LONG TIME TRAVELING
Anonymous 4
Merkin Hall
Thursday December 7th at 7PM
at Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th Street
(between Broadway and Amsterdam)
» Tickets
» New Sounds Live 2006-2007 Concert Season
Anonymous 4's "Long Time Traveling" is a folk journey into sacred music of early America--hymns, shape-note tunes, and gospel songs from the 18th and 19th centuries, straight out of the Ozark and the Appalachian mountains. A4 sing shape note tunes in the spare three-part harmonizations in which they first appear in the nineteenth-century tunebooks. With some instrumental accompaniment by former Turtle Islander fiddler/mandolin player Darol Anger and guitarist Scott Nygaard, there’s a folk/country/roots feeling to each deeply-researched sung poem, which tells a story of love and loss, hope and redemption.
So named in honor of the designation given by musicologists to the unknown 13th-century Parisian student whose writings detailed the vocal polyphony he heard at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the New York-based female accapella quartet Anonymous 4 formed in 1986. Renowned for ingeniously interweaving music with poetry and narrative, exploring medieval chanting and polyphony, the ensemble has sold more than a million CDs worldwide and their recordings regularly reach the Billboard Classical Top Ten. With their new CD Gloryland, Anonymous 4 embarks on another journey into the roots of Anglo-American vocal music in collaboration with folk star instrumentalists, featuring lyric folk songs and religious ballads, shapenote tunes, and spiritual and gospel hymns.
The group is made up of Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer, Johanna Maria Rose and Jacqueline Horner. Marsha grew up in California in the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains; Susan was born and raised in the Bronx, New York; Johanna grew up in the village of Grand-View-on-Hudson; and Jacqueline is from a village in Northern Ireland called Monkstown. They have performed in cities throughout North America, and are regulars at major international festivals.
Violinist, fiddler, composer, producer and educator, Darol Anger is at home in a number of musical genres, some of which he helped to invent. He is well-known as a founding member of some of the most innovative acoustic groups ever: his Republic Of Strings, Newgrange, the Anger/Marshall Band, the Turtle Island String Quartet, Psychograss, the Montreux Band, and the David Grisman Quintet. Working with some of the world's greatest improvising string musicians; Stephane Grappelli, Mark O'Connor, Bela Fleck, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Michael Manring, Mike Marshall, Michael Hedges, Jerry Douglas, et al., has given Anger a unique perspective on string music, resulting in his inventing and developing innovative string techniques. In addition to performing all over the world, Darol led string seminars and lecture-demonstrations with Turtle Island at colleges all over the world. He has dozens of recordings, including his newest, Generation Nation, on Compass Records. He tours the country with his group, The Republic of Strings, and with The Anonymous 4.
Scott Nygaard is one of the most inventive and original guitarists in the bluegrass/acoustic music scene. He was the guitarist with Tim O'Brien's band, the O'Boys, from 1992 to 1997, a plum position that followed three years with Laurie Lewis's band Grant Street. He has also performed and recorded with such acoustic music stars as Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile, Tony Furtado, Darol Anger, and David Grisman, receiving numerous Grammy nominations for his stellar sidemanship. Nygaard has released two solo albums on Rounder Records, the second of which, Dreamer's Waltz, an intriguing mix of original and traditional tunes, was nominated for an Indie award by the Association for Independent Music. He was also an editor at Acoustic Guitar magazine for more than eight years, but he left the magazine in January to go back on the road and play music full-time (and manage his son's nascent bike-racing career). Nygaard is also a co-founder of the renowned Republic of Strings, along with his long time associate, Darol Anger.
Additional Resources:
» Anonymous 4's website
» Anonymous 4's MySpace page
» Darol Anger's website
» Darol Anger's MySpace page
» Scott Nygaard's website
» Scott Nygaard's MySpace page
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