Praised for their “polished performances and imaginative programming” (New York Times) The Knights are a “supremely talented” (Gramophone) orchestra of friends from a broad spectrum of the New York music world who cultivate collaborative music making and creatively engage audiences in the shared joy of musical performance. Led by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they expand the orchestral concert experience with programs that encompass their roots in the Classical tradition and their passion for musical discovery. For their inspired programming, innovative formats and “crusading musical mission,” The Knights have been hailed as “the future of classical music in America” (Los Angeles Times).
The Knights perform in a wide range of concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, 92nd Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Brooklyn Lyceum, Central Park, Le Poisson Rouge, The Stone, Tonic, the Whitney Museum and Mass MoCA. Also in demand on the international stage, they have appeared at the Dresden Musikfestspiele, Cologne Philharmonie, Dusseldorf Tonhalle, and the National Gallery in Dublin, and have toured Germany with cellist Jan Vogler. Their expanding presence on the music festival scene has included performances at the Ravinia Festival, the Stillwater Music Festival in Minnesota, and Caramoor’s Fall Festival ... read full bio
Praised for their “polished performances and imaginative programming” (New York Times) The Knights are a “supremely talented” (Gramophone) orchestra of friends from a broad spectrum of the New York music world who cultivate collaborative music making and creatively engage audiences in the shared joy of musical performance. Led by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they expand the orchestral concert experience with programs that encompass their roots in the Classical tradition and their passion for musical discovery. For their inspired programming, innovative formats and “crusading musical mission,” The Knights have been hailed as “the future of classical music in America” (Los Angeles Times).
The Knights perform in a wide range of concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, 92nd Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Brooklyn Lyceum, Central Park, Le Poisson Rouge, The Stone, Tonic, the Whitney Museum and Mass MoCA. Also in demand on the international stage, they have appeared at the Dresden Musikfestspiele, Cologne Philharmonie, Dusseldorf Tonhalle, and the National Gallery in Dublin, and have toured Germany with cellist Jan Vogler. Their expanding presence on the music festival scene has included performances at the Ravinia Festival, the Stillwater Music Festival in Minnesota, and Caramoor’s Fall Festival.
The Knights 2012-2013 season began with a return to the Ravinia Festival, where the orchestra was joined by three classical music superstars–cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman and soprano Dawn Upshaw–in three concerts that concluded the prestigious festival. Other season highlights for The Knights include the release of an all-Beethoven disc for Sony Classical, their third project with the label and a U.S. tour with pipa virtuoso Wu Man in February, making stops in Madison, Austin, Houston, and Southern California. In May, The Knights travel to Berlin to team up again with American composer Lisa Bielawa for “Tempelhof Broadcast,” leading hundreds of musicians in a large-scale spatial/acoustic work to be performed on the tarmac of the former Tempelhof Airport (now Tempelhofer Park), site of the Berlin Airlift in 1948. In December 2012, Artistic Directors Colin Jacobsen and Eric Jacobsen were selected from among the nation’s top visual, performing, media, and literary artists to receive a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship, which carries an unrestricted grant of $50,000.
Last season’s highlights included high-profile appearances at Ravinia, Central Park and the 92nd Street Y, a tour of Germany in March, and their first U.S. tour in April 2012. Additionally, The Knights launched the Ensemble-in-Residence program at New York Public Radio’s WQXR, giving two concerts at New York’s Greene Space and producing the “Found Sound Project,” inviting listeners across the country to submit original audio samples for use in their performance of John Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity. We Are The Knights, a documentary film produced by WNET/Thirteen, made its broadcast debut in September 2011 and was rebroadcast nationwide throughout the year. In April 2012, the ensemble released A Second in Silence on Ancalagon, a “smartly programmed” (NPR) album that joins music by Philip Glass, Erik Satie and Morton Feldman with Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony.
Previous Sony Classical albums include a live recording from New York’s cutting edge concert venue Le Poisson Rouge, which showcases cellist Jan Vogler in the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 alongside arrangements of Shostakovich waltzes and Jimi Hendrix’s "Machine Gun;” and New Worlds, featuring works by Copland, Dvorak, Ives, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Osvaldo Golijov. In 2010, Orange Mountain Music released Lisa Bielawa’s Chance Encounter with The Knights and soprano Susan Narucki. Mozart, the ensemble’s collaboration with Lara and Scott St. John in the Sinfonia Concertante and Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 3 for Ancalagon, received a 2010 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year. Strings magazine proclaimed, “These gifted young players have created a flawless recording.” The Knights also can be heard on the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola’s film Twixt.
The orchestra's extensive repertoire features traditional and contemporary masterworks of classical, popular, and world music in collaboration with such leading artists as cellist Yo-Yo Ma, soprano Dawn Upshaw, violinists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham, flutist Paula Robison, singer-songwriter (and Knights violinist) Christina Courtin, Iranian ney (Persian bamboo flute) virtuoso Siamak Jahangiri, pianist Steven Beck, fiddler Mark O'Connor, and Syrian clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh.
Dedicated to the music of our time, The Knights have served as the resident orchestra of the MATA Festival for young composers, premiering new works by Christopher Tignor and Prix-de-Rome winner Yotam Haber. The ensemble has worked closely with composer Osvaldo Golijov, performing his Passion According to St. Mark in the Canary Islands in May 2009 and several of his works with soprano Dawn Upshaw.
The roster of The Knights boasts an unprecedented diversity of talents. Included are composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters and improvisers who bring a range of cultural influences to the group, from jazz and klezmer to pop and indie rock music. The musicians are graduates of Juilliard, Curtis, and other leading music schools, and members have performed as soloists with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago and San Francisco symphony orchestras, as well as the Israel Philharmonic and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart orchestra. Equally successful as chamber and orchestral musicians, they participate in the world's most prestigious music festivals, including Marlboro, Tanglewood, Verbier, Lucerne and Salzburg, and perform with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Toronto Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble.
The ensemble has now established “The Knights Council,” a group of distinguished musical leaders who will serve in an advisory capacity for The Knights' initiatives. As of December 2012, the Council includes Performance Today host Fred Child, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Yo-Yo Ma, arts partrons Susan W. Rose and Connie Steensma, and Dawn Upshaw.
The formation of The Knights evolved from late night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers, who are also founding members of Brooklyn Rider, serve as artistic directors of The Knights, with Eric Jacobsen as conductor. The unique camaraderie within the orchestra retains the intimacy and spontaneity of chamber music in performance.
Last updated December 2012. Contact Opus 3 Artists to secure the most up-to-date version.
