JULY 19, 2016 @ 7:30 PM
The Knights
Colin Jacobsen and Eric Jacobsen, Artistic Directors
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Béla Bartók, (1881-1945), (arr. Paul Arma) Suite Paysanne Hongroise for flute and string orchestra (1914-18)
Chants populaires tristes, nos. I-IV
Scherzo
Vieilles danses, nos. I-IX
Ferruccio Busoni, (1866–1924) (arr. Arnold Schoenberg), Berceuse élégiaque (1909)
Antonín Dvořák, (1841-1904), Bagatelles, Op. 47 (1878)
I. Allegretto scherzando
II. Tempo di minuetto. Grazioso
III. Allegretto scherzando
IV. Canon. Andante con moto
V. Poco allegro
INTERMISSION
Luigi Boccherini, (1743-1805), Quintet for flute and strings in G Minor, Op. 19 (1774)
Shawn Conley, (b. 1983), Yann’s Flight (2013) (World Premiere, as arranged)
Johann Strauss II, (1825-1899) (arr. Arnold Schoenberg) Kaiser-Walzer (1889)
Taraf De Haïdouks, (Est. 1991) (arr. Ljova, 2016), A Stork Crosses the Danube, in the Company of a Raven
WQXR HOST: Paul Cavalconte
**WQXR will not broadcast this concert in this series live on 105.9 FM and via live stream at www.wqxr.org
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
THE KNIGHTS
The Knights are an orchestral collective, flexible in size and repertory, dedicated to transforming the concert experience. Engaging listeners and defying boundaries with programs that showcase the players’ roots in the classical tradition and passion for artistic discovery, The Knights have “become one of Brooklyn’s sterling cultural products.” (New Yorker).
The Knights’ 2015-16 season kicked off at Caramoor, with a performance featuring cello superstar Yo-Yo Ma. The group is in residence at Brooklyn’s BRIC House, as part of a series of New York City residencies undertaken with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This winter, The Knights teamed up with violinist Gil Shaham on a North American tour and appeared on Shaham’s 1930’s Violin Concertos, Vol. 2, released in February, joining the master violinist on Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Recent highlights include The Knights’ debut at Carnegie Hall in the New York premiere of the Steven Stucky/Jeremy Denk opera The Classical Style; a U.S. tour with banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck; a European tour with soprano Dawn Upshaw, including the group’s debut at Vienna’s Musikverein; frequent festival appearances at Ravinia and Tanglewood; and seven years of free summer performances at Central Park’s Naumburg Orchestral Concerts.
The Knights evolved from late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsens, who serve as artistic directors of The Knights, were selected from among the nation’s top visual, performing, media, and literary artists to receive a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship in 2012. The Knights’ roster boasts remarkably diverse talents, including composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters, and improvisers, who bring a range of cultural influences to the group, from jazz and klezmer to pop and indie rock music. The unique camaraderie within the group retains the intimacy and spontaneity of chamber music in performance.
Eric Jacobsen, Artistic Director
Hailed by the New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative projects. Jacobsen is the founder and Artistic Director of The Knights and a founding member of the genre-defying string quartet Brooklyn Rider. As conductor of The Knights, Jacobsen has led the “consistently inventive, infectiously engaged indie ensemble” (New York Times) at New York venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to Central Park, and at renowned international halls such as the Vienna Musikverein and Cologne Philharmonie. In the 2015-16 season, Jacobsen celebrates his inaugural season as Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic and his second season as both Music Director of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony and Artistic Partner with the Northwest Sinfonietta. Also in demand as a guest conductor, Jacobsen has recently led the Camerata Bern, the Detroit Symphony, the Alabama Symphony, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Philharmonie Merck, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.
Colin Jacobsen, Artistic Director
As the Washington Post observes, violinist and composer Colin Jacobsen is “one of the most interesting figures on the classical music scene.” A founding member of two game-changing, audience-expanding ensembles – the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and orchestra The Knights – he is also a touring member of Yo-Yo Ma’s venerated Silk Road Project and an Avery Fisher Career Grant-winning violinist. Jacobsen’s work as a composer developed as a natural outgrowth of his chamber and orchestral collaborations. Jointly inspired by encounters with leading exponents of non-western traditions and by his own classical heritage, his most recent compositions for Brooklyn Rider include “Three Miniatures” – “vivacious, deftly drawn sketches” (New York Times) – which were written for the reopening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Islamic art galleries. Jacobsen collaborated with Iran’s Siamak Aghaei to write a Persian folk-inflected composition, “Ascending Bird,” which he performed as soloist with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, in a concert that was streamed live by millions of viewers worldwide. His work for dance and theater includes Chalk and Soot, a collaboration with Dance Heginbotham, and music for Compagnia de’ Colombari’s theatrical production of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.
Learn more at theknightsnyc.com.
Support for The Knights’ performance has been provided by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
See Also: We Are The Knights – a Channel 13 Special on them.