Brooklyn Rider Opens BCM Autumn Series in Bridgehampton

When Bridgehampton Chamber Music opens its autumn series this Saturday, the first of three seasonal concerts will feature a performance by Brooklyn Rider, a truly unique string quartet whose members have made it their mission to redefine what is often perceived as a staid musical form.

Make no mistake, Brooklyn Rider is a true string quartet, and it does perform the music of those well-known classical composers from centuries ago that you might expect. But the quartet also immerses itself in other musical forms by collaborating with big name contemporary musicians representing a diverse range of genres. As a result, over the course of its two decades in existence, Brooklyn Rider has developed a reputation for creating compositions that blend both style and substance as well as offering some surprises. Banjo player Bela Fleck, composer Philip Glass and singer/songwriters Rufus Wainwright and Kate Bush are just few of the musicians who have worked with the quartet in the past.

“We did all come out of the rigorous Curtis and Juilliard Conservatory worlds, but I think from the beginning 20 years ago, the gravitational pull that brought us together in the quartet is embedded in our name,” explained Colin Jacobsen, one of the quartet’s two violinists.

Brooklyn Rider takes its name from Blue Rider, the German artistic movement founded in 1911 by, among others, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc — artists who wanted to move away from realism in favor of abstraction by focusing on spiritual and symbolic art.

“Blue Rider was active in Munich pre-WWI, and they had an eclectic sense of inspiration to move art forward,” said Jacobsen, who composes and arranges much of the quartet’s music.

Given their dual focus on the classical and the contemporary, at this weekend’s BCM concert both Haydn’s String Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5 and Beethoven’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3 will be performed. But also on the program is “borderlands…”, a modern-day composition by Matana Roberts about the U.S./Mexico border crisis and the problems that have arisen due to American immigration policies, as well as the quartet’s rendition of Bob Dylan’s 1964 anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’” courtesy of Jacobsen.

“My arrangement of the Dylan song starts with a question and ends with a question,” Jacobsen explained. “It has to do with this idea that we think democracy is a thing that’s just there. But it’s only something that’s lived and defined for each generation. The only thing that’s certain is change, and Dylan articulates that in the song.

“But is change for the best and is it always good? That’s in there too.”

In addition to Jacobsen, members of Brooklyn Rider are violinist Johnny Gandelsman, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Michael Nicolas, musicians who have all played for BCM in the past, both individually and as a quartet. This year marks the quartet’s 20th anniversary and as the name implies, there is a definitive Brooklyn connection to the musicians.

“We all lived in Brooklyn at the time the quartet was formed, and we were connected to a community of artists across disciplines and genres of music,” Jacobsen said. “I’m the last one still in Brooklyn. The quartet is incredibly flexible to follow passions musically and in our compositions. Classical work and pieces by Haydn and Beethoven are part of what we do, but we also cross boundaries across time and cultures.”

Jacobsen hopes that as a result, the music awakens a cross-pollination of sorts in audiences so that fans of purely classical music might come to appreciate Brooklyn Rider’s approach to a Bob Dylan song or, vice versa, aficionados of the more modern musicians will become interested in hearing more of Beethoven’s work.

Though at first glance, there may not appear to be much of a connection between the old and new pieces Brooklyn Rider will present in the concert this weekend, Jacobsen noted that there is a link. Specifically, he points to “Citizenship Notes,” a new project by Brooklyn Rider that looks at the 250th anniversary of the United States.

“It’s the world’s oldest current democracy and in thinking of the [17th century] Age of Enlightenment in Europe, our thoughts went into democracy taking root around the world,” he explained. “Haydn and Beethoven in their works were providing a musical model of how that works. In Hayden, a fugal last movement referring to the older form is, in a way, a flattened hierarchy — completely equal and pertinent in that situation.”

Similarly, Beethoven’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3 touches on egalitarian themes and represents the concept of a musical democracy.

“For this project, my arrangement of Bob Dylan’s song is part of it. We also thought Matana Roberts belonged in this. She wrote ‘borderlands…’ for us when the issue of Mexico was a big deal in 2016 or ’17,” Jacobsen said. “She comes from the free jazz and visual art world. Her score is a graphic score. There are some notes, but also an element of time and chants. We have dice on stage, and the ideas of borders, in general, feed into this structured improvisation.”

When asked how novel Brooklyn Rider’s approach is in terms of its embrace of both traditional classical compositions and more experimental new music, Jacobsen responds, “I think there are groups that are models for what we’re doing — the Kronos Quartet have certainly done that.

“For us, it is this sense that some groups only perform old music and some only current music,” he added. “We love the fact we can advocate for timeless truth in Beethoven and speak to current truths as well.”

Brooklyn Rider has also explored music traditions well beyond the borders of the United States. As part of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project in 2000, the quartet began a collaboration with legendary Iranian musician and composer Kayhan Kalhor who plays the kamancheh, a stringed Persian instrument.

“Kalhor is mostly coming from an oral tradition — he’s writing music that often has the help of an arranger, which is a part of these collaborations,” Jacobsen explained. “When you collaborate outside the classical world, you open a whole door into a musical realm. Then when you come back to the thing you know, you have a deeper and better understanding of it.

“I think we’re voraciously looking for things to speak to this moment and a sense of attaching ourselves to wider messaging as well,” he added. “By collaborating with friends and playing beautiful music, we don’t have to say anything political. It’s an act in and of itself.”

For flutist Marya Martin, founder and artistic director of BCM, having Brooklyn Rider perform as part of the autumn series represents the exciting range of possibility in terms of what her organization can offer in terms of chamber music.

“Colin is one of my all-time favorite musicians. His brain works in a different way and he thinks outside the box,” Martin said. “Everything he does is of his own making. He and his brother Eric, a cellist, started the group together. Eric has since moved on to become a full-time conductor and has an orchestra in Florida, so is not playing cello much. But he and Colin started the string quartet and they respond to the times.

“They’ve got their own message going on which is really incredible.”

For Martin, programing the fall season, in which each concert is three weeks apart, is something of a treat as she feels freed from the task of trying to create an overarching theme, something she does for BCM’s summer festival programming.

“In a way, it’s the opposite because I look to have three very different concerts,” she said.

Following the Brooklyn Rider concert this Saturday, on November 15, BCM Autum presents pianist Gilles Vonsattel performing two Beethoven’s piano sonatas that pair the Mozartean first sonata with the late, audacious “Hammerklavier.” Finally, on December 13, the series concludes with “Festive Baroque,” a celebration of the holiday season with a concert of works by Telemann, Vivaldi and others.

“I still feel the need to have some sort of overall joining of the dots in the summer. In these concerts its quite freeing to do one of this and one of that,” Martin said. “This will be three different musical experiences, which I like. Each one is a very different situation. So I encourage audience members to buy the whole series.’

BCM Autumn 2025 concert series kicks off on Saturday, October 18, with Brooklyn Rider, followed by pianist Gilles Vonsattel on Saturday, November 15, and finally, “Festive Baroque” on Saturday, December 13, led by Martin on flute. She will be joined by violinists Kristin Lee and Kevin Zhu, cellist Estelle Choi and harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss. All three concerts begin at 5 p.m. at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, 2429 Montauk Highway, Bridgehampton. Tickets are $50 and $75 ($10 for students) at bcmf.org/autumn-season.