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ETHEL with Robert Mirabal: The River
Oct 08Performance Dates
- Thu Oct 08 2015 8:00 PM
Venue
https://uwworldseries.org/visit/venues/meany-hall-performing-arts
Critically acclaimed string quartet, ETHEL, continues its successful six-year collaboration with Native American flutist and two-time Grammy Award winner, Robert Mirabal, with this world premiere performance. Using rivers as inspiration for collaboration, their music explores water as the embodiment of spirit and its essential role in life on earth in a cross-cultural concert experience. Through music, narrative and ritual, their performance evokes timeless Native American traditions.
NOTES
Sky River Suite / music by ETHEL, words by Robert Mirabal
An Kha Na / Robert Mirabal
The River / Phil Kline
Kalimba Waterfall, Tsintskaro Memory and Rana Run / Ralph Farris
Gat'te / Dorothy Lawson
Jay-Red, Tsoma, and Clean Dirge, Dirty Dirge / Kip Jones
Tuvan Ride, In the Eyes of E, Wi-wa (traditional) and Peace Calls / ETHEL + Robert Mirabal
CAST
ETHEL
Acclaimed as “unfailingly vital” (The New York Times), “brilliant,” “downtown’s reigning string quartet” (The New Yorker), and “one of the most exciting quartets around” (Strad Magazine), ETHEL invigorates the contemporary music scene with exuberance, intensity, imaginative programming, and exceptional artistry.
At the heart of ETHEL is a quest for a common creative expression that is forged in the celebration of community. As cultural and musical “pollinators,” the quartet brings its collaborative discoveries to audiences through multi-dimensional musical repertoire and community engagement.
ETHEL's 2015-16 season celebrates the diversity of regional American music, anchored by a national tour of the evening-length ETHEL’s Documerica. Described by The New York Times as “new music bonding with old images in rich, provocative and moving ways,” this program directed by Steve Cosson features montages by acclaimed projection artist Deborah Johnson in concert with commissioned work by Mary Ellen Childs, Ulysses Owens Jr., Jared Impichchaachaaha’ Tate and James "Kimo" Williams and new music by the members of ETHEL.
ETHEL will tour several critically-acclaimed signature programs throughout the season, ranging from The River, a collaboration with Taos Pueblo flutist Robert Mirabal, to an introspective program Grace, featuring ETHEL's arrangements of music by Ennio Morricone and Jeff Buckley. Other highlights include the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe’s “Blue Dress,” commissioned by ETHEL, at National Sawdust; performances of new and existing repertoire as the Resident Ensemble at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar; and interdisciplinary activities as Ensemble-in-Residence at Denison University. While on tour and at home, ETHEL offers in-depth residency and community outreach to connect a broad spectrum of audiences and students to its music.
Always striving to demonstrate the unifying power of music, ETHEL has initiated innovative collaborations with an extraordinary community of international artists including David Byrne, Bang on a Can, Todd Rundgren, Carlo Mombelli, Ursula Oppens, Loudon Wainwright III, STEW, Ensemble Modern, Jill Sobule, Dean Osborne, Howard Levy, Simone Sou, Andrew Bird, Iva Bittová, Colin Currie, Thomas Dolby, Jeff Peterson, Oleg Fateev, Stephen Gosling, Jake Shimabukuro, Polygraph Lounge and Vijay Iyer.
From 2004–2014, ETHEL served as the Ensemble-in-Residence at the Grand Canyon Music Festival's Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project. The group’s ongoing dedication to working with indigenous people and music culminated in the 2010 release of Oshtali: Music for String Quartet (Thunderbird Records), the first commercial recording of American Indian student works.
ETHEL’s debut CD was a Billboard Magazine “Best Recording of 2003.” Its second CD, Light, ranked #3 on Amazon.com’s “Best of 2006” and #5 on WYNC’s “Best of 2006 Listener Poll.” The group’s most recent CD, Heavy, was released in 2012 to great critical acclaim. Recordings of Documerica and The River will be released fall 2015. ETHEL has appeared as a guest artist on many albums, including The Paha Sapa Give-Back by Jerome Kitzke, (Innova, 2014), Cold Blue Two (Cold Blue Music, 2012), Glow by Kaki King (Velour Recordings, 2012); Blue Moth by Anna Clyne (Tzadik, 2012); A Map of the Floating City by Thomas Dolby (Redeye Label, 2012); The Duke by Joe Jackson (Razor & Tie, 2012); John the Revelator: A Mass for Six Voices by Phil Kline (Cantaloupe Music, 2008) with vocal group Lionheart; and the GRAMMY® Award-winning Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman (Concord Records, 2009).
Over the past five years, ETHEL has premiered 100+ new works by 20th- and 21st-century composers including: Phil Kline’s Space at the gala reopening of Alice Tully Hall; Radio by Osvaldo Golijov at the debut of WNYC Radio’s Jerome L. Greene Space; ETHEL’s TruckStop®: The Beginning and Documerica at BAM’s Next Wave Festival; ETHEL Fair: The Songwriters at opening night of Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors; Wait for Green with choreographer Annie-B Parson commissioned by Arts Brookfield; “HonBiBaekSan” by Dohee Lee at Meet the Composer’s 3-City Dash Festival, and Quartet for Queen Mab by Missy Mazzoli at Miller Theater. ETHEL’s HomeBaked series has commissioned and premiered works by emerging NYC composers Andy Akiho, Hannis Brown, Anna Clyne, Lainie Fefferman, Dan Friel, Judd Greenstein, Matt Marks and Ulysses Owens Jr. to date. ETHEL has debuted original scores in combination with new choreography by Aleksandra Vrebalov/Dusan Tynek Dance Company and Son Lux/Gina Gibney Dance; and works by contemporary music luminaries such as Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, John Zorn, Evan Ziporyn, Steve Reich, John King, Raz Mesinai, John Luther Adams, JacobTV, Hafez Modirzadeh, David Lang, Kenji Bunch, Don Byron and Marcelo Zarvos.
Founded in 1998 and based in New York City, ETHEL is comprised of Ralph Farris (viola), Dorothy Lawson (cello), Kip Jones (violin), and Corin Lee (violin).
ROBERT MIRABAL
Two-time Grammy Award winner, Robert Mirabal, lives with his family at the foot of the sacred Taos Mountain in northern New Mexico. Maintaining a traditional life, keeping the centuries-old customs of the Taos Pueblo people, Robert has been described as a Native American Renaissance man – musician, composer, painter, master craftsman, poet, actor, screenwriter, horseman and farmer – and he travels extensively playing his music all over the world.
Mirabal first flute came when he was 18 with money he borrowed from his grandmother, and shortly afterward he had the opportunity to meet Native American flute player R. Carlos Nakai who greatly influenced him. When Mirabal and Nakai met, the latter looked at Mirabal's hands and laughed. Nakai said, “I have that same scar. It’s the scar of the flute maker.”
In the years since, Robert has continued the evolution of his flute making and has also become an accomplished novelist, poet, craftsman, composer, dancer, actor, painter, sculptor, concert performer and recording artist. His albums of traditional music, rock and roll, and spoken word present a contemporary view of American Indian life that is unequaled. Mirabal's music is informed by the ceremonial music that he has heard all his life. What he creates comes out of his body and soul in a desire to take care of the spirits of the earth. Mirabal merges his indigenous American sound with those of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, tapping into a planetary pulse with a style that defies categorization. His travels have provided him with experiences that he could have never imagined and exposed him to a global sound and a global voice.
Whether as a composer, songwriter, or musician, Robert has won many honors including two-time Native American Artist of the Year, three-time Songwriter of the Year, a 2006 Grammy Award for Sacred Ground, and his 2008 GRAMMY Award for Johnny Whitehorse Totemic Flute Chants, blending all of Robert’s influences into a musical landscape that conjures up both the historic and contemporary West. His 2002 breakthrough PBS special, Music From a Painted Cave, is unsurpassed in Native American theatrical expression. He is also the author of A Skeleton of a Bridge – a book of poetry, prose and short stories. Another book by Mirabal, Running Alone in Photographs, is a memoir laced with gritty, introspective prose that opens a window to a palpable experience of life in the Pueblo through the voice of Robert’s alter-ego Reyes Winds.
As a theatrical performer, Robert is no stranger to transforming himself. He portrayed Tony Lujan (Taos Pueblo), the famed husband of Mable Dodge Lujan, in the biographic film Georgia O’Keeffe starring three-time Academy Award nominee, Joan Allen. In recent year’s, Robert has appeared on Japanese and Italian TV as well as several guest roles on Walker Texas Ranger. In August of 2012, Robert premiered Po’Pay Speaks, his one-man show in Sante Fe about the leader of the Pueblo Revolt (1680) that is now touring internationally.
RELATED
Free Artist Preview with ETHEL & Robert Mirabal at UW Intellectual House discussing the story behind the world premiere of The River. October 7 at 12pm. More information.
Post-performance Q&A with artist. October 8, immediately after the performance. More information.
