Return from Long Island

bpqadmin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:10:11 +0000

The BPQ is back home and resting after a wonderful weekend in Long Island!

We started the week off at Stony Brook University with the first LISFA (Long Island String Festival Association) chamber music clinic. We worked with 11 fantastic chamber groups from across Suffolk county and had a very successful culminating concert that afternoon. Thank you to all the musicians, parents, and teachers that came and gave it your all!

That same Saturday evening the BPQ quickly rushed off to the Southampton Cultural Center to perform our first “On the Verge” program. After a brief night of rest we gave “On the Verge” another swing at the Blue Point Public LIbrary to a fantastic audience that made us feel so warm and welcome. It was so great to perform Beethoven to such focused and sensitive listeners!

Goodbye for now, Long Island. We’ll be seeing you again on April 10th at Stony Brook University for our collaboration concert with the great Colin Carr!

Four Quartets: Variations

bpqadmin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:16:30 +0000

“Four Quartets: Variations,” revolving around T. S. Eliot’s inimitable sequence Four Quartets, is a theatrical, musical and poetic tour de force. Moored by the performances of four vocalizing actors and four poets interacting with excerpted and remixed text of Eliot’s Four Quartets, the project also features byways into performance sets by the Bryant Park Quartet (string quartet) and The Guidonian Hand (trombone quartet), as well as guest artists Iktus Percussion Quartet, which expand the musical reaches and correspondences of the poem. Emphasizing the profundity and structural revelations of Eliot’s book-length text, the actors and musicians surround the poets’ recitations with extended techniques of all varieties, from improbable instrumental sounds to extremes of vocal and improvisatory production, letting the text re-echo in time past, time present, and time future. Fare forward, voyagers.

These videos are from the first half of the Burlington, VT show. Second half coming soon!

The quartet of actors are Marya Lowry, Phil Timberlake, Corianna Moffatt, and Nate Speare, while participating poets include Thalia Field, R. Dwayne Betts, Cathy Park Hong, Katie Ford, Major Jackson, Jon Woodward, and Oni Buchanan.

Grateful thanks to the following individuals for their support in producing this project:
Sponsors: Colleen Hovey and Chris Bator, Sirkku Kontinnen and Harri Kytömaa
Contributors: Robin Welte and Art Murray, Paula and Jack Barthel, David and Joella Hricik, Tom and Debbie Bross, Greta and Bob Ingraham, Jan Pechenik, Jaqueth Hutchinson