N E W Y O R K • L O S A N G E L E S

THE KNIGHTS

Critical acclaim for artist

“…talented and vivacious Brooklyn indie orchestra" The New York Times “As always with the Knights it was a careening, intense performance...The first section of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Lullaby and Doina” is an exuberantly moody song, with rich melodies in the cello and violin that the brothers Eric and Colin Jacobsen ripped into with gusto. The lullaby dissolves into little riffs over trembling strings, the viola (Max Mandel) oscillating weirdly, before the whole ensemble bursts into the finale, an irresistibly racing dance like klezmer on speed, which the Knights played with confident virtuosity.” The New York Times “...a little orchestra of some of New York's best strings-about-town“ The New Yorker

"The Dynamic Young Brooklyn Orchestra" The New Yorker

“A fellowship of young musicians of diverse and accomplished backgrounds who come together for the shared joy of musical exploration."You had the feeling of being with musicians, not just observing them...“ The New York Times “supercharged Romanticism of Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht," performed with passion and beauty“ The New York Times

“truly an exhilarating experience“ The New York Sun

“...brought the music to life in a way that was devoid of elitism, awkwardness, and - even on a cold February night - coughing.“ The New York Times “The performances were gutsy and often unrestrained.” The Irish Times “No dreamy dawdling here, just an oxygen-fueled romp painted in vivid hues.” The New York Times “Few ensembles are as adept at mixing old music with new as the dynamic young Brooklyn orchestra” The New Yorker

THE KNIGHTS

PAGE 2

“Rained out during a Central Park engagement last month, the exuberant young chamber orchestra the Knights surges once more unto the bandshell with a special guest, the violinist Vera Beths, and a program of works by Rossini, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Debussy and Haydn.” The New York Times Reviews of Scott St. John, Lara St. John, Mozart “Sinfonia Concertante,” Concertos Nos. 1 and 3, with The Knights conducted by Eric Jacobsen “...the Knights are a chamber orchestra with an exciting degree of vividness in both new music and old” The Indianapolis Star “Talk about a connection. Many artists draw close through music, but these two are actually related, as brother and sister. And it shows. Teaming up for Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, Lara and Scott St. John deliver an intimate, animated rendition, rounded out by the exceptionally polished Knights. Playing solo, Scott, a violinist in the St. Lawrence String Quartet, gives a dashing account of the Violin Concerto No. 1, and Lara offers a spicy, individualistic reading of Concerto No. 3. Grade: A” Cleveland Plain Dealer “This is a match made in heaven. The gifted Canadian siblings Scott and Lara St. John team up with the often cutting-edge New York chamber orchestra the Knights (see Center Stage, page 29 of October 2010 issue), who are best known for modern fare ranging from Shostakovich to Jimi Hendrix. They’re led here by Eric Jacobsen, also of Brooklyn Rider. Together, these gifted young players have created a flawless recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola in Eb major, K. 364; Violin Concerto No. 1 in Bb major, K. 207; and Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216.” Strings Magazine Reviews of Experience: Live from New York “Cellist Jan Vogler busts out of his usual concert-hall setting in this live session recorded at the hip New York-based ensemble The Knights on a Shostakovich-heavy program that is hipster friendly. The CD kicks off with Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No. 2, Waltz No 2 (popularized in Stanley Kubrick's 1999 Big Apple film fantasia Eyes Wide Shut), and concludes with a sting-poppin' rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s incendiary "Machine Gun". The centerpiece is the gorgeous Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 in Eb major, Op. 1007, with Vogler and The Knights deftly navigating the tricky dynamics from a whisper to a scream. Ascendant violist and composer Lev "Lyoja" Zhurbin contributes arrangements to the Jazz Suites and lends his 1978 composition Garmoshka. This is one of the year's best cello recordings.” Strings Magazine “A new disc by Jan Vogler is certainly the oddest - it was recorded in 2008 in a New York City nightclub once known as the Village Gate (now Le Poisson Rouge) with a young chamber orchestra that calls itself The Knights. Although his cello is given a big, bassy timber that makes it sound as if it was electronically juiced, Vogler is technically on the mark, and he and The Knights capture the spiky spirit of the piece with more character than most.” The Strad

THE KNIGHTS

PAGE 3

The Knights in Germany – assorted press quotes October 2010 Concert in Darmstadt, 1 October 2010 “The joy of performing together was omnipresent on this Friday night. (…) In the second movement [of Beethoven’s symphony no. 7] Jacobsen knows how to effectively approach the Funeral March and then give a sample of the ensemble’s potential in the following Presto…Jan Vogler and the Knights were in their quintessential element and caused thundering applause.”

Darmstädter Echo, 4 October 2010 Concert in Bonn, 2 October 2010 “Under Eric Jacobsen’s baton we heard a revolutionary bunch who did not only turn the music inside out, but asserted themselves with a brilliant musical achievement and a conclusive concept of interpretation. (…) Also Rock and Reggeae were present (…) and showed the Knights’ absolute sovereignty while moving through the different genres. (…) Young conductor (and cellist) Eric Jacobsen is not only a true spitfire but a serious interpreter who knows exactly how to play the music and where he and his knights are heading to with their unconventional philosophy. The Knights are a technically high-ranking ensemble who can take it on with any other orchestra, enormously open and familiar with both the romantic and the historic styles. The Bonn audience was thrilled.”

Luxemburg Tageblatt, 12 October 2010 “They are befriended and enthused by the same idea: to present classical music in the same way as pop music, and to open the classical ensemble not only for pop music, but also for other styles such as Jazz, Klezmer, world music. In the Telekom-Forum, this worked wonderfully. The audience, among which were many youngsters, was thrilled from the beginning. (…) Beethoven’s relaxed and bold Turkish March was followed by the first movement of Shostakovich’s cello concerto, performed with virtuosity by cellist Jan Vogler, and the first movement of Beethoven’s symphony No. 7, which conductor Eric Jacobsen and the orchestra played with much temper. (…) The Knights seem to have one intention: show that any kind of good music is fun.”

General-Anzeiger Bonn, 4 October 2010 Concert in Berlin, 5 October 2010 „Their scope of styles is tremendous, let alone in the encores: the expertise and musical understanding of the quarter tones in the Arab melody, how the strings stir film music sauce, how Kyle Sanna transformed Hendrix’ experimental guitar playing into string music. (…) The Knights members, this becomes quickly obvious, owe their impact to a rousing sense of rhythm. The combination of the rhythmic structure and a historically inspired articulation with little vibrato produces a Beethoven sound of great conciseness. Though rehearsed to the last semiquaver, the sound is not approached from the tutti merger but from the musicians as individuals (who do not appear in tails). (…) The Knights definitely are a live orchestra – it would contradict their aesthetics to sound like a remastered CD. (…) One might find their straight [Shostakovich] interpretation and cheerfully drastic colors naïve – it does not sound like the man of sorrows but like one of the most vital musicians of the last century. But at the same time, this adoption shows an un-american openness and an infective, eclectic joy of different styles. And should serve as an example for orchestra musicians who only work-to-rule and demand a raise of salaries.”

Berliner Zeitung, 7 October 2010

THE KNIGHTS

PAGE 4

Concert in Dresden, 7 October 2010 “The introductory Adagio of Schubert’s D major symphony strained energetically, Jacobsen aligns the Allegro full of verve and woke a round, powerful sound with little vibrato. He acts as a fresh interpreter of classical music with interest in the historical. The movement oscillates intensely between the earnest tutti and the deliberate sound of the woodwinds.”

Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten/Leipziger Volkszeitung, 9 October 2010 “On this evening Beethoven’s symphony No. 7 went straight into the heart. (…) From the beginning, Eric Jacobsen shapes the sound pattern with incredible ease and chamber music-like transparency. The Allegretto […] seemed enriched by almost bouncy, optimistic facets, the grand final, as the exposition, was interpreted with elegant dramaturgy in an easy but not rushed tempo. Absorbing intensity spoke from the performance of Dmitri Shostakovitch’s cello concerto No. 1 with soloist Jan Vogler, […]. (…) Enthusiastic applause for the expressive, terrific performances […].”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 October 2010

THE KNIGHTS The New York Times • June 24, 2015

The Knights Are Spirited in Central Park, Despite Soggy Weather BY JAMES R. OESTREICH Write-ups of summer concerts in New York parks are often as much weather reports as reviews. So be it.

The Knights, an orchestral collective, opened the 110th season of the free Naumburg Orchestral Concerts in Central Park on Tuesday evening in the 92-year-old Naumburg Bandshell and thereabouts. The orchestra is, in the words of the program, “flexible in size and repertory” and “dedicated to transforming the concert experience,” but transformation doesn’t always happen so much in the moment as it did on this evening.

With rain falling lightly and heavier weather predicted at concert time, five string players led the members of the sizable audience to shelter inside the lower level of the nearby Bethesda Terrace and performed Zhou Long’s attractive and entertaining “Chinese Folk Songs” (“Driving the Mule Team” and the like), which had been scheduled for the second half of the program. It was the “most portable” of the pieces, Colin Jacobsen, the Knights’ concertmaster, said in introductory remarks, expressing the hope that blue skies would follow by its end.

The rain, indeed, mostly relented, allowing players and audience alike to return to the band shell. The orchestra performed standing, huddled toward the back of the shell, to keep instruments already bathed in humidity well clear of the active damp, and umbrellas sprouted occasionally among listeners. The program, broadcast live on WQXR, was truncated, with Arvo Pärt’s “Tabula Rasa” and three of the four movements of Gyorgy Ligeti’s “Concert Romanesc” — much of the evening’s interest — simply dropped.

The orchestra’s strings performed Schubert’s relatively uneventful “Five German Dances” (D. 90) unconducted. Then Eric Jacobsen, Colin’s brother and fellow founder of the Knights, conducted the full orchestra in Dvorak’s splendid “Czech Suite” and the furious finale of the Ligeti work, the movement played.

The performances, in every case spirited and vital, survived amplification and the elements surprisingly well. You had to fear for the Dvorak’s delicate opening, but it came across reasonably well, and the rest was suitably robust. Only the insectlike skittering and buzzing of the Ligeti eluded the ear in large part. Still, it was a wonder there was any snap and bite at all on this soggy occasion.

THE KNIGHTS The New York Times • June 25, 2014

Lending Mozart a Left Hand The Knights and Timo Andres Fill Out Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ BY ZACHARY WOOLFE In a time that has brought us renovations and revisions of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” among other overhauls, do we really need a recomposition of Mozart’s “Coronation” Concerto?

Yes, it turns out.

As played by the Knights, an excellent chamber orchestra, on Tuesday at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, the composer and pianist Timo Andres’s take on the “Coronation” (otherwise known as the Piano Concerto No. 26 in D) felt necessary — not a lark but a surprisingly moving dazzler.

Mr. Andres’s version, first performed in 2010, gains legitimacy from the fact that the original score leaves out large swaths of the left-hand half of the piano part. Mozart — both the work’s composer and performer — would simply have known what to play.

The musicologist Alfred Einstein thought the standard completion inoffensive. But, in his opinion, “the whole solo part would gain infinitely by revision and refinement in Mozart’s own style.”

That is just what Mr. Andres has offered in his left-hand completion, though he does so with a distinctive and, I think, valid definition of “Mozart’s own style.” Wouldn’t the endlessly creative, notoriously playful Mozart want his concerto finished in a way that looks to the future, much in the way that even the unfinished score anticipates the seething virtuosity of Romanticism?

The sounds emerging from Mr. Andres’s piano were sometimes blockily dissonant, sometimes jazzy and sometimes dreamy and dissolving, like Debussy’s. His version was most persuasive, his balancing of classical and contemporary styles most assured, when the piano played alone; especially given the burden of outdoor amplification, his relationship with the full orchestra sometimes turned cloudy.

But his cadenzas were masterly — the one at the end of the third movement receded to daring delicacy and expansiveness — and the slow central movement ached with nostalgia for a softer past while embracing the angularity of the present.

That dual loyalty was also in Ives’s “Three Places in New England,” which closed the Knights’ ingenious program, the first event in this year’s series of free Naumburg Orchestral Concerts. The ensemble was sensitive to the nocturnal sensuality of the first movement, the jumbled energy of the second and the hymnlike eloquence of the third.

Arranged for orchestra, Boccherini’s piquant quartet “Night Music of the Streets of Madrid,” which opened the concert, anticipated Ives’s tone painting. “Light Screens” (2002), for flute and string trio by Andrew Norman, like Mr. Andres an important young American composer, spoke even more strongly to “Three Places in New England.”

The Knights The New York Times • June 25, 2014 page 2 of 2 Inspired by the stained-glass windows of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mr. Norman’s work brilliantly evokes wide-open spaces without being too neat or symmetrical. Confidently unsettling, it was a chamber-scale echo of Mr. Andres’s daring recomposition.

THE KNIGHTS

The New York Times August 2, 2013

Music to the Rafters in Windsor Terrace BY JOANNE KAUFMAN

The Jacobsen brothers, Colin and Eric, are half the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. They’re also half the quartet

occupying a three-story brick house in Brooklyn. They bought it almost two years ago for reasons they eagerly

enumerate: the bones and the vibe were good, the ceilings were tall, the subway was right at the end of the block. Oh,

and it scored high on the Vondelstraat and gezellig scales (more about this in a second).

“At different times Eric and I studied for a year in Amsterdam with husband-and-wife musicians,” said Colin, 35, a

violinist/composer whose younger and charmingly goofy brother is a cellist/conductor. “They owned this big old house

where they brought up their kids. Many generations lived there, and it was very communal. Just being in the feeling of

warmth — gezellig.”

Their teachers’ home made them think, “If they can do it, we can do it,” Colin said. Then, when they saw the house in

Windsor Terrace, he added, “we definitely said, ‘This is very Vondelstraat,’ which is the street where our teachers

lived.”

The Jacobsens, who are also part of the Silk Road Ensemble and the artistic directors of the orchestra collective the

Knights, have done a variation on the communal theme on the street where they live.

Colin and Maile Okamura, his wife of two and a half years, are on the top floor (like the other units, theirs has 1,100

square feet), and a cousin is just down the stairs. Eric, 31, has the first-floor apartment, an open space that’s often

pressed into service as a rehearsal hall, concert space and recording studio (the Knights recently backed up Francis

Ford Coppola on a song he wrote to herald the birth of a grandchild; he paid them in wine). A warm-up for a recording

date featuring Brooklyn Rider and the banjo player Béla Fleck drew 25 people; as many as 50 can be accommodated.

They make music, then they make dinner. The best seats in the house are around the reclaimed-wood dining table in the

middle of Eric’s apartment. “I used to have a table that you could extend and it would seat 10,” Eric said. “But that felt

like it had to be an occasion, and there are so many times that 10 people are here. So we thought, let’s just have a table

that can seat 10 people and we’ll squeeze in more.”

Their grandmother, he recalled, used to tell them that “when the door opened and my father walked up the steps for

dinner, she didn’t know how many of his friends would be with him.” And so it is at their house, he said. “Sometimes

it’s 4 o’clock and there are three people coming for dinner and then it’s 5 and there are 10 people coming for dinner.”

The spillover crowd perches on the stools that line one side of the granite-topped island in Eric’s kitchen. “I really

wanted an island,” he said. “Somebody can be here cutting an onion and I can be stirring something and we can still

talk about the music we just played and about life.”

They also settle on the brown leather sofa and the wing chair, both from the library in the Jacobsens’ boyhood home on

Long Island. When the weather cooperates, they head to the yard, where Eric grows tomatoes, basil and shishito

peppers, and where the patio chairs also date back to the brothers’ childhood.

“When we move, which isn’t that often, and our friends come over,” Colin said, “they say, ‘Oh, this feels like the last

place you lived.’ It’s very grounding.”

The Knights

The New York Times August 2, 2013

page 2 of 2

Eric’s apartment, with its stark black-and-white kitchen, white oak floor and mostly uncluttered surfaces, is a

counterpoint to Colin’s light and colorful space, where the cabinets are filled with wooden figurines and small framed

photographs, where the top of the dining table is reclaimed wood from a bowling alley and where the kitchen floor is

paved in blue-and-white tile. The brass spigot in Colin’s cast-iron bathtub is shaped like a swan, a classic example, Eric

said, of gezellig.

There was a brief period — it may have lasted, oh, as long as a minute — when the Jacobsens thought that they would

mess with the pattern of a lifetime and live under separate roofs. Cherchez la femme.

“At a certain point I fell in love,” Colin said. “I was going to get married and we were trying to figure out the next step:

were we going to break up the brothers?”

Maile, he said, “realized she was marrying both of us — sort of. She calls Eric her ‘brusband.’ Separate ways would

have been simpler, but the big idea was that if we pooled our resources we could get a house.”

Eric moved in right after closing, and workers began knocking down the walls between rooms and pulling down

plasterboard that — happily — exposed brick. His brother and sister-in-law arrived a year later.

Their father, Edmund, now retired, was a violinist in the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera; their late mother, Ivy,

was a flutist. “I chose the violin because of my father,” Colin said. “Eric was always big for his age, so they handed

him a cello.”

Some of Colin’s first memories are of his parents’ friends coming over and playing music through the night. “And at

some point Eric and I were able to join them,” he said. They both eventually attended Juilliard.

“Together but not together” was the doctrine during the house search. “Because our lives are so intensely intertwined,”

Eric said, “we wanted to have our own entrances and we wanted to have some distance between us. But we wanted to

be able to come up or downstairs to rehearse or to talk about the program for this or that upcoming concert.”

There’s an air shaft between the bathrooms in their apartments. A dangled rope is a highway for notes. On Eric’s 31st

birthday in June, the payload, courtesy of Maile, was a shirt from Italy and a tin of truffle salt.

There aren’t a lot of house rules: knock first. “A phone call first would be even better,” said Eric, who for the record

doesn’t appreciate Colin stealing his socks or the last bits of his food. There was, it seems, an incident involving

granola.

Otherwise, harmony has prevailed. “You always hear, ‘Don’t get into business or real estate with your family

members,’ but we’ve done both,” Colin said. “Thus far, cross your fingers, it’s been great.”

THE KNIGHTS/WU MAN Santa Barbara News-Press "Scene" Magazine • February 22, 2013

IN CONCERT: The Knights of Fresh Music-Making - The Knights make their Southern California debut at UCSB Campbell Hall BY JOSEF WOODARD There are orchestras, such as we hear on a regular basis even right here in Santa Barbara, and there are The Knights, a fresh model of an orchestra, reinventing and reinvigorating as it goes. Making its Southern California debut Saturday night at UCSB Campbell Hall, the young and innovative NYC-based chamber orchestra, a malleable and mobile operation run by the brothers Colin and Eric Jacobsen, will perform an enticing but accessible program, with Wu Man, virtuoso of the Chinese pipa, as special guest.

This is a contemporary orchestral entity with ears open to contemporary sounds, on one hand, but with a strong sense of traditional roots as well. Just recently, the group released a Beethoven, with the Fifth Symphony and Triple Concerto, but last year's release, "A Second in Silence," somehow made sequential music from composers as varied as Schubert, Satie, Philip Glass and Morton Feldman.

Among the projects coming up for The Knights is a role in an unconventional project created by composer Lisa Bielawa and called the "Tempelhof Broadcast," later this spring. Taking place on the airfield turned public park in Berlin where the Cold War airlift took place, the work enlists several hundred musicians, amateur and professional, gathered on the old tarmac and interacting in different ways.

When not active in The Knights, both Jacobsen brothers keep busy as members of their acclaimed string quartet, The Brooklyn Riders, as well as being ongoing members of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. "Between those three groups," Colin Jacobsen commented during a recent phone interview from a tour stop in Lafayette, Ind., "most of the year is taken up with activities, which is exciting. And they inform each other but are also totally different groups."

News-Press: It seems that this group is well respected and established at this point. Have things gone faster and stronger than you expected in the beginning?

Colin Jacobsen: Looking at the momentum that the group has, the current phase of the group is since 2006, when we first played with our wind-playing friends. Prior to that, we were a string orchestra and we only did a couple of things a year, and they were basically just for fun. We had such a good time doing it, and got feedback, so then we started putting more energy into it.

It's definitely a labor of love for my brother and I. It's about bringing together these friends that we've had for many years and who we have developed bonds with, basically through playing chamber music in our living room at first. Growing out of that, we put on a concert and were asked to give a name to the group we were playing with. My brother said, "Oh, this is The Knights," and that stuck. We grew into the name, I would say, and find ourselves lucky to be continuing to play together, years later.

The Knights/ Wu Man Santa Barbara News-Press "Scene" Magazine • February 22, 2013 page 2 of 4 NP: This is a very interesting program you're bringing to UCSB. It's like an encounter with some 20th-century repertoire, and newer, but without the audience fear factor attached, maybe.

CJ: I hope audiences will enjoy this program. I think it's pretty colorful, and pretty much all the music on it tells a story of composers or people stepping outside of their immediate time or place for inspiration. In the case of Stravinsky, he was looking back to Bach. Of course, this is a big year for Stravinsky, with the "Rite of Spring" having its centennial, but actually, the "Dumbarton Oaks," the piece we're playing, is having its 75th anniversary. We're looking forward to actually playing that piece at Dumbarton Oaks in D.C. in October.

Milhaud, from a similar time in the early 20th century, goes to Brazil and gets obsessed with all things Brazilian, incorporating about 30 popular Brazilian songs into that piece, in strange and surreal ways. Lou Harrison was inspired by Wu Man herself. The pipa is a Chinese instrument, of course, but that piece also incorporates Harrison's love of gamelan music and even a Neapolitan song and a 14th-century Spanish song. It's kind of all over the map. Wu Man's own tune, "Blue and Green," is partly based on Chinese folk music. I arranged that for The Knights.

As an orchestra, people in the group have different skills. Mike Atkinson arranged the Debussy "Afternoon of a Faun" for our group, as well. We see The Knights as a place where all of those different passions and talents can find voice, hopefully, over the course of years, and even in the course of this program.

NP: Have you collaborated with Wu Man in the past?

CJ: This is the first time that The Knights have worked with her. But both my brother and I played in the Silk Road Ensemble, which is where we met her, in the summer of 2000. That's an old friendship, and it's great to bring her into our orchestral family. She commands the stage for her pieces, but it's also very interactive with the group.

NP: Your album "A Second in Silence" is a beautiful piece of work. I don't know that there is another album existing which combines Schubert, Satie, Glass and Morton Feldman.

CJ: I don't know. That idea for that album came about the way many things in The Knights do, through discussion. Within the group, we have different committees, and there is a programming committee. We get together and listen to stuff and brainstorm. There's a violist in the group, Max Mendell, who is a Morton Feldman aficionado. He suggested that there was something about the simplicity of the melodic lines of Schubert that worked well with those kinds of minimalist composers, particularly through the lens of Samuel Beckett, who was obsessed with Schubert, and who worked with Morton Feldman. The Glass piece on the album, "Company," was actually written for a stage reading of Beckett's prose poem "Company."

At first, we knew we wanted to play "Unfinished Symphony" and the youthful Third Symphony. We started listening to stuff and started to feel a spiritual connection between those works, that resonated with us. The more we played them together, the more we thought, "This is going to be an interesting album."

NP: Reading what's in the program, it does seem audacious, but when heard from beginning to end, there is such a seamless logic to it. Was that the underlying message?

The Knights/ Wu Man Santa Barbara News-Press "Scene" Magazine • February 22, 2013 page 3 of 4 CJ: Yes. I'm glad you listened to it in that way, because we hope people will. But a lot of people don't have time to sit down for a whole album. We hope people take the time, because that's the way we thought of it, as a "through" thing. For our programs in a live situation, as well, we hope that the pieces will be both centers unto themselves but also talk across centuries and cultures to each other, and that an audience at our show will have a journey.

NP: The group evolved and went through different phases, but as it has become more serious and organized, are you motivated by this idea of thinking beyond the norms and traditions of the classical music world and are you trying to consider new ways of doing things?

CJ: Yeah. I would say that the important thing to my brother and I, at least internally, is to start at the place that we always have, which is this sense that The Knights is our orchestral sandbox. If you put yourself in the mind of a child and are free to explore things as a group, then creative things will happen. That goes for all aspects of thinking about programming, thinking about a context, where we want to play music.

In Santa Barbara, we're interacting with students. We may show up somewhere random and play, taking music directly to people. But we want to find interesting projects that resonate with us, as well.

NP: It is intriguing that you touch on these different shores of repertoire. Now, you have recorded Beethoven's Fifth, recently released on CD, and "Unfinished Symphony," and I'm assuming you'll continue taking on those standard pieces, along with contemporary work. Is that mix critical to the group's sense of self, or sense of mission?

CJ: Yeah. And we want to play to where people are. That's the concert hall, but it's also sometimes just showing up somewhere and playing, or finding a project like Lisa's, that's unusual. We're going to keep brainstorming ways that the orchestral and concert experience can continue to be meaningful to people. I think it's possible that in the digital age, the live experience takes on an even greater value.

NP: Speaking of the portability of this group, the orchestral tradition is usually very grounded, in a home team situation with some amount of touring, but orchestras are generally rooted in a particular hall, in a particular city. You're presenting a different kind of model. It's mobile.

CJ: Yeah. There is a sense that we could show up at your home, at your school, or at your local bar. We've been in all of those places at some point. Even here in Lafayette, we have a free day, and we might show up at the local hang bar and play some stuff.

NP: Feel free to do that in Santa Barbara.

CJ: I think it might happen. I can't say for sure, but we may do something like that. I think it's good to have a mix and catch people by surprise.

That goes for the concert hall, too. Obviously, we love the concert hall because it's the most focused listening experience, but within that, hopefully, the music gets to a place, in terms of our ideal as musicians, where audience and musicians are really present in the moment, and full of active listening so that the moment is fraught with possibility. That's our goal, and that can happen in many places.

The Knights/ Wu Man Santa Barbara News-Press "Scene" Magazine • February 22, 2013 page 4 of 4 NP: Generally speaking, would you say the musicians in the group are part of this new generation of classical musicians who are well-trained and grounded in tradition but are also open-minded about stretching out beyond the classical world as we've known it in the past.

CJ: Oh yeah, we're a group where people come in from many different places. The flutist, Alex Sopp, plays with The Knights and two other groups, Why Music and the Now Ensemble. You can hear her flute on basically every indie pop album. She has created a need for herself, to where people think, "If I'm going to make a pop album, I need Alex Sopp."

I think you'll find that most people in The Knights have many different interesting lives outside of The Knights. For us, The Knights is an upswelling and a coming-together. Then we go away and do lots of other things and hopefully come back fresh, bringing new creativity to the group.

NP: You have basically carved out your own musical existence and reality, outside of the classical system. Early in your career, could you have imagined your musical life turning out the way it is now?

CJ: I did not imagine it, when I was, say, in school. My brother and I came from a musical family. Our dad played violin in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for over 30 years. The world that he came from was much more specialized and defined. Either you played in an orchestra or you were a soloist. Chamber music was something you did for fun, in someone's living room without so much of a viable life outside of that. There were things like Marlboro that gave people the chamber-music bug.

People have just spread out all over the country, and there's so much great chamber music all around the country now. At the time that we were in school, we saw a world out there that was changing — the business of music totally changed, with record companies and elsewhere. Either you could see a great abyss before you, or you could possibly see opportunity to do something different.

I do feel lucky to be part of a generation and there are so many great groups out there who are trying to find their own way in the world and do something different. Hopefully, The Knights is part of that.

THE KNIGHTS

Santa Barbara Independent February 21, 2013

The Knights to Perform at UCSB with Wu Man February 23

Arts & Lectures Presents the New York-based Indie Orchestra The Knights BY CHARLES DONELAN

Arts & Lectures Presents the New York-based Indie Orchestra The Knights

The last few years have not been kind to the world’s symphony orchestras. Oh, the big leaders are still doing fairly

well, and television journalists can’t seem to get enough of Gustavo Dudamel, but elsewhere, there’s often chaos, with

labor disputes and budget shortfalls becoming as familiar accessories to city symphonies as tympanis and tuxedoes.

Yet leave it to Brooklyn, the geographical and symbolic center of all things hipster and indie, to have served as the

birthplace of The Knights, a brilliant new orchestra project from the brothers Colin and Eric Jacobsen, who brought us

the great postmodern string quartet known as Brooklyn Rider. On Saturday, February 23, The Knights will be at

Campbell Hall with Wu Man, the pipa virtuoso, to perform a fascinating program that ranges from Igor Stravinsky to

Lou Harrison to Claude Debussy. I spoke with violinist and cofounder Colin Jacobsen about what makes this group,

and this concert, so different, and so indie.

You and Eric are breaking new ground with your approach to forming ensembles. How did that come about? Our dad

played in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, and when he was starting out, you were either a soloist or you were in an

orchestra, and those were totally different careers. Today, as a result of musicians working directly with one another to

create new models for the group, there are beginning to be some different kinds of work available, and obviously, we

think that’s good. From a certain perspective, of course what we are doing — growing an independent orchestra at this

time — makes us look like Don Quixotes, but we tend to see it the other way round, because at this point it may be that

pursuing a career through the traditional roles is what’s become really quixotic.

What can you say about the orchestra and your soloist, Wu Man? Many of us were in the Silk Road Project together,

and all the members of The Knights overlap with other musical worlds, so for us the inclusion of an artist like Wu Man

on the program comes naturally. The Lou Harrison concerto that we are doing was written for her, and the other piece

we will perform with her, Blue and Green, is something that she wrote. We will also be playing Stravinsky’s

“Dumbarton Oaks,” the Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune of Claude Debussy, and Le Boeuf sur le Toit by Darius

Milhaud.

The Knights released a Beethoven recording just a few weeks ago, is that correct? That’s right, there is a new

Beethoven recording, of the Triple Concerto and Symphony No. 5. For the Fifth, we just tried to strip away the layers

of interpretation that led to the establishment of the familiar old Beethoven on a pedestal that everyone is used to. With

the Triple Concerto, the composition is more lighthearted and operatic, so we approached it a bit differently. The idea

there was to re-create it as more of a chamber piece, and to frame the parts as jazz-like riffs that are being tossed back

and forth among the three soloists.

How would you advise a prospective listener to think about the upcoming program here in Santa Barbara? For this

concert, I’d recommend listening for the dialogue between Wu Man and the orchestra. She can be very delicate, but she

can also wail like an electric guitar. This is Musical America’s 2012 Instrumentalist of the Year; she rocks out.

THE KNIGHTS

Houston Chronicle February 15, 2013

Hot shots bond in chamber group BY COLIN EATOCK

The Knights sounds like the name of a street gang from "West Side Story."

But no, it's a Brooklyn chamber orchestra, made up mostly of young hot-shot players - founded by two musical

brothers, cellist Eric and violinist Colin Jacobsen.

As Eric Jacobsen tells it, the history of the orchestra dates to about 2000, when teenaged music students would get

together in his Long Island home to play for the fun of it. They jokingly called themselves the Knights of the Many-

Sided Table.

"The reason we chose the name," Jacobsen says, "was some of us were reading about King Arthur at the time. But very

quickly it came to have nothing to do with any story but our own. For us, the name stood for the endless hours that we

played together. We bonded together by playing chamber music until 7 o'clock in the morning - and those close

relationships still exist within the group."

The Knights play at the Wortham Theater Center on Wednesday, presented by Society for the Performing Arts

Houston. The concert is part of the orchestra's Texas debut tour: The night before it will be in Austin, and the night

following it will be in College Station. Also appearing with the Knights is guest soloist Wu Man, who plays the pipa, a

kind of Chinese lute.

For the tour, the orchestra will contain 27 players. But the Knights can number as few as 15 or as many as 50.

"We feel that being able to play small or large makes us better at doing it all," says Jacobsen, who serves as the

orchestra's conductor - when they need one, and when he's not playing his cello. Colin Jacobsen is the orchestra's

concertmaster. (The two string players are also members of the Brooklyn Rider quartet.)

In recent years, there's been a surge in new chamber orchestras across America. Many are in the Northeast - such as the

East Coast Chamber Orchestra or New York's Arcos Orchestra - but some new ensembles are in Los Angeles, San

Francisco, Cleveland and other cities. Houston's River Oaks Chamber Orchestra is part of this trend.

They tend to be young, flexible and innovative. Often, they're built around personal friendships rather than formal

audition procedures.

"It's also about people wanting to make art with their own rules," Jacobsen says. "We could be compared to a garage

band - people who enjoy each other's company and who work together. That's what's so organic about the group. We

come from a similar starting point about how to make music."

The Knights have been called "hipsters." But Jacobsen isn't entirely comfortable with the label.

"I don't really think so," he gently protests. "We're pretty down-to-earth. And we're not as young as we were 10 years

ago. But we don't want to exclude anyone - so if there's anyone in the group who's a hipster, that's fine."

In 2007, the Knights made a big splash in New York, with a concert at Carnegie Hall, and began to record for the Sony

label. The orchestra now has seven CDs and DVDs, on several labels, with a new all-Beethoven disc released late last

year.

The Knights

Houston Chronicle February 15, 2013

page 2 of 2

Since their Carnegie debut, the Knights have played at Chicago's Ravinia festival and have toured Germany and

Ireland. They've teamed with big-name artists such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman. And they've also

taken an interest in non-Western music.

This explains Wu's involvement in the current tour. Originally from Hangzhou, China, she brought her pipa to the U.S.

in 1990 and today is America's leading exponent of the instrument.

"The pipa has four strings," the San Diego musician explains. "It's similar to the lute, guitar, banjo or mandolin, and

other plucked instruments."

She'll be performing Lou Harrison's "Concerto for Pipa With String Orchestra," which the late American composer

created for her in 1997. As well, she'll play "Blue and Green," which she composed. Wu says the piece is partly based

on a Chinese folk tune and partly based on a melody her son wrote.

"This is my first big piece with a Western orchestra," Wu says. "To me, the color blue represents the sky and the ocean,

and is peaceful. Green is like springtime: It's vivid and happy. So one kind of music is lyrical and meditative, the other

is exciting. I put them together in one piece."

Also on the Knights' program are Claude Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, arranged for chamber

orchestra; Igor Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks Concerto;" and Darius Milhaud's "Le Boeuf sur le Toit."

It's this kind of eclecticism - mixing old and new, East and West - is typical of the Knights. It's all part of their goal to

break down the categories and boundaries that separate musical genres.

"Like knights," Jacobsen suggests, "we're on a quest. There's a goal, but the quest is itself part of the goal. That's

something that we all hold dear."

THE KNIGHTS

The New York Times February 10, 2013

Optimum Pipa Plucking, Surrounded by Friends BY CORINNA DA FONSECA-WOLLHEIM

Wu Man and the Knights at Asia Society

As a rule critics pay little attention to friendship in music. Instead we talk about collaboration, with its implicit

emphasis on labor, as if ensemble music were a task on a par with roofing a house. Thursday evening’s concert by Wu

Man and the Knights at Asia Society was a refreshing reminder of how much music gains when it is performed by

friends who delight as much in their art as in one another’s company.

Ms. Wu is today’s leading performer on the pipa, the Chinese plucked string instrument that looks like an upright lute.

Through the Silk Road Project she befriended the violinist Colin Jacobsen and his brother Eric, a cellist. The Jacobsen

brothers are the driving force behind the Knights, an orchestral collective conducted — when a conductor is needed —

by Eric Jacobsen. The group grew out of late-night chamber-music-reading parties they hosted in their Brooklyn home

in the late 1990s. Today their performances still have the feel of a pickup game of basketball in the park.

The concert opened with a gutsy rendition of Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” concerto, which the Knights played

standing up, without a conductor. Crisscrossing lines of communication became visible in the players’ facial

expressions and body language: Cellists smiled at each other over a shared joke of offbeat pizzicati. Two violinists

leaned into each other with hurts-so-good grimaces as they dug into one of Stravinsky’s more scrumptious dissonances.

The concerto for pipa with string orchestra by Lou Harrison seems to require that sort of shared sense of humor and

trust. It’s a delightful piece that traverses musical worlds spanning Chinese folk songs and Vivaldi. For Ms. Wu it

provides an opportunity to show off the polyglot range of her instrument, which can produce translucent beads of sound

as well as sustained singing phrases.

Ms. Wu also presented one of her own compositions, “Blue and Green,” arranged for pipa and orchestra by Lev

Zhurbin and Colin Jacobsen, in which she draws on folk melodies she encountered during her travels through China,

and a tune borrowed from her young son. The Knights seemed to delight in this game of cross-dressing, in which

sounds resembling Chinese instruments came out of a Western orchestra. For a few bars a group of them broke into

song.

A fascination with travel and color also informs Debussy’s “Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune,” which the Knights

played in an arrangement by Michael P. Atkinson that heightened the daring nature of its writing for wind instruments.

Alex Sopp played the flute solo with exquisite expression, while Eric Jacobsen’s direction created a meticulously

balanced sound.

Humor asserted itself again in “Le Boeuf sur le Toit,” by Darius Milhaud. Not every note of this raucous dance score

was in perfect place, but with players beaming as they shimmied and swayed, it felt more like a cast party anyway.

THE KNIGHTS

Interlude July 13, 2012

Brooklyn Rider BY CATHY HUNG

Heralded by NPR as “recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble,”

the genre-defying string quartet‟s gripping performance style has drawn critical acclaim from classical, world and rock music scenes. One of the quartet‟s core members, Colin Jacobsen, unveils their collective philosophy by discussing the

group‟s origin, artistic beliefs, vision and fellow members‟ unique bowing styles.

How did your quartet members meet and decide to play in Brooklyn Rider?

Brooklyn Rider is the result of several long-standing relationships: Eric and I are brothers, so we‟ve known and played

music with each other our whole lives. Nick and Johnny were roommates while at the Curtis Institute of Music. When

they moved to New York around 2000, we all started playing chamber music in a variety of settings together. It was

immediately apparent that there was good chemistry, and a shared aesthetic vis-à-vis the inherited tradition of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Debussy, (etc.) but we also held a desire to expand the boundaries of what a traditional

string quartet could do. It still took many years of solidifying friendships; of shared experiences within the Silk Road

Ensemble; of summoning the courage necessary to commit to the idea, the band, each other; and finally, of finding a name (maybe the hardest part!) before we became Brooklyn Rider.

How has Yo-Yo Ma‟s Silk Road Ensemble inspired the birth of the Brooklyn Rider?

Playing within the Silk Road Ensemble has certainly been a formative influence in the lives of all of us in Brooklyn

Rider, but I wouldn‟t say it is directly responsible for the birth of Brooklyn Rider. As I mentioned before, the personal and musical relationships of the members of the quartet pre-date the creation of the Silk Road Ensemble, and I believe

that we would be playing together regardless of whether we were also SRE members. However, we‟ve all been

fortunate to gain new perspectives on music, communication and means of expression through our work both with Yo-Yo and all the other Ensemble members. Some of those perspectives include: (a.) A renewed belief that notes written

on a page (or even communicated purely orally) tell just part of the story- that whether the music is Beethoven or

Kayhan Kalhor (Persian composer/kemanche virtuoso) there‟s a structure and if you break it down to its basics, you can unlock a door into their universe. (b.) Know what you know- and then take risks and let yourself be vulnerable in

the face of something unfamiliar. Yo-Yo created a sense of trust within the Silk Road Ensemble that encourages

experimentation. And the Ensemble members all know a tradition deeply, (Persian classical music, Indian, Chinese,

etc.), are generous and willing to share that knowledge but are also curious to learn more about what they don‟t know and see if it can translate to their instrument. We‟ve tried to take those lessons and apply them to our quartet‟s process-

of the repertory we decide to play, of how we play it, of how we treat each other within that process.

How do you perceive „musical genres‟?

I think musical genres, or labels in general are convenient for coming up with one sentence that helps someone picture

what something might sound like. And certainly they make separating CDs or records in a store easier (or in today‟s

online world- “if you like this, you‟ll like that”). But they tend to pigeonhole something and miss out on the incredible depth (usually the result of a multiplicity of sources) that goes into making a musical language what it is- which, like

spoken language is a living, breathing thing, constantly changing due to the creativity of individuals within a collective.

The Knights

Interlude July 13, 2012

page 2 of 3

If you are asked to name one genre that is unique of our time, what would that be?

Rather than name one genre that is unique to our time, I would like to state a challenge of our time: in a fully global

world (ease of travel, possibility of hearing music on the internet from anywhere in time or geography more or less), how do we participate in a meaningful way with traditions outside the one we grew up in while continuing to share and

develop the one we represent? I would say that within our recording projects (Dominant Curve, Passport, Silent City,

Seven Steps) we‟ve tried to answer that question in our own way. But it‟s heartening to see people and artists all around

the world grappling with that issue.

How does the Brooklyn Rider share its artistic beliefs with “Der Blaue Reiter”?

As I mentioned earlier, finding a name is a difficult thing. The four of us in Brooklyn Rider have always looked to the

past as a way to move forward. This has included a love of old, scratchy records from the beginning of the recorded era that give us a window into the world of Brahms, Beethoven, Debussy from musicians who either knew those people or

were just a couple of steps removed from them. We admired the Blue Rider group (Munich, ca. 1911) for their desire to

have dialogue across the arts from painting and visual arts (people like Kandinsky and Franz Marc) to music (e.g. Schoenberg, Scriabin). They also looked outside academic art training and their immediate geography and time period

for inspiration. In the Blue Rider Almanac, they highlighted art from the South Pacific and Africa, Japanese drawings,

medieval German woodcuts and sculpture, Egyptian puppets, Russian folk art, and Bavarian religious art painted on

glass. But we didn‟t want to call ourselves the Blue Rider Quartet because we live in a different time and place and wanted to honor that too- Brooklyn!

Other than crossing genres, is there anything else you are working to change in the climate of modern music scene?

Since forming Brooklyn Rider, I have been composing and arranging quite a bit. We recently wrote our first collaborative composition, Seven Steps, which is the first track on our album of the same name. We are not alone in the

desire as performers to engage in the creative process. More and more musicians with “classical” training both within

groups and as individuals are trying to connect more with audiences, themselves and the tradition we come from

(Beethoven, Mozart and Bach were performer/composers/improvisers). This seems to be a healthy thing that will hopefully create a better ecosystem when the composer/performer/audience triangle isn‟t as separate as it may have

been in the last century. Some examples: Carla Kihlstedt, Christina Courtin, Michi Wiancko, Rubin Kodheli. Pekka

Kuusisto, Mike Block, Alex Sopp, Giovanni Sollima, Y Music, Now Ensemble.

How many more „unconventional‟ ventures will the Brooklyn Rider march towards in future? What would be the most

„unconventional‟ performance by the quartet you could imagine?

First quartet in space?

Personally, I am curious on the violin/viola bowing methods that some of your members adopt. Does this bowing give

you a better control of your genre-defying repertoires on the modern instruments?

I think you might be referring to Johnny‟s bow hold in which he holds the bow closer to the balance point rather than at

the frog. This was something he came to in order to have greater control over articulation and specificity of attack- and actually something he came to before we were even in the Silk Road Ensemble. So it was actually a response to his

search for ways to express what was in his ear and head in terms of the “classical” repertory- not necessarily “genre-

defying” repertoires. A fringe benefit for him has been that a lot of the music we play that has gone outside of the classical rep engages in some sort of fiddling tradition in which having a lighter feel in the hand allows you to do all

sorts of fun rhythmic things with the bow and doesn‟t require you to use the whole stick. What‟s funny about it is that

even though Johnny has had less stick length to use, I still feel like I‟m learning from him how to sustain a line better. One additional thought goes back to an earlier point about learning from the past- if you look at photos/drawings of

people like Louis Spohr, they hold the bow in much the same place as Johnny. I think where one holds the bow, like

many things in our age, has become overly standardized and while teachers need to have a basic system in place, they

The Knights

Interlude July 13, 2012

page 3 of 3

should be flexible to the individual physicality of their students. (Incidentally, recently Johnny‟s been trying out the

frog again.)

(To Colin and Eric Jacobsen) What is the ambition of The Knights against mainstream big orchestras (and their programme)?

The Knights do not have an ambition against mainstream big orchestras- we admire what many of them have achieved

and are able to achieve. However, we do believe there are other ways to go about making music as an orchestra in the

time we live in. Our rehearsal process is more like a chamber music group in which the floor is open to comments and all are free to contribute ideas to the conception of a piece. Eric is our conductor, (though we play some rep without

conductor) and ultimate arbiter when an impasse is reached on interpretation. He comes with his own ideas based on

extensive study, but does not shove them down people‟s throats. He acts more as a catalyst for mutual understanding than a dictator. Within The Knights, there are people with many different talents and interests. Some have extensive

early music/period practice backgrounds. Some play a lot of contemporary music. Others are interested in jazz, or are

singer/songwriters, or are composer/arrangers. We try to let people shine and contribute as much as possible within the orchestral context.

As one of the pioneering ensembles in classical music, what is the future of the genre in your opinion?

There is much to be optimistic about in the world of classical music at the moment. It seems as though more and more

musicians are aware (and have to be aware) of a bigger picture of how music fits into society. There‟s greater creativity being exhibited by performers both on their instruments and away from them (ie more composing/arranging, more

creation of unique projects, unexpected venues, chamber music festivals, letting in influence from popular music, non-

western music). On the negative side, arts funding, and in particular arts education funding, seems like one of the first things on the chopping block whenever the economy heads south. So as classical music tries to become less elitist on

one level, it faces a future in which a smaller and smaller portion of society might have a base level of

understanding/exposure. Fortunately, many organizations and people recognize this problem and are trying to do

something to address it. Within our experiences as Brooklyn Rider, some of our most fulfilling times have come in residencies when we get to sit in a community for a week and visit schools and work with students before playing a

concert. (For example, we did a residency a couple of years ago in Central Florida through the Bach Festival Society

and a Gift of Music that allowed us to work with over 250 students and we will return this November).

THE KNIGHTS

The New York Times July 11, 2012

Planes, Buses, Fumes, Brakes, Gnats and Melody BY ALLAN KOZINN

Knights in Naumburg Orchestral Concert at Central Park

The Knights have been the de facto house band of the free Naumburg Orchestral Concerts in Central Park for the last few summers, and they are clearly comfortable enough in that role to experiment with approaches to outdoor

programming.

Most ensembles, including this one, have typically built their parks programs of robust works that stand up easily to the formidable competition of airplane engines; bird song; the distant, dull hum of the city’s traffic; passing radios; and for

a while on Tuesday evening someone playing a snare drum not far from the Naumburg Bandshell.

But the Knights decided not to be cowed by all that. Among their offerings on Tuesday were Wagner’s “Siegfried

Idyll” — not a whispered work, exactly, but its subtleties are abundant — and Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” a work rich in delicate textural details.

Soft-spoken moments were also plentiful in Thomas Adès’s “Three Studies From Couperin” (2006), and even when the

music was more outgoing, as in Schumann’s Cello Concerto, both the Knights and Julia MacLaine, the soloist, emphasized refinement over power.

It is a measure of the young orchestra’s accomplishment that even in this program of decidedly non-outdoor-ready

music, it held the attention of a hefty audience through the entire program. (The 900 seats in front of the band shell

were full; another 200 or more people stood at the back and sides.) It says something about the lure of live music too: listeners could easily have stayed home and heard the live broadcast on WQXR.

If the idea was to draw the audience’s attention toward the stage, the strategy worked. The Wagner benefited from a

natural, seductive flow and, once your ears became acclimated to the modest amplification, a plush shapely string sound. It was performed without a conductor; Eric Jacobsen, who usually conducts, played in the cello section.

Mr. Jacobsen took to the podium for the Schumann, Debussy and Adès works, abandoning it again only for “Ascending

Bird,” the program’s finale. This is an exotic fantasy by Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghaei, based on an Iranian folk song (and often used as an encore by Brooklyn Rider, the adventurous string quartet in which both Colin and Eric

Jacobsen, who are brothers, perform).

In the Schumann, Ms. MacLaine played the solo line with a compelling serenity that underscored even the more

dramatic passages in the finale. It was an unusual approach that prized graceful introspection over display. The orchestra, as in the Wagner, produced a solid, thoroughly unified sound, qualities it retained — with a measure of

suppleness and mystery added — in the Debussy.

Mr. Adès’s Couperin studies — clever orchestrations of Baroque keyboard works — require flexibility too, not least because of the inventiveness with which Mr. Adès has threaded Couperin’s themes and countersubjects through the

sections of the orchestra.

This is where external noise (including the drummer) took its greatest toll, but Mr. Jacobsen and his players overcame those problems with a fluid, pastel-hued performance that made you want to hear the piece again, indoors.

THE KNIGHTS

All Things Considered May 5, 2012

Fireworks From Cuba, And Schubert That Grooves: New Classical

Albums BY TOM HUIZENGA

Although it always seems fashionable to forecast the downfall of classical music, enterprising musicians both young

and not so young continue to make deeply satisfying recordings. For this visit to weekends on All Things Considered, I

was delighted to uncover the little known (at least in this country) Jorge Luis Prats, a terrifically talented Cuban pianist whose once uncertain career appears to be resurging — at 55, he has signed a handsome record deal. Then there's The

Knights, a young chamber orchestra with a postmodern take on Schubert. They cleverly juxtapose his music with

kindred spirits from the 20th and 21st centuries — Erik Satie, Philip Glass and Morton Feldman. Conductor John Eliot Gardiner, now an elder statesman of the period instrument movement, takes his second shot at the Brahms German

Requiem with extraordinary results. And on the lighter side, Israeli composer Ronn Yedidia writes sparkling music for

a great clarinetist. Listen to excerpts from these new releases below.

Streaming audio sample from the album:

The Knights: Schubert (arr. Ljova) — 'Gretchen am Spinnrade'

Artist: The Knights

Album: A Second of Silence

Song: Gretchen am Spinnrade ("Meine Ruh'..."), song for voice & piano, D. 118 (Op. 2)

This smartly programmed album stitches together disparate composers. Did you know Schubert was a minimalist? He

sounds like it when the churning rhythms of pieces like "Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel" and the "Unfinished" symphony are set beside the motoric repetitions of Philip Glass. And the spaces between the notes are quietly explored

in pieces by Erik Satie (two Gymnopedies) and the late 20th-century master of nervous tranquility Morton Feldman.

These are seamless juxtapositions played with verve from the fresh-faced New York chamber orchestra The Knights, a

brother organization to the string quartet called Brooklyn Rider.

THE KNIGHTS

The Independent March 30, 2012

Album: The Knights, A Second of Silence (Ancalagon) BY ANDY GILL

The starting point for this intriguing programme from young US ensemble The Knights is Morton Feldman's suggestion that part of the magic of Schubert is "that kind of hovering, as if you're in a register you've never heard".

Accordingly, The Knights have sought to intersperse works by Schubert amongst subsequent pieces reflecting that

hovering characteristic, from Debussy's arrangements of two of Satie's "Gymnopédies" to Philip Glass's four-part "Company". It's a daring conceit which works beautifully, particularly the section which elides between Satie's

"Gymnopédie II", Schubert's 3rd and Feldman's "Madame Press Died Last Week At Ninety", a sequence which seems

to erase time within a single fluid flourish.

DOWNLOAD THIS Gymnopédie II; Symphony No. 3; Madame Press Died Last Week At Ninety; Company

THE KNIGHTS

21C Media Group February 23, 2012

WQXR Invites The Knights for Second Term as Ensemble-in-

Residence (April 3 & 4)

Includes Found Sound Contest, Launched Today and Culminating in The Knights’ Performance of John Adams’s

Christian Zeal and Activity

After successfully presenting The Knights as its inaugural ensemble-in-residence last fall, WQXR – the nation’s most-

listened-to classical music station – is inviting them back for a second residency on April 3 and 4. This time, the heart of the residency is an exciting interactive experience with listeners.

On Wednesday, April 4, The Knights will perform a concert that will include John Adams’s Christian Zeal and

Activity, using sounds submitted by listeners. Christian Zeal and Activity, the hymn-like central movement of Adams’s longer work American Standard (1973), instructs its conductor to incorporate within it “sonic found objects.” Fittingly,

the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer’s own recording of the work featured a segment of a call-in radio show.

Beginning today, WQXR and The Knights invite listeners – whether educated composers, young garage band buffs, or amateurs – to submit audio samples to their Found Sound Project competition on Indaba Music, the online music

creation site, by March 16. Additionally, Indaba will invite its community of more than 650,000 musicians to

participate. The Knights selection panel – which includes WQXR Vice President Graham Parker and Knights

musicians – will select one winning entry for inclusion in the work’s April 4 performance. If possible, an interview with the winner will accompany the concert broadcast. Further information can be found at www.wqxr.org/theknights.

The concert on April 4 will be performed at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR, the station’s intimate

and acoustically superior live event space, and will be broadcast live on 105.9 FM and wqxr.org.

“We are delighted to welcome The Knights back to WQXR, and are particularly thrilled that they’ve chosen to anchor

their imaginative crowd-sourcing contest in the WQXR residency,” said Graham Parker, Vice President of WQXR.

“This interactive, collaborative approach to performing John Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity perfectly matches

WQXR’s commitment to partnering and presenting classical music in distinct and innovative ways.”

The program also presents repertoire from The Knights’ US tour (which takes the orchestra to nine cities throughout

the South, Midwest, and Northeast from April 5-20) and their new album (The Knights: A Second of Silence,

scheduled for release on April 3): Copland’s classic Pulitzer Prize-winning ballet suite, Appalachian Spring (1944); selections from Peruvian composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, arranged for string

orchestra (2003); and Debussy’s orchestral arrangement of Satie’s Gymnopédie (1897).

In addition to the live performance, the WQXR residency will offer ensemble members the chance to “storm the castle” to introduce, on air, their own favorite works and recordings. The group will also be rehearsing in the Jerome L.

Greene Performance Space on April 3 and 4 prior to their concert there. The Knights will post video updates to

WQXR’s web site both before and after the residency period, and wqxr.org will also feature an “episode” page with an

article about the ensemble-in-residence, along with videos and music.

About WQXR

The Knights

21C Media Group February 23, 2012

page 2 of 2

WQXR 105.9 FM is New York City’s only all-classical music station, immersing listeners in the city’s rich musical

life. WQXR presents new and landmark classical recordings – as well as live concerts – from the Metropolitan Opera;

the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and the New York Philharmonic, among other city venues. WQXR broadcasts essential shows such as the Metropolitan Opera Radio Saturday Matinee Broadcasts; the New York

Philharmonic This Week on Thursday evenings; the McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase on Wednesday evenings;

and Symphony Hall each weeknight. For listeners in search of the new, WQXR also operates Q2 Music: an online

music station dedicated to contemporary classical composers, cross-genre adventures, and performances from New York City’s edgier venues. WQXR.org provides essential playlist info for online listening, as well as original content,

host blogs, NYC culture news, videos, and a free App.

About The Knights

The Knights are a New York-based orchestra founded by two brothers: cellist-conductor Eric and violinist-composer

Colin Jacobsen. While they were music students in the late 1990s, Eric and Colin began regular informal chamber

music readings at their home, inviting friends with a shared enthusiasm for the discovery and performance of new and historical music. These gatherings turned into public recitals, and the ensemble “The Knights of the Many-Sided Table”

was formed. As the number of performances increased and the group grew, the original collaborative spirit of chamber

music remained. The name – now simply “The Knights” – has symbolized the orchestra’s quest: always searching out

something bold and true to the music.

Members of The Knights are composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters, and improvisers who bring a range of cultural

influences to the group – from new music and early-music performance practice to jazz and klezmer, to pop and indie-

rock. The orchestra has collaborated with such artists as sopranos Dawn Upshaw and Susan Narucki; violinist Gil Shaham; singer-songwriter (and Knights violinist) Christina Courtin; Iranian new virtuoso Siamak Jahangiri; fiddler

Mark O’Connor; and Syrian clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh. The Knights have served as the resident chamber

orchestra of the MATA Festival for young composers, premiering music by Christopher Tignor and Yotam Haber. The

group has also worked closely with composers Lisa Bielawa, Ljova, and Osvaldo Golijov. The Knights have recorded two albums for Sony Classical: New Worlds (Ives, Copland, Dvorák, Golijov, and Gabriela Lena Frank) and

Experience: Live from New York with cellist Jan Vogler (Shostakovich, Hendrix, and Ljova). The group also partnered

with violinist Lara St. John for an album of the Mozart violin concertos for Ancalagon Records.

About Indaba Music

Indaba Music pioneered the online music collaboration space, enabling anyone with internet access to connect with

musicians from around the world to create, edit, and mix studio-quality music online. Indaba Music then expanded to provide musicians with opportunities from iTunes distribution and other sales tools to remix contests, original song

contests, and commercial music licensing. Indaba Music’s community has over 650,000 members from 205 countries

and territories.

THE KNIGHTS

CVNC January 11, 2012

The Musical Smorgasbord of Brooklyn Rider and The Knights BY JEFFREY ROSSMAN

Like the old saying that mothers love all their children equally, presenters try to outwardly portray the same level of

enthusiasm and admiration for all of their bookings. However, when Emil Kang, Executive Director for the Arts at UNC-

Chapel Hill, introduced Brooklyn Rider from the stage of Memorial Hall you could tell that he was particularly enthralled

with this unique string quartet. Supporting this observation was his announcement that over the next three years Brooklyn

Rider would return to the campus several times for extended residencies and concerts.

Frequent collaborators with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, (minus cellist Eric Jacobsen since that group already has a

fairly decent cellist) Brooklyn Rider is oftentimes portrayed as the bad boys of string quartets and in local ads the quote from

NPR that “This isn’t your grandfather’s string quartet” was used to attract a clientele other than the usual chamber music

devotee. So it was somewhat unusual when these four musicians walked out and played Mozart’s String Quartet No. 8 in F,

K. 168. For the Kochel geeks among you, one can see that this is an early work – written while Wolfgang could still be

considered a wunderkind at the age of 17. Violist Nicolas Cordes, and violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen all

played standing, while Colin’s brother, cellist Eric Jacobsen, was slouching it in a chair. This was a sterling example of what

constitutes being a superior musician. This supposedly “non-mature” work was awakened with brilliant technique, sensitive

phrasing and articulation, and subtly shifting tonal qualities. The highlight was the exhilarating final fugal allegro which

displayed the audacious chops of all the players and showed that the teenage Mozart had absorbed papa Bach’s teachings.

We now move on to the “bad boys” part of Brooklyn Rider as they played Seven Steps, an original communal composition

(gasp! Socialism in Chapel Hill). Composed while they were grappling with Beethoven’s monumental Opus 131 string

quartet, this is a wonderfully inventive piece that clearly shows there are still special effects and techniques left to explore on

stringed instruments.

Just when you think you’ve heard every type of crossover combination possible, up jumps something like this: Philip Glass

marries Brazilian master Joao Gilberto. Colin Jacobsen arranged Gilberto’s Undia, combining the sensual Brazilian with the

somewhat mechanical Glass, and, it worked for me. Next was a display of virtuosic gypsy fiddling as the group played a

traditional Romanian tune that also had a taste of Klezmer. The first half closed as they invited a guest flutist playing a thin,

black instrument whose sound can possibly be described as a piccolo recorder. The creativity of these musicians was amply

on display as they combined remarkable virtuosity with telepathic interplay and the ability to produce sounds which had even

seasoned string players in the audience asking “How’d they do that?”

Oh, did I mention that there was also a full chamber orchestra at this concert? In a most unusual bit of programming that I

don’t recall experiencing before, we had a brand-name string quartet followed by an orchestra. The Knights is a New York

based orchestra initially formed as a large group of friends just getting together to play for fun. Brooklyn Rider has been part

of this group from the start and cellist Eric Jacobsen serves as their conductor. For the third time in about three months,

Memorial Hall was presenting a performance of probably the most well-known symphonic work: Beethoven’s Symphony

No. 5. The size of the ensemble was actually slightly larger than your average chamber orchestra, but they played with the

flexibility and assurance of a quartet. Having just played this classic – and about to play it again next month – I was most

drawn to The Knights’ observance, sometimes excessively so, of the dynamics. The tension created, the releases and the

surprises brought about by these extreme ranges were quite exhilarating. While certainly not a HIP (Historically Informed

Practice) ensemble, they played with some, but not a great deal of, vibrato and the tempos were brisk and highly articulated.

Best of all, they all looked like they were having a great time.

THE KNIGHTS

San Francisco Classical Voice November 15, 2011

Freelance Orchestras Seizing the Moment BY BRETT CAMPBELL

The Knights: Music as Serious Play

Jacobsen is the main composer for The Knights, a New York “orchestra of friends” conducted by Colin‟s brother Eric, which has already played the city‟s most prestigious venues (Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center) and the hippest (Le

Poisson Rouge), has recorded on Philip Glass‟s Orange Mountain label, became the resident orchestra at the city‟s

celebrated MATA Festival for emerging composers, has performed around Europe, and has worked with stars like Dawn Upshaw, Gil Shaham, Osvaldo Golijov, and Yo Yo Ma, who‟s become a mentor.

The brothers set a goal of paying musicians from the outset, and have been gradually trying to increase that amount

over the years. But the members earn their livings by freelancing in various orchestras, chamber groups, Broadway

shows, Ma‟s Silk Road Ensemble, and in all kinds of genres. Many are in their 20s and 30s but some are in their 60s.

The players handle the nonmusical tasks, too. “There‟s as little divide between musicians and management as

possible,” Colin says. “We‟re not divided between the people playing the chord and the people writing the donor the

thank-you note,” his brother Eric agrees.

The Knights emerged a decade ago out of a group of friends who were going to the same school and got together to

play chamber music. After a couple of performances at the famed Bargemusic series, the group was able to afford

rehearsal retreats for more gigs. “We didn‟t set out to change the way orchestras do something,” Colin says. “We just wanted to put on concerts with our friends. We realized good things were happening and we focused on having

continuity between one project and others, both financially and in terms of the big picture. We kept doing what we

were doing, and people outside noticed and asked us to do more.”

“We do have a core audience,” Colin says. “As we‟ve grown together, the audience and musicians and community at large are starting to trust each other more and more, so whatever we program, they say „This sounds like an interesting

idea, let‟s try it!‟ Even if it‟s not standard repertoire, they‟re willing to try it anyway. That‟s a relationship we‟re trying

to build on.”

As with so many of these orchestras, that repertoire is generally project driven, such as their next album of Schubert‟s

music as viewed through the musical lens of the minimalists. Like other musicians of their generation, the Jacobsens

refuse to be limited to certain musical genres or periods. “You come from a cloistered conservatory, and you get out there in the world, and you want to play music for people of all generations, not just those older than you,” accordint to

Eric Jacobsen.

They‟ve also collaborated with a variety of artists. And they‟ve taken their work online, including a Google-sponsored

YouTube event that drew thousands of Web hits. “It showed that there are many people out there who want to hear orchestral music,” Colin says. “It‟s a huge audience, and they didn‟t just tune in for a few minutes but for the whole

thing. There‟s a whole world out there if you can reach them.”

THE KNIGHTS

Chamber Musician Today October 27, 2011

Pushing the Boundaries of Modern String Performance - The

Brooklyn Rider Quartet and The Knights Chamber Orchestra BY ANDREW FEIN & STEFAN AUNE

The Brooklyn Rider Quartet, composed of violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords,

and cellist Eric Jacobsen, is a modern string quartet that manages to stay rooted in the classic quartet repertoire while

pushing boundaries through creative programming and collaboration. All the members are veterans of Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, with which they have recorded numerous records, performed all over the world, and participated in an

invigorating blend of music and multiculturalism that encompasses traditions from all over the world. With Brooklyn

Rider, they combine classical training with the sort of DIY work ethic more commonly found in the punk underground, touring constantly, putting out their own records, and collaborating with like minded artists across different mediums.

The Brooklyn Rider has performed everywhere from concert halls to clubs to pubs. Their particularly busy schedule in

recent years has taken them to the Cologne Philharmonie, the American Academy in Rome, the Malmo Festival in Sweden, and the SXSW Festival in Texas, where they were the only classical group invited to perform amidst a who's

who of punk, hardcore, indie rock, noise, and hip-hop. They performed at the US Open tennis tournament, toured

Europe with Persian musician Kayhan Kalhor, and toured North America several times. This sort of grinding

performance schedule seems more reminiscent of hardcore punk band Black Flag's "get in the van" tour philosophy than your average string quartet, but it goes to show that hard work and taking matters into your own hands can pay off

in the classical work just as much as anywhere else. Be sure to keep an eye on the Brooklyn Rider website for up to

date tour information, as they are probably coming to a city near you sometime soon.

In addition to this active performing schedule, Brooklyn Rider has found the time to release a CD of Philip Glass' string

quartet works, and two other full length CD's, Dominant Curve and Passport, on the label In A Circle Records, which

was founded by violinist Johnny Gandelsman in 2008. They have worked closely with composers Derek Bermel, Lisa

Bielawa, Ljova, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, Jenny Scheinman and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, and they host an online art gallery highlighting works by their friends, the proceeds of which are used to fuel future projects. The Quartet has

also held residencies at Williams College, MacPhail Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Texas A&M University,

and Denison University. From teaching to releasing music, Brooklyn Rider does it all, and if they maintain this impressive pace they are sure to leave behind a wealth of excellent music and memorable performances.

In addition to Brooklyn Rider, brothers Colin and Eric Jacobsen are founding members and artistic directors of The

Knights, an orchestra located in New York that shares a similar spirit of collaboration and hard work with Brooklyn Rider.Eric serves as conductor as well.Boasting several full length CD's, as well as numerous national and international

performances, The Knights has grown out of informal chamber music reading parties into a well respected musical unit

that maintains a refreshing sense of fun, backed up by an impressive array of artistic talent. Check out The Knights

website here, which includes a schedule of upcoming performances and recordings.

The music world is lucky to have groups like Brooklyn Rider and The Knights - both as an example for what hard

work and self reliance can achieve, as well as for their artistic and collaborative work that is sure to enrich the classical

music landscape for years to come. Be sure to check out both of their websites, and don't miss them if they come through your town.

THE KNIGHTS

The New York Times September 18, 2011

A Lot of Schubert and a Touch of Poetry BY ZACHARY WOOLFE

As their engagements have become more prestigious, and their recording career has grown, the Knights, the excellent young

chamber orchestra, have kept up their longstanding relationship with Bargemusic. On Friday evening members of the group

returned to the idyllic performance space — which floats, sometimes gently and sometimes less so, next to the Brooklyn

Bridge — for a program mixing old and new.

Dominating the concert was the closer: Schubert’s sprawling Octet, led by the group’s co-founder, the sweet-toned, sensitive

violinist Colin Jacobsen. As always with the Knights it was a careening, intense performance. There were passages of rough

ensemble and uncertain pitch but far more that were richly passionate, like the riotous third-movement Allegro Vivace. After

the work’s dizzying range of moods and harmonies the players pulled back thrillingly for the final movement’s swift dance,

almost Baroque in its courtliness.

The austere dissonances of the octet’s second movement, as well as the performance’s exuberance and rhythmic bite,

seemed, in the group’s thoughtful programming, an outgrowth of the first half of the concert. This was framed by two works

by Argentine composers starting with Alberto Ginastera’s “Impresiones de la Puna.” The Ginastera begins with a low

melody in the strings that’s taken up by the flutist (the dazzling Alex Sopp), who spins off in a quick-bursting cadenza before

leading the players through the other two short movements, a folksy “Cancio” and a vibrant “Danza.”

The first section of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Lullaby and Doina” is an exuberantly moody song, with rich melodies in the cello

and violin that the brothers Eric and Colin Jacobsen ripped into with gusto. The lullaby dissolves into little riffs over

trembling strings, the viola (Max Mandel) oscillating weirdly, before the whole ensemble bursts into the finale, an irresistibly

racing dance like klezmer on speed, which the Knights played with confident virtuosity.

Between the Ginastera and the Golijov was the premiere of a new piece by Russell Platt. Or rather, like the program itself,

both an old and new piece. In 2002 Mr. Platt composed “Paul Muldoon Songs,” five settings of Mr. Muldoon’s poems, for

tenor and piano. He has arranged one of the five into what he calls a “song without words” for instrumental septet, which

takes as its title the first line of Mr. Muldoon’s “Avenue”: “Now That We’ve Come to the End.”

The brief, lovely work starts with gauzy high notes in the strings opening into seductively forbidding lines for the clarinet

(the eloquent Romie de Guise-Langlois) and piccolo (Ms. Sopp). All the instruments finally achieve an ominous consonance,

with a dark, subtle undercurrent in the double bass. The dull rumble of the motors of boats passing the barge was an

unexpectedly perfect accompaniment.

THE KNIGHTS

NY Daily News September 8, 2011

'We Are the Knights' BY DAVID HINCKLEY

'We Are the Knights' review: Unconventional Brooklyn orchestra votes on music set list

The Knights are a Brooklyn symphony orchestra that votes on what it will play. For that reason alone, "We Are the Knights"

becomes intriguing television.

Whatever you think of democracy as a decision-making system, you would probably guess that it works better for running

countries than for running an orchestra.

"We Are the Knights," which airs Thursday at 8:30 p.m. on Ch. 13, suggests you might be at least partly wrong.

The story of the Knights is so unconventional, it turns out, that for long stretches of time the viewer may forget he or she is

even watching a show about classical music.

That's not a knock on classical music. It's just unusual to see it discussed in the kind of animated terms usually reserved for

less stately styles of music.

Brothers Eric and Colin Jacobsen, who founded the orchestra and are its conductor and concertmaster, sound less like

academics lecturing about the glories of Beethoven than a couple of video-game geeks who just discovered and mastered an

incredible new animation adventure.

None of this means, however, that they don't take the music seriously. As sons of professional musicians, they developed

their own musical obsessions firmly and early.

Colin says he was 4 when his parents took him into a store and he saw a miniature violin. Hey, he thought, I can play that.

His parents bought it for him, and that's one of the roots of the Knights.

Besides the Jacobsens, most of the other Knights are also young, and the documentary suggests many of them have grown up

in the same professional musician-grooming world.

Playing with the Knights satisfies the drive to become better professionals, while at the same time enabling them to extend

their happy childhoods a little longer.

The playing is serious, but the attitude feels more like college, as if everyone belongs to the same fraternity or sorority.

Some of that comes from the musical selections, which include both traditional classical cornerstones and rearranged

versions of tunes from Jimi Hendrix or Bob Marley.

Yo-Yo Ma, one of the world's three or four most renowned classical musicians, sits in with the Knights when he's in town.

Why? asks the interviewer. Because it's fun, says Yo-Yo Ma.

What he doesn't have to say is that if it were only a goof, he wouldn't be there. His presence validates the musicianship part.

Mary Lockhart, executive producer and writer of the film, deserves full credit for making the documentary as lively, breezy

and fun as the Knights make music.

If this documentary doesn't make you feel good, you need to watch it again, because you made a mistake.

THE KNIGHTS

21C Media Group August 23, 2011

WQXR Inaugurates Ensemble-in-Residence Program with The

Knights, September 15-18

Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, New York City’s sole dedicated classical music station, is putting a fresh spin on the

historical radio symphony model when it launches its first Ensemble-in-Residence program this September with The

Knights, one of New York’s most talked-about young music groups. The Knights will take up residence at The Jerome

L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR, the station’s intimate and acoustically superior live event venue and broadcast studio, from September 15 to 18, and the ensemble will appear across all platforms: on air, online and on stage before

live audiences.

For the first several days, WQXR hosts will pop down to The Greene Space studios to report from the rehearsals and open the process to on-air and online audiences at www.thegreenespace.org. Exclusive video will be posted daily to

WQXR.org. Eric and Colin Jacobsen, brothers and co-artistic directors of The Knights, will serve as guest DJs when

they select their five favorite pieces and present their “Top 5 at 105” on Friday, September 16 at 12 noon. The following day, The Knights will “storm the castle” when its members take to the airwaves to present their favorite

pieces every hour. On Thursday, September 15, music students from the Cristo Rey High School in East Harlem will

attend a rehearsal and have been invited to join members of the orchestra for an afternoon jam session.

In addition, WQXR.org will have a page dedicated to the residency, featuring articles, videos, and audio about The Knights available at www.wqxr.org/theknights.

The residency concludes at noon on Sunday, September 18, with a live performance and brunch hosted by WQXR’s

Jeff Spurgeon. In this concert, to be broadcast on 105.9 FM, The Knights will present a varied and riveting program that includes Schubert’s beloved Octet, Ginastera’s Impressiones de la Puña, and works by contemporary composers

Osvaldo Golijov and Russell Platt. Tickets for the event are available at

http://www.wnyc.org/thegreenespace/events/2011/sep/18/brunch-the-knights/

“The Knights, with their innovative approach to presenting and their eclectic inspirations, have exactly the right spirit for our inaugural Ensemble-in-Residence,” said Graham Parker, Vice President, WQXR. “What WQXR and The

Knights share is a deep desire to broaden people’s ideas about classical music and to make it accessible and available in

a variety of ways. We are thrilled to present their process, their personality and their work through a textured live, on-air and on-line experience.

New York Public Radio is New York’s premier public radio franchise, comprising WQXR, WNYC and The Jerome L.

Greene Performance Space, as well as www.wqxr.org, www.wnyc.org and www.thegreenespace.org. Classical 105.9 FM WQXR is New York City’s sole 24-hour classical music station, presenting new and landmark classical recordings

as well as live concerts from the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the city's top venues, immersing

listeners in a rich musical life. As America’s most listened-to AM/FM news and talk public radio station, reaching 1.1

million listeners every week, WNYC extends New York City’s cultural riches to the entire country on-air and online, and it presents the best national offerings from networks National Public Radio, Public Radio International, American

Public Media, and the British Broadcasting Company. In addition to its audio content, WQXR and WNYC produce

content for live, radio, and web audiences from The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, the station’s street-level

The Knights

21C Media Group August 23, 2011

page 2 of 2

multipurpose, multiplatform broadcast studio and performance space. For more information about New York Public

Radio, visit www.nypublicradio.org.

About The Knights

The Knights are a New York-based orchestra founded by two brothers: cellist-conductor Eric and violinist-composer

Colin Jacobsen. While music students in the late 1990s, Eric and Colin began regular informal chamber music readings

at their home, inviting friends with a shared enthusiasm for the discovery and performance of new and historical music. These gatherings turned into public recitals and the ensemble “The Knights of the Many-Sided Table” was formed. As

the number of performances increased and the group grew, the original collaborative spirit of chamber music remained.

The name – now simply “The Knights” – has symbolized the orchestra’s quest: always searching out something bold and true to the music.

Members of The Knights are composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters and improvisers who bring a range of cultural

influences to the group, from new music and early-music performance practice to jazz and Klezmer to pop and indie-rock. The orchestra has collaborated with such artists as sopranos Dawn Upshaw and Susan Narucki, violinist Gil

Shaham, singer-songwriter (and Knights violinist) Christina Courtin, Iranian ney virtuoso Siamak Jahangiri, fiddler

Mark O'Connor and Syrian clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh. The Knights have served as the resident chamber

orchestra of the MATA Festival for young composers, premiering music by Christopher Tignor and Yotam Haber; the group has also worked closely with composers Lisa Bielawa, Ljova and Osvaldo Golijov. The Knights have recorded

two albums for Sony Classical: New Worlds (Ives, Copland, Dvorak, Golijov and Gabriela Lena Frank) and

Experience: Live from New York with cellist Jan Vogler (Shostakovich, Hendrix, Ljova); the group also partnered with violinist Lara St. John for an album of the Mozart violin concertos for Ancalagon Records.

* * *

For further information, please contact:

Jennifer Houlihan, WNYC/WQXR: jhoulihan@nypublicradio.org, (646) 829-4497

Glenn Petry, 21C Media Group: gpetry@21cmediagroup.com, (212) 625-2038

THE KNIGHTS

The New York Times August 23, 2011

In a Rite of Late Summer, Naumburg Concerts Finish BY ALLAN KOZINN

The Naumburg Orchestral Concerts had planned to present free performances by three ensembles in its four-concert

series this summer, but only one — the Knights, an enterprising young chamber orchestra — made it through its programs as planned. That ensemble opened the organization’s 106th season in June, with a lineup that included a

commissioned work by Lisa Bielawa and the Beethoven Fifth Symphony. And the orchestra closed this summer’s

festivities on Monday evening in Central Park with a program split between works of Schubert and Liszt.

On both evenings the Knights benefitted from fine weather, but the two bands scheduled to perform between those

dates were not so lucky: the Matt Herskowitz Trio played half a concert but was rained out at intermission (the group

will play its full program, under the Naumburg’s auspices, at the Yamaha Piano Salon on Oct. 5); and the Jupiter

Symphony Chamber Players were washed out by a heavy storm well before curtain time.

The Knights seem to be living charmed lives at the moment. The group is the subject of a PBS special scheduled for

broadcast on Sept. 8, and a week later it begins a three-day residency, which includes a broadcast concert and

programming duties, at WQXR (105.9 FM).

It is also thriving in purely artistic terms. During the ensemble’s supple account of Liszt’s short, funereal “Am Grabe

Richard Wagners,” the strings produced a beautiful, silken tone that was all the more striking, given the compromising

circumstances of an outdoor performance and amplified sound. And that quality was consistent throughout the evening, even against an onslaught of roaring airplanes, barking dogs, crying babies, untamed cellphones and inexplicable

shouting by someone who was not far from the band shell.

In the curtain raiser, Schubert’s “Rosamunde” Overture, the musicians produced the kind of dark-hued, Romantic heft

you expect from a full-scale symphony orchestra, and they brought elegance and flexibility to the more lightly scored passages. Several arrangements of Schubert and Liszt songs by members of the ensemble made astute use of its

resources, often passing the vocal lines around the winds and keeping the accompaniments in the strings.

Eric Jacobsen conducted a shapely reading of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, a piece the Knights had attempted at a Naumburg concert last summer, but gave up on that occasion when a storm made continuing impossible. This time

Mr. Jacobsen and company made it to the end and then moved from the sublime to the, well, perhaps not quite

ridiculous, but certainly zany.

As its finale the group played an arrangement of Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody” No. 2, which was credited to the full

ensemble. The scoring was as inventive as could be, with Liszt’s melodies dashing from section to section, and tempos

shifting quickly in a super-magnified form of rubato. The players were unquestionably having a good time with this

odd version, and it was hard not to get caught up in its spirit.

For Immediate Release:

Contact: Roberta Lee, WNET 212-560-3134, or LeeR@wnet.org

THIRTEEN PREMIERES WE ARE THE KNIGHTS

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

SundayArts Host Paula Zahn provides a behind-the-scenes look at the

Brooklyn-based orchestra that is changing the face of classical music

The rebirth of classical music is taking shape in the heart of New York City and its

leaders are an unlikely group of Brooklyn hipsters who equally revere Handel and

Hendrix. Fueled by hard work, passion, and a quest for fun, The Knights are not

your parents’ symphony orchestra. On Thursday, September 8th at 8:30 pm ET on

THIRTEEN and at 10:15 pm ET on WLIW21, Paula Zahn, host of SundayArts,

takes the viewer on a musical journey with an ensemble that is changing the face of

classical music.

The Knights is a presentation of Creative News Group in association with

WNET New York Public Media, one of America’s most prolific and respected

public media providers. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and

broadcasting national and local documentaries and arts programming to the New

York community.

The Knights are an orchestra and a fellowship of young adventurous musicians

on a mission: to transform how audiences experience classical music. Highly trained

musicians who have been friends since their conservatory days, many of The Knights

are barely 30-years-old. Still, they’ve reached a breakthrough moment in their

careers by expanding the orchestral concert experience with their diverse

programming, innovative formats, and a unique atmosphere of camaraderie.

Footage includes interviews with the main players and performances in Central

Park, Lincoln Center, Caramoor and Germany. The program also includes interviews

with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Fred Child, host of American Public Media’s

“Performance Today” classical radio show.

The driving force behind the orchestra’s success are charismatic brothers Eric

and Colin Jacobsen, the orchestra’s conductor and concertmaster. Born and

raised in Great Neck, New York by career musician parents, and graduates of the

music school at Juilliard, music is in the brothers’ blood.

“We’ve been given extraordinary access to both the creative process that goes

into The Knights’ rehearsals as well as the collaborative process of Eric and Colin

Jacobsen,” said Zahn. “The viewers will see first hand in this new documentary how

a Knight’s concert is an experience of infectious joy.”

According to The New Yorker, “few ensembles are as adept at mixing old music

with new.” The Knights have played Europe’s most prestigious venues and

downtown New York nightclubs. They breathe new life into Beethoven, Dvorak, and

Copland and arrange Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley tunes. They collaborate regularly

with legendary artists like Ma and premiere new works by emerging composers.

Many members of The Knights bring talents that go beyond traditional orchestral

sklls; there are composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters, and improvisers who bring

a range of cultural influences to the group from jazz and klezmer genres to pop and

indie rock music.

Funding for The Knights was made possible through support of Carmela and

Paul Haklisch, Friends of Thirteen, Inc. Dorothy Pacella Fund and The Metropolitan

Media Fund.

Executive Producer and writer is Mary Lockhart. Editor is Darren Peister.

Associate Producers are Daniel Cowen, Daniel T. Allen and Darren Peister. Host is

Paula Zahn. For Creative News Group: General Manager is Mary Lockhart. For

WNET: Executive-in-Charge is Stephen Segaller. A Creative News Group

presentation in association with WNET New York Public Media.

###

About WNET New York Public Media

WNET is America’s flagship public media outlet, bringing quality arts, education and public affairs programming to over 5 million viewers each week. The parent company of public television stations THIRTEEN and WLIW21 and operator of NJTV, WNET produces such acclaimed PBS series as Great Performances, American Masters, Nature, Need to Know, Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley and a range of documentaries, children’s programs, and local news and cultural offerings available on air and online. Pioneers in educational programming, WNET has created such groundbreaking series as Get the Math, Noah Comprende and Cyberchase and provides tools for educators that bring compelling content to life in the classroom and at home. WNET highlights the tri-state’s unique culture and diverse communities through SundayArts, Reel 13, NJ Today and the new online newsmagazine MetroFocus.

THE KNIGHTS

The New York Times June 24, 2011

Talent for Punctuating Classics With Surprises BY ALLAN KOZINN

It is heartening to see a young, energetic group like the Knights become, in effect, the resident orchestra for the free

summer concerts at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park.

Though often long on charm, the concerts, now in their 106th year, have not always been musically compelling. That

began to change a few years ago, when the series — now run by Christopher W. London, whose great-grandfather,

Elkan Naumburg, founded it in 1905 — started presenting inventive chamber ensembles like the Imani Winds.

Chamber music and jazz have since become important parts of the program. But orchestral music has traditionally been

its core mission — officially, the programs are still called the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts — and the Knights,

which opened the series on Monday evening and will close it on Aug. 22, is the only orchestra on the schedule.

To the extent that this ensemble has a formula, it is based on balancing new and unusual works with the most basic canonic classics. You don’t get more basic than Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which closed the group’s

intermissionless program. But that was offset by a fresh piece by Lisa Bielawa and a short meditation by Morton

Feldman.

Ms. Bielawa’s 17-minute “Tempelhof Étude” is a study for “Tempelhof Broadcast,” a large work Ms. Bielawa is

writing for a Sept. 2012 performance at the former Tempelhof Airport (now a park) in Berlin. As she envisions it,

“Tempelhof Broadcast” will involve more than 600 musicians, who will play without a conductor and be expected to make on-the-spot performance decisions.

It may not be as chaotic as it sounds: the étude begins with an inviting, fanfarelike passage that works its way through

the brasses and woodwinds before morphing into hazy chordal blocks from which appealing melodies often emerge.

There is a touch of Ives here: Tchaikovskian string writing weaves through more cheerful woodwind scoring and scratchy percussion sounds, with prominent musical figures (a birdcall of a piccolo line, for example) seeming to cue

sudden shifts in mood and material.

How all this will sound when performed by a band roughly 12 times the size of the Knights is a big question, one of several Ms. Bielawa must be dealing with, but the prospect is promising.

Morton Feldman’s aphoristic, soft-spoken “Madame Press Died Last Week at 90” (1970) was a seminal work, one of

his early experiments in quiet, focused textures. Eric Jacobsen led a taut, introspective reading that contrasted strikingly with his brisk, unsentimental account of the Beethoven.

Mr. Jacobsen found a few surprises in the Fifth Symphony. Largely because the Knights’ chamber orchestra

configuration allows a trim, transparent sound, inner dialogues (like those between the woodwinds and the lower

strings) rang out clearly but without distracting the ear from the more central themes and interplay.

THE KNIGHTS

The New York Times January 13, 2011

Performances by The Knights, A Far Cry and Neil Rolnick BY STEVE SMITH

A large, lively audience braved a looming winter storm on Tuesday evening to hear the premiere of “New Ghetto

Music” by Yotam Haber, presented by the Knights, a youthful, independent New York orchestra, at the Baryshnikov Arts Center During a 2008 residency at the American Academy in Rome, Mr. Haber uncovered a cache of tapes

featuring Roman Jewish cantors recorded from the 1940s to the ’60s. For “New Ghetto Music” he drew on the

penetrating emotional delivery he heard on the tapes, combining it with modern orchestral techniques and a bracing rawness inspired by tenores vocal traditions from Sardinia.

Featured in Mr. Haber’s piece was Christina Courtin, a Knights violinist and an admired indie-pop singer and

songwriter, who sang her own lyrics and those of Barbara Ras, a contemporary poet. Ms. Courtin loosed her plaintive,

affecting yelp in urgent, incantatory gushes over her frenetic fiddling. Behind her, vivacious, odd-metered dance rhythms paced a kaleidoscopic orchestral roil. The performance, ably conducted by Eric Jacobsen, had its rough spots,

but intensity, exuberance and commitment more than compensated.

You could hardly imagine a more sympathetic context for “New Ghetto Music” than the program offered here. Gracious instrumental versions of two Schubert songs — “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” orchestrated by Lev Zhurbin

(known as Ljova); and “Des Baches Wiegenlied,” reworked by the violinist Colin Jacobsen (the conductor’s brother)

— preceded Mr. Haber’s work. After it, dance held sway in a pert account of Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” Suite and the intoxicating whirl of “Ascending Bird,” a Persian folk melody arranged by Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghaei.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

The Knights

Strings Magazine September 11, 2010

Review: Mozart. Scott St. John, violin and viola; Lara St. John,

violin; the Knights, Eric Jacobsen, cond. (Ancalagon)

BY GREG CAHILL

This is a match made in heaven. The gifted Canadian siblings Scott and Lara St. John team up with the often cutting-edge New York chamber orchestra the Knights (see Center Stage, page 29 of October 2010 issue), who are best known

for modern fare ranging from Shostakovich to Jimi Hendrix. They’re led here by Eric Jacobsen, also of Brooklyn

Rider. Together, these gifted young players have created a flawless recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola in Eb major, K. 364; Violin Concerto No. 1 in Bb major, K. 207; and Violin Concerto No. 3

in G major, K. 216.

Lara St. John is probably best known as for her intelligent interpretations of Bach and, more recently, Vivaldi. Her 1996 debut, Bach Works for Violin Solo, won rave reviews, but generated controversy when she was depicted on the

cover with just a fiddle masking her nude torso, an image that has dogged her. Yet, she is a skilled and disciplined

player who has shown her musical talent time and again. Scott St. John, equally gifted, is perhaps less well known, though since 2006 he has served as second violinist in the critically acclaimed St. Lawrence String Quartet, the quartet-

in-residence at Stanford University. Lara, especially on the Violin Concerto No. 1, gives a wonderfully confident

performance bristling with refined technique and a delightful sense of musicality that brilliantly captures Mozart’s humor and light-heartedness.

Bravo!

This recording is available on iTunes. On October 12, it will be available as a hi-def hybrid

SACD/CD.—Greg Cahill

The Knights & Yo-Yo Ma

The New York Times September 10, 2010

Chamber Music With Muscle BY PHILLIP LULTZ

WHEN the animated young conductor Eric Jacobsen takes the stage at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in

Katonah on Sept. 26, he will stand before some 45 musicians — an orchestra notably smaller than the ones that the

cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the evening’s soloist, typically plays with when he performs the works that have been scheduled for

his Caramoor appearance.

But Mr. Jacobsen’s ensemble — the Knights — will bring to bear some advantages that the big orchestras, or even

groups of its size, often lack. It has, Mr. Ma said, both a conductor who is “more like a catalyst than a dictator” and a

“vibrant, energetic, collaborative culture” that is more common to small groups.

“I think what you’re going to see is a chamber music experience in orchestral form,” Mr. Ma said.

The concert is a highlight of Caramoor’s second annual Fall Festival, a five-day affair that will include a set by the

guitarist Bill Frisell, a solo turn by the singer Patti LuPone and works performed by alumni from Caramoor’s

mentoring programs. It also marks Mr. Ma’s return to Caramoor after a decade, and at least his eighth appearance there

since 1979, as well as the Knights’ Caramoor debut.

The Knights’ collaborative culture is no accident. Mr. Jacobsen said it had grown out of informal chamber music

readings involving about 20 music students who, meeting regularly at the Long Island home of his parents, forged ties

that the musicians have maintained since they formally established the orchestra five years ago.

“This leads to a very healthy relationship to the music,” he said, especially its “social aspects.”

The musicians’ camaraderie extends to Mr. Ma. Though he has not played with the Knights as a group, he has

developed relationships with some of the orchestra’s members, including Mr. Jacobsen, 28, whom he has recruited for

the Silk Road Project, his series of concerts and recordings meant to promote cultural interchange around the world.

The relationships reflect shared values, Mr. Ma said. They also mirror overlapping points of view about musical

interpretation. In separate interviews, for example, both Mr. Jacobsen and Mr. Ma drew connections between Dvorak’s

use of nature-related themes in “Silent Woods” — a work on which Mr. Ma will solo at the concert — and the act of

performing the piece in isolated, verdant settings like Caramoor.

The Knights

The New York Times September 10, 2010

page 2 of 2

“As a Brooklyn boy, I don’t have any silent woods,” Mr. Jacobsen said. “I can try to go to the very center of Prospect

Park and maybe I won’t hear the fire engines from Flatbush. But up in Caramoor the concept is much more realized.”

Mr. Ma noted how Dvorak’s affinity for nature had inspired “Silent Woods,” and how players and audience alike could

be similarly inspired when they hear the piece against a natural backdrop — a point that he said he might make when

discussing the “imaginative experience of sensory music” at a family concert planned for the afternoon of Sept. 26.

“You try to break down walls,” Mr. Ma said. “If you have an outdoor space, you are in essentially a wall-less

environment and you’re taking in the universe around you and you become very much part of that.”

Breaking down cultural walls is a task that the Knights will undertake as they tackle a diverse selection of

compositions, including, in addition to the Dvorak, Ives’s “Unanswered Question,” Ljova’ s “Garmoshka,” Golijov’s

“Night of the Flying Horses,” Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 and the other piece on which Mr. Ma will solo, Saint-

Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1.

But the cultural cross-fertilization will perhaps be most evident in the group’s new arrangement of the Persian folk song

“Ascending Bird,” which will close the concert. The arrangement, which favors Western instruments, tries to catch “the

spirit more than the letter” of the original, Mr. Jacobsen said. “Being able to modify it and embrace the character of the

piece is what we wanted to do.”

Similar motivations drive Mr. Frisell, whose trio will open the festival on the evening of Sept. 24. His treatment of a

folk song often strays in tone and texture from the original, he said, even as it retains the piece’s essence as he sees it at

any given moment. Citing “Shenandoah,” he said that the tune, in his hands, could one night “be this quiet, delicate

thing” and the next night “be this massively loud, gigantic, bombastic thing.”

“It depends on where it came from and where you’re going,” he said.

Like Mr. Jacobsen’s relationships with his orchestra members, Mr. Frisell’s bond with his band mates — Tony Scherr

on bass and Rudy Royston on drums — is deep. He seldom plans a set list, though he allows that, apart from folk tunes

like “Shenandoah,” he favors popular and jazz standards like George Gershwin’s “My Man’s Gone Now,” Thelonius

Monk’s “Misterioso” and John Lennon’s “In My Life,” or originals like “Strange Meeting.”

On any of these tunes, Mr. Frisell can be expected to deploy the haunting electronics for which he is known — one

aspect of a musical view that has generated wide notice for its expansiveness, even at a time when musicians cross

genres at will. Recently, his electronics-laced outings in a string quartet have added to the attention and, he said,

informed the work of the jazz trio he will bring to Caramoor — raising the prospect that his set could, like that of the

Knights, offer something of a chamber music experience in another form.

The Knights

Strings Magazine September 9, 2010

The Knights Ensemble Storms New York's Le Poisson Rouge Hendrix, Ives—for this chamber orchestra, it's all fair game.

BY SCOTT ROSE

Addressing the audience at Greenwich Village’s hip nightclub Le Poisson Rouge in May, the Knights’ violinist Colin

Jacobsen jests apropos his cello-playing sibling Eric Jacobsen, the chamber ensemble’s conductor. “He’s my younger

brother, so there was a time when I could dominate him,” Colin says. “Now that he’s up front, waving his arms around,

that’s not so easy to do.”

The large chamber ensemble’s soiree is in celebration of its latest CD, New Worlds. First released earlier this year in

Germany, the album is anchored by two American landmark compositions: Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and

Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question. Also included are Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round, Antonín Dvorák’s Silent

Woods and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas; An Andean Walkabout.

It’s the latest work from the New York City collective that in the past year has recorded two Sony label albums in

support of cellist Jan Vogler, with tracks ranging from Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 to Jimi Hendrix’s

“Machine Gun.”

In preparation for the group’s May record release party at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, a warm-hearted and family-

like, if serious-minded, atmosphere, continues as the Knights demonstrate their rehearsal method with a passage from

the first movement of Schubert’s Third Symphony: these musicians do not assemble intending to submit to the

premeditated artistic will of a chef d’orchestre. Their interpretations, rather, evolve out of ongoing, open conversations.

This particular evening, one string player suggests that in the Schubert passage under rehearsal, an accompanimental

figure in the strings could aurally be conceived as a piano supporting a “lied” sung by the oboe. A French hornist later

argues that the articulation of his part is of expressive consequence. “If I play with a thick legato,” the French horn

player says, “the strings seem bogged down. When I let up a bit there, though, the overall accompaniment more lightly

and therefore more appropriately cushions the singing oboe line. The strings actually sound different, depending on

what I’m doing.”

At the final run-through, refinements achieved communally during the rehearsal result in greater buoyancy and

songfulness in the passage.

The Knights

Strings September 9, 2010

page 2 of 2

Maestro Jacobsen’s leadership in performance, though, is in no way superfluous. Essentially, the Knights rehearse

according to a model set by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, yet look to their conductor to bolster interpretive

cohesiveness in concert. “To prepare for Appalachian Spring,” Jacobsen says, “I studied the score intensively, down to

its finest details. I easily spent 100 hours scrutinizing and internalizing that composition. Copland imbued his music

with a distinctively American sound—that’s why Appalachian Spring is central to our New Worlds CD. Working on it

with the Knights was a revelatory process.”

Critical reception has been enthusiastic. Reviewing the Knights’ live performance of Beethoven’s “Pastoral”

Symphony for the New York Times, Allan Kozinn called Jacobsen “an interpretive dynamo.”

Following a September program at the Caramoor 2010 International Music Festival with Yo-Yo Ma as soloist, the

ensemble will tour Germany in October with frequent collaborator Vogler. For New Worlds, Vogler plays the solo part

of Dvorák’s Silent Woods on his Domenico Montagnana “ex-Hekking” 1721 cello.

The impetus for New Worlds, actually, sprang from Vogler and the Knights making music together at the 2009

Dresden Music Festival. A previous recording, Jan Vogler and The Knights, Experience; Live from New York, made at

Le Poisson Rouge, included Shostakovich’s challenging Cello Concerto, No. 1, in Eb major, Op. 107, and, among other

works, an aforementioned arrangement of “Machine Gun” by rock-guitar icon Hendrix, who had played in the venue

when it was the fabled Village Gate.

That track wasn’t a one-off tribute to a musician from outside the classical cannon—the Knights are steadily nourished

by involvement with non-Classical music. For instance, Himno de Zampoñas, the second section of composer Gabriela

Lena Frank’s Leyendas, employs strings to evoke the sounds of an Andean panpipe band. The effect, achieved through

an idiosyncratic scoring of double-stops, is hypnotically alluring. Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round is a vibrant homage to

the tango culture of his native Argentina.

As a measure of the interest the Knights have excited, New York City’s main classical radio station, WQXR, recently

featured New Worlds as its album of the week. “We love what we do,” Jacobsen says, “and hope our passion for the

music we perform is transmitted to our audiences.”

The Knights

Minnesota Public Radio September 8, 2010

Regional Spotlight: The Knights Click to listen:

http://origin-minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/08/regional-spotlight-the-knights/ BY STEVE STARUCH

St. Paul, Minn. — Folks who heard The Knights in concert in Stillwater last month are still talking about it!

Members of The Knights are composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters and musical and theatrical improvisers who are

also top-notch string players.

The Knights are set to perform with Yo-Yo Ma later this month and will be on tour in Germany in October.

It's a special privilege to feature their new recording of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring on this week's Regional

Spotlight.

The Knights

Pioneer Press September 2, 2010

Knights could be called a classical garage band

BY DOROTHY ANDRIES

American composer Aaron Copland wrote "Appalachian Spring" in 1944 for a ballet by Martha Graham using a 13-

piece chamber orchestra. The score, with its elegant arrangement of the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts," won a Pulitzer

Prize for Copland the following year, and later the composer re-orchestrated the music for larger ensembles.

That rarely heard original arrangement will be played this evening Sept. 2 in the Martin Theatre at Ravinia Festival by

The Knights, a New York City-based classical orchestra making its festival debut.

"We're interested in music of the new world," said Eric Jacobsen. He is conductor of the orchestra, which includes

about 30 graduates of the Juilliard, Curtis, Manhattan, Mannes and Eastman schools of music. "We are from the new

world ourselves and we're interested in music written in the Americas, especially starting in the 1930s. And for Ravinia

we've put together a super-fun program."

The evening will begin with a work by Gabriela Lena Frank, a California-born composer, whose Peruvian ancestry

inspired her to travel to South America to study native music and folklore. The Knights will play her "Leyeandas: An

Andean Walkabout." American John Adams, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his choral piece "On the Transmigration of

Souls" commemorating the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, is represented by his work "Christian Zeal and

Activity."

Two works by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, "Last Round" and "Doina and Lullaby," will be played. A piece

by that composer was included in a concert at Ravinia Aug. 20 given by Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble. The

final work on the Knights' program will be selections from Leonard Bernstein's Broadway hit "West Side Story." Both

Bernstein and Copland are being celebrated during Ravinia's 2010 season, marking 20 years since their deaths.

The orchestra is interested in a collaborative, rather than a top-down authoritarian approach to performance. "We do

our program the way we live our lives," Jacobsen said. "We choose certain pieces because of the way they make us

feel. And we talk together about why we want to play a particular piece."

The Knights was founded in 2004, but Jacobsen and some of his classmates from the Juilliard School's class of 2004

had already been playing together before graduation. With them was his bother Colin, Juilliard class of 1999, who is

now one of the ensemble's two concertmasters. "You might say that we were the closest thing to a classical garage

band, except that we were at a house on Long Island," he said, laughing. "We'd get together on a Saturday night and

The Knights

Pioneer Press September 2, 2010

page 2 of 2

read chamber music from 10 p.m. until the sun came up at 6 a.m. We'd spend 25 hours rehearsing a Beethoven

symphony. We have a wild love for music and the community developed around that."

That intensity of the players' involvement is palpable, according to Henry Fogel, past president of the Chicago

Symphony Orchestra and now dean of Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. In a review of a

concert in New York City several seasons back, he wrote "the evening resembled nothing so much as a jam session

amongst friends, which we in the audience were allowed to feel a part of. It was not unlike the experience of a jazz

club, despite the formality of a concert hall setting."

Jacobsen describes the orchestra's atmosphere as "comfortable not competitive." And he even believes the name of his

group gives a clue to its musical environment. "A knight searches for truth," he said. "We are on a quest to go as far as

we can to translate a composer to our audience."

And to give them a chance to hear what Aaron Copland first wrote for that famous Martha Graham ballet.

The Knights

Music of Copland, Bernstein, Golijov, Adams and Frank at 8 p.m. Thursday Sept. 2 in the Martin Theatre, Ravinia

Festival, Highland Park. $50 and $30/Lawn $10. (847) 266-5100; www.ravinia.org

THE KNIGHTS

New York Times August 4, 2010

Invitation to Dance to Shostakovich BY VIVIEN SCHWEITZER

The Knights, a dynamic young chamber orchestra, had to cut short their performance in June at the Naumburg

Bandshell when it began to pour. But they were luckier on Tuesday, when it neither rained nor was hideously hot. The event, part of the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts series, went according to plan, with a large crowd in attendance.

Bill McGlaughlin, the radio host, trombonist and conductor, presented the event, the last of the season. He said he was

stepping in for the WQXR host Midge Woolsey, who was getting married.

Eric Jacobsen conducted the concert, which opened with the “Turkish March” from Beethoven’s incidental music for

“The Ruins of Athens,” a play by August von Kotzebue. Since the work wasn’t included on the printed program, Mr.

McGlaughlin asked the audience to guess who the composer might be. Next came a vivacious performance of Rossini’s

“Barber of Seville” Overture.

Mr. Jacobsen invited the audience to dance along to two waltzes by Shostakovich: the first from his score for the 1948

Soviet film “Michurin” and the second, used in the 1999 film “Eyes Wide Shut,” from his Suite for Variety Orchestra.

Both were performed in appealing arrangements by Lev Zhurbin, known as Ljova.

After intermission came Henri Mouton’s arrangement of Debussy’s “Children’s Corner” suite, originally for piano.

Debussy dedicated it to his daughter, Claude-Emma, nicknamed Chou-Chou, who was 3 when he composed the work

in 1908. The Knights played three of the six movements: “Serenade of the Doll,” “The Little Shepherd” and “Golliwogg’s Cakewalk.” Jim Roe was the excellent oboe soloist.

The program concluded with a spirited rendition of Haydn’s “Clock” Symphony in D, No. 101. Mr. McGlaughlin

introduced the work by describing Haydn as the “Leonardo da Vinci of music” for echoing a ticking rhythm in the

second movement, one of his witty inventive touches.

THE KNIGHTS

Lucid Culture August 4, 2010

Knights at Night in Central Park With all the great new music out there, and the Knights – one of the most adventurous, new-music-inclined orchestras

in the world – on the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park last night, why did they play so much old stuff? Maybe because they knew they could bring so much joy to it – and counterintuitivity, too. Conventional wisdom is that name-

brand orchestras surpass the smaller or lesser-known outfits, but all too often the big ensembles are basically

sightreading and not much more. One of the benefits of a less strenuous season than what the Philharmonics of the world have to tackle is that there’s enough time for everyone to really get their repertoire in their fingers, discover it on

an individual level and let its nuances fly rather than trampling them in a quest to simply get the job done. Conductor

Eric Jacobsen (who doubles as the cellist in celebrated string quartet Brooklyn Rider) offered a prime example during the second movement of Beethoven’s Romance for Violin and Orchestra in F Major. It’s a series of swooping

arabesques on the strings, followed by variations that the entire ensemble picks up and tosses around. Jacobsen turned

them into a mystery theme, then shifted gears with the tempo, a couple of times, with a wink and a grin as the melody

split and shifted kaleidoscopically on the wings of the winds. Likewise, he led the Knights through two waltzes by Shostakovich (newly arranged with jazzy Kurt Weill verve by Ljova Zhurbin) with a jaunty cabaret swing, taking a

brooding Russian folk theme and then a more Weimar-inflected tune and making something approaching real dance

music out of them, guest violinist Vera Beths clearly enjoying herself as much as she had during the devious swoops and slides of the Beethoven.

The rest of the program was more traditional. They’d opened with Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture, something akin

to the Simpsons Theme from another time and place. As with the Simpsons Theme, less is more with this one, and that’s how the Knights played it. Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite was written for a favorite niece, said WQXR’s Bill

McLaughlin, standing in as MC in place of a honeymooning Midge Woolsey (congratulations, Midge!). The two

miniatures weren’t Fur Elise but they weren’t bad either. The orchestra wound up the program with a warmly cantabile

performance of Haydn’s Symphony No. 101, commonly known as The Clock (from the metronomic sway of a prominent pizzicato passage). All counterpoint and comfortably familiar chord resolutions, to New Yorkers of a certain

stripe it made a perfect soundtrack for wine and quiet conviviality on Central Park grass. This was the final Naumburg

Bandshell classical concert for 2010; watch this space early next summer for information on next year’s schedule.

THE KNIGHTS

Lucid Culture July 8, 2010

The Knights Segue Through the Ages As the Knights’ previous album Live from New York affirmed, the orchestra transcend any kind of “indie classical” label – they’re as much at home with Shostakovich as they are with Jimi Hendrix. Their first studio recording, New

Worlds, artfully takes a characteristically diverse and ambitious selection of works from the Romantic era through the

present day and casts them as a suite: the tracks basically segue into each other. As dissimilar as these compositions are, that the idea works at all is an achievement: that it works so well is a triumph worth celebrating. Conductor Eric

Jacobsen (who’s also the cellist in another first-rate new music ensemble, the celebrated string quartet Brooklyn Rider)

leads this adventurous crew with flair and gusto yet with an almost obsessive focus on minutiae: dynamics are everything here, and they are everywhere. For example, the apprehension of the trumpet motif rising out of Charles

Ives’ The Unanswered Question, the opening track here – and its single, fleeting, cinematic cadenza that rises up and

disappears like a ghost. Or the second movement of Latin Grammy winner Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas – An

Andean Walkabout. It’s a game of hide-and-seek, pizzicato string accents amid stillness like woodland sprites. And then a spritely dance, with distant echoes of The Rites of Spring. It’s supposed to be evocative of native Andean

instruments, but the Knights give them personalities.

And they breathe new life into an old chestnut. Dvorak’s Silent Woods swings and sways, with cellist Jan Vogler the soloist. These woods are very robustly alive – it’s a romp all the way through the trick ending. So the segue into

Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round, a memorably bristling, staccato string homage to Piazzolla, works like a charm. Credit

Golijov, as well for the counterintuitivity of the funereal second movement, whose counterpoint could almost pass for

Brahms.

And that’s when the album ends, for us at least. The ensemble have a special fondness for Aaron Copland’s

Appalachian Spring, as they were playing it throughout the Obama campaign’s ascendancy up to the historic 2008

election. We’ll leave it to fans of that piece to contemplate where the Knights’ version stands alongside other recordings. The Knights’ next New York performance is on August 3 at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park – take

the 72nd St. entrance on the east side, circle round the south side of Summerstage, go down the steps and it’ll be on

your right.

THE KNIGHS

New York Times June 23, 2010

Nature Had Other Plans at the Naumburg Bandshell BY STEVE SMITH

It takes more than a little rain to chase away an audience of tenacious New York classical music lovers, a point proved

when the first drops started to fall just before a concert by the Knights, a stylish, adventurous young chamber orchestra, at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park on Tuesday evening. The concert, presented by Naumburg Orchestral

Concerts as the first event of its 105th season, drew what appeared to be hundreds of aficionados and curiosity seekers.

An exact count, unfortunately, was not forthcoming. After a regal fanfare played on trumpets and timpani, a gentle rain shower started during the opening remarks by Midge Woolsey, a radio host at WQXR-FM, and Christopher W.

London, the president of the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts board. Both optimistically predicted that the rain would

move through quickly.

Instead, umbrellas popped up like mushrooms on a lawn as the rain grew steadier during an appropriately brisk, breezy account of Mendelssohn‟s Overture to “A Midsummer Night‟s Dream.” Most audience members remained in place,

sharing shelter with their neighbors.

“We love you for staying,” the conductor Eric Jacobsen brightly proclaimed from the podium. He announced a program change: Dvorak‟s “Silent Woods,” meant to feature the cellist Jan Vogler, would be saved for the second half

of the concert: insurance against a shower still expected to pass.

The rain did in fact stop. Mr. Jacobsen announced that the orchestra would play Schubert‟s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”) without amplification, so that the microphones and loudspeakers could dry. The old band shell served

its original purpose, focusing and projecting the ensemble‟s appealing sound during a brisk, unsentimental account of

the first movement.

When a heavy downpour suddenly started, many listeners held their ground. Ultimately Mr. Jacobsen cut the performance short; rain was blowing into the band shell. “Schubert‟s „Unfinished‟ Symphony is still unfinished,” he

said as violinists sought cover and audience members took flight. After perhaps 15 minutes of consideration, Mr.

London called the event off.

It was disappointing that the Knights could not finish their promising performance, and that Mr. Vogler could not

perform (though audience members who had turned up early heard him play through “Silent Woods” with the orchestra

during a sound check). The Knights will return to the Naumburg Bandshell with another soloist, the violinist Vera Beths, and a new program on Aug. 3, weather permitting, of course.

The Knights

The San Francisco Classical Voice May 11, 2010

Enthusiastic Explorations New Worlds: The Knights

BY JEFF KALISS

When considering this well-performed recording, don’t place too much significance in its title, which, according to the

liner notes, relates back to the theme of last year’s Dresden Music Festival, where the New York–based Knights

presented some of these selections. Geographically, historically, and stylistically, the five compositions are stretched so

far that they defy any attempt at a defensible programmatic theme, though the Germans may have bought into the

cutesy, New World concept more quickly than those of us who actually live here.

What’s really rather new and worth celebrating on this CD is the fresh force and consistent skill that this group of

young musicians brings to material both familiar and unfamiliar, laudable and less so. The Knights’ dynamic range is

suggested by the contrasts between the luminescent tranquility of the opening and closing tracks — Charles Ives’ The

Unanswered Question and the Coda to Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring — and the boisterousness and angularity

of some of what comes after and before, namely Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas – An Andean Walkabout and Osvaldo

Golijov’s Last Round. The ensemble bravely meets the challenge of Frank’s modernist time signatures and tempos, but,

notwithstanding their efforts, the compositional direction of the piece, despite its supposed grounding in ethnic Latin

American instrumentation and folk music, remains elusive and unsatisfying.

The Golijov, on the other hand, is less desperately macho and more structurally impressive than your average tango-

based creation, with melodic statements divided handsomely between sections of the strings. The Knights evoke the

breathtaking coordination and sustained energy of tango fanatics, and work the ―special effects‖ of glisses and col

legno with faultless coordination.

Interpolated between the South American elements is Antonin Dvořák’s setting of his Silent Woods (Klid) for cello and

orchestra (created during his American sojourn), whose solo is sensitively and delicately sounded by the German cellist

and former Knights collaborator Jan Vogler. The ensemble paints this sylvan study in rich but subtle colors.

Of course, the Copland provides the most obvious opportunity to compare the Knights to other orchestras of advanced

institutional and individual vintage. Their tangible enthusiasm and affection very much brighten this Spring, and the

ensemble’s sections seem to dance under the direction of conductor Eric Jacobsen. These youths are serving music very

well.

The Knights

WQXR 105.9 FM April 24, 2010

The Knights' New Worlds

Copland, Dvorak and Ives mingle with recent works by Osvaldo Golijov and Gabriela Lena Frank in New Worlds, an

appealing new recording by The Knights chamber orchestra. It’s this week’s Full Rotation.

Even in a city rich in freelance orchestras, The Knights have been turning up with growing frequency in New York’s

concert halls over the past five years. The 35-member group, formed by the cellist and conductor Eric Jacobsen and his

brother, the violinist Colin Jacobsen, plays both standard repertory and new music (they recently served as the house

band at the downtown MATA Festival). This collection traces the evolving notion of an American identity in classical

music.

The program opens with The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, one of the first American composers of global

repute whose collage-like effects are beautifully realized by The Knights, especially trumpeter Joshua Frank and the

team of four wind players. The German cellist Jan Vogler makes a brief but strong impression in the cello and orchestra

version of Dvorak’s Silent Woods (Klid). Copland’s Appalachian Spring gets a bright, if slightly rough-hewn

performance.

Underscoring the melting-pot character of American music, South American folk themes are heard in two pieces.

Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round was written in 1996 as a tribute to his fellow-countryman, the Argentinian composer and

bandoneon-player, Astor Piazzolla. The bustling first movement represents the act of a violent compression of the

bandoneon; while the second is a fantasy over the refrain of the 1930’s song “My Beloved Buenos Aires.” The Knights

deliver its rustic earthiness like a strong glass of Argentine Malbec.

Not to be overlooked are three movements of Gabriela Lena Frank's Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout as well. The

luminous work for string orchestra evokes Andean folk instruments, from panpipes to guitars to the tarka, a heavy

wooden duct flute that creates a harsh tone. This young composer from Berkeley, California, born in 1972, has a keen

ear for instrumental color and it's clear why she's increasingly making a name for herself.

New Worlds

The Knights

Jan Vogler, cello

Eric Jacobsen, conductor

Sony Classical

The Knights AllMusic.com • April 8, 2010

New Worlds BY UNCLE DAVE LEWIS

The Knights are an orchestra not affiliated with a city or an institution of learning such as a university, and they are committed to taking orchestral music out of the concert hall and directly to the people through playing non-traditional venues such as New York City's landmark restaurant Le Poisson Rouge. Sony's disc New Worlds was inspired by a program prepared by The Knights for the annual Dresden Music Festival, which chose as its theme the concept of "New Worlds" for its 2009 edition. These recordings, however, were made in Sony's Legacy Studios in New York and not at the festival itself, and for the better, as they have a great sense of presence while maintaining orchestral depth. This works very well for the splendid version of Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question included; for once, the listener is not straining to hear the string chorus and having the foreground elements smack them in the face, but all is well balanced. Gabriela Lena Frank's Leyendas is a spicy and effervescently rhythmic confection that utilizes "new music" techniques in a wry and humorous fashion, whereas Dvorák's Silent Woods is indeed woody, wide and fully achieved in a standard romantic idiom, perhaps the ultimate test of the mettle of a new century orchestra — how well can than they do standard, 19th century fare? If you're The Knights and cello soloist Jan Vogler, about as well as the Czech Philharmonic does Dvorák. The Golijov is both bristling with energy, tension and played with precision; well done, especially when one considers the rather complex rhythmic profile of the piece. Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring closes out the show, and The Knights' — and conductor Eric Jacobsen's — attentiveness to detail pays off in the Copland, which for some established orchestras can sound like a tired old warhorse. That said, it doesn't quite crackle with the electricity encountered in older recordings by Antal Dorati or Aaron Copland himself, but The Knights' reading is fresher than many to most interpretations of this very commonly recorded piece. Listen up, orchestras of the classical establishment; here is your competition. In order to keep pace with what The Knights can offer in lithe limberness and immediacy the big concert orchestras might need to put in some time at the gymnasium; suffice it is to say that New Worlds is a refreshing change over usual orchestral fare.

The Knights

Minnesota Public Radio July 28, 2009

New Classical Tracks: Going Downtown with Shostakovich BY VALERIE KAHLER

St. Paul, Minn. — Dmitri Shostakovich, a New York club setting and an unconventional classical band make for an

intriguing mix.

Whether you share Nietzsche's worldview or not, you've got to admit that the guy was a master at coming up with a

great bumper-sticker quote. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," or "I would believe only in a God that

knows how to dance."

Here's one that struck a chord with Dmitri Shostakovich: "Art is there to stop reality from destroying us."

A new CD featuring cellist Jan Vogler and the New York ensemble The Knight brings the art of Shostakovich to the

reality of a New York club, Le Poisson Rouge. The recording is complete with hundreds of patrons so gung-ho to hear

the concert (and ensure a great recording) that they cheerfully gave up ice in their drinks and air conditioning in the

club.

No whirring, less clinking, but plenty of whooping and whistling and altogether un-concert hall-like sounds.

For example, when's the last time you heard Jimi Hendrix at a classical concert? While Kyle Sanna's transcription of

"Machine Gun" by Hendrix features some fine shredding from Jan Vogler and the rest of the crew, it seems more the

kind of piece which is best experienced live.

The other selections on the recording don't suffer from that restriction. Instead, they come across as the intimate, jaunty

pieces you imagine Shostakovich might have played with his friends, ash dangling dangerously from those careless

1950s cigarettes and bottles of vodka close at hand.

There's an element to the waltzes that, depending on your frame of mind or frame of reference, can be felt as

charmingly tipsy or subtly malevolent (like clowns at the carnival). They're just slightly off-balance.

But, The Knights and cellist Jan Vogler are okay with making us feel off-balance. The Knights are not quite three

dozen strong, making them roughly one-third the size of the symphony orchestra at its fullest complement.

The Knights

Minnesota Public Radio July 28, 2009

page 2 of 2

This size affords the band the opportunity to explore both chamber repertory and symphonic literature. In fact, one of

the stated goals of The Knights is to "expand the idea of what an orchestra can be." They want to approach the entire

classical music canon, plus jazz and rock & roll, with the vibe of an intimate chamber group.

When Jan Vogler first heard the band, he knew he'd found his partners for this CD. "The Knights bring together all that

is important today: they are stylistically enormously versatile, yet trained to perfection," he said. "They can do it all,

from Vivaldi to Elliott Carter."

That kind of versatility is important when it comes to Shostakovich. The First Cello Concerto is one of the pieces he

wrote after Stalin died, a time when you'd think he might have been under a bit less state scrutiny.

But, he was still under the microscope, still required to be circumspect in what he could say. Any personal political

apprehension had to be couched in musical terms. And it's hard to miss the fretfulness in this concerto.

Most recordings use a larger orchestra for the work, making for plenty of volume and bombast, but The Knights' more

minimalist forces seem to add an element of urgency, and are a pointed reminder of the importance of the individual in

any great undertaking, whether musical or political.

Back in 2006, during the celebrations of what would have been the composer's 100th birthday, I read one headline that

said Shostakovich "got lost in his own autobiography" - an indication that the coverage had focused so much on his

turbulent relationship with the Soviet state that his greatest gift, music, was overlooked in the bustle.

Even with that music front and center, it's difficult not to sense the politics: the anxiety mixed with parody. Music plus

history makes for a fascinating combination, but the music alone tells just as dynamic a story.

Hat-tip to cellist Jan Vogler and The Knights, for bringing Shostakovich to the hipster crowd at Le Poisson Rouge, and

for preserving the concerts on CD so the rest of us could have a small taste.

The Knights

Frankfurter Rundschau April 2009

Jan Vogler & The Knights, Experience: Live From New York

You don’t know quite why the audaciously call themselves The Knights for it is a 20th century dedicated

orchestral ensemble. They are wonderfully able to strum low notes, glissando and set rhythmic accents by pausing.

They especially do that in Kyle Sanna’s arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun.” It is by no means the first

acoustical rendition of an electronic version of Hendrix’s music, but it is to date the most successful. This version

neither neglects his simple harmonic or avant-garde sound. It is very much worth listening to how Jan Vogler plays

Hendrix-Cello.

Without Hendrix, this CD would have been a pure Shostakovich album. The centerpiece is the Concerto No. 1

in E-flat Major for Cello and Orchestra with Jan Vogler as soloist. The Knights under Eric Jacobsen don’t give

Shostakovich the chance to achieve avant-garde prudery. Rather, they chose a very colorful, almost bacchanal

interpretation of the music, audible through Vogler’s playing.

All this is imbedded in a collection of Shostakovich’s waltzes, which consist party of film-musical contexts.

They allow a glance into Shostakovich’s moldable and useable music. Hendrix is simply an over emphasis of this

tendency. This live recording accentuates the impression of expressive freshness. –H.L.

The Knights

NMZ Online April 2009

Jan Vogler & The Knights, Experience: Live From New York

"Dmitri Shostakovich spent a lot of his life and creative period in angst. Stalin's henchmen kept harassing him

and the dictator disapproved of him further more after attending the opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" in

the Pravda ("chaos instead of music"). The composer, born 1906 in St. Petersburg, allegedly escaped his deportation

and probable death only by luck. On the same list, the KGB officer was killed the day off Shostakovich's pick up.

That's how the oppressed creator of haunting masterpieces survived until he died of a heart attack in 1975 in Moscow.

Jimi Hendrix wasn't so lucky. The guitarist/singer was born 1942 in Seattle, USA (possibly the freest country

in the world at the time). He couldn't resist the temptations of drugs and the fast lane. He died with only 27 years in

September 1970 after a concert in London in his hotel room, suffocating on his own vomit.

Similarities? Though KPdSU member and affiliated with numerous state awards, Shostakovich was persecuted

by the KGB. Hendrix, not a political artist at all, was wanted by the CIA and FBI due to his "lifestyle" and primarily for

his open antagonism of the Vietnam War (by the way, still classified information to date). Above all, they are both

highly regarded artist-personalities of the last century. Setting cornerstones in their own fields, they will be

remembered forever.

In spring 2009, for the first time both mavericks of the 20th century are united together on a CD. Apart from a

risky biographical comparison, the somewhat surprising match has its justification in the music. Premiered in 1960,

Shostakovich's Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 107, ends similarly in bizarre rhythms, permeating throughout

Hendrix's "Machine Gun" from 1970. Acknowledging that, Cellist Jan Vogler dares to transcribe the virtuosic guitar

part for his 1721 Montagnana-instrument. He combines both rather coincidental works with the famous waltzes of

Shostakovich's "Jazz Suites", two film music pieces. Arranging the Russian-melancholic waltzes, Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin

(born in 1978), also fittingly composed the remaining piece "Garmoshka". The gun volleyed Hendrix song for cello and

orchestra was arranged by guitarist and film-composer Kyle Sanna.

What kind of orchestra? "The Knights", the musical warriors of New York! They are still unknown throughout

Europe, but in the US already one of the leading ensembles. They are not only entrenched in classical music, but

equally home playing world music and jazz. In May "The Knights" are going to open the Dresdner Musikfestspiele,

whose new music director is Jan Vogler (by the way, what coincidence, the motto is "New Worlds"). Born in 1964 he

grew up in a very musical family in East Berlin. The artist now divides his living between New York and Dresden. At

age 20 he became the music director of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and also started his freelancing career.

The Knights

NMZ Online April 2009

page 2 of 2

This CD has been recorded at a historic place during two concerts. The newly opened "Le Poisson Rouge", former

"Village Gate", is the same venue that Jimi Hendrix gave numerous performances at.

As if the spirit of this site blew onto the CD with the relating title "Experience: Live From New York", the

frenetic applause and especially the refreshing playfulness of the young musicians of "The Knights" under Eric

Jacobsen enliven this record. The soloist Jan Vogler proves to be virtually a singer. He steers his instrument through

lyrically emotional passages of the waltzes without falling into a Viennese bliss. He enthrallingly conquers the cello

concerto, the centerpiece on this album. Totally passionate without forfeiting virtuosity, it is perfection with liveliness

throughout.

The downright brutally grooving "Machine Gun" ends the almost 10 minutes long tail end. The orchestra and

soloist don't alienate themselves, rather shetting rock music history newly into today's light. Demanding Hendrix's

guitar part on a baroque string instrument, he goes out all the way. Categorizing them crossover music would only

restrict to describe this project."

Evaluation: 5 out of 5 points

The Knights

Rondo April 3, 2009

The Knights They call themselves ‘Knights,' yet, when necessary, they fight with modern arms: off to conquer the world of

classical music with Jimi Hendrix' "Machine Gun" in their luggage Jörg Königsdorf met them in New York.

Ten in the morning, not a good time of day for real knights. Red eyed, that's how Colin and Eric Jacobsen and

their friend Johnny Gandelsman cling to their steaming caffe latte in a small café in Manhattans' East End. And were it

not for the instrument cases next to the grimy chairs, one might well mistake them for left-over party goers, who've just

been thrown out of the last open Bleeker Street club. At this hour, regular orchestral musicians are already at first

rehearsals, and if one looks at these three tired warriors it is no surprise that they have decided against that type of

musicianship. The three are the hard core of the Knights: as master graduates of the Julliard School and Curtis Institute

they founded a string quartet with a name not immediately suggestive of devotion to Mozart veneration, ‘Brooklyn

Riders.' And even at their concerts this knightly chamber ensemble does front-row battle. Gandelsman with cowboy

boots and frock-coat and the younger Jacobsen brother Colin as first desks of the two violin sections, Eric, a one-time

Cellist, now as conductor of the group. They became a chamber orchestra by stages, Eric Jacobsen explains, "initially

there were ever more strings and then, from among our friends, the winds. And, in truth, we still don't really feel like a

genuine orchestra, more like a big band."

Sounds laid back, but the real concern of the Brooklyn Bohemians is a serious one. Once they grasped that they

had reached a strength to even tackle the standard symphonic repertoire, they wondered what a real contemporary

orchestra might be. A well-honed and seasoned body such as the Met Orchestra, where their father had been a violinist

for thirty years? Or an assembly of more or less frustrated civil servants as in Germany? The Knights found another

solution: an orchestra for them is simply the smallest common denominator, simply the point where musicians meet,

who otherwise pursue totally different objectives - specialists for New Music and baroque, for classical chamber music

and composers and even a song writer are all involved with the Knights to simply meet and - perhaps - play Beethoven.

So far, they've done this publicly only three times a year, playing in clubs, schools and small concert halls in and

around New York. But that should soon change: two CDs this year have made the Knights internationally respectable

and in May they will hop over to Europe, to appear at the prestigious opening concert of the Dresden Music Festival.

"The Knights bring together all that is important today: they are stylistically enormously versatile, yet trained to

perfection," raves Dresden Festival chief Jan Vogler, "they can do it all, from Vivaldi to Elliott Carter." He had known

immediately that the Knights are just the ticket for his new CD project, in which he will link the music of Shostakovich

with a Cello arrangement of the Jimmy Hendrix electric guitar piece ‘Machine Gun.' The now recorded album,

produced live at Hendrix' legendary old favourite Poisson Rouge, confirms this: real Knights can do it all - except get

up early.

The Knights

The New York Times June 2, 2008

Conduct Indefinable: Beethoven Here, Laura Nyro There BY ALLAN KOZINN

New York is awash in freelance orchestras. But as young players pour out of conservatories, new ensembles

continue to crop up, and the savviest of them have grasped the need to cultivate a distinctive image. The Knights, a

young, energetic chamber orchestra formed by the cellist and conductor Eric Jacobsen and his brother, the violinist

Colin Jacobsen, has been turning up with increasing frequency since 2006, as both a standard repertory ensemble and a

new-music band.

The orchestra played both, in a way, at Washington Irving High School in the Flatiron district on Saturday

evening, although the program’s new-music component required some qualification. Like many musicians in their 20s,

the Knights seem to have little patience for categorization. They play atonalists, Minimalists and neo-Romantics as

equals, and they make less of a distinction than their elders do between classical music and pop.

That eclecticism yielded an unusual but comfortable juxtaposition of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony and a

set of folk, blues and jazz-influenced songs by Christina Courtin. Ms. Courtin, a singer and songwriter who has

recorded an album for Nonesuch that is due in early 2009, is also a Juilliard-trained violinist and a member of the

Knights. (Yes, she played in the Beethoven.)

Ms. Courtin’s music and her unaffected vocal style call to mind the soulful, atmospheric sound of the late

1960s: early Joni Mitchell at times, with an occasional touch of Laura Nyro and the vaguest hint of Janis Joplin. Her

most striking songs are not simply strophic: her melodies tend to expand and develop (and send her voice higher in its

range) rather than merely repeat. And she arranged her set with a sensible dramatic arc, moving from the quiet

introspection of “Bundah” and “Rainy” to the more melodically wide-ranging, extroverted “February” and

“Photograph.”

Eric Jacobsen was a deferential accompanist, adding a warm glow to the backing supplied by Ms. Courtin’s

guitarist, Ryan Scott, and an accordionist, Rob Burger. But in the Beethoven, Mr. Jacobsen was an interpretive

dynamo. With its consistently brisk tempos and spotlighted inner voices, the “Pastoral” Symphony was a modern city

boy’s vision of the countryside: no dreamy dawdling here, just an oxygen-fueled romp painted in vivid hues.

That vigor, thankfully, did not tax the work’s beauty. The birds of the second movement sang sweetly (if

quickly), and the orchestra played the thunderstorm for all its pounding heft, with the Shepherds’ Song as a refreshingly

vital finale.

The Knights

ArtsJournal.com: On The Record January 4, 2008

Toe-Tapping Fun: The Knights at Carnegie Hall BY HENRY FOGEL

On December 7 I attended a fascinating and captivating concert at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. I had

not encountered the group before - a string orchestra known as The Knights - and I did not know quite what to expect.

The program looked varied, to say the least - Lutoslawski's Overture for Strings, two world premieres (the second a

brief harpsichord solo) of very attractive pieces by Philip Bigar, a Haydn keyboard concerto, a Torelli concerto grosso,

Bartók's Divertimento for Strings, and some Roma Gypsy songs...

Indeed, the program was varied and interesting. But the most striking thing about the evening was the nature of

the music-making. Here were musicians clearly having a ball, deeply involved in the music and in each other,

exchanging grins with each other, or understanding glances at a noteworthy turn of phrase, and in the process

connecting with the audience - the hall was virtually full - in a way one hardly ever encounters in concert life. It has

become a cliché to observe that many of the classical performances we hear seem to lack joy, a sense of discovery or

enchantment on the part of the musicians. That was stunningly not the case at this concert.

Except for the cellos, the bass and the harpsichordist, all of the players stood, changing stands (and even

sections) between pieces, so that there was no clear hierarchy. In fact, the evening resembled nothing so much as a jam

session amongst friends, which we in the audience were allowed to feel a part of. It was not unlike the experience of a

jazz club, despite the formality of a concert hall setting. The music-making had an amazing energy, along with

tenderness and hushed beauty when that was called for. The mystery of the second movement of the Bartók

Divertimento held the listener spellbound, almost afraid to breathe and break the mood.

Different members of the group occasionally chatted with the audience - in some cases telling us more about

the music they were about to play, in a few cases letting us in on the dedication these musicians have to this group: one

came from Belgium and another from Amsterdam just to participate in this concert. Oh yes, and one came all the way

from Milwaukee!

I've written here before about the need to see an end to some of the rigidity, predictability, stiffness, and almost

religiously ritualized atmosphere of our concert halls. I have commented that musicians should be aware of their need

to make a connection with audience members. I have written about the need to broaden the repertoire with music that is

fun, light, and entertaining - and to mix it with the more serious music that makes up such a large percentage of our

programming. This concert did all of that and more. The Roma Gypsy tunes were of course a perfect foil for Bartók, a

The Knights

Arts Journal January 4, 2008

page 2 of 2

composer who derived much of his inspiration from just such material, but they were also pure, unadulterated fun - toe-

tapping fun. And that is precisely what the audience was doing.

The shouts and whistles that rang through staid Weill Recital Hall were proof, if any was needed, of the depth

of the connection that this program established between performers, music, and audience. And the age diversity of the

audience was also encouraging and refreshing to see. Much of the innovation that will enliven and enrich our concert

life is taking place either at small symphony orchestras, or small ensembles like this one. It is wonderful to experience.

We need more ensembles like The Knights - and we need the musical attitude of The Knights to spread like a

wonderful virus through the music world.