violist

Monday's seven-hour concert features a sprawl of hybrid-happy new-music acts, including So Percussion, the Nebraska-based Chiara String Quartet, violist Nadia Sirota, and Buke and Gass, a Brooklyn duo that plays homemade mutant string instruments.

Playing Between Rock and a Classical Place

Husa's balance of austere folk-cultural strains with a modernist aesthetic -- clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, violist Steve Tenenbom and cellist Marcy Rosen gave an authoritative performance -- was deeply influenced by Bartók.

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Kushner: Throughout the Ecstatic Music Festival, women have played a prominent role, from composers such as Missy Mazzoli, Merrill Garbus, Olga Bell and yourself to performers like cellist Clarice Jensen, flutist Alex Sopp, violist Nadia Sirota, and vocalist Shara Worden, not to mention many others.

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Led by playing of uncommon mellowness and timbral purity from clarinetist Anthony McGill, enhanced by the elegant understatement of veteran violist Michael Tree and the character-rich keyboard work of pianist Anna Polonsky, they brought out the genial warmth in Mozart's writing.

A superlative performance by the Schumann Trio

Veteran violist Paul Neubauer likes the late-night format because, as a performer you get a different vibe from every audience.

Perhaps Some Schubert

Kushner: Throughout the Ecstatic Music Festival, women have played a prominent role, from composers such as Missy Mazzoli, Merrill Garbus, Olga Bell and yourself to performers like cellist Clarice Jensen, flutist Alex Sopp, violist Nadia Sirota, and vocalist Shara Worden, not to mention many others.

Daniel J. Kushner: Ecstatic Music Festival Interview #5: Sarah Kirkland Snider and Rob Moose

He has two children with his ex-wife, a professional violist.

How He Has Grown

(As if that weren 't unfair enough, Mr. Britten was a pretty decent violist, too.)

Unforgettable in More Than One Way

The other two pieces on the program were John Cage's early "In a Landscape" (originally for piano), a contemplative and romantically atmospheric rumination, and a delightful new work by Brooklyn Rider violinist Colin Jacobsen called "Sheriff's Lied, Sheriff's Freude" ( "Sheriff" is violist Nicholas Cords's nickname).

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There were other advantages, says violist Beth Guterman: Just sitting on stage without playing, as Patrick Castillo spoke about the music, made me feel a connection to the audience that was somehow more personal.

Perhaps Some Schubert