Baryshnikov Arts Center Presents Anton Batagov & Attacca Quartet in World Premiere

Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) opens its Spring 2018 Music Series with Anton Batagov and the Attacca Quartet on Tuesday, January 16, 2018 at 7:30pm in the Jerome Robbins Theater. This varied evening of music features the World Premiere of Different Things from influential post-minimalist Russian composer and pianist Anton Batagov, paired with Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 18, No. 6. Batagov's Different Things will be performed by the composer (at the piano) and the Attacca Quartet, one of America's premier young string ensembles, along with Kris Saebo, double bass; Linda Jones, soprano; Luthien Brackett, mezzo soprano; Andrew Fuchs, tenor; and Steven Hrycelak, bass.

Anton Batagov is one of the most significant figures of Russian contemporary music. His Different Things was commissioned in 2016 through BAC's inaugural Cage Cunningham Fellowship, established to support artists who embody John Cage and Merce Cunningham's commitment to artistic innovation. The 2016-17 Fellow, celebrated Russian pianist Alexei Lubimov, generously applied his entire $50,000 award to commission five composers he identified at the forefront of music innovation-including Batagov.

Different Things incorporates Batagov's recording in 2012 (the year of John Cage's centenary) of street sounds near the building where Cage lived on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 18th Street in Manhattan. The score is an interplay of the notes C-A-G-E and the numbers for the date of his birth. The piece opens with audio of Cage from his last radio interview on July 15, 1992, with WNYC's John Schaefer: "There is composition (writing music), and there is listening to music, and they are quite different things."

Anton Batagov's Different Things was commissioned through BAC's inaugural Cage Cunningham Fellowship.

Leadership support for BAC's music programming is provided by the Anne and Chris Flowers Foundation and the Thompson Family Foundation.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Russian post-minimalist composer and pianist Anton Batagov is a graduate of the Gnessin School and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, and prizewinner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1986) and other competitions. Batagov introduced music by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass to Russian audiences. The language of his compositions is rooted in the harmonic and rhythmic patterns of Russian church bells and folk songs seamlessly mixed with the spirit of Buddhist philosophy, the dynamic pulse of early Soviet avant-garde, and the unfading appeal of progressive rock music. Batagov's works feature a unique sense of large-scale architecture and textured emotionalism. His discography includes over 40 albums. In 2009, Batagov received the prestigious Steppenwolf Award in the Best Music category. In 2013, New York Public Radio radio named his album Tayatha (with Yungchen Lhamo) among the top 10 contemporary classical releases of the year. His 2015 recording I Fear No More, a symphonic/rock vocal cycle performed by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, was nominated for International Classical Music Awards.

The internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet was formed at the Juilliard School in 2003 and made their professional debut in 2007 as part of the Artists International Winners Series in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. In the 2017-2018 season, the Attacca Quartet will be touring extensively throughout the United States and abroad. Highlights of the season will include appearances at Wolf Trap, Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, Carolina Performing Arts, Bay Chamber Concerts, Glema Mahr, Cranbrook Music Guild, Huntsville Chamber Music Guild, Bologna Performing Arts, Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music, Friends of Music in Troy, Symphony Augusta, the Garmany Chamber Music Series, Lyrica Chamber Music, and many more. The group will also present an ongoing series at Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan entitled Based on Beethoven, featuring performances of the complete Beethoven string quartets. The group currently serves as the Ensemble-in-Residence at the School of Music at Texas State University. The Attacca Quartet's most recent album release included string quartet works of Michael Ippolito. These works were performed as part of the group's residency at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, including three concerts of works by living composers. The group's next recording project will feature string quartet works of Caroline Shaw.

Kris Saebo leads a versatile musical life in New York City as a double bass soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, electric bassist, composer/arranger, and teaching artist. Kris is a founding member of Decoda, the affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall and performs regularly with A Far Cry, NOVUS NY, New York Classical Players, Ensemble Connect, The Chris Norman Ensemble, and the orchestra for the Broadway show Matilda. Saebo is also a devoted teaching artist, and has worked in this capacity in the greater New York metropolitan area, as well as internationally. Through his work with Carnegie Hall's Musical Connections program, Saebo has worked with all ages in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. In the summers of 2012 and 2014, through a partnership between the Juilliard School's Global initiative and Santa Marcelina Cultura, he traveled to São Paulo, Brazil to teach, perform, and collaborate with young Brazilian musicians. He has also been a visiting teaching artist at The Colburn School and at Skidmore College as part of the Decoda-Skidmore Chamber Music Institute. A noted collaborator, Saebo has worked with artists such as Sir Simon Rattle, Dawn Upshaw, Jamey Haddad, and Nas. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from The Juilliard School, where his teachers were Orin O'Brien and Homer Mensch. Kris Saebo is also an alumnus of Ensemble Connect, a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute which nurtures high level musicians who also learn while engaging the communities in which they live and perform.

Linda Lee Jones, soprano, a New Orleans native, is active as a soprano, teacher and massage therapist in New York City and Central New Jersey. Her work as an ensemble singer has afforded her the opportunity to perform with the area's most prominent choral groups, including the choirs of Trinity Wall Street Church, Musica Sacra, the New York Choral Artists, St. Ignatius Loyola Church and the Mostly Mozart Festival, along with some of the world's finest orchestras and conductors. Jones is a member of the professional Chorale of the Carmel Bach Festival in Carmel, CA and sings regularly with the choir of St. Mary the Virgin in New York. As a soloist she has appeared with the Symphony Chorus of New Orleans, the Louisiana Vocal Arts Chorale, the Masterwork Chorus of NJ and the Argento Chamber Ensemble in New York. Before relocating to New Jersey she served as Director of Music for Munholland United Methodist Church in New Orleans, where she worked with choristers of all ages. Jones hold a Bachelor of Music degree in Voice Performance from Loyola University and a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting and Voice from Westminster Choir College of Rider University.

Praised by the press for her "lushness and delicacy," "easy, appealing alto" and "silky tone among all registers," mezzo soprano Luthien Brackett is in great demand as a concert soloist and professional chorister. Her most recent solo appearances include Handel's Messiah, which she performed with The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra, as well as the Rochester Chamber Orchestra; the Russian premiere of Maximilian Steinberg's Passion Week with The Clarion Society at the Grand Hall Philharmonic in St. Petersburg; Barbara's Venice: the music of Barbara Strozzi with Pegasus Early Music; and J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival. In 2017, she appeared as a soloist in Bach's St. John Passion with TENET and The Sebastians, Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Washington Bach Consort, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, and in the role of the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas with Finger Lakes Opera. A specialist in music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Brackett is a frequent soloist for Trinity Wall Street's weekly Bach at One and Handel at One series' in New York. Among her numerous commercial recordings are the Choir of Trinity Wall Street's anthology of the Complete Haydn Masses (Naxos), as well as its 2013 GRAMMY-nominated recording of Handel's Israel in Egypt (Musica Omnia); the Pulitzer Prize-winning and GRAMMY-nominated Anthracite Fields with the Bang on a Can All-Stars; and the Clarion Society's 2017 GRAMMY-nominated recording of Steinberg's Passion Week (Naxos).

A native of Kansas City, MO, tenor Andrew Fuchs is in high demand as a soloist and chamber musician. Passionate about performing the music of our time, his recent solo appearances include Steve Reich's Three Tales, Daniel Variations, and You Are (Variations), all with Ensemble Signal at Disney Hall and Miller Theatre; the world premiere of Alexander Goehr's Verschwindenes Wort at The Juilliard School's Focus Festival; the world premiere of Zachary Wadsworth's oratorio, Spire and Shadow, with Downtown Voices; Tomasso in Laura Schwendinger's opera, Artemisia, at Trinity Wall Street's Time's Arrow Festival; 21st-century American art songs with Philadelphia's Lyric Fest; and the NY premiere of David Leisner's song cycle, Of Darkness and Light, on the Music on Madison recital series. 2017-2018 highlights include a principal role in Daniel ThomasA. Davis's new chamber opera, Six. Twenty. Outrageous, based on plays by Gertrude Stein, with American Opera Projects and the Momenta Quartet; William Shield's 18th-century opera, The Woodman, with Brandywine Baroque; San Giacomo in Schmelzer's opera, La Memorie Dolorose with TENET; Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah as a guest of New York Polyphony; L'Orfeo (ensemble) with Apollo's Fire on tour, and more. He has collaborated on numerous commercial recordings, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthracite Fields by Julia Wolfe, the Clarion Choir's 2017 Grammy-nominated Steinberg: Passion Week, Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli with New York Polyphony, and Paola Prestini's Oceanic Verses.

Steven Hrycelak, bass, is equally at home as an operatic, concert, and ensemble performer. Recent operatic roles include Seneca in L'incoronazione di Poppea with Opera Omnia, which the New York Times hailed as having "a graceful bearing and depth." Mr. Hrycelak has performed with the New York Choral Artists, the New York Virtuoso Singers, Early Music New York, Vox, TENET, Equal Voices, Meridionalis, Seraphic Fire, and the vocal jazz quintet West Side 5. He has also been a frequent soloist at Trinity Church Wall Street, as well as with Musica Sacra, 4×4 Festival of Baroque Music, New York Collegium, the Waverly Consort, the American Symphony Orchestra at the Bard Music Festival, Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, and the Collegiate Chorale, with whom he made his Lincoln Center debut. Mr. Hrycelak has degrees from Indiana University and from Yale University, where he sang with the world-renowned Yale Whiffenpoofs. Additionally, he is an active coach/accompanist.

ABOUT BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER (BAC)

BAC is the realization of a long-held vision by artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov to build an arts center in Manhattan that would serve as a gathering place for artists from all disciplines. BAC's opening in 2005 heralded the launch of this mission, establishing a thriving creative laboratory and performance space for artists from around the world. BAC's activities encompass a robust residency program augmented by a range of professional services, including commissions of new work, as well as the presentation of performances by artists at varying stages of their careers. In tandem with its commitment to supporting artists, BAC is dedicated to building audiences for the arts by presenting contemporary, innovative work at affordable ticket prices. For more information, please visit www.bacnyc.org.

Baryshnikov Arts Center is grateful for the support of its generous individual and institutional annual fund donors in 2016-­­-2017.

Jennifer Adams, Anonymous (7), Pierre Apraxine, Darcy Bacon, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lisa Rinehart, Dr. Phillip Bauman, Carol Baxter and Loren Plotkin, Talia Bilodeau, Leon and Debra Black, Tina and Jeffrey Bolton Family Fund, Catherine Brennan, Clyde Brownstone, Valentino D. Carlotti, Lydia and Mats G. Carlston Charitable Fund, Carroll Cartwright, Meredith Caruso, Fadi, Terri, and Claudine Chartouni, Mirjana Ciric and Dino Buturovic, Lori Cohen and Christopher Rothko, Brian Coleman and Olga Smagarinskaya, Frank and Monique Cordasco, Nancy Dalva, Edoard Dejoux, Michael and Denise Deleray, Richard and Jennie DeScherer, Michael Devins, Joseph and Diana DiMenna, Katie Dixon and Richard Fleming, Elizabeth Doud, Debbie and Harry Druker, James H. Duffy, Cheryl Lee and Steven C. Dupré, Jennifer and Russell Echlov, Gwen Edelman, Ehrenkranz Family Foundation, Brittawnee Enos, Daniel Ezralow, Barbara File, Michele Lee Fine, Barbara Fleischman, Richard and Nicole Fortson, Sandra Foschi, Natasha Frank, Alex and Jenia Fridlyand, Randy Gaugert, Edward Geffner and Suzanne Spinrad, Philip Giambanco, Paola Gianturco, Jon Gilman & Brad Learmonth, Brianna Gitnik, Slavka B. Glaser, Michael Goldstein and Carolyn Katz, Rebecca Gradinger, Peter Greenleaf, Louise Guenther, Agnes Gund, Dr. Ayele Hadero, Annie and John Hall, Elaine M. Halpin, Charles Hamlen, The Hare Family, Nicole and Paul Harman, Elisabeth Hayes, Brian and Tania Higgins, Roger and Joan Hooker, In Honor of Roger Hooker, Sarah Hooker, Huong Hoang, Fredericka Hunter, Mary Anne Hunting and Thomas Remien, Susan Israel, Laith and Adele Jazrawi, Bobbo Jetmundsen, Carine Joannou, Stephanie Joel, Annie Jordan, Zuzana Justman, Julia and Michael Katz, Carolyn Katz and Michael Goldstein, Colleen Keegan, Drs. Nadine and Leo Keegan, Donald M. Kendall, Paul and Teresa Kim, Joan Konner and Alvin Perlmutter, Sonja Kostich, Herman Krawitz, Sali Ann Kriegsman, Iya Labunka, Mark Ladner and Julie Ross, Nicole Leibman, Tania J. Leon, The LeRoy Family, Charlie and Lorie Levy, Harvey Lichtman and Lauren Best, Jarrett and Maritess Lilien, Julie Lilien, Topper Lilien, Jane Lipton, Lew Lloyd, Nicholas Lloyd and Megan Craig, Marianne Lockwood and David Bury, Nick and Cass Ludington, David M. and N. Heller McAlpin, Paul and Caroline McCaffery, Sarah and Alec Machiels, Yael Mandelstam and Ken Tabachnick, Elizabeth Manigault, Cheryl Yeager Marshall, Patrick A. Meere, MD and Ingrid E. Weigel, MD, Jane & Richard Mescon, Adam Miller, Valerie and Stuart Mogul, In Honor of Natalie Moody, Aidan Mooney, Mark Morris, Cheri Mowry, Marion Nestle, Zoya and Anna Obraztsova, Elizabeth Osha, Hubert and Joanna Parzecki, Ray Pepi and Karen Arrigoni, Steven and Michèle Pesner, Steve and Randi Piaker, Georgiana Pickett, Darryl Pinckney, Lily Potter, Tamar Quillen, Aidan and Elizabeth Quinn, Judith Regan, Laila Robins, James Roe, John S. Rockwell, Christopher Rothko, Leslie Ruff, David Saltonstall, Hillary Schafer and Mark Shafir, Dorothy Scheuer, Natasha Schlesinger, Laura Schoen, Fiorenza Scholey, Sherry Schwartz, Tatiana Segal, Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan, Wallace Shawn, Jeremy Smith, Ellen Sorrin and David York, Christina Sterner and Steve Poses, Keith Stubblefield, Lev Sviridov, Rosalie Swedlin, Teresa Thrun, Jennifer Tipton, Rosanna and John Troiano, Igor Tsukanov, Robert Warshaw and Debbie Schmidt, Robert Thorpe and Laurie David, Mary R. Waters, Suzanne Weil, Roger Weisberg and Karen Freedman, Carolyn F. Wiener, World Wide-Holdings Fund in The New York Community Trust, In Honor of Victor Elmaleh, Yelena Yoffe and Serge Troyanovsky, and Tony Zisa.

Affirmation Arts Fund, Altman Foundation, American Chai Trust, Anonymous (2), Rose M. Badgeley Residuary Charitable Trust, Bay and Paul Foundations, Blavatnik Family Foundation, Capezio-Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, Consulate General of Israel in North America, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Enoch Foundation, FACE Foundation, Ferriday Fund Charitable Trust, Anne and Chris Flowers Foundation, Ford Foundation, Marshall Frankel Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Irving Harris Foundation, Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust, The Jim Henson Foundation, Israel Institute, Japan Foundation, Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation, Kent-Lucas Foundation, Kiwi Partners, The Frances Lear Foundation, The Lupin Foundation, The Luce Della Vite Estate in Montalcino, Italy, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation, The Mark E. Pollack Foundation, The Muriel Pollia Foundation, Princess Grace Foundation-USA, rag & bone, The Reed Foundation, Renova USA, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Soros Fund Charitable Foundation, St. John, The Thompson Family Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, UNIX Gallery, and the Walter Family Foundation.

Lead support of dance programming at Baryshnikov Arts Center is provided by the Rudolf Nureyev Endowment.

Baryshnikov Arts Center is also grateful for support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Funding is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Yamaha is the official piano of the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Tickets: $25 at www.bacnyc.org or 866.811.4111