Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Brooklyn Rider performs with 2 Foot Yard and Violinist-Vocalist Carla Kihlstedt at the Kimmel Center, March 27

MARCH 18, 2010

“Think of this energetic Brooklyn-based string quartet as a younger Kronos Quartet.  This eclectic foursome has toured and recorded extensively…and Passport is rife with world-music influences, from Armenian folk songs to a cover of Rock-en-Espanol titans Café Tacuba’s catchy “La Muerte Chiquita.”  —Pacific Sun about Brooklyn Rider

 

“Her musical persona is playful but dark and sometimes witheringly intense; she sings by howling or exhaling, and puts all her concentrated energy into even the quietest double-stopped violin chord” —New York Times about Carla Kihlstedt of 2 Foot Yard

 

Vital and creative string quartet Brooklyn Rider along with trio 2 Foot Yard featuring violinist and vocalist Carla Kihlstedt perform on Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 7:30pm in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater.   Members of Brooklyn Rider have traversed far beyond the boundaries of New York to explore various cultures and collaborate with composers such as Chen Yi and Osvaldo Golijov to Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.  

 

Genre-defying 2 Foot Yard’s soundscape is full of melodic improvisation, merging rock with contemporary chamber music.  Joining 2 Foot Yard is Kihlstedt on violin and vocals, who Stereophile magazine has hailed as an artist who “inventively straddles the classical and vernacular worlds without compromise to either side.”  These two groups will perform separately and then together for a new jointly written composition.

 

Tickets for Brooklyn Rider and 2 Foot Yard are $19 to $32 and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at www.kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center box office open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings. (Additional fees may apply.) For group sales call 215-790-5883.

 

A limited number of $10 community rush tickets will be available for this performance. Tickets go on sale the day of the event and can be purchased at the Kimmel Center box office beginning at 5:30pm. Limit one ticket per person.

 

Young string quartet Brooklyn Rider was first brought together by cellist Yo-Yo Ma as part of his Silk Road Project Ensemble, for which they participated in three Sony Classical recordings.  The ensemble then began building an audience in New York with the 2007 premiere of Brooklesca, an international mixture of Chinese, Persian, Gypsy, and klezmer musical styles, written by the group’s violinist Colin Jacobsen.  The premiere encompassed all of the nationalities residing in Brooklyn and featured Chinese-American pipa player Wu Man.

 

The quartet then officially made their debut as Brooklyn Rider with the 2008 album release of Passport, a collective interpretation of classical and new musical works ranging from contemporary Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s “La Muerte Chiquita,” to arrangements of Armenian folksongs, songs by Russian violist and composer Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, and an original composition by group member Colin Jacobsen. 

 

Simultaneously, Brooklyn Rider’s album release of Silent City in 2008 continued to expose the quartet’s highly collaborative nature and ability to perform improvisational with Western classical musical influences.  Featuring Kurdish-Iranian kamancheh (spike fiddle) virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, Silent City explored traditional Persian melodies and cultures.  New York Times deemed Silent City, “a hypnotic work commemorating Halabjah, a Kurdish village annihilated by Saddam Hussein, the kamancheh, an upright four-stringed Persian fiddle, breaks out in a lamenting wail based on traditional Turkish melody (August 2008).”

San Francisco-based 2 Foot Yard’s 2008 album release of Borrowed Arms continues to showcase the trio’s ability to perform contemporary chamber music with punk, African, Eastern, and pop rock sensibilities.  The 2003 release of Carla Kihlstedt solidified the trio’s genre defying performances, with a collection of classical music, jazz, rock, world, pop and folk melodies.  Made up of band members Marika Hughes (cello) and Shahzad Ismaily (percussion), violinist and vocalist Carla Kihlstedt remains at the heart of the group as the “monster virtuoso on numerous instruments, a truly original songwriter, inventive…[and] singular artist on par with Arto Lindsay” (Stereophile). 

 

Kimmel Center Presents 2009/10 Season is sponsored by Citi. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Kimmel Center Presents.

The performance of Brooklyn Rider with 2 Foot Yard, part of the Fresh Ink Series, has been funded by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Music Project.

Free at the Kimmel programming and subsidized tickets offered to the community and social service groups for $10 are made possible through the Wachovia Gateway to the Arts Community Access Program, supported by a generous grant from the Wachovia Foundation.

The Kimmel Center is a recipient of partnership funding through the nationally recognized PNC “Grow Up Great” initiative, a ten-year, $100 million investment preparing children for success in school and life. Funding gives support to the Kimmel Center’s early childhood program “Bop and Swing,” an arts program for children 1-5 years old, designed to promote an appreciation for American culture.

KIMMEL CENTER PRESENTS SPONSORED BY CITI

Saturday, March 27, 2010 | 7:30pm
Perelman Theater

Brooklyn Rider and 2 Foot Yard

Brooklyn Rider

Johnny Gandelsman, violin

Colin Jacobsen, violin

Nicholas Cords, viola

Eric Jacobsen, cello

2 Foot Yard

Carla Kihlstedt, violin and vocals

Marika Hughes, cello and vocals

Shahzad Ismaily, percussion and guitar

with Matthias Bossi, percussion and narration

 

Program:

Achille’s Heel, Colin Jacobsen

La Muerte Chiquita, arr. by Osvaldo Golijov

Ascending Bird, arr. by Colin Jacobsen and Siamk Aghaei

 

Octopus, arr. by 2 Foot Yard

Rooting for the Shy Librarian, Carla Kihlstedt

Museum of Tears, 2 Foot Yard

 

Chapter 4, string arr. by Mark Orton

 

Crisis, string arr. by Carla Kihlstedt

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