You, My Mother in the NY Post!
Griffith, Mikos, Modney, Soper as pictured in NY Post
You, My Mother got a terrific review today in the NY Post, “It’s mom-entously original.” Especially proud of this shout-out:
‘The piece closed with violinist Joshua Modney, who scraped and battered the strings as he stammered a eulogy for “complicated” mothers everywhere: “On the one hand, you wore blue eye shadow and short shorts… on the other hand, you were a human-rights activist.”’
Please read the full review here.
Still *six* more chances to see this show (2/16 – 2/20), please check out my performance calendar or the Two Headed Calf website for details.
You, My Mother is up and running
Beth Griffith, Laryssa Husiak, Mike Mikos, Joshua Modney, Mariel Roberts
Very excited to be joining Yarn/Wire (+ Mariel Roberts, cello) and Theater of the Two Headed Calf for a premiere run of operas by Rick Burkhardt and Brendan Connelly. The show is up this week through Feb 20, please see my performance calendar or click here for details. We already got some nice feedback from the Village Voice after opening night.
I’m especially excited to be taking a spoken text + violin solo by Rick Burkhardt up and about with the actors on stage (pictured above).
This is captivating new work, I’m really looking forward to our remaining performances!
Wet Ink in the New York Times
Soper and Modney perform "Cipher"
Wet Ink got a nice review in the New York Times for our recent concert as part of Issue Project Room’s Gaudeamus Muziekweek. I was fortunate to perform some great new works by Kate Soper, Ted Hearne, and Chris Trapani. A short excerpt is shown below. Please click here to see the full review.
“Another of the ensemble’s composer-performers, Kate Soper, sang her own “cipher,” an exotic score in which her vocal settings of text fragments from Wittgenstein, Freud, Jenny Holzer, Michael Drayton and Sara Teasdale closely matched, in timbre and gesture, a brash violin line played energetically by Joshua Modney. Sometimes Ms. Soper ran a hand along the fingerboard.”
Concert Review: Wet Ink @ Duke University
Wet Ink Septet
Wet Ink recently kicked off its year-long residency at Duke University with a pair of concerts featuring Wet Ink repertoire and the music of Duke graduate composers. We got a terrific review in CVNC, The Online Arts Journal in North Carolina. Please click here and check it out.
Concert Review: Wet Ink @ FeNAM
Wet Ink Septet
Wet Ink got a nice review in the San Francisco Classical Voice for our concert at the Festival of New American Music at Sacramento State University. Here are the highlights:
“No group was more bracingly thought-provoking and expansive than the Wet Ink Ensemble. These seven New York musicians/composers are fearless in testing the limitations of what instruments or musical forms can be. Best of all, they don’t shy away from integrating the spoken word as a tasty and dramatic counterpoint to the music. That played out powerfully in the unnerving but entrancing two movements from Voices From the Killing Jar, written by vocalist Kate Soper. Here hypnotic music was defined by start and stop rhythms punctuated by Soper’s sung text and finger-caress of a cymbal. In one of the movements the text was an incantation mining the Iphigenia tale, wherein the words exclaim Clytemnestra’s wish for bloodshed. Later, sax player Alex Mincek’s Nucleus bloomed in a set of short movements in which saxophone and drum interchanged musically stark exclamations.”
For the full review, please click here.
Video: Mivos @ Ann Arbor Edgefest
MIVOS Quartet
Recently Added to YouTube: Mivos Quartet plays Ned Rothenberg’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings @ Ann Arbor Edgefest 2011. Please click below to view.
Video: Wet Ink @ FeNAM
Wet Ink is just wrapping up a successful California tour, which included concerts, readings, and masterclasses at Santa Clara University, Sacramento State, and UC Davis. Our Sacramento concert was streamed live on the web, and is now available as an archive here:
Website Updates
I have made several updates to my website for the 2011-2012 concert season, please check it out if you have a moment. I have added my 2010 performance of Leroy Jenkins’ violin concerto “Wonderlust” (Wet Ink Ensemble), and will post more audio in the coming weeks. Also, please check out my updated Performance Calendar for info about upcoming concerts.
Video: Mivos Performs Glass in Hong Kong
MIVOS Quartet
Recently Added to YouTube: Mivos Quartet plays Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 5, Third Movement, in Hong Kong at the 2011 HellHOT! Hong Kong New Music Festival. Please click below to view.
MIVOS Italy Tour on YouTube
We now have live video from MIVOS Quartet’s February 27 concert in Udine, Italy on the web. So far we have posted the first movement of Wolfgang Rihm’s String Quartet No. 4, more coming soon! Rihm 4 is a piece we’re all extremely passionate about and has been a cornerstone of our repertoire, please click the link below to check it out.
