The opening performance for Nova Linea Musica began with a fascinating talk by Spektral Quartet violist and scholar Doyle Armbrust. It was an intimate pre-concert conversation about what can be celebrated about America. Armbrust is deeply knowledgeable about the composers of the evening's music and gives an overview of how the composers were influenced, the structural components of the works, and an insider's view of the composer's process. Also, the attendees become members of the Society of Disobedient Listeners! It's about becoming intimate with the music and listening in an unconventional way. It's more than just a measure of music being played. Emotional and spiritual investment is needed to hear and feel the music.
Read MoreChicago Tribune: After more than a decade, Chicago’s Spektral Quartet hangs up its bows. The Grammy-nominated group is going out ‘with a bang.’ /
If the walls of Spektral Quartet’s Rogers Park rehearsal space could talk, they’d tell you about all the remarkable music they’ve heard there in the past 12 years, selections from Debussy and Schubert sitting comfortably alongside, say, Sufjan Stevens arrangements.
Then, they’d probably groan about the godawful viola jokes they’ve overheard.
Violinists Clara Lyon and Theo Espy (who previously performed under the name Maeve Feinberg), violist Doyle Armbrust and cellist Russell Rolen are unrepentant on that point — after all, you’re talking to the quartet who once released an album cover of Armbrust mid-tumble on Northwestern University’s quad.
“Humor is pretty essential to what we do and how we approach our programming,” Lyon says.
Read MoreChicago Tribune: Amid pandemic, Grossman Ensemble makes recording debut /
The Grossman Ensemble – its resident band – has released “Fountain of Time,” an immensely appealing album that illuminates much of what CCCC is all about: nurturing new ideas in concert music. Each of the CD’s five compositions was given its world premiere by the Grossman Ensemble and is captured here in lustrous detail.
From the mystical opening pages of Shulamit Ran’s “Grand Rounds” to the instrumental sensuality of Anthony Cheung’s “Double Allegories,” from the exquisitely detailed tone painting of David Dzubay’s “PHO” to the subtle textural shifts of Tonia Ko’s “Simple Fuel,” the recording attests to the stylistic breadth the CCCC seeks to foster. It also documents the Grossman Ensemble’s high performance caliber, established during its first performance, in December 2018.
Read MoreHumans of Chamber Music Podcast: Spektral Quartet /
In our inaugral episode, Kim sat down with Doyle Armbrust from Spektral Quartet to chat about the current state of chamber music education, memorable performances with the ensemble, and more. Enjoy the episode!
Chicago Tribune: The Spektral Quartet takes philosophies online, rather than placing their performances there /
What happens when one of Chicago’s most innovative contemporary music ensembles can’t rehearse or perform?
In the case of the Spektral Quartet, the musicians apparently go through several stages of reaction, including shock, acceptance and renewal.
“Like for most ensembles and most people in the arts, this has been frankly a scary time,” says Spektral violist Doyle Armbrust, referring to the shutdown of concerts due to the coronavirus.
“We had our biggest touring season to date coming up this spring, and we watched all of those dates and all of that income evaporate pretty much overnight. ... Of course, the reaction you have to having all of your work disappear – initially, that is just terrifying.
Read MoreBroadway World: Music Academy Of The West Has Unveiled The 2020 Alumni Enterprise Award Winners /
A pioneer of thought leadership in music and the arts, Music Academy of the West has announced he winners of its third annual Alumni Enterprise Awards. Over $70,000 in cash prizes will be shared among eight alumni, funding four winning projects and two Innovation Awards.
Alumni Enterprise Award Projects
Tenor and non-profit founder of Opera4Kids Bernardo Bermudez ('11) will use digital platforms to bring opera to young people through his program Musical Make Believe.
Violinist Clara Lyon ('03, '04) and violist Doyle Armbrust ('01, '03) of the Spektral Quartet (pictured above), will record and release a commissioned work, Enigma, with a 360-degree video screened in planetariums and viewed on VR headsets.
Cellist John Popham ('05, '06) of Longleash will create a meditative, active listening podcast, States of Listening.
Tenor Andy Zimmermann ('19) will bring opera to Broadway with Opera Jukebox, a concept that will reinvent popular arias for a wide audience.
The Daily Northwestern: Spektral Quartet talks Grammys, “Fanm D’Ayiti” /
When Doyle Armbrust (Bienen ‘00) learned he was nominated for a Grammy Award this year, the first thought that crossed his mind was “finally, I get to see Lizzo perform live.”
Armbrust is a violist in Spektral Quartet, a Chicago-based string quartet that has been active since 2009. The group plays a variety of work, from classics to original work commissioned by other artists. The group received a Grammy nomination this year in the category of best world music album for “Fanm d’Ayiti,” which they worked on with Haitain-American artist Nathalie Joachim. This is the fourth nomination the group has received, following nominations in 2017 and two nominations in 2019, one for the separate Latin Grammy Awards.
“It’s certainly nice to be recognized when you play sort of a fringe type of music that’s not that popular,” Armbrust said. “The best thing about it is that it makes a wider group of people aware of what it is that we’re doing. More so than flying out to L.A and going on the red carpet, which is a lot of fun. Really, it’s a chance to reach a wider audience. And getting to see an artist like Lizzo, who I’m totally enamored with, totally makes the trip worthwhile.”
Cellist Russell Rolen (Bienen doctorate ‘12) said the group formed in 2009 when he started collaborating with one of his friends from graduate school as well as Armbrust and another musician in the Chicago music gig scene. The Quartet started as a fun project, as the members would have sessions in their apartments once or twice a week. The group became interested in working more professionally, eventually performing at a music series hosted at DePaul University for their first concerts. In 2012, the group would become artists-in-residence at the University of Chicago. The other founding members outside of Rolen and Armbrust would eventually leave the group, with violinists Clara Lyon and Maeve Feinberg joining later on.
Rolen said the albums the group have been nominated for have varied widely in genre and tone, benefitting the diverse nature of the group’s range. Their first nominated album, “Serious Business” in 2017, was a collection of string quartet songs that each had an element of humor, poking fun at the self-serious reputation of classical music. Last year, the Quartet was nominated at the Grammys and the Latin Grammys for their featured role on acclaimed Puerto Rican musician Miguel Zenón’s album “Yo Soy La Tradición.” Rolen described the collaboration as a rewarding experiment for the group, who were stretched outside their comfort zone working in the Puerto Rican Latin jazz tradition.
For “Fanm d’Ayiti,” Spektral again collaborated with a solo artist who wrote an entire suite of music, Nathalie Joachim. The album, titled Haitian for “Women of Haiti,” blends Haitian folk with classical string quartet with electronic beats. According to Armbrust, the album is very personal for Joachim, who was inspired to write it by the death of her grandmother, who was an important influence on her decision to pursue music. Rolen said, in the creation of “Fanm d’Ayiti” and the other albums the group records with outside composers, their primary goal is to support and fulfill the artistic vision of their collaborators.
“It’s always fun and interesting to follow a composer to get where they want to go, and to put ourselves in the service of that,” Rolen said. “(Nathalie) sort of defines our role in the piece, and we are happy to lend our expertise and to be excited and enriched by what she brought to the project.”
Besides touring “Fanm d’Ayiti,” Feinberg said Spektral is currently working on multiple other upcoming projects. The group is practicing a quartet commissioned by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir that is paired with video art that can be formatted to fit a 360 degree dome theater. The project will debut at the Adler Planetarium in June. In addition, the quartet is recording a song cycle written by Alex Temple, that they will be working with indie singer Julia Holter on.
Feinberg said they think Spektral is a unique group due to its willingness to explore genres and multimedia elements, and stretch the limitations of what quartet music can be. Although classical music can be alienating to people who weren’t “groomed into it,” Feinberg said the experimentation of Spektral allows the group to appeal to new audiences who lack that formal training.
“It’s very genuine to our character and our personality as a group,” they said. “We take the music very seriously, and we hold ourselves to a high standard, but I think we’re very irreverent people, and we like creating concert scenarios that aren’t this stiff formal, ‘you walk in, sit down, people bow and you clap’ We’re trying to create experiences that are more communal.”
–Wilson Chapman
The New Yorker /
What is the point of making beautiful things, or of cherishing the beauty of the past, when ugliness runs rampant? Those who work in the realm of the arts have been asking themselves that question in recent weeks. The election of Donald Trump, and the casual cruelty of his Presidency thus far, have precipitated a sense of crisis in that world, not least because Trump seems inclined to let the arts rot. Headlines along the lines of “What is the Role of X [music, dance, poetry, hip-hop] in the Age of Trump?” have proliferated. (Is it necessary to aggrandize the man by giving him an Age?) Competing tactics of response present themselves. Do you carry on as before, nobly defying the ruination of public discourse? Or do you seize on a new mission, abandoning the illusion of aesthetic autonomy? Many artists report feelings of paralysis. “Engaging isn’t working and neither is disengaging,” the Chicago musician and critic Doyle Armbrust writes, in an arrestingly unconventional program note for a recent Budapest Festival Orchestra performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Primephonic: Podcast Interview with Spektral Quartet's Doyle Armbrust /
'Papa Haydn' and his sense of humour, Chicago's collaborative community and classical musicians immitating stand-up comedians: these are a handful of elements you'll find in this month's primephonic podcast.
Doyle Armbrust, the Chicago-based violist and member of the Spektral Quartet, found time amid the busy days of Ear Taxi, Chicago's cutting-edge contemporary music festival, to sit down with primephonic to chat. He gives a valuable insight into the quartet's latest Sono Luminus albumSerious Business which deals with humour in classical music, bridging the gap from old to new music.
Liquid Music Playlist: INROADS TO THE ELEGIAC: VIOLIST DOYLE ARMBRUST ON THE MUSIC OF COMPOSER THOMAS ADÈS /
Spektral Quartet’s Doyle Armbrust talks about propelling the string quartet into new realms–from your mobile phone’s ringtone to the concert hall–before introducing the kinetic and engrossing Arcadiana for string quartet by wunderkind British composer Thomas Adès.
Meet the Composer: Anna Thorvaldsdottir /
Anna Thorvaldsdottir is an Icelandic composer whose work conjures entire environments of sound, surrounding the listener in a dark and forbidding landscape. Anna thinks sonically; her music comes from a deeply non-verbal place, and she has developed a brilliant workflow which allows these ideas to remain mostly whole and unmolested through her creative process. Anna often favors massive ensembles, writing delicate and detailed parts for every player, but even when she is writing for smaller forces, she somehow summons these massive sonorities — detailed, elegant tapestries with a seductive gravity, which pull the listener in with their gradually revolving color and texture.
- Nadia Sirota
Meet the Composer: Marcos Balter–Failure Is an Option /
For Marcos Balter, stellar composition requires the dedicated, daily practice of an athlete. He doesn't think it possible to unearth and hone brilliant musical ideas without slogging through a whole bunch of failures along the way, nor does he believe that the compositional demigods we revere so highly – Bach, Beethoven, Mozart – birthed only masterpieces. He worries too many creatives get tongue-tied attempting consistent genius, and that their work suffers for it. Marcos has learned to embrace failure, and that these failures can lead to incredible breakthroughs.
Marcos is a composer whose manic energy and relentless work ethic effuse from everything he touches: friendships, pedagogy, and especially his music. His fast-talking, whip-smart style is easy to detect in his intricate scores. His music reverberates and pulses with energy, sometimes in such a small container, or in such a demure dynamic that the score feels almost radioactive.
Marcos Balter's point of view is singular; he can roll with the modernists and the minimalists with ease, and yet his music doesn't really fit any particular rubric. His carefully constructed works have fine grammar, well-planned architecture and often astonishing material. He is a master at finding unexpected timbral rhyme that delights and surprises.
Chicago Magazine: Best New-Music Series /
Best of Chicago
BEST NEW-MUSIC SERIES New music, as defined by Spektral Quartet violist Doyle Armbrust, has little in common with anything you might catch on Spotify. It’s more like frenetic performance pieces that range from two men shouting at the audience to the spoken-word monologues interwoven with flute melodies in Janice Misurell-Mitchell’s Amendment Blues No. 1. Armbrust created this monthly new-music night a year ago and found an enthusiastic audience; attend the next mind-bending installment on August 31 at 7 p.m.