Brooklyn Rider Turns 20

Twenty years ago, Brooklyn Rider (violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Michael Nicolas) set out on its own path: bringing chamber music to small clubs, performing repertory works alongside new commissions, and carrying the history of the string quartet with them every step of the way. “We want to firmly have a foot in the present through music being written today” says founding member Colin Jacobsen. Still, with a practice rooted in tradition that also looks ahead to the future, Brooklyn Rider defies easy categorization.   

They also show no sign of slowing down. In its upcoming anniversary season, Brooklyn Rider has a flurry of activity planned, continuing to evolve its deeply collaborative and historically rich oeuvre. Their season includes a new recording, The Four Elements (out on May 23); performances of Philip Glass’s complete string quartet works; new commissions and new iterations of long-standing collaborations; plus Citizenship Notes, an ambitious new commissioning and performance project. 

In time for the release of The Four Elements—and the kickoff to their spring tour—CMA spoke with Colin Jacobsen about the past, present, and future of the stalwart quartet.

What do you have planned for your 20th anniversary?
We have an album coming out May 23 on the theme of the four elements—a commissioning project and a framework for programming concerts. It’s comprised of three pre-existing works that we assigned the value of the ancient elements—fire, earth, air, water—as well as five commissioned works on those themes. So Shostakovich’s 8th Quartet, we thought of as representing fire. It was written in Dresden after the fire-bombing of World War II. Then with Henri Dutilleux’s string quartet, we thought about air and nocturnal visions. I wrote a piece related to American folk song called “A Short While to be Here”, representing Earth.  

Also as part of the 20th anniversary, we’re performing all of Philip Glass’s string quartets at the Met Museum Cloisters. Philip’s music has been with us since our very first quartet concert as Brooklyn Rider. We have recorded all of his works to date, and as he’s written more, we’ve recorded more. We’re also looking forward to performing with a mentor to all of us: Yo-Yo Ma at Tanglewood. Looking further ahead, Nico Muhly is writing a string quartet and orchestra piece that we’re doing both in Europe and the states in coming years. Gabriella Lena Frank is writing us a large scale, new string quartet material from her opera Diego and Frida about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. And finally, we have a program called Citizenship Notes, which includes three new commissions.   

Can you tell me more about Citizenship Notes?
We once had a conversation with the director, Peter Sellars, when he told us that a string quartet is “an emblem of radical democracy.” There is something about the four co-equal voices coming together. This idea is best represented in the string quartet, certainly in Beethoven’s work, and certainly in Haydn’s leading up to that time. For instance, in Beethoven’s Opus 59 #3, where he brings back the fugal form. There was an idea of the “heroic” in that period. It was against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution, and the American Revolution, that the string quartet came into its own. We think about that time, but also carry this idea forward into our Citizenship Notes program. We’ve asked a group of three wonderful and diverse composers, Don Byron, Ted Hearne, and Angélica Negrón, to write for the string quartet today. We’re playing Citizenship Notes for the first time this fall, at places like Tippet Rise and at the Beethoven festival in Bonn, Germany.  

You’ve worked with so many artists. Are there any ongoing collaborations that have been particularly meaningful for Brooklyn Rider during its first 20 years?
This summer we’re playing with Kayhan Kalhor, who worked with us on one of our first albums, Silent City. He’s an artist from Iran that we met in the context of Silkroad, and wanted to go further with his instrument kamancheh and string quartet. He was, in a way, a mentor and sparked my own writing in many ways.   

What do you want audiences to walk away with from your performance? 
While this is changing, many times chamber music series are either very traditional or very new-music focused. For us, we aim to break down those silos. Our favorite thing is when a very traditionalist audience member knows that we’re playing Beethoven, Opus 59, #3, but also comes to have their ears are also opened by Don Byron or by Angélica Negrón. That pairing of traditional and new alters how they view hearing the Beethoven and vice versa. When we play, say, a concert with a collaborator, we love this cross pollination. We hope that the music that we play creates a memory, or a it sparks a conversation that lasts beyond that moment in the concert hall.  

Why is Brooklyn Rider a CMA member?
I had this wonderful conversation the other day with Arnold Steinhardt (one of the founding members of The Guarneri Quartet) about when they started out. I think there was a lot less professionalized chamber music in America, and certainly there were fewer string quartets than there are today. The world of chamber music has changed a lot, and CMA has been part of that explosion of chamber music around the country. For my dad, who was a violinist at the Metropolitan Opera, chamber music was something you did for fun in your living room with friends. But it wasn’t his job. His job was the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Today, chamber music does come from the home and the living room, but it has also exploded on the stage. And CMA has been a big part of that. In these times, it feels more important to be part of community of ensembles and advocates and to gather together. I think CMA provides all of that.  

It’s National Chamber Music Month, what do you love about chamber music?
This relates to Citizenship Notes! In a chamber group, you practice being a good citizen. You have to be strong in yourself, believe in your idea, and bring it to bear with others who might have a very different idea of how it goes. This is true even in a group, as long-time collaborators and working together as Brooklyn Rider. Then you have to find a way to make harmony, or depending on the content, be able to keep your voice forward. I think there’s a constant passing of the torch; democracy doesn’t mean lack of hierarchy. There can be hierarchy that is constantly changing. There’s intimacy you can feel with four instruments, and you’re also very portable. You can setup in a cafeteria in a bar, you can play in a big concert hall, you can play in in someone’s living room. I love all those things.  

Learn more about Brooklyn Rider on their website: www.brooklynrider.com
And listen to The Four Elements, available May 23: brooklynrider.bandcamp.com/album/the-four-elements-icr033