Search - The American String Project :: Beethoven, Sarasate & Shostakovich - The American String Project, Live in Seattle 2006

The name itself gives the first hint: not the American String Orchestra, or the American String Ensemble, but the American String PROJECT. Think project; in its one of its prime connotations-- a plan in development, communal in nature, defining and refining its goals as its members engage and you get a sense of the fluidity and camaraderie that are the hallmarks of this group. The American String Project is an annual phenomenon where diverse performers and modes and visions mingle to create something that did not exist before: Fifteen string players from around the world gather in Seattle to perform works from the chamber music repertoire that have been arranged specifically for the group. The intimacy of the chamber music articulation, with its interplay of tone and color, is enriched and deepened, taking on the tonalities of a string symphony but always with the proportion and exchange that characterizes the great chamber works. Two further differences are salient: First, the Project draws from the world s premier string players: soloists, concertmasters, chamber music artists, teachers. Moreover, this ensemble performs without a conductor. The group is anchored by its artistic directors, Barry Lieberman and Maria Larionoff, but its modus operandi is collaborative. Each work on a season s program is assigned a "leader," who together with all the musicians determines how best to shape and present the performance. From work to work, the players positions rotate, to egalitarian effect: at times even a musician who sits exclusively in the concertmaster s chair in her or his regular job may occupy in the last chair in the second violins. The result of these differences, as audiences and critics over the past five seasons have discovered to their joy, is music making of thrilling vitality and communication-- performance not as reproduction but as translation. From the introspection of Mozart to the energy of Beethoven and the poignancy of Mendelssohn; from the passion and tension of Prokofiev and Shostakovich to the late-twentieth-century yearning of Vasks, from Britten s Britain to Sarasate s Spain to Barber s America: those who hear the American String Project have the privilege of experiencing performances of music at once familiar but wonderfully new.