Bergamot Quartet Extended Fall 2023 featuring Darian Donovan Thomas

Doors 7:30pm, 2 sets with a brief intermission

Bergamot Quartet is Ledah Finck and Sarah Thomas, violins; Amy Tan, viola; and Irène Han, cello. Founded at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 2016, Bergamot Quartet is based in New York City and was the Graduate String Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music for 2020-2022.

The Quartet is fueled by a passion for exploring and advocating for the music of living composers, continually expanding the limits of the string quartet’s rich tradition in western classical music. With a priority given to music by women, they aim to place this new, genre-bending music in meaningful dialogue with the histories that precede it with creative programming, community-oriented audience building, and frequent commissioning.

Included in their 2023 season is a partnership with NYU’s dance department, an appearance on the Ecstatic Music Series at Merkin Hall with Circuit des Yeux, an ongoing set of “Cross Quartets/Quintets” with composer Dan Trueman, and a new work to be composed for Bergamot and Latin jazz sextet by percussionist Samuel Torres. Highlights of their 2022 season were the release of their debut album, In The Brink, on New Focus Recordings featuring a work by member Ledah Finck with percussionist Terry Sweeney as guest artist, a co-commission of Darian Thomas with Sō Percussion as part of Sō’s Flexible Commissions project, appearances at the NY City Center with NYC Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck, performances at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and the participation at the Klangspuren Chamber Lab in Innsbruck.

photo by Oscar Moreno

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist Darian Donovan Thomas was born in San Antonio, Texas and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is interested in combining genres and mediums into a singular vocabulary that can express ideas about intersectionality (of medium and identity). Necessarily, he is interested in redacting all barriers to entry that have existed at the gates of any genre – this vocabulary of multiplicity will be intersectional, and therefore all-inclusive. Darian has been commissioned by YOSA (the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio), Bang on a Can’s summer festival Banglewood, percussionists at Bard College Conservatory, Sam Houston State University, among others. His music has been premiered by So Percussion, YOSA, Bang on a Can Banglewood Fellows, SoSI Fellows, and performed in Iceland, Switzerland, Canada, and all around the United States. He recently performed with Moses Sumney on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and in a Tiny Desk concert with critically acclaimed dreambow band Balun. Read more here