Season Listing | Program | Program Notes | Biography
A Far Cry stands at the forefront of an exciting new generation in classical music. The orchestra was founded in 2007 by a tightly-knit collective of young professional musicians–the “Criers”–and since the beginning has fostered those personalities, developing an innovative structure of rotating leadership both on stage and behind the scenes.
In 2014, A Far Cry was nominated for a 2015 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Performance; launched their own record label, Crier Records; was included by Alex Ross, Music Editor of New Yorker magazine, in his list of “10 Notable Recordings of 2014;” and was named one of 10 “Imagination-Grabbing, Trailblazing Artists of 2014″ by WQXR (New York City’s principal classical radio station).
As the New York Times said of their first major New York appearance in 2012, the self-conducted orchestra “brims with personality or, better, personalities, many and varied.” And in 2013, the Times raved about their “passion and tight ensemble.”
By expanding the boundaries of orchestral repertoire and experimenting with the ways music is prepared, performed, and experienced, A Far Cry has been embraced throughout the world with more than two hundred performances across the United States, three CDs, and a powerful presence on the internet. Recent and upcoming collaborations include performances and recordings with pianists Leon Fleischer and Katherine Jacobson Fleisher, Peter Serkin and Markus Schirmer; violinists Augustin Hadelich and Andrés Cárdenes; clarinetist David Krakauer; violist Kim Kashkashian; cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Matt Haimovitz and Dmitry Kouzov; ukelele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro; GRAMMY award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux; Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw; and Roomful of Teeth.
In 2012, the Criers made a triumphantly successful European début at Vienna’s Musikverein, as part of a seven-concert European tour. At home and abroad, their visionary programming ranges from 12th century monophony to newly-commissioned world premieres.
The Criers are proud to call Boston home, and maintain strong roots in the city rehearsing at their storefront music center in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood and fulfilling the role of Chamber Orchestra in Residence at the Gardner Museum. Collaborating with local students through an educational partnership with the New England Conservatory, A Far Cry aims to pass on the spirit of collaboratively-empowered music to the next generation.
A Far Cry’s latest CD release, nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Performance (Classical) by a Small Ensemble or Chamber Group, is “Dreams and Prayers,” including works by Hildegard von Bingen, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, Osvaldo Golijov (with clarinetist David Krakauer) and Beethoven.
The Criers are:
Violin
- Alex Fortes
- Annie Rabbat
- Guillaume Pirard
- Jae Cosmos Lee
- Liesl Schoenberger Doty
- Megumi Stohs Lewis
- Miki Cloud
- Melissa White
- Robyn Bollinger
Viola
- Dana Kelley
- Frank Shaw
- Jason Fisher
- Margaret Dyer
Cello
- Hannah Collins
- Loewi Lin
- Michael Unterman
Bass
- Erik Higgins
- Karl Doty
Oboe
- Michelle Farah
- Miri Kudo
French Horn
- Clark Matthews
- Hazel Dean Davis (replacement TBD)
