; Brooklyn Rider. Detailed playlist at https://spinitron.com/RFB/pl/12860963/Mondo-Jazz (from The Spellcasters onward) Photo credit: Luciano Rossetti (Phocus Agency)

Bill Frisell's instrumental voice is instantly recognizable, no matter whether he displays its skronky side in John Zorn's Naked City or his sublime and delicate voicings infused of high-end Americana. Equally distinctive are his compositions which more and more of his peers have been incorporating in their repertoires, in a process of metabolization that goes back to the 1990s but--as it always happens for musicians whose style is so distinctive--started to really take off later in Frisell's career and is now reaching a healthy cruising speed. In this part of the show we'll feature renditions of Frisell's tunes by The Spellcasters; Rope; JP Schlegelmilch; Matt Brewer; Leni Stern; Arto Lindsay; David Sylvian; Danny Barnes; David Halliday; Unscientific Italians; Allen Ginsberg; Hal Willner; Gabriela; Angela Davis; Brooklyn Rider. Detailed playlist at https://spinitron.com/RFB/pl/12860963/Mondo-Jazz (from The Spellcasters onward) Happy listening! Photo credit: Luciano Rossetti (Phocus Agency)

Bill Frisell's instrumental voice is instantly recognizable, no matter whether he displays its skronky side in John Zorn's Naked City or his sublime and delicate voicings infused of high-end Americana. Equally distinctive are his compositions which more and more of his peers have been incorporating in their repertoires, in a process of metabolization that goes back to the 1990s but--as it always happens for musicians whose style is so distinctive--started to really take off later in Frisell's career and is now reaching a healthy cruising speed. In this part of the show we'll feature renditions of Frisell's tunes by The Spellcasters; Rope; JP Schlegelmilch; Matt Brewer; Leni Stern; Arto Lindsay; David Sylvian; Danny Barnes; David Halliday; Unscientific Italians; Allen Ginsberg; Hal Willner; Gabriela; Angela Davis; Brooklyn Rider. Detailed playlist at https://spinitron.com/RFB/pl/12860963/Mondo-Jazz (from The Spellcasters onward) Happy listening! Photo credit: Luciano Rossetti (Phocus Agency)

Ep. 123: Lisa Bielawa, composer and vocalist. Let's Talk Off The Podium with Tigran Arakelyan. In this podcast Bielawa talks about a recent project called Broadcast from Home, work with Philip Glass, time at Yale, various major projects and much more. Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition and takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Her music has been described as “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart,” by The New York Times. She is the recipient of the 2017 Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018.  Bielawa consistently executes work that incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin in San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Her music has recently been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, and Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, among others. She will have her second residency as a performer/composer at John Zorn’s venue The Stone in March 2020. Orchestras that have championed her music include the The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, American Composers Orchestra, and the Orlando Philharmonic. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, American Guild of Organists, and more.  Bielawa began touring as the vocalist with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1992 and in 2019 she became the inaugural Composer-in-Residence and Chief Curator of the Philip Glass Institute at The New School. In 1997 Bielawa cofounded the MATA Festival, which celebrates the work of young composers, and for five years she was the artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus.  She received a 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser, created with librettist Erik Ehn and director Charles Otte. Vireowas filmed in twelve parts in locations across the country and features over 350 musicians. Vireo was released on CD/DVD in 2019 (Orange Mountain Music) and she is also recorded on the Tzadik, TROY, Innova, BMOP/sound, Supertrain Records, Sono Luminus, and Cedille labels. For more information about Lisa Bielawa please visit: www.lisabielawa.net © Let's Talk Off The Podium, 2020

Grammy-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman shares his journeys with The Silkroad Ensemble, Brooklyn Rider & Bach.

With the slight chill of the Fall season gripping Chicago, things are toasty warm in the Windy City Irish Radio studios with an array of quality Irish tunes and songs to warm the cockles of soul with music from part-time Dublin resident, Nanci Griffith, Goitse, The Kilkenny's, Daoiri Farrell, Gaelic Storm, Martin Hayes & Brooklyn Rider, The Chancey Brothers, Dervish with the Steel Drivers, Van Morrison, Kevin Crawford, Oscar Blue and Roger McGuinn. Put the rake down, the leaves can wait! Check out Windy City Irish Radio each and every Wednesday night from 8pm to 9pm CST on WSBC 1240AM or on our website at www.windycityirishradio.com.

This week on New Classical Tracks, violinst Colin Jacobsen of Brooklyn Rider discusses the group's collaboration with Irish fiddle virtuoso Martin Hayes on the album 'The Butterfly.'

durée : 00:55:20 - Joshua Redman - par : Alex Dutilh - “Sun on Sand” de Joshua Redman & Brooklyn Rider qui paraît chez Nonesuch, comprend huit compositions en forme de suite du compositeur Patrick Zimmerli. - réalisé par : Fabien Fleurat

durée : 00:55:20 - Joshua Redman - par : Alex Dutilh - “Sun on Sand” de Joshua Redman & Brooklyn Rider qui paraît chez Nonesuch, comprend huit compositions en forme de suite du compositeur Patrick Zimmerli. - réalisé par : Fabien Fleurat

Een paar mooie nieuwe CD's en fijne concerttips, maar ook aandacht voor de (film)muziek van de vorig jaar tragisch overleden IJslandse componist Jóhann Jóhansson. Zijn stijl wordt gekenmerkt door een subtiele mix van klassieke, conventionele orkestratie en hedendaagse elektronica, en zijn muziek is nooit opdringerig of schreeuwerig, maar eerder dromerig en betoverend. Met muziek van Martin Hayes, Brooklyn Rider, L'Arpeggiata olv Christina Pluhar, Marco Beasley, Isang Yun, David Bruce, en Jóhann Jóhansson.

Watch what happens when the smoky-voiced jazz singer from Mexico conspires with an adventuresome string quartet for songs steeped in Latin American traditions.

Watch what happens when the smoky-voiced jazz singer from Mexico conspires with an adventuresome string quartet for songs steeped in Latin American traditions.

String quartet Brooklyn Rider has a new project called Healing Modes which they're currently touring. While they were in Seattle, we coaxed them into the KING FM studio with the promise of snacks. Just kidding! They came in willingly like most of our guests. In this episode, they talk about Beethoven's Opus 132, the piece at the center of this project, and about the 5 new pieces they commissioned to play alongside it. They also talk about why music is healing, and why we need it to do its magic now. Music in this episode:    Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab from Outerbourough.

Magos Herrera is a Mexican born jazz singer. Brooklyn Rider is a string quartet known for their performances of both the standard classical repertoire and for performances of new music. In 2018, Herrera and Brooklyn Rider collaborated on the recording “Dreamers.” Magos Herrera is joined by Brooklyn Rider violinist Colin Jacobsen for this interview with Ilan Stavans.

The collaboration between Magos Herrera and Brooklyn Rider just released a 360-degree video of the song "Balderrama" shot in studio.

We're traveling to Knoxville, Tennessee for the Big Ears Festival! Regarded as one of the most unique, boundary-defying and eagerly anticipated cultural gatherings in the world – “a music festival with a rare vision” (The New York Times) Big Ears Festival returns in 2018 with perhaps its most multi-faceted and diverse line up to date. Spanning four days – Thursday, March 22 – Sunday, March 25 – the festival will feature over 100 performances, including Bang on a Can, Brooklyn Rider, and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), in venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. Hosted by Seth Boustead Produced by Sarah Zwinklis Music In the Light of Air by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir International Contemporary Ensemble Griff by Béla Fleck Béla Fleck & Brooklyn Rider Cheating, Lying, Stealing by David Lang Bang on a Can All-Stars Flowers for Prashant by Tyshawn Sorey Tyshawn Trio

Sarah Willis trifft das Streichquartett Brooklyn Rider in New York. Die Musiker fühlen sich sowohl in Konzerthallen als auch in Clubs wohl. Sarah begleitet sie zum Auftritt im National Sawdust im Stadtteil Williamsburg.

Sarah spends the day with bagels and Brooklyn Rider, one of New York´s finest and most experimental string quartets. In this episode they play a concert at National Sawdust as part of the New York Philharmonic Biennial.

In this episode, we interview a founding member of the Brooklyn Rider string quartet, in the lead-up to its collaboration at Armstrong Auditorium with banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck — in a program titled “Night Flight Over Water.” Bela Fleck and Brooklyn Rider at Armstrong Auditorium:https://www.armstrongauditorium.org/performance/béla-fleck-banjo-brooklyn-riderFacebook Event Page:https://www.facebook.com/events/1468588976525161/

In this episode, we explore the fresh string quartet known as Brooklyn Rider and the banjo virtuoso and renowned composer Bela Fleck. Bela Fleck and Brooklyn Rider at Armstrong Auditorium::www.armstrongauditorium.org/performance…oklyn-rider Facebook Event Page:www.facebook.com/events/1468588976525161/

Eric Jacobsen is the music director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. Before that, he was a founding member of string quartet Brooklyn Rider and chamber orchestra The Knights. He spoke with host David MacDonald in April 2017. Thanks to the National Young Composers Challenge for supporting the Timucua Arts Foundation and this episode of Timucua … Continue reading Timucua Presents: Eric Jacobsen

I en liten stuga i Minnesota, USA, skapade vår svenska mezzo-sopranstjärna Anne Sofie von Otter gränsöverskridande musik med amerikanska stråkkvartetten Brooklyn Rider. Detta kreativa möte resulterade i den nya skivan So Many Things med låtar av Rufus Wainwright, Sting, Kate Bush och Anders Hillborg bland andra. Kerstin Berggren hälsade på Anne Sofie von Otter hemma i köket och fick veta att hon förutom att ge sig ut på musikaliska äventyr också är väldigt förtjust i simbassänger.  Anne Sofie von Otter har i mer än trettio år  sjungit över hela världen, i olika operahus och på mängder av scener.  Många av de nutida klassiska tonsättarna har rätt mycket gemensamt med de riktigt bra poptonsättarna, i något slags musikaliskt språk eller rytmiskt driv och jag har valt sånger jag verkligen gillar, säger hon i Spotlight.

On this episode I talk to Colin Jacobsen of the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, the orchestra The Knights, and the Silk Road Ensemble. I loved hearing about how Colin started his ensembles Brooklyn Rider and The Knights with his brother in a collaborative way with friends and grew his ensembles to create the career he wanted.

I en liten stuga i Minnesota, USA, skapade vår svenska sopranstjärna Anne Sofie von Otter gränsöverskridande musik med amerikanska stråkkvartetten Brooklyn Rider. Detta kreativa möte resulterade i den nya skivan So Many Things med låtar av Rufus Wainwright, Sting, Kate Bush och Anders Hillborg bland andra. Kerstin Berggren hälsade på Anne Sofie von Otter hemma i köket och fick veta att Anne Sofie förutom att ge sig ut på musikaliska äventyr också är väldigt förtjust i simbassänger.   Anne Sofie von Otter har i mer än trettio år  sjungit över  hela världen, i olika operahus och på mängder av scener.  – Många av de nutida klassiska tonsättarna har rätt mycket gemensamt med de riktigt bra poptonsättarna, i något slags musikaliskt språk eller rytmiskt driv och jag har valt sånger jag verkligen gillar, säger hon i Spotlight.

American composer Gabriel Kahane originally wrote The Fiction Issue for a 2012 Carnegie Hall commission. He reached out to his pals in the string quartet, Brooklyn Rider, and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden to collaborate. All parties got back together to record The Fiction Issue in 2015, and it's the title track on the Kahane/Brooklyn Rider co-release. Worden and Kahane trade off singing duties on the six-parts that make up The Fiction Issue. What we know for sure is that coffee and donuts play a big role. The rest of the plot is a little ambiguous, but Kahane likes it that way. On this episode of Music is Music: find out why we should try rating music on the Goose Bump Scale. Oh, and you can also listen to the first two parts of The Fiction Issue.

Hear unusual music for string quartet on this program, as Australian composer Andrew Byrne, now based in New York, uses the string quartet as a percussion instrument in his work called “Striking.” Then, listen to Bang on a Can All-Star saxman, clarinetist and composer Ken Thomson’s work for the JACK Quartet, “THAW.” There’s also folk-informed music from the singer, songwriter and composer Aoife O Donovan as played by Brooklyn Rider. Hear string quartet music by multi-instrumentalist composer Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, who plays a traditional Vietnamese string instrument on “Green River Delta,” in collaboration with Kronos Quartet. Plus, hear a work from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams that uses the string quartet as an ambient music ensemble, relying upon harmonics and on tones played on open strings. That, and more. PROGRAM #3686 Music for String Quartet (First aired on 1/21/2015)   ARTIST(S) RECORDING CUT(S) SOURCE Ken Thomson (JACK quartet) THAW Thaw, excerpt [1:41] Cantaloupe Records 21095 bangonacan.org Members of Either/Or Ensemble Striking; Whispers and Cries Andrew Byrne: Striking Parts 1 & 2 [7:32] Available for purchase directly through composer here: andrewbyrne.com JACK Quartet John Luther Adams: The Wind in High Places John Luther Adams: The Wind in High Places - Above Sunset Pass [7:24] Cold Blue Music CBM 41 coldbluemusic.com Ken Thomson (JACK quartet) THAW THAW: Thaw [10:55] Cantaloupe Music 21095 bangonacan.org Brooklyn Rider Almanac Aoife O'Donovan: Show Me [4:56] Mercury Classics / In A Circle Records #002159302 mercuryclassics.com Available at iTunes, Amazon.com, Emusic.com Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ with Kronos Quartet  Three-Mountain Pass Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ: Green River Delta/Luu Thuy Truong [4:40] Innova 866 innova.mu   Members of Either/Or Ensemble Striking; Whispers and Cries Andrew Byrne: Striking Parts 3 & 4 [8:30] Available for purchase directly through composer here: andrewbyrne.com

ders of my favorite ensemble in New York, violinist Colin Jacobsen from the Brooklyn Rider, The Knights and Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road. But before I do that, I complain for 20 minutes about journalists that charge for positive reviews in magazines. Then I fantasize about going into real estate.  

Today's Throwback Thursday looks at the continued strength of the vinyl revival. Tune in during the 8 am hour when Jeff Spurgeon plays a special vinyl track. The numbers are striking: CD sales declined nearly 15 percent last year. But vinyl sales moved in the opposite direction: up 32 percent from 2012, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Trendy retailers such as Urban Outfitters and Whole Foods are stocking vinyl records. Sales of turntables are up and artists like conductor Gustavo Dudamel, pianist Valentina Lisitsa and the Brooklyn Rider string quartet are releasing LPs. While the black disc never went away among purist deejays and audiophiles, it has made a broader comeback, especially among hipsters, college students and nostalgic baby boomers. “The whole idea of actually holding a piece of music in your hand has become sort of a quaint concept because you can carry thousands of songs around in your pocket," said Greg Milner, author of Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story Of Recorded Music. However, "if you are going to have a material object, it may as well be something that’s so far removed from digital formats.” Brooklyn Rider violist Nicholas Cords believes that vinyl records put a listener in a physical space, such as a living room or bedroom. For the quartet, "it connects us to a past, a heritage of string quartet playing that we very much admire. It was a symbolic connection to something we really love." When Brooklyn Rider released its 2012 album “Seven Steps” on vinyl (as well as MP3 and CD) the group invoked past greats like the Capet, Rosé, and Busch String Quartets, who first became known to the world through their pioneering 78 rpm releases in the 1930s and '40s. Cords dismisses the suggestion that LPs are a gimmick, noting that their creation can be painstaking and costly given the different mastering processes involved. What's more, a vinyl release is a way to connect with a specific fan base. Detractors argue that vinyl has plenty of drawbacks: it's not portable, it scratches, it warps and player needles wear out. But its advocates point out that, unlike MP3s, the sound of vinyl is not compressed and any surface noise actually adds warmth to the listening experience. “One of the reasons why people like vinyl is it imparts a kind of unreality to the sound,” said Milner. “People think of it as real but it actually gives you this thing that maybe you don’t hear in real life because in real life you’re not hearing things through the veil of hiss and noise.” But despite the love heaped on vinyl and its reported comeback, it barely moved the needle for the music industry in 2013. "Vinyl is only about two percent of total album sales, so when you talk about a revival you have to talk about it in the context of everything everyone is listening to,” said Claire Suddath, a writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. In October, Suddath reported that the number of LPs sold in the U.S. represented only 1.4 percent of all albums sold. While vinyl may not save a troubled industry – one that saw even download sales drop last year – Cords notes that it represents a link with tradition in an age when music formats can seem overly disposable. "I just don’t see vinyl going away," added Milner. “It’s a good format, it’s durable, it will last a long time.” Listen to the full segment above, take our poll and leave a comment: Do you listen to vinyl? If so, why? .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "vinyl-comeback", "survey_vinyl-comeback");

VIDEO: Béla Fleck plays The Imposter in the WQXR Café When Béla Fleck came to the WQXR Café, curious staff members began asking about his repertoire. Would he be playing Scarlatti or Scruggs? A Bach invention or a bluegrass breakdown? Fleck can do all of those things and more. Almost single-handedly, he established the banjo's capacity to move easily across genres stretching from the blues and bluegrass to contemporary jazz and world music. But being at a classical music station, Fleck, 55, wasn't about to miss an opportunity to show off his classical chops, so he focused on excerpts from The Imposter, a new banjo concerto he composed for the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. "You’ll just have to imagine the orchestra – we couldn’t afford them today," he joked, before launching into the repeated arpeggiated riffs of its second movement. The Imposter is dedicated to Earl Scruggs, the bluegrass pioneer who brought the banjo back to national prominence during the 1950s and 60s. Scruggs attended Fleck's premiere of the concerto in September 2011, six months before he passed away at age 88. "Earl Scruggs did so many things, from bringing the banjo out of the hills and back into the mainstream—because the banjo was a very popular instrument in the late 1800s and early 1900s," Fleck told host Jeff Spurgeon. "And then it pretty much was dying out in terms of the mainstream." Just as Scruggs covered rock tunes in the 1960s like Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and played in rock and pop venues, Fleck has sought to push the limits of the instrument. In the 1980s Fleck played with the cutting-edge group New Grass Revival, known for its wild, virtuosic style, and by the '90s he was fronting his own band the Flecktones, which remains active today. Fleck edged his way into classical concert halls starting with "Perpetual Motion," a 2001 album of classical pieces for which he won a pair of Grammy awards. A few years later he collaborated with bassist Edgar Meyer and the Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain on a Triple Concerto, premiered with the Detroit Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin. Along with the concerto, Fleck's new recording features Night Flight Over Water, an original piece he plays with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider (a joint national tour is planned for the fall and winter). He said that while an orchestra can feel overwhelming in size, "with a string quartet, we’re all sitting very close to each other just as we would be in a bluegrass band." Does Fleck encounter much resistance to the idea of a banjo in classical settings, with requests to play something more "down home?" "That’s a stereotype about the banjo, that it can only be happy,” he said. "I've done some very sad banjo playing. And I’ve heard people play soulful, simple melodies on the banjo that make you want to cry. So it’s really about the musician." Video: Kim Nowacki; Audio: Edward Haber; Text & Production: Brian Wise; Interview: Jeff Spurgeon

The four men of Brooklyn Rider arrived at the WQXR Café on a recent morning feeling groggy and jet-lagged, having returned three days earlier from a tour to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. But it was time to rally. Their set list would feature exuberant pieces inspired by the music of Eastern Europe, ancient Persia and beyond. Travel -- in a metaphorical sense -- has been an ongoing theme for this genre-bending string quartet, whose members cut their teeth in Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. The group's sixth and most recent album, “A Walking Fire,” is named after a poem by the 13th-century poet Rumi, and it includes Bartok's String Quartet No. 2 as well as several new pieces. Among them is Culai by Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, a Russian-born, New York-based composer who has collaborated with the quartet on several occasions. Here is the movement "Love Potion, Expired." With its rollicking, jagged rhythms, the work is a tribute to Nicolae "Culai" Neacsu, the late violinist and vocalist of the Gypsy string ensemble, Taraf de Haiidouks. It's also consistent with Brooklyn Rider's embrace of non-Western styles. In an interview on WNYC’s Soundcheck, violinist Colin Jacobsen noted how Debussy was profoundly influenced by the Javanese gamelan music he heard at the Paris International Exposition in 1889. Similarly, Bartok drew on the folk music he heard while traveling the countryside of Hungary and Romania with a tape recorder in the early 1900s. Brooklyn Rider has not only played those composers' works, but also collaborated with artists like the Chinese pipa player Wu Man, the Japanese shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki and Kayhan Kalhor, the Iranian master of the kamancheh, or Persian fiddle. Jacobsen's own Three Miniatures for String Quartet, featured on "A Walking Fire," was inspired by the Islamic art galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which reopened in 2011. The work particularly draws on a miniature painting tradition "in which epic stories of love, heroism and allegories of human folly are played out in tiny portraits of incredible detail and texture." The movement “Majnun’s Moonshine” opens the quartet's café concert and can be heard in the audio above. To round out their set, the quartet performed Zhurbin’s arrangement of Doina Oltului (“Song of the River Olt”), a traditional Romanian song. With its bent notes, rhythmic bowing and heavy offbeats, the piece seemed to momentarily transform the cafe into a rustic village tavern. Video: Amy Pearl & Kim Nowacki; Sound: Edward Haber; Text & Production: Brian Wise

An hour of music and conversation with Brooklyn Rider on WorldStreams

Every night — or really, early morning — during South By Southwest, Bob Boilen, Carrie Brownstein, Robin Hilton and Stephen Thompson will meet up on some random street corner in Austin, Texas and break down the events of the day. And every morning during the festival we'll post these lively and increasingly loopy recaps here and on the blog. In this second installment, the gang met up around 2:30 a.m. to rave about NPR Music's SXSW daytime party at The Parish, which included Brooklyn Rider, Smith Westerns, Local Natives, G-Side, Surfer Blood, and Sleigh Bells. They also talk about some of the shows they were able to catch later that night in venues all across Austin.

Drawing from its globe-trotting experience with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, Brooklyn Rider blends genres and influences seamlessly, carving out its own unique space within the world of chamber music. The string quartet performs as part of NPR Music's South By Southwest daytime party at The Parish in Austin, Texas, on March 18, 2010.

It's hard to know what will happen when the string quartet Brooklyn Rider starts playing. Yes, these four guys love to play Debussy and Brahms, but they're just as likely to team up with a singer-songwriter or a Kurdish kamancheh player. Or write their own music. So we weren't sure what they'd do when they stopped by the NPR Music offices to play a Tiny Desk Concert. What we got was a bracing sample of their visceral fire.