ETHEL is the name of an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
string quartetA string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments — usually two violins, a viola and cello — or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
based in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
that is dedicated to the performance of
new musicContemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.- Categorization :...
.
ETHEL was formed in 1998. Unlike most string quartets, ETHEL plays with
amplificationAn instrument amplifier is an electronic amplifier that converts the often barely audible or purely electronic signal from musical instruments such as an electric guitar, an electric bass, or an electric keyboard into an electronic signal capable of driving a loudspeaker that can be heard by the...
and integrates
improvisationImprovisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
into its performances. Its members include Cornelius "Neil" Dufallo,
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
;
Ralph FarrisRalph Farris is an American violist, violinist, composer, arranger, and conductor. He specializes in new music and is a founding member of the string quartet ETHEL....
,
violaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.The casual observer may mistake the viola for the violin because of their similarity in size, closeness in pitch range , and nearly identical playing position...
; Dorothy Lawson,
celloThe cello is a bowed string instrument. The word derives from the Italian violoncello. A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, and as a member of the string section of an orchestra...
; and Mary Rowell,
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
. Dufallo replaced one of the quartet's original violinists,
Todd ReynoldsTodd Reynolds is a gay American violinist, composer, and conductor well-known for his work with amplified violin and electronics. A student of Jascha Heifetz and former principal of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Reynolds entered into the contemporary music scene in New York as a member...
.
ETHEL performs original music as well as works by notable contemporary composers such as
Julia Wolfe'Julia Wolfe' is an American composer. She was born in Philadelphia and works in New York. Wolfe's music is rhythmically vigorous and often clangorously dissonant. As a composer associated with the downtown style of new music she is not averse to drawing on rock and minimalism as primary...
,
John ZornJohn Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn's recorded output is prolific with hundreds of album credits as a performer, composer, or producer...
,
Don ByronDon Byron is an American composer and multi-intrumentalist. He primarily plays clarinet, but also used bass clarinet and saxophones....
,
Marcelo ZarvosMarcelo Zarvos is a Brazilian pianist and composer. He began in classical music in his teens and studied at the Berklee College of Music. He is more known for jazz and had success with the album Dualism accompanied by saxophonist Peter Epstein. He has done several film scores including the scores...
,
Pamela ZPamela Z is an American composer, performer, and audio artist who works primarily with her voice and live electronic processing.-Music career:...
,
Phil KlinePhil Kline is an American composer. After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in English Literature, he formed the New York No Wave band The Del-Byzanteens in the early 1980s with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and painter James Nares, collaborated with photographer Nan Goldin on the...
,
John KingJohn King may refer to:Politics*John King, 2nd Baron King , English MP and peer*John King , United States Representative from New York*John Alsop King , Governor of New York, 1857–1859...
and many more.
ETHEL is the name of an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
string quartetA string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments — usually two violins, a viola and cello — or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
based in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
that is dedicated to the performance of
new musicContemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.- Categorization :...
.
ETHEL was formed in 1998. Unlike most string quartets, ETHEL plays with
amplificationAn instrument amplifier is an electronic amplifier that converts the often barely audible or purely electronic signal from musical instruments such as an electric guitar, an electric bass, or an electric keyboard into an electronic signal capable of driving a loudspeaker that can be heard by the...
and integrates
improvisationImprovisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
into its performances. Its members include Cornelius "Neil" Dufallo,
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
;
Ralph FarrisRalph Farris is an American violist, violinist, composer, arranger, and conductor. He specializes in new music and is a founding member of the string quartet ETHEL....
,
violaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.The casual observer may mistake the viola for the violin because of their similarity in size, closeness in pitch range , and nearly identical playing position...
; Dorothy Lawson,
celloThe cello is a bowed string instrument. The word derives from the Italian violoncello. A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, and as a member of the string section of an orchestra...
; and Mary Rowell,
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
. Dufallo replaced one of the quartet's original violinists,
Todd ReynoldsTodd Reynolds is a gay American violinist, composer, and conductor well-known for his work with amplified violin and electronics. A student of Jascha Heifetz and former principal of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Reynolds entered into the contemporary music scene in New York as a member...
.
ETHEL performs original music as well as works by notable contemporary composers such as
Julia Wolfe'Julia Wolfe' is an American composer. She was born in Philadelphia and works in New York. Wolfe's music is rhythmically vigorous and often clangorously dissonant. As a composer associated with the downtown style of new music she is not averse to drawing on rock and minimalism as primary...
,
John ZornJohn Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn's recorded output is prolific with hundreds of album credits as a performer, composer, or producer...
,
Don ByronDon Byron is an American composer and multi-intrumentalist. He primarily plays clarinet, but also used bass clarinet and saxophones....
,
Marcelo ZarvosMarcelo Zarvos is a Brazilian pianist and composer. He began in classical music in his teens and studied at the Berklee College of Music. He is more known for jazz and had success with the album Dualism accompanied by saxophonist Peter Epstein. He has done several film scores including the scores...
,
Pamela ZPamela Z is an American composer, performer, and audio artist who works primarily with her voice and live electronic processing.-Music career:...
,
Phil KlinePhil Kline is an American composer. After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in English Literature, he formed the New York No Wave band The Del-Byzanteens in the early 1980s with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and painter James Nares, collaborated with photographer Nan Goldin on the...
,
John KingJohn King may refer to:Politics*John King, 2nd Baron King , English MP and peer*John King , United States Representative from New York*John Alsop King , Governor of New York, 1857–1859...
and many more. The group's 2004-2005 season culminated with a 45-city U.S. and European tour with the
rockRock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music....
musicians
Joe JacksonJoe Jackson is an English musician and singer–songwriter, now living in Berlin, whose five Grammy Award nominations span from 1979 to 2001...
and
Todd RundgrenTodd Harry Rundgren is an American musician, singer-songwriter and record producer.-Early career:Rundgren was born in Upper Darby, PA. He began his career in Woody's Truck Stop, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based group based on the model of Paul Butterfield Blues Band. However, he left the band to...
, which included an appearance on
Late Night with Conan O'BrienLate Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC from 1993 to 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and stand-up comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 a.m....
.
(video) Their 2005-2006 season included the
Cantaloupe MusicCantaloupe Music is a record label founded in March 2001 "created by the founders of Bang on a Can for music between the cracks", those founders being composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, and Bang on a Can Managing Director Kenny Savelson...
release of its second CD,
Light, performances at
BAMBrooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
's Next Wave Festival in New York, first-time performances in Miami (Florida), the
Krannert Center for the Performing ArtsThe Krannert Center for the Performing Arts was built in 1969 in Urbana, Illinois, USA, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an educational and performing arts complex. Herman C...
in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, performance at the new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at
RPIRensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or RPI, is a private research university located in Troy, New York, United States.RPI was founded in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer for the "application of science to the common purposes of life", and is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking...
in
Troy, New YorkTroy is a city in New York, U.S., and the county seat of Rensselaer County. As of the 2000 census, the population was 49,170. Troy's motto is Ilium fuit, Troja est, which means "Ilium was, Troy is."...
as well as at the
TEDTED is an academic organization owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation. TED is well-known for its annual, invitation-only conference devoted to "ideas worth spreading"...
(Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/138, and a monthly residency at
Joe's PubJoe's Pub is a nightclub in Lower Manhattan that hosts live performances regularly. The venue is located at 425 Lafayette Street in Manhattan, New York. It is a for-profit division of the Public Theater...
http://www.joespub.com For the past two years, ETHEL has been the string quartet
in residenceArtist-in-residence programs and other residency opportunities allow visiting artists to stay and work 'for art's sake'.These programs offer conditions that are conducive to creativity and they provide for working facilities, ready to be used by individual artists.- Residency Profiles :No two...
with the
Native American Composers Apprenticeship ProjectThe Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project is a program dedicated to teaching Native American young people to compose concert music. Each year, a different string quartet is in residence, and the young composers work with a different Native American composer...
(NACAP), an affiliate program of the Grand Canyon Music Festival, which is dedicated to teaching
Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
young people to compose
concert musicClassical music is the mainstream music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times...
.
All members of ETHEL are Juilliard School of Music alumni. Members of the group performed or recorded with
Bang on a CanBang on a Can is a multi-faceted musical organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon. It is a major force in the presentation of new concert music, and has presented hundreds...
,
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln CenterThe Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is an American organization dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music. Its website states that it is "the nation’s premier repertory company for chamber music."...
, the
Orpheus Chamber OrchestraThe Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a Grammy Award-winning classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. It is well known for its collaborative leadership style, in which the musicians, not a conductor, interpret the score....
, the
New York Chamber SymphonyThe New York Chamber Symphony was an American chamber orchestra based in New York City. It was active from 1977 to 2002.It was founded in 1977 by its founding music director Gerard Schwarz, and Omus Hirshbein. Its original name was the Y Chamber Symphony, and it was the resident ensemble at the...
, CONTINUUM,
Sheryl CrowSheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Her music blends rock, country and pop into one mainstream sound, and she has won nine Grammy Awards...
,
Roger Daltrey Roger Harry Daltrey CBE is an English singer-songwriter and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who...
, and
Yo-Yo MaYo-Yo Ma is a French-born American virtuoso cellist and composer and winner of multiple Grammy Awards. He is one of the most revered cellists of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is also a highly accomplished musician on the piano, viola, and violin.-Biography:Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris to Chinese...
's
Silk Road ProjectSilk Road Project, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas among different cultures along the Silk Road. The...
.
Recordings
- 2000 - Oscar Moore: The Indescribable Nth, animated film with soundtrack by Bennie Wallace, Character Builders
- 2000 - Joe Jackson: Night and Day II
Night and Day II is a 2000 album by Joe Jackson. It was a revisit of the style of a prior album, Night and Day. The songs are about New York lifestyle, seen by different characters...
, Sony
- 2001 - Mel Graves: Day of Love, Mutable
- 2001 - Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the Modern Creative and Free jazz mediums. Abrams compresses both contemporary and traditional ideas into lean, elegant pieces.- Biography :Abrams attended DuSable High School...
: The Visibility of ThoughtThe Visibility of Thought is an album of contemporary classical compositions by Muhal Richard Abrams performed by various ensembles which was released on the Mutable Music label in 2001. The album features performances by Abrams, Jon Deak, Joseph Kubera, Mark Feldman, Thomas Buckner, the ETHEL...
, Mutable
- 2002 - Dayna Kurtz: Postcards From Downtown, Kismet/Mri
- 2003 - Julia Wolfe: The String Quartets, Cantaloupe Music
- 2003 - ETHEL, with music by John King, Phil Kline, Todd Reynolds, and Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music and music for Balinese gamelans. He plays the clarinet, bass clarinet, and metallophone, borrowing from classical music, avant-garde, and jazz...
, Cantaloupe Music
- 2004 - Lukas Ligeti
Lukas Ligeti is a composer and percussionist. His work incorporates elements of jazz, contemporary classical, and various world musics.- Background :...
: Mystery System, Tzadik
- 2004 - Dayna Kurtz: Beautiful Yesterday, Kismet/Mri
- 2005 - Neil Rolnick
Neil B. Rolnick is an American composer and educator living in New York City.Rolnick's compositions have appeared on 13 records and CDs...
: Shadow Quartet, Innova RecordsInnova Recordings is the independent record label of the non-profit American Composers Forum, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota...
- 2006 - John King: AllSteel, Tzadik
Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...
- 2006 - Light, with music by Timo Alakotila
Timo Alakotila is a Finnish composer, arranger, and musician born June 15, 1959.Timo Alakotilas' range of music styles stretches from Finnish folk music of the pelimanni style over some jazz influences to more or less Finnish style tangos, and with some extensions to classical music...
, Don Byron, Mary Ellen Childs, Einstein the African grey parrot, Lennie TristanoLeonard Joseph Tristano was a jazz pianist and composer. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres...
, Pamela Z and Marcelo Zarvos, Cantaloupe Music
- 2006 - For New Orleans, Benefit compilation CD including artists Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...
, Indigo GirlsThe Indigo Girls are an American folk rock duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers.They began in Atlanta as a regular act at The Little 5 Points Pub, and were tangentially part of the Athens, Georgia college rock scene that included The B-52's, Pylon, R.E.M., The Georgia Satellites, Widespread...
, Natalie MerchantNatalie Anne Merchant is a professional musician. She joined the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and left it to begin her solo career in 1993. Merchant has a contralto vocal range.-Family:...
, Marshall CrenshawMarshall Crenshaw is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he grew up in the northern suburb of Berkley, Michigan. Marshall graduated from Berkley High School in June of 1971. Crenshaw began playing guitar at age ten...
, Dan WilsonDan Wilson is a Grammy Award-winning Minnesota-based guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He is both a solo artist, signed to Rick Rubin's American Recordings, and the lead singer of the occasionally-active band Semisonic, in which he wrote hits like "Secret Smile", "Closing Time", and "Chemistry"...
, the JayhawksThe Jayhawks are an American alternative country and rock band that emerged from the Twin Cities music scene during the mid 1980s. Their country rock sound was influencial on many bands who played the Twin Cities circuit during the 80s and 90s like Uncle Tupelo, The Gear Daddies and The Honeydogs. ...
and more, Sugarfoot Music.2008 - they visited Helena middle school
External links
Video
- ETHEL video
- TED Talks: Ethel performs "Blue Room" at TED
TED is an academic organization owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation. TED is well-known for its annual, invitation-only conference devoted to "ideas worth spreading"...
in 2006