6pm doors • 7pm show
PUBLIQuartet Play Andy Akiho
with Andy Akiho and Ian Rosenbaum
About
As one of National Sawdust’s 2018-2019 Artists-in-Residence, PUBLIQuartet are advancing their work to commission and present composers outside of the standard classical canon. For their first show this season, the dynamic, groundbreaking PUBLIQuartet teams up with percussion stars Andy Akiho and Ian Rosenbaum for a concert of Akiho’s vibrant, viscerally driving music.
Hailed as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music” (Washington Post), PUBLIQuartet has collaborated with artists ranging from the International Contemporary Ensemble to Helga Davis and Billy Childs, and has appeared everywhere from Lincoln Center to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Their first show presents Andy Akiho, one of the most “vital” composers (New York Times) composing today. His virtuosic use of elaborate rhythms and unexpected timbres mesmerizes and moves in equal measure.
With Akiho’s frequent collaborator Ian Rosenbaum — a “meteoric young talent” in the percussion world (Washington Post) — on marimba, this concert promises to be a rollicking tour–de–force performance of Akiho’s String Quartet, LIgNEouS, and Karakurenai.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Tickets
The Artists
Applauded by the Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music” and by The New Yorker as “independent-minded”, PUBLIQuartet’s creative programming lends a fresh perspective to the classical music scene. Dedicated to presenting new works for string quartet, PUBLIQuartet was selected as Concert Artists Guild’s New Music/New Places Ensemble at the 2013 CAG Competition, and then garnered Chamber Music America’s 2015 ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music. PQ’s genre-bending programs span the classical canon and also feature open-form improvisations that expand the techniques and aesthetic of the traditional string quartet.
These distinctive qualities led New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to name PUBLIQuartet as 2016-17 MetLiveArts Ensemble-in-Residence, featuring a series of concerts in various spaces at the Met, including the Cloisters, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, and the Met’s new Breuer space. The unique programs created by PQ for each performance included such collaborators as Andy Akiho, Ian Rosenbaum, Nadia Sirota, Helga Davis, and James Carter. Those successes for MetLiveArts have led to a busy 2017-18 touring season across the US, featuring their DC debut on the Washington Performing Arts series and a special performance of John Corigliano’s epic string quartet at Wolf Trap, celebrating the composer’s 80th birthday.
Recent career highlights include PQ’s Lincoln Center debut on the Great Performers series, and a sold-out Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall, along with a wide variety of venues/festivals including BAM Café, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, the Detroit Jazz Festival, and a special appearance with Grammy–winning pianist/composer Billy Childs at the Newport Jazz Festival. In 2016, PUBLIQuartet was selected by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to perform a 90–minute improvised soundtrack to the final presidential debate, streamed live on the Late Show’s Facebook page, which has over one million views.
PUBLIQuartet’s commitment to supporting emerging composers inspired their innovative program, PUBLIQ Access, designed in 2014 to promote emerging composers and to present a wide variety of under-represented music for string quartet, from classical, jazz, and electronic to non-notated, world, and improvised music. In addition to annual PUBLIQ Access showcase concerts at NYC’s DiMenna Center for Classical Music and at Boston’s First Church, the group features at least one PQ Access composition on every concert program. The best of these works are included on PUBLIQuartet’s new self-titled debut album, which was released in fall 2015 on CAG Records, and they will premiere three brand new works during the 2017-18 season, written for PQ by Jessica Meyer, Steven Snowden, and Xian Wang.
Other current projects include the original program MIND|THE|GAP, described by The Strad as “ingenious hybrids…bridging the divide between diverse musical genres through group improvisation”, which PQ developed in 2011 to generate interest in new music while also engaging traditional classical music audiences.
PUBLIQuartet is sought after for its creative and energetic educational workshops. The quartet’s mission to enrich and inspire students of diverse backgrounds has led PQ to hold residencies with American Composers Orchestra and Deer Valley Music Festival’s Emerging Quartets and Composers program, among others.
Founded in 2010, PUBLIQuartet has been presented by The American Composers Orchestra, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and The Chautauqua Institution. PQ has collaborated with members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), JACK Quartet, jazz tuba legend Bob Stewart, and innovative jazz clarinetist/composer Don Byron. Mentors include members of the Muir, Juilliard, Orion, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, American, and Brentano String Quartets as well as composers Joan Tower and Butch Morris. They have participated in residencies at the Juilliard String Quartet Institute, the Robert Mann String Quartet Institute, the Shouse Institute (GLMF), and the Banff Centre.
Described as "mold-breaking," "alert and alive," "dramatic," and "vital" by The New York Times, Andy Akiho is an eclectic composer and performer of contemporary classical music. Recent engagements include commissioned premieres by the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and Carnegie Hall‘s Ensemble ACJW; a performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and three concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Akiho has been recognized with awards including the 2014-15 Luciano Berio Rome Prize, the 2015 Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund, a 2014 Fromm Foundation Commission from Harvard University, the 2014 American Composers Orchestra Underwood Emerging Composers Commission, a 2014 Chamber Music America (CMA) Grant with the Friction Quartet and Jenny Q. Chai, a 2012 CMA Grant with Sybarite5, the 2012 Carlsbad Composer Competition Commission for the Calder Quartet, and the 2011 Finale & ensemble eighth blackbird National Composition Competition Grand Prize. Additionally, his compositions have been featured on PBS’s "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" and by organizations such as Bang on a Can, American Composers Forum, and The Society for New Music.
Akiho was born in 1979 in Columbia, South Carolina, and is based in New York City. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina (BM, performance), the Manhattan School of Music (MM, contemporary performance), and the Yale School of Music (MM, composition). Akiho is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in composition at Princeton University. He has attended the Aspen Music Festival, Heidelberg Music Festival, HKUST Intimacy of Creativity Festival, Bang on a Can Festival, Silicon Valley Music Festival, Yellow Barn Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest Festival, and Avaloch Farm Music Institute, where he is the Composer-in-Residence. Akiho’s debut CD No One To Know One, on innova Recordings, features brilliantly crafted compositions that pose intricate rhythms and exotic timbres around his primary instrument, the steel pan.
Praised for his “excellent” and “precisely attuned” performances by the New York Times, percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum has developed a musical breadth far beyond his years. He made his Kennedy Center debut in 2009 and later that year garnered a special prize created for him at the Salzburg International Marimba Competition.
Mr. Rosenbaum joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program in 2012 as only the second percussionist they have selected in their history. He has appeared at the Bay Chamber, Bridgehampton, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, Norfolk, and Yellow Barn festivals.
Highlights of the 2017-2018 season include The Industry’s world premiere production of Galileo, with music by Andy Akiho and a libretto by Yuval Sharon, a ten-city tour of the West Coast with Sandbox Percussion, and the world premiere of there is no one, not even the wind by John Luther Adams with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
In early 2017, Mr. Rosenbaum released his first solo album, Memory Palace, on VIA Records. It features five commissions from the last several years and includes collaborations with Brooklyn Rider and Gina Izzo.
Mr. Rosenbaum is a member of Sandbox Percussion, HOWL, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Foundry, and Novus NY. He has recorded for the Bridge, Innova, Naxos, and Starkland labels and is on the faculty of the Dwight School in Manhattan. Mr. Rosenbaum endorses Pearl/Adams instruments, Vic Firth mallets, and Remo drumheads.
