Brooklyn Rider is an American string quartet, based in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, United States, whose members include

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

ists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen,

violist ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

Nicholas Cords and cellist Michael Nicolas. They are mainly known for playing unusual and

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...

repertoire, and for collaborating with musicians from outside the classical music sphere. The quartet has founded the Stillwater Music Festival in 2006 to serve as a place to unveil new repertory and collaborations; the festival's last concerts were held in 2015. Brooklyn Rider also spends time teaching, including past residencies at

Denison University Denison University is a private liberal arts college in Granville, Ohio. One of the earliest colleges established in the former Northwest Territory, Denison University was founded in 1831. The college was first called the Granville Literary and ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

, MacPhail Center for the Arts,

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

and

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

. Past performances have included evenings at the Schwartz Center (Atlanta, Georgia), the

Kimmel Center The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is a large performing arts venue at 300 South Broad Street and the corner of Spruce Street, along the stretch known as the Avenue of the Arts in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is owned an ...

, the

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Philharmonie,

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History In 1893, a group of American architects, ...

Spoleto Festival USA Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of America's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due ...

, and

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...

Festival in Sweden. In 2010, the quartet was invited to play at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, which was also broadcast live on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

. They are the only classical performers to have been invited to play at the festival to date. Brooklyn Rider made their

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

and Carnegie Hall debuts in 2011. In 2016, cellist Michael Nicolas replaced Eric Jacobsen in the ensemble.

Recordings

Brooklyn Rider's first album, ''Passport'', released in 2008, was selected by

as one of their best classical albums of that year. 2008 also saw the release a collaborative album with

kamancheh The kamancheh (also kamānche or kamāncha) ( fa, کمانچه, az, kamança, hy, Քամանչա, ku, کەمانچە ,kemançe) is an Iranian bowed string instrument used in Persian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Kurdish, Georgian, Turkmen, a ...

player

Kayhan Kalhor Kayhan Kalhor ( fa, کیهان کلهر, ku, کەیھان کەڵھوڕ, translit=Keyhan Kelhur, born 24 November 1964) is an Iranian-Kurds, Kurdish kamancheh and setar player and vocalist composer and master of Art music, classical Iranian tradi ...

titled '' Silent City''. They released ''Dominant Curve'' in 2010, which was featured on ''

All Songs Considered ''All Songs Considered'' is a weekly online multimedia program started in January 2000 by NPR's ''All Things Considered'' director Bob Boilen. At first, the show featured information and streaming audio about the songs used as bumper music on ...

'' and named in NPR's best music of 2010 so far list. Brooklyn Rider was chosen by American composer Philip Glass to record his complete string quartets in 2011, which also included the world premiere recording of his '' Bent Suite''. Their 2012 album, ''Seven Steps'', was named to NPR's listener's choice best of 2012 so far list. In 2017, they released a disc of Glass' sixth and seventh quartets, along with an arrangement of his ''Saxophone Quartet'' for violin, two violas and cello. In spring 2013 the ensemble announced a new recording partnership with

Universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a ...

's Mercury Classics label. The first album, ''A Walking Fire'', was released in the US on CD and iTunes on April 30 that year. On August 13, 2013, banjo player

Béla Fleck Béla Anton Leoš Fleck (born July 10, 1958) is an American banjo player. An acclaimed virtuoso, he is an innovative and technically proficient pioneer and ambassador of the banjo, bringing the instrument from its bluegrass roots to jazz, classi ...

released a CD called ''The Impostor'' on the

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

/ Mercury Classics label (AMG Classical ID W 303049) which includes the title piece as a concerto for banjo and symphony orchestra, followed by a piece entitled "Night Flight Over Water", a composition for banjo and string quartet featuring Brooklyn Rider. In 2015, the group celebrated its tenth anniversary with the groundbreaking multi-disciplinary project ''The Brooklyn Rider Almanac'', for which it recorded and toured 15 specially commissioned works, each inspired by a different artistic muse. In September 2016, Brooklyn Rider released ''So Many Things'' with

Anne Sofie von Otter Anne Sofie von Otter (born 9 May 1955) is a Swedish mezzo-soprano. Her repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and also rock and pop songs. Early life Von Otter was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Her father was Göran von Otter, a Swedis ...

, featuring music by

Kate Bush Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single " Wuthering Heights", becoming the first female ...

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...

Caroline Shaw Caroline Adelaide Shaw (born August 1, 1982) is an American composer, violinist, and singer. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for her a cappella piece '' Partita for 8 Voices'' and the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Contemporar ...

, Björk,

Nico Muhly Nico Asher Muhly (; born August 26, 1981) is an American contemporary classical music composer and arranger who has worked and recorded with both classical and pop musicians. A prolific composer, he has composed for many notable symphony orchestras ...

Anders Hillborg Per Anders Hillborg (born 31 May 1954) is one of Sweden’s leading composers. Education Anders Hillborg was born in Sollentuna, and studied composition, counterpoint and electronic music at the Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm from 1976 to ...

Brad Mehldau Bradford Alexander Mehldau (; born August 23, 1970) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Mehldau studied music at The New School, and toured and recorded while still a student. He was a member of saxophonist Joshua Redman's Qua ...

, Elvis Costello, Sting,

Rufus Wainwright Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded 10 studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set ...

. In October 2017, the group released ''Spontaneous Symbols'' which features music written for the quartet over the previous five years. Composers include

Tyondai Braxton Tyondai Adaien Braxton (born October 26, 1978) is an American composer and musician. He has been writing and performing music under his own name and collaboratively under various group titles and collectives since the mid-1990s, including in ...

Evan Ziporyn Evan Ziporyn (b. Chicago, Illinois, December 14, 1959) is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn h ...

, Paula Matthusen, Kyle Sanna and a piece by Brooklyn Rider's very own Colin Jacobsen.

Discography

* ''Passport'' (2008) * '' Silent City'' with

(2008) * ''Dominant Curve'' (2010) * ''Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass'' (2011) * ''Seven Steps'' (2012) * ''The Impostor'' with

(2013) * ''A Walking Fire'' (2013) * ''The Brooklyn Rider Almanac'' (2014) * ''The Fiction Issue'' (2016) * ''So Many Things'' with

Anne Sofie Von Otter Anne Sofie von Otter (born 9 May 1955) is a Swedish mezzo-soprano. Her repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and also rock and pop songs. Early life Von Otter was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Her father was Göran von Otter, a Swedis ...

(2016) * ''Spontaneous Symbols'' (2017) * ''Philip Glass: String Quartets Nos. 6 & 7, Saxophone Quartet'' (2017) * ''Annunciation'' with Philip Glass (2019) * ''

Sun on Sand ''Sun on Sand'' is a studio album by jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman's trio and string quartet Brooklyn Rider. This is a concept album, interpreting eight compositions taken from a suite written by Patrick Zimmerli. The album was released on 4 Oc ...

'' with

Joshua Redman Joshua Redman (born February 1, 1969) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. He is the son of jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman (1931–2006). Life and career Joshua Redman was born in Berkeley, California, to jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman ...

(2019) * ''The Butterfly'' with Martin Hayes (2019) * ''Healing Modes'' (2020)

References

External links

* {{Authority control American string quartets Musical groups from Brooklyn