Sybarite5 Releases Collective Wisdom, the Acclaimed Quintet’s First Studio Album in Five Years

Media Contact: Paula Mlyn
Email: paula@a440arts.com
Phone: (212) 924-3829

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 10, 2023

SYBARITE5 RELEASES COLLECTIVE WISDOM,
THE ACCLAIMED QUINTET’S FIRST STUDIO ALBUM IN FIVE YEARS
 
 Features commissioned works by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Michael Gilbertson;
Jackson Greenberg, Jessica Meyer, and Curtis Stewart;
plus, arrangements of music
by Pedro Giraudo, Komitas, and The Punch Brothers.
 
Quintet to appear this fall on the Death of Classical’s “The Crypt Sessions”

NEW YORK, NY – On October 20, 2023, Sybarite5, the first string quintet ever to win the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, celebrates the release of its first studio album in five years, Collective Wisdom [BSTC-0191]. The album marks new chapter for the “smart as a fox,” (Limelight magazine) “hyper-accurate yet fiercely vivacious” (I Care if You Listen)  quintet, introducing three new members— Suliman Tekalli, violin; Caeli Smith, viola; Laura Andrade, cello, who join original members Louis Levitt on double bass; & Sami Merdinian on violin. The album features improvisations, electronics, and world premiere commissions by Pulitzer Prize finalist, Michael Gilbertson; composers Jackson Greenberg, Jessica Meyer, and Curtis Stewart. Also included are arrangements of music by Latin Grammy® Award-winning composer Pedro Giraudo, the Grammy® Award-winning band, The Punch Brothers, and Armenian folk songs by Komitas. In addition to CD & LP format, the album will be available as a high-resolution download (96kHz 24-bit FLAC). Pre-order Collective Wisdom here. brightshiny.ninja/collective-wisdom 

Sybarite5 will appear this fall on the acclaimed Death of Classical series, “The Crypt Sessions.” Six performances are scheduled for November 28, 29, & 30, 2023, which will include world premiere works by Mikael Karlsson, Andres Martin, Laura Kaminsky, Kamala Sankaram, and more. Please click HERE for information. A complete list of fall tour dates is available at sybarite5.org/up-next

Reborn out of the pandemic, “the music on Collective Wisdom has given us the opportunity to explore new things, and dig deep into works which require virtuosity, creativity, and vulnerability” writes Louis Levitt, bassist, and founding member of Sybarite5. From the first track— the driving Punch Brothers song, Movement & Location, Curtis Stewart’s Mangas, which features Grecco-Reggae inspired improvisations, the anger and trauma expressed in Michael Gilbertson’s titular track Collective Wisdom, and finally the multifaceted electronic world of Jackson Greenberg’s Apartments, Collective Wisdom reflects the group’s continuing and deep commitment to new music. Rounding out the album are never before renditions of Komitas & Pedro Giraudo that pays homage to violinist Sami Merdinian’s Armenian and Argentinian roots, alongside a recognition of the past & present heard in Jessica Meyer’s Slow Burn.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

Movement & Location (arr. Paul Sanho Kim)
Chris Thile writes that this song is about the retired baseball player Greg Maddux, who was obsessed with his movement and location during pitching. Thile feels that it relates to "living and relationships" as well.

Mangas/Curtis Stewart
“Mangas – is the neighborhood’s man - the Figaro - the “dude,” writes Curtis Stewart, “I first heard this song in my mom’s Greek Jazz fusion band, Ensemble Elektra. She had the thought that the Mangas was much like the Rasta, incorporating reggae rhythms and textures in the lilting 7/8 traditional Greek melody. The string quintet imitates the skittering guitar and heavy percussion capturing the Greek vocal line with pulled ponticello and improvisation.”
 
Slow Burn/Jessica Meyer.
Meyer writes, “Sybarite5 is a group of some of my favorite people who have pushed my work as a composer beyond just writing for myself. This piece was commissioned by them to be premiered alongside a dancer from the Black Diamond Burlesque Company in Sarasota, Florida– which explains the sassy rhythms and luscious gestures and textures found throughout this piece. I was fortunate enough to play the viola for this special event with them (which is perhaps why I wrote such a meaty viola solo just before the coda of the work). Slow Burn is a combination of many of the grooves I like while combining vivid string colors to express a theme that most songwriters wind up singing about at some point: that unrequited love that was never meant to be.”
 
Three Komitas Folk Songs: The Red Shawl; Spring, and Oh Nazan; arranged Sami Merdinian.
The set of Armenian Folk Songs by Komitas are very special to the quintet because they showcase Sybarite5’s violinist, Sami Merdinian’s heritage, and the music he grew up listening to. The Red Shawl, Spring and Oh Nazan are beautiful miniatures that represent the nostalgia, sorrow, bliss and hopeful voice of a resilient nation. “We would like to dedicate these pieces to everyone who has lost part of their identity due to Genocide.” (Sami Merdinian).
 
Con un nudo en la garganta/Pedro Giraudo
“Con un nudo en la garganta, or in English, “‘With a lump in the throat’” was written during a time when I was dealing with an enormous loss,” writes the Latin Grammy® Award-winning composer Pedro Giraudo. Originally composed for big band, and from his 2018 Grammy®-winning album, Vigor Tanguero, Giraudo arranged the work especially for Sybarite5. “The piece tries to convey both the intimacy of the personal struggle or to simply “free certain feelings, and the need of those feelings to be expressed.”
 
Collective Wisdom/Michael Gilbertson:
Collective Wisdom is the final movement from a three-movement suite composed for Sybarite5 in 2014 by Pulitzer Prize finalist, Michael Gilbertson. In this movement, Gilbertson uses the quintet collectively to capture a kinetic, physical energy. The work begins with 'snap' pizzicati that ricochet between the instruments, setting the tone for sudden shifts that keep the music on edge throughout the piece. Gilbertson writes, "It’s been almost 10 years, so I don’t remember much about the compositional process, aside from it being a real struggle. It was a very anxious period in my life; and the music reflects the many complicated emotions I experienced.” Collective Wisdom was commissioned for Sybarite5 by Concert Artists Guild, and the BMI Foundation’s Boudleaux Bryant Commission.
 
Apartments/Jackson Greenberg
LA-based composer and producer Jackson Greenberg studied music at Princeton University, The Royal College of Music in London, and USC’s “Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television” program. His work has been featured in award winning television and film and performed by ensembles and orchestras around the world.
 
Apartments explores the intersection between everyday sounds (rain, electrical wires, coffee machines), human communication (via string instruments) and current events (via AM news radio). “We all hear the same sounds: the buzzing of the electrical wires, the humming of a laundry machine, the falling of the rain, but we all experience them in our own separate universes,” writes Greenberg.
 
“The instruments of this piece represent different humans living in different apartments. Some people live alone (the bass), and other couples live together (the violins, the cello and the viola). People hear conversations muffled through the walls. The musicians have the freedom to listen to their surroundings and respond to them when they wish. It is up to them to communicate which phrases will be performed when with the other member of their musical pod (besides the bass which is solo). They must choose when and how to respond to the sounds and words which surround them, perhaps coming together as a collective at times. Each performance will be different.”

ABOUT THE SYBARITE5

Equal parts passion, grit, and musical ecstasy, Sybarite5 is an intoxicating cocktail of post-genre musical goodness expressed through the virtuosity of violinists Sami Merdinian & Suliman Tekalli; violist Caeli Smith; cellist Laura Andrade; and double bassist Louis Levitt. It’s the first ensemble of its kind to win the prestigious Concert Artists Guild competition and the group is constantly evolving, defying categorization, and keeping audiences on their toes. 

The group has performed in 44 states and counting, from the Library of Congress, (Washington DC) to Anchorage Concert Association, (Alaska) as well as concerts in Sybarite5’s home of New York City at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, the Cell Theatre, and in late 2023, as part of Death of Classical’s “The Crypt Sessions” series. Sybarite5 has also appeared at festivals including Ravinia, Grand Teton, Aspen, Caramoor, Wolf Trap, Interlochen, Chautauqua and many others. International appearances include Canada’s Tuckamore Music Festival and ChamberFest Ottawa, the New Docta International Music Festival in Cordoba, Argentina, and the Osaka Festa in Osaka, Japan. 

Dubbed “the millennial Kronos” (Theater Jones), Sybarite5 is chamber music’s most dynamic ensemble taking listeners on a musical journey of staggering breadth and depth with new works by living composers, as well as the group’s favorite selections from Radiohead, Coltrane, Komitas, Piazzolla, and Pete Seeger... but as Strings Magazine says “that doesn’t even begin to describe the range of their eclecticism or the depth of their repertoire. “ 

The ensemble's discography includes four other critically-acclaimed recordings: Live from New York It's Sybarite5 (2020); Outliers (2018); Everything in its Right Place (2012) and Disturb the Silence (2010).  Collective Wisdom is funded in part by a grant from the  Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University.

Photograph of Sybarite5: ©Shervin Lainez