Brooklyn Rider: Chalk and Soot

Brooklyn Rider & Ariadne Greif (soprano)

Celebrating two decades together, this is Brooklyn Rider’s homage to their namesake, “Der Blaue Reiter,” a pioneering pre-WWI artistic collective that counted among its members Arnold Schoenberg and Wassily Kandinsky. Colin Jacobsen’s song cycle, Chalk and Soot, built upon Kandinsky’s Dada-inspired text, is paired with Schoenberg’s daring Second String Quartet, both featuring the mesmerizing American singer, Ariadne Greif. And in a second installment of 2014’s highly celebrated Brooklyn Rider Almanac, four newly commissioned works – co-commissioned by The Reser – complete the experience with works by: Clarice Assad, Gabriel Kahane, Giovanni Solima and Tyshawn Sorey.

Ariadne Greif, praised for her “luminous, expressive voice”, “searing top notes”, and “dusky Depths” (NYTimes), enjoyed a casual child career as a “boy” soprano at the LA Opera, eventually making an adult debut singing Lutoslawski’s Chantefleurs et Chantefables with the American Symphony Orchestra. She starred in operas ranging from Donizetti’s Elixir of Love with The Orlando Philharmonic, to Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias at the Aldeburgh Festival, and Atthis, by G.F. Haas, which the NY Times called “one of the most searingly painful and revealing operatic performances in recent times.”

She performed with William Kentridge in the Oslo Opera House, The Luxembourg Philharmonic, Berkeley Cal Performances, and Performa in his production of the Dada masterpiece Ursonate, created two projects of her own called Bird Party and Eleven Wild Geese commissioned by The Ultima Festival in Norway, and a film of We Need To Talk, a monodrama by Caroline Shaw and Anne Carson for Opera Philadelphia. Collaborations include JACK Quartet, Gabe Kahane, Sofia Jernberg, Pekka Kuusisto, The Knights, over three hundred concerts on tour with Ensemble Mélange, at The Ojai Festival, Park Avenue Armory, Carnegie Hall, Sydney Chamber Opera, The Sarasota Opera House, and The Meidan Festival in Helsinki. Recent highlights include Alyssa Weinberg’s monodrama Isola with Long Beach Opera, singing and dancing as Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls with Opera Saratoga, and The Fall of Rome with AMOC, and new albums with Raven Chacon and Kate Soper. Ariadne has premiered upwards of thirty new operas and more than a hundred new chamber works.

With their gripping performance style and unquenchable appetite for musical adventure, Brooklyn Rider has carved a singular space in the world of string quartets over their fifteen-year history. Defining the string quartet as a medium with deep historic roots and endless possibility for invention, they find equal inspiration in musical languages ranging from late Beethoven to Persian classical music to American roots music to the endlessly varied voices of living composers.

Program:
Brooklyn Rider & Ariadne Greif
Chalk and Soot

Four Quartets – Giovanni Sollima

Untitled – Tyshawn Sorey

American Studies – Gabriel Kahane

String Quartet No 2* – Arnold Schoenberg

Intermission

Chalk and Soot* – Colin Jacobsen

*with Ariadne Greif, soprano

Sponsored by Ronni Lacroute