AIR SCHOENBERG: CONNECTING FLIGHTS

The new music ensemble International Street Cannibal, led by cellist/composer Dan Barrett, presents a concert will centered on Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, including compositions that were key to Schoenberg’s growth, and later ones effected by this revolutionary work. Composed in 1908 at a time of severe personal crisis (the affair of Schoenberg’s wife with Viennese painter Richard Gerstl), this string quartet is pivotal in the composer’s oeuvre, marking the beginnings of a shift towards atonality that would have a profound impact on the evolution of modern music. Radiating through time zones and geography, the program will feature compositions by Schoenberg’s mentors and influential figures of the canon (Zemlinsky, Brahms and Schubert), students (Berg, Webern and Korngold) and students of students (Schnittke and Arvo Pärt) – mapping a rich web of influences and effluences.

Air Schoenberg

The Holding Tank

The Holding Tank concerts are held at St Mark's-in-the-Bowery, a light-filled performance space that allows every player, every artist, freedom of movement and location. New and classical repertoire, dance, and voice, including the spoken word, bring fresh perspective and harmony to this new conversation between performer and audience. STRIKE! performances combine boxing matches and contemporary chamber music. The idea of explosive engagement unites the artistic aesthetics of both boxing and chamber music in this series that flows from the Cannibals' goals to disrupt convention, to renew the artistic text, and to renew rituals that may unite performer and audience. The International Street Cannibals are virtuoso talent from all over the world, and from the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the STX Ensemble, the London Symphony, the American Ballet Theater, the New York City Opera, and Absolute Ensemble. We showcase the best in new music from our composers Dan Barrett, Charles Coleman, Joe Gallant, Arthur Kampela, Dary John Mizelle, Dan Palkowski, Alastair Greig, Christopher Lyndon-Gee.

Strike!

STRIKE! is a unique blend of boxing match and contemporary chamber music that draws an audience diverse both in age and interest, neither accustomed to thinking of boxing as an artistic genre. Dan Barrett introduces the sets with Cannibal commentary that subvert conventional expectations about concert-going.

Most of the STRIKE! performances occurs in the boxing ring where music is experienced in an unfamiliar, yet highly disciplined environment. Energy abounds in the physicality of performance, the mastery of the various artistic mediums, the excitement of the improvisation, and in the outrageous question "What do the International Street Cannibals aim to teach us?"

A theatre-in-the-round becomes something more as mind, ear, and body prepare to follow alternating performances of music and boxing. Boxers and instrumentalists allow their learned choreographies of movement, technique, and repertoire, to emerge in unexpected partnership. The Cannibals ask the audience to consider these new possibilities of Art.