A saxophone quartet of “stunning virtuosity”(Cleveland Classical), the Kenari Quartet (Bob Eason, Kyle Baldwin, Corey Dundee, and Stephen Banks) returns to Friends of Chamber Music with a program of new works and arrangements for this unusual ensemble, including a novel collaboration with student filmmakers from the University at Albany.
See their full program HERE.
Bio:
Applauded for their “flat-out amazing” performances and “stunning virtuosity” (Cleveland Classical), the highly acclaimed Kenari Quartet delivers inspiring performances that transform the perception of the saxophone. The quartet aims to highlight the instrument’s remarkable versatility by presenting meticulously crafted repertoire from all periods of classical and contemporary music. The Kenari Quartet has found a home performing on many of the premiere chamber music series in the United States. Recent engagements include appearances at Chamber Music Northwest, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and Chamber Music Tulsa, among others. For many chamber music institutions, the Kenari Quartet has been proud to serve as the first ensemble of its kind to be presented. In addition to cultivating the highest level of performance, the Kenari Quartet has a deep passion for collaboration and innovation. Most recently, the quartet premiered J.P. Redmond’s 9x9: Nine Pieces for Nonet alongside the inimitable Imani Winds. As a testament to the flexibility of the saxophone quartet, the Kenari Quartet was recently a featured artist in Baldwin Wallace Conservatory’s 86th Annual Bach Festival. Here, they collaborated with faculty, student musicians, and academics to present an unprecedented residency centering around the influence of J.S. Bach on the late composer David Maslanka, as well as improvisation throughout musical history. The quartet advocates passionately for the music of living composers, and it has given world premieres of new works by Mischa Zupko, Joel Love, and David Salleras, among others. As a recipient of Chamber Music America’s 2016 Classical Commissioning Grant, the Kenari Quartet was awarded a generous grant that allowed them to commission a new work from Corey Dundee, the group’s very own tenor saxophonist. This exciting project was made possible by the Andrew. W. Mellon Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund. In 2016, the quartet released their debut album—titled French Saxophone Quartets—on the Naxos Records label. This recording project features early masterworks for saxophone quartet by French composers Eugéne Bozza, Alfred Desenclos, Pierre Max Dubois, Jean Françaix, Gabriel Pierné, and Florent Schmitt. The Kenari Quartet also appears on David Deboor Canfield’s 2018 album, Saxophone Music, Vol. II, with their performance of Canfield’s Opus Pocus, a delightful and witty work that depicts wondrous magicians and illusionists such as Merlin and Houdini. Committed to giving back to their communities, the Kenari Quartet is regularly involved in community engagement opportunities and educational endeavors. As a part of their touring activities, they often perform and teach at youth centers and grade schools around the country. The quartet has also given performances, masterclasses, and lectures around the country at various universities, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University, the University of Southern California, the University of Houston, and the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. Formed in 2012 at Indiana University, the quartet’s name is derived from the Malay word “kenari”, which may be translated as “songbird.” Expanding on the age-old idea that birds communicate through song, the Kenari Quartet seeks to exemplify this concept through concert hall performances. By not only connecting with their audiences via song, but also through physical movement, Kenari amplifies the standard concert experience with their striking visual communication and powerful stage presence. The Kenari Quartet is represented by Jean Schreiber Management. The Kenari Quartet performs exclusively on Légère reeds and endorses lefreQue sound bridges.
Join Co-founders Jennifer Laursen and Dorothy Byers, and web designer, Asaad Saad for a fascinating story about the founding of a chamber music organization in the United Arab Emirates. The process of funding and creating an audience for an unfamiliar art form involved numerous partnerships, interesting collaborations on both sides of the Atlantic, and a web of connections extending all over Abu Dhabi and beyond.
Merz Trio ( Lee Dionne, piano, Brigid Coleridge, violin, and Julia Yang, cello) uses their unique style of musical storytelling to present a program about looking back. Featuring Tchaikovsky’s great elegiac Trio, “in memory of a great artist,” as well as Fauré’s Trio written near the end of the composer’s live, the program also gathers around it a community of smaller works ranging from Nicola Matteis to Édith Piaf, Alma Mahler to Irish traditional tunes, all exploring a similar question of what it means to see life through a lens, rose-colored or otherwise. The Trio will also introduce the program and guide the audience through the various works.
See their full program HERE.Hailed as "artists in the deepest sense of the word" (CutCommon), Merz Trio, winners of the Fischoff, Chesapeake, and Concert Artists Guild Competitions, have been lauded for their "stunning virtuosity… fresh and surprising interpretations" (Reading Eagle), and "perfection of intonation and ensemble" (Hudson Review). Merz Trio are passionately committed to reshaping the narrative of classical music through vibrantly dynamic programming and wide-ranging interdisciplinary collaboration. Their narrative programming style juxtaposes classical standards, new music, and their own arrangements of familiar and forgotten works, fluidly interwoven and guided with speaking from the Trio's members. Their interdisciplinary collaborations include ongoing projects with dancer Caroline Copeland, Sandglass Puppet Theater, chef David Bouley, and videographer Chris Kitchen.
The Trio is equally known for more immersive integrations of music and text in performance, ranging from their recital-theater piece built around Shakespeare's Macbeth ("Those Secret Eyes"), to their debut album interweaving Ravel's Trio with short pieces, poems, and diaries of the era ("INK," August, 2021). "INK" will be presented in a live concert format (“Ink Spills”) for the 2021-2022 season. Finally, in their prolific arranging, the Trio are committed to uplifting overlooked voices from history, ranging from Hildegard von Bingen to Lili and Nadia Boulanger, from Joséphine Baker to Irish folk melodies.
Merz Trio has been encouraged in their explorations by numerous institutional homes around the world: New England Conservatory, Yellow Barn, Snape Maltings, Avaloch Farm Institute, the Lake Champlain, Olympic, and Chesapeake Music Festivals, and the Fischoff Competition, alongside hundreds of welcoming venues and hosts around the US, Australia and the UK. They are currently represented by Concert Artists Guild and make their home in Boston.