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New York, June 2016 – Colin Jacobsen, Johnny Gandelsman, Nick Cords, Eric Jacobsen, Michael Nicolas
These guys from the string quartet Brooklyn Rider are just great. It was wonderful to film this episode with them. I had met founding member Colin Jacobsen in Sydney during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in 2011. He was mentoring the strings and playing a piece of his own and I remember thinking back then how cool he was. I bought a CD of theirs- Silent City – when I got back and was immediately a fan.
When I decided to film four episodes of Sarah´s Music back-to-back in New York, I called my friends at the 21C Media group to ask what interesting concerts were happening during the time I was planning to be there. I was delighted to hear that Brooklyn Rider was performing at National Sawdust – the new cool concert space which I was dying to see anyway, so I starting planning a programme with them right away.
I was determined to surprise them with something fun instead of a normal sit-down interview, hence the Brooklyn bagels. I had hoped to continue the theme and interview them in the Brooklyn Bridge Park but as you can see from the introduction, it was pretty rainy that day so we were very lucky to be able to use my friend, Christina Piaia´s cool Brooklyn loft at the last minute – thanks, Christina!
After the bagels, we moved to National Sawdust in Williamsburg, a very cool part of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Rider concert was part of the New York Philharmonic Biennial and there was a real buzz in the hall. It was a bittersweet occasion saying goodbye to founding member, Eric Jacobsen, but also wonderful to see how the quartet and the audience welcomed new member, Michael Nicolas. I feel very lucky that we could make our programme around such a special event in Brooklyn Rider´s history.
Long may they play together – thank you for this wonderful day with you all, for the awesome Horn Challenge “sounding your barbaric yawps over the rooftops of the world” and, most of all, for your wonderful music.
