Chamber Music America presents ETHEL + Robert Mirabal: The River

Join CMA for its first in-person Chamber Music Month concert since 2019.

Date and Time: Thursday, May 18, 2023 | 7:30 PM
Location: National Sawdust – 80 N. 6th St. Brooklyn, NY
Tickets Available via National Sawdust

The River is a journey in instrumental virtuosity, song, and storytelling, inspired by Water as the embodiment of Spirit and essential to life on Earth. This program continues an eight-year collaboration between ETHEL and Robert Mirabal, the renowned Native American flutist, instrument builder, and three-time GRAMMY® Award winner.

Audiences are immersed in a flow of music, narrative, and ritual that evokes timeless Native American traditions through contemporary musical artistry. As delivered by these master performers, the effect is breathtaking, even ecstatic. From “An Kha Na” to “Peace Calls,” through rushing rapids and still, sacred spaces, ETHEL and Robert Mirabal evoke the magic and majesty of The River which connects us all. Learn More.

Established in NYC in 1998, this quartet of composer-performers—Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Corin Lee (violin)—fuses uptown panache with downtown genre mashup, ETHEL has released 9 feature albums; guested on 40+ recordings; won a GRAMMY® with jazz legend Kurt Elling; and toured internationally with Todd Rundgren & Joe Jackson. Driven by a collaborative ethos — a quest for common creative expression, forged in listening and community, ETHEL has premiered over 250 works, Commissions include The Ringling Museum of Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the NEA. Collaborators include Julia Wolfe, Raven Chacon, David Byrne, Gina Gibney, Grant McDonald, Steve Cosson, and Annie Dorsen. Featured on TED Conferences, ABC Radio Australia, New Sounds, Performance Today, Person Place Thing, Weekend Edition, and on soundtracks Dan In Real Life and Deadwood.

ETHEL is in residence at Denison University, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Petrie Court Café.

An accomplished, renowned Native American flute player and maker from Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, Robert’s flutes have been displayed at the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of the American Indian. An award-winning musician, Mirabal performs worldwide, sharing flute songs, tribal rock, dance, and storytelling. Mirabal is a two-time Grammy Award winner, has twice been named the Native American Music Award’s Artist of the Year, and has received the Songwriter of the Year award three times.  He is also an Album of the Year recipent from Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. His breakthrough PBS musical production, Music From a Painted Cave, remains a benchmark of Native American traditional/rock fusion and storytelling.