University of Florida Performing Arts presents World Premiere Turtle Island Quartet and Nellie McKay Friday, October 11, 7:30 p.m. University Auditorium
David Balakrishnan, Violin, Baritone Violin Mark Summer, Cello Mateusz Smoczynski, Violin Benjamin von Gutzeit, Viola with guest Nellie McKay Vocals, Marimba, Piano and Ukulele There will be a short intermission. Turtle Island Quartet Recordings: Telarc, Koch International Classics, Windham Hill, Chandos, CC&C Records, GRP, BMG Turtle Island Quartet is represented by: 721 Hyde Park Doylestown, PA 18902 267-880-3750 fax 267-880-3757 www.baylinartists.com Nellie McKay is represented by: 200 West Superior Street, Suite 202 Chicago, IL 60654 312-640-7500 fax 312-640-7515 www.montereyinternational.net
Program Program will be announced from the stage. A Flower is a Lovesome Thing Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nellie McKay joins forces with the two-time Grammy award winning Turtle Island Quartet to present a delightfully kaleidoscopic view of the music of Billie Holiday, Billy Strayhorn and the Weimar cabaret of the 1920s. While the combination of voice and strings has long been a staple of the classical genre as well as of contemporary music, McKay s talents on piano, mallets and ukulele and Turtle Island s famed innovative rhythmic techniques unleash an unprecedented range of possibilities. A healthy dose of original music, for which both McKay and the Turtle Island Quartet are renowned, rounds out this sweeping concert. The multi-award winning Turtle Island Quartet has released numerous recordings and toured internationally for more than a quarter of a century. The ensemble has collaborated with some of the most sought-after artists of our day including; Paquito d Rivera, The Assad Duo, Cyrus Chestnut and Leo Kottke. McKay, who performed on Broadway in The Threepenny Opera, here, performs music of 1920s Berlin as well as jazz standards made famous by Billie Holiday. Some of these pieces transcend time and genre: well-known standards such as Street Of Dreams, The Very Thought Of You, I Cover The Waterfront and These Foolish Things, to the more offbeat, such as Marlene Dietrich s sultry version of Black Market and Alabama Song, the German Cabaret tune revisited in modern times by the Doors. Also included is a touch of Doris Day, whose music was so evocatively revisited by McKay on her recent recording Normal as Blueberry Pie. Songs by the great Billy Strayhorn complete a night of intoxicating revelry. Tonight s performance will be announced from the stage. About Turtle Island Quartet Its name derived from creation mythology found in Native American Folklore, the Turtle Island Quartet (TIQ), since its inception in 1985, has been a singular force in the creation of bold, new trends in chamber music for strings. Winner of the 2006 and 2008 Grammy awards for best classical crossover category, Turtle Island fuses the classical quartet aesthetic with contemporary American musical styles, and by devising a performance practice that honors both, the state of the art has inevitably been redefined. Cellist nonpareil Yo-Yo Ma has proclaimed TIQ to be a unified voice that truly breaks new ground authentic and passionate a reflection of some of the most creative music-making today. The quartet s birth was the result of violinist David Balakrishnan s brainstorming explorations and compositional vision while writing his master s thesis at Antioch University West. The journey has taken Turtle Island through forays into folk, bluegrass, swing, be-bop, funk, R&B, new age, rock, hip-hop as well as music of Latin America and India a repertoire consisting of hundreds of ingenious arrangements and originals. It has included more than a dozen recordings on labels such as Windham Hill, Chandos, Koch and Telarc; soundtracks for major motion pictures; TV and radio credits such as the Today Show, All Things Considered, Prairie Home Companion and Morning Edition; feature articles in People and Newsweek magazines; and collaborations with famed artists such as clarinetist Paquito D Rivera, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, guitar legends Leo Kottke and the Assad brothers, The Manhattan Transfer, pianists Billy Taylor, Kenny Barron, Cyrus Chestnut and Ramsey Lewis, singers Tierney Sutton and Nellie McKay, the Ying Quartet and the Parsons and Luna Negra Dance Companies.
Another unique element of Turtle Island is their revival of venerable improvisational and compositional chamber traditions that have not been explored by string players for nearly 200 years. At the time of Haydn s apocryphal creation of the string quartet form, musicians were more akin to today s saxophonists and keyboard masters of the jazz and pop world, i.e., improvisers, composers and arrangers. Each Turtle Island member is accomplished in these areas of expertise as well as having extensive conservatory training. Original members Balakrishnan and Mark Summer, arguably the finest cross genre cellist of the modern age, are joined by the elite of the young alternative string players from Europe, Polish jazz violin phenom Mateusz Smoczynski, and violist Benjamin Von Gutzeit, of German descent, who recently completed a master s program in jazz studies at Manhattan School of Music. As Turtle Island members continue to refine their skills through the development of repertory by some of today s cutting edge composers, through performances and recordings with major symphonic ensembles, and through a determined educational commitment, the Turtle Island Quartet stakes its claim as the quintessential new world string quartet of the 21st century. For Turtle Island s recent Telarc recording, Have You Ever Been, they tackle works by legendary guitarist, songwriter and performer Jimi Hendrix, along with other compositions reflective of and inspired by Hendrix s music including TIQ founder David Balakrishnan s new composition Tree of Life, an exploration of the longstanding controversy that Darwin s theory of evolution sparked namely, the spirit world versus the natural world, religion versus science. David Balakrishnan (violin, baritone violin) graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in music composition and violin and earned a master s degree in music composition at Antioch University West. The Turtle Island founder developed the template for the TIQ revolutionary compositional style based on the principle of stylistic integration applied to bowed string instruments that in addition to the group awards has earned him Grammy nominations in the arranging/composing categories and led to numerous grants, both from private sources such as conductor Marin Alsop, who commissioned his piece for violin and orchestra, Little Mouse Jumps, as well as national service organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts and Meet The Composer foundations. In 2005, he received a MTC/ASOL Music Alive residency with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra for which he composed six orchestral works, the last being a concerto for Turtle Island cellist Mark Summer. The NCO also commissioned Balakrishnan s composition Darkness Dreaming, which premiered in April 2004 with guitarists Sharon Isbin and John Jorgenson. His piece, Spider Dreams (1992), has been widely performed and recorded throughout the world by a diverse array of musical organizations, including a live recording by Turtle Island with the Detroit Symphony conducted by Neeme Järvi on Chandos Records. A 2002 commission awarded by a consortium of presenters headed by the Lied Center of Kansas resulted in a string octet titled Mara s Garden Of False Delights, which is featured on Turtle Island s Grammy-winning Telarc release, 4+Four. His most recent commission is again from the Lied Center, for which Balakrishnan composed a fulllength work involving theatre, dance, poetry, video and Turtle Island with the KU wind ensemble that is an artistic response to the socio/political issues concerning the various theories of evolution, both scientific and cultural, titled The Tree Of Life. Mark Summer (cello) is a founding member of Turtle Island and is widely regarded, thanks not least to his phenomenal percussion and pizzicato techniques, as one of the
outstanding cellists of our time. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a recipient of their 2008 Distinguished Alumnae award, Summer was a tenured member of the Winnipeg Symphony for three years, before leaving the orchestra to perform in several Canadian contemporary and Baroque ensembles, as well as his own group, The West-End String Band. Asked to perform at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1985, the group went on to record Summer s original music for CBC Radio. That same year, Summer visited the Bay Area where he was invited by David Balakrishnan to help form the quartet. He continued to touch base with his classical roots, performing with the Chamber Symphony of San Francisco, the Oakland Symphony, Oakland Ballet and the contemporary music ensemble, Earplay. In the 26 years since embarking on an improvisational musical odyssey, Summer has continued to develop a unique and multitimbered style, which incorporates virtuoso jazz soloing, distinctive bass lines, and extensive percussive techniques adapted from the guitar, bass and drums. He has been the subject of feature articles in Strings and Bass Player magazines, and has published two pieces for solo cello, one of which, Julie-O, was recently featured on two episodes of NBC s Parenthood. In addition to composing and performing with Turtle Island, Summer performed for several years in a trio with clarinet virtuoso Paquito D Rivera, participating in the trio s 2005 Grammy-nominated recording The Jazz Chamber Trio. He has been recorded for numerous motion picture soundtracks and performed and appeared on albums with singers Linda Ronstadt, Toni Childs, guitarist Jeff Tamelier of Tower of Power, saxophonist Kirk Whalum, and guitarist Will Ackerman. In 2011, Mark made his debut as an orchestral soloist, premiering David Balakrishan s cello concerto, Force of Nature. His more notable cello exploits include performing the Brahms Clarinet Trio in a sandstone grotto by the banks of the Colorado River in Moab, Utah, and a performance on Taos Mountain at 11,000 feet on a cello made of ice. Mateusz Smoczynski (violin) is a graduate of the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland. A student of Andrzej Gebski, he made his jazz debut in 1999 in Jazz Camping Kalatowki with the Jacek Namyslowski Quintet. Smoczynski has collaborated with such renowned Polish musicians as Urszula Dudziak, Tomasz Stanko, Krzesimir
Debski, Zbigniew Namyslowski and Jaroslaw Smietana. Together with Joachim Kuhn, Janusz Stefanski and Bronislaw Suchanek, he took part in the premiere of legendary jazz violinist Zbigniew Seifert s Jazz Concerto for Violin, Symphony Orchestra and Rhythm section. Smoczynski leads his own quintet with which he recorded his first CD Inspirations, dedicated to his two biggest music influences, John Coltrane and Zbigniew Seifert. After the success of his first album in 2007, Smoczynski received the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship, and in June 2008 was awarded Jazz Oscar in the category music lovers hope of 2007. In 2008, his second recording Expressions was released to popular acclaim. In 2009, Smoczynski formed a band with his brother Jan on Hammond organ and the Russian drum star Alexander Zinger called New Trio. In 2010, they released their first CD Simultaneous Abstractions which was nominated for best recording debut of the year for a Fryderyki award ( the Polish Grammy ). That same year Smoczynski co-founded the Atom String Quartet, the very first Polish jazz string quartet. They have recorded two CDs, Fade In and Places, and received first prize for the Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa Competition, the most important jazz competition in Poland. The Atom Quartet was also nominated in 2012 for a Fryderyki award. In 2011, Smoczynski had the opportunity to play with pianist Richie Beirach, trumpeter Ack van Rooyen, bassist Glen Moore and drummer Janusz Stefanski, performing at the Zbigniew Seifert in Memoriam-Berlin Festival. Benjamin von Gutzeit (viola) was born into a musical family. One of his sisters recently became the principal cellist of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and his father is the director of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He began playing the viola at the age of 4, beginning on a very small violin that was outfitted with viola strings. Taught by his father until he turned 12, he then studied with Emile Cantor, the viola player of the Orpheus String Quartet. In 1992 and 1994, he won first prize in the final of the German youth competition Jugend Musiziert; the 1994 win led to a concert tour in Japan performing in a string quartet at the age of 12. When he turned 15, he developed an interest in popular music as well and started to play the electric bass in jazz bands. In 1997, he studied for one year as a student at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz. While attending the Gymnasium in Austria in 2001, he began his jazz studies with jazz violinist Andi Schreiber from Vienna, later moving to the Netherlands in 2004 to study jazz at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Dutch saxophone icon Ferdinand Povel and guitarist Jesse van Ruller. While living in Holland, he took an active part in the Dutch jazz and improvised music scene and performed on numerous festivals such as the famed North Sea Jazz Festival. In 2010, he was awarded a full scholarship to attend the Manhattan School of Music, where he has pursued his master s degree until the present. He has worked with teachers Phil Markowitz, Garry Dial and John Riley. Gutzeit has performed and recorded with many great musicians including jazz violinist Mark Feldman, electronic music virtuoso Matthew Herbert, cellist Ernst Reijseger, composer and bandleader Martin Fondse and jazz saxophonist Dave Liebman.
Nellie McKay (vocals, marimba, piano and ukulele) Hailed by The New Yorker as funny and touching, ceaselessly clever and scarily talented, McKay just finished an extended run in the off-broadway hit Old Hats (winner of the Lucille Lortel award for outstanding alternative theatrical experience and Drama Desk award for outstanding revue), and has written two acclaimed musical biographies, Silent Spring: It s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature an exploration of environmental pioneer, Rachel Carson, and I Want to Live! the story of Barbara Graham, the third woman executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin. McKay s virtually unlimited gifts as a singer, songwriter, actress, pianist, ukulele player, mimic, satirist and comedian into a show that is much deeper than its surface might suggest, writes The New York Times. In the most lighthearted way they evoke a heartless environment of social injustice in which people who fall through the cracks are invisible to everyone else. McKay produced her critically acclaimed, debut double album Get Away From Me with Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, followed by Pretty Little Head, Obligatory Villagers, Normal as Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day, ( among the killer overhauls of American standards The New York Times), and her latest, Home Sweet Mobile Home. She has won a Theatre World Award for her portrayal of Polly Peachum in the Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, and performed onscreen in the film P.S. I Love You, as well as writing original music for the Rob Reiner film Rumor Has It and contributing to the New York Times Book Review. Her music has also been heard on the TV shows Mad Men, Weeds, Grey s Anatomy, NCIS, Privileged and Nurse Jackie, and McKay has appeared on numerous TV shows including Late Show with David Letterman (with the Brooklyn Philharmonic), The View, Late Night with Conan O Brien, Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Live with Regis & Kelly and CBS Saturday Morning. In 2010, the Chase Brock Experience produced a ballet of her third album, Obligatory Villagers, while McKay recently finished contributing to the soundtrack for the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. A recipient of The Humane Society s Doris Day Music Award in recognition of her dedication to animal rights, McKay is known as an outspoken and fierce advocate for feminism, civil rights and other deeply felt progressive ideals.