For the Moment

by Peter Aaron, June 29, 2011

To many nonfollowers of classical music, the appellation string quartet carries with it some stiff and stuffy imagery—likely that of another tired, tuxedoed four-piece sitting in the corner at a wedding reception, sawing through Pachelbel’s Canon and other dust-caked items from the repertoire. Enter Ethel, the audacious New York outfit whose rock-band attitude and genre-bending approach have seen it dubbed “America’s most acclaimed postclassical string quartet,” and which will make its long-awaited festival debut at Maverick Concerts on July 16.

Ethel was formed in 1998, the group’s bemusing moniker a reference to “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter,” the play being written by the titular character in the film Shakespeare in Love. Comprised of violist Ralph Farris, cellist Dorothy Lawson, and violinists Cornelius Dufallo and Jennifer Choi (Dufallo replaced Todd Reynolds in 2005; ex-Miro Quartet member Choi replaced Mary Rowell just last month), the quartet performs adventurous music of the past four decades, with an emphasis on works composed since 1995. Over its 13 years Ethel has featured original compositions alongside those of Steve Reich, John Zorn, Jacob TV, Don Byron, Phil Kline, Evan Ziporyn, Marcello Zarvos, and others. In addition to performing as an ensemble with the likes of Joe Jackson, Todd Rundgren, Bang on a Can, Loudon Wainwright III, and the Negro Problem’s Stew, the members of Ethel have individually worked with Gorillaz, Sheryl Crow, Yo Yo Ma, Roger Daltrey, Ornette Coleman, Lenny Kravitz, and an ever-eclectic list of dozens more.

Praised by the New York Times as “a high-octane chamber group” of “extraordinarily skilled, passionate musicians,” Ethel has headlined some of the world’s foremost venues—Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, the Sydney Opera House—and garnered further attention for its innovative TruckStop performance-residency tour, which found the quartet ensconcing itself in communities across the world to collaborate with non-classical local musicians. In light of all this it’s more than a little surprising it took so long for the foursome to make its way to Maverick, the country’s oldest continuous summer chamber music festival.

“It’s a real arrival for us,” says Lawson. “We’ve been growing our reputation over the years, and it just finally made sense within the festival as a whole. We’re ready, and very excited.”

For the concert Ethel will perform “Present Beauty,” a program “celebrating the concepts of presence and continuity” and highlighted by the quartet’s new arrangement of Phillip Glass’s score to The Hours, the 2002 film based on Virginia Woolf’s time-defying novel Mrs. Dalloway. Rounding out the evening are more mesmerizing items by Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Huang Ruo.

“Glass’s music is especially transcendent,” Lawson explains. “The economy of notes, the repetition, and the beautiful sound all work together to create a timelessness. Like The Hours or Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness style, it evokes the present state and asks, ‘What if we really could hold onto this very moment?’”

Maverick-goers will no doubt encounter many such moments when Ethel appears this month.

Ethel will perform at Maverick Concerts in Woodstock on July 16 at 8pm. Tickets are $25 and $40 (students, $5). (800) 595-4849; www.maverickconcerts.org.