Reviews: Tokyo String Quartet, Chamber Music and Brian Brooks
In the photo above from last Saturday night, Catherine Cochran and Hanna Arie-Gaifman of the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts toast the Tokyo String Quartet backstage on another successful season as the Y’s String Quartet-in-Residence. The upcoming 08/09 season marks the start of an ambitious three-year cycle, in which the Tokyo String Quartet will perform all 16 of Beethoven’s string quartets. Subscriptions are now on sale. Their recent CD of the Beethoven Op. 18 quartets has received glowing reviews.
The Chamber Music at the Y concert on Tuesday night was also favorably reviewed by Steve Smith in the New York Times: “Ms. Josefowicz was a fiery presence; Mr. Tree’s playing was sage and genteel. Between those poles the trio provided a solid foundation: Mr. Laredo and Ms. Robinson offered sweetly spun lines, and Mr. Kalichstein’s contributions were buoyant and refined. Intonation suffered in climaxes, but spirit won out.” More info on their 2008-09 subscriptions is available here.
In the last series of performances for the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, the Brian Brooks Moving Company impressed critics from the Advocate (here’s their preview and photo below) and the Village Voice: “Brooks’s brilliant escalating repetitions call for endurance, not to say heroism, on the part of the performers...But everyone’s running and leaping at once, barely avoiding collisions, grunting and gasping. Smart, utterly unpretentious heroes, they make your eyes water and your spirit soar.”
Brian Brooks, Edward Rice, Weena Pauly, Jo-anne Lee in Acre
