Colin and Eric Jacobsen, artistic directors of The Knights, talk with us from the home they share in Brooklyn about music as a connector, their 2021/22 92Y residency, and what we can expect to hear in their July 30 livestream.
The Knights were finding unique ways of creatively engaging audiences long before the pandemic. What has it been like performing and engaging in music remotely these last months?
When The Knights are together, one of the things we love most is how the music becomes a 360 degree sensory experience. In order to play our best together and breathe as one, we rely on our sense of hearing of course; but also on myriad visual cues (with the eyes on our faces and the imaginary ones on the sides and back of our heads); the spontaneous choreography the music creates in our bodies; and the inexplicable feel of the moment, the vibe of the room, the mix of performers and audience and venue that allow for the possibility of a magical moment if we are open to it and each other.
Obviously, those conditions have not been possible for some time, so there’s a sense of mourning, of loss of the thing at the core of what we do—music in communion with the listener—but we’ve been doing our best to make lemonade out of the lemons. The Knights have always been an incredibly flexible group and a collection of individuals who possess a diverse set of talents, experiences, creativity and interests. The situation we’re in has spurred some members of The Knights to increase their knowledge in audio/video technology. This has allowed us to work within the mediums available, (virtual audio/video with everyone recording from their homes/distanced/etc.) but for the work we’re putting out to have a little extra love, attention, and aesthetic detail, and to mitigate the impersonal aspects of the distanced “Brady Bunch”-style orchestral video. The fact that it is musicians within the group doing this work (rather than outside video producers/editors) speaks to one of our long term goals in founding The Knights: how personal and intimate can you make the orchestral experience for both the musicians and the audience? On the lemonade side of the lemons: there has actually been something personal and vulnerable about seeing people make music in their homes that is new. The longing for a sense of connection that music can provide hasn’t disappeared, if anything it is felt more than ever.
What do you feel the role of music has been in this period of social distancing? Has it changed? What do you see as the good things coming out of this time?
On some level, music is always about longing for connection and transience. It mirrors life: if life were a sound, there’s silence before it begins, it has a volume and duration, travels in space and in time, and fades back into silence. The poignancy of this transience (which in its membrane can contain all the various human emotions) is best experienced in the same room at the same time as far as we can tell. Not being able to do that, the longing for connection takes precedence. It’s such a confusing time for the mixture of extreme physical distance while the online world has allowed us to be more connected (in some ways that transcend geography). We think the best thing that might come out of this time is something that was the thematic focus of the 92Y Together event in May: a greater appreciation for the simple things and Simple Gifts (immortalized in the Shaker hymn that we played for that event). To forget and take things for granted seem, unfortunately, part of the human condition (probably a survival mechanism that allows us to deal with and forget pain). Music is linked with memory and processing emotions, so it can hopefully play a role in the healing we will all need to go through in the period to come.
With neither collaborators nor audiences in the same room with each other right now, how do you approach concerts and programming?
There are certain silver linings in all of this: Eric’s work has mainly been as a conductor the last few years. This pause in most of his conducting activities has allowed him to spend more time with the cello than he would have otherwise. This has led us to delve into some of the great music for violin and cello together more deeply. We have also been doing a lot of new arrangements and playing with Aoife O’Donovan. In terms of group projects with the larger membership of The Knights: we’ve been trying to do repertoire that speaks to some aspect of the time we’re living in. There’s a practical aspect to the distanced recording that means pieces with more or less a steady pulse are easier to work with than rhapsodic pieces with lots of tempo fluctuation. One particular silver lining is that a number of new collaborations are in the works, as people have been eager to create and try new things during this time. We’ve also been working on a group composition called Keeping On, with 10 members of The Knights contributing material that will eventually be recorded by the whole 40-person group. We’re very excited about the direction so far. Stay tuned!
You’ll be joining us with the marvelous Aiofe O’Donovan for a livestream concert on July 30. Can you tell us about your vision for that evening, what inspired it, and what we can expect to hear?
As mentioned, we’ve been having a great time working on some of the amazing repertory for violin and cello. Ravel wrote possibly the best example almost exactly 100 years ago, at the tail end of the last great global pandemic. Aoife’s incredible songwriting and singing will be featured both with her work and a short excerpt of a new piece Colin has started writing for the three of us during this time, setting the words of Walt Whitman’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” Whitman wrote this ode to Abraham Lincoln shortly after his assassination in the aftermath of the Civil War—the time of greatest polarization in our country before the moment we’re in now.
We’re terrifically excited about The Knights being 92Y’s Ensemble in Residence for 202l/22. Can you share a bit about what that will involve and what you envision creatively during the residency?
One of the brightest spots for us in the last few months has been the conversations leading up to the announcement of this residency. It has allowed us to look forward with hope to a time when we can all be physically together again and experience music in community. And community is at the core of why we are so thrilled to work with 92Y: the value placed on education, on learning, on family, the thousands of school children who experience music and art through 92Y’s programs, the 92Y Talks in which ideas from a diverse array of viewpoints are aired, the incredible dance and music programming that already exists, the social innovation programs and so much more. We believe that The Knights’ music and activities can interface and bring added dimension to some of that dizzying array of offerings. Of course, we’ll be anchored in concert performances, and look forward to bringing the kind of programming we are known for: working with elements that will be familiar to audiences, others that will be new; taking listeners on a journey that often will have a thematic lens; hoping to surprise them and ourselves along the way; engaging collaborators from different perspectives and backgrounds. As we plan our residency, we’re trying to imagine all the ways our music can be more inclusive and reach wider and more diverse audiences. Art and culture are so much of what defines New York and these can and must be a part of our healing process.
Join Colin and Eric Jacobsen for their concert livestream at 7 PM ET on Thursday, July 30.