Feb. 20: Carnegie Hall Presents The Knights with Singer-Songwriter Aoife O’Donovan and Brooklyn Youth Chorus

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Carnegie Hall Presents The Knights with 
Singer-Songwriter Aoife O’Donovan
Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 7:30pm at Zankel Hall

GRAMMY® Award-winning Singer-Songwriter and Guitarist 
Aoife O’Donovan Performs Her Original Song Cycle, America, Come

Plus Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 “Scottish” 
and Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro

“One of Brooklyn’s sterling cultural products… known far beyond the borough for their relaxed virtuosity and expansive repertory…” –The New Yorker

theknightsnyc.com
 

New York, NY (January 27, 2025) – On Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 7:30pm at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall presents intrepid chamber orchestra The Knights in a performance with GRAMMY® Award–winning singer-songwriter and guitarist Aoife O’Donovan as part of their second Carnegie Hall presented season. Led by conductor and co-Artistic Director Eric Jacobsen, the program opens with Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Overture, followed by Aoife O’Donovan’s original suite, America, Come, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony.

For many years, The Knights have enjoyed teasing out relationships between works from the classical canon and music coming from traditional folk and popular sources, as well as the contemporary songwriting world. This is partly a result of the interests of individual members of the group, many of whose musical lives move freely across genres, and also comes from viewing the classical tradition as porous and abstract.

Led by conductor Eric Jacobsen, this program opens with the brisk and timeless overture to Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, a commedia per musica in four acts composed in 1786.

The ensemble also performs Aoife O’Donovan’s America, Come, an original suite inspired by the lives, letters, and speeches of women’s suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt, her fellow suffragists, and President Woodrow Wilson during the passing of the 19th Amendment in the summer of 1920, when the suffragists made their pivotal march to Tennessee. The powerful young voices of frequent Knights collaborator, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, join in Aoife's depiction of the courage of women past and present.

Rounding out the program will be Felix Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, which was inspired by young Mendelssohn’s visit to Scotland in 1829 when he was only 20 years old. The trip yielded two of Mendelssohn’s most beloved pieces, his Hebrides Overture and the Symphony, which had its original inspiration strike him at the ruins of Holyrood Chapel (associated with Queen Mary, her coronation, and the murder of her close friend, David Rizzio). The Knights will intersperse the piece with traditional Scottish tunes arranged by composer/arranger Kyle Sanna to bring fresh context to this classic and bring the audience closer to the atmosphere Mendelssohn experienced in Scotland.

Program Information
Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 7:30pm
The Knights at Carnegie Hall with Aoife O’Donovan
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall | New York, NY
Tickets: Start at $74, through CarnegieCharge (212) 247-7800, carnegiehall.org, or at the Box Office on 57th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Link: www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2025/02/20/The-Knights-0730PM

Program:
W.A. Mozart – Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
Aoife O'Donovan, arr. Tanner Porter – America, Come, featuring Aoife O'Donovan, vocals
Felix Mendelssohn – Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 "Scottish"
Traditional, arr. Kyle Sanna – Scottish Folk Tunes

The Knights
Eric Jacobsen, Artistic Director & conductor
Colin Jacobsen, Artistic Director & violin
Aoife O’Donovan, vocals and guitar
Brooklyn Youth Chorus; Dianne Berkun Menaker, Artistic Director

About Aoife O'Donovan
Aoife (pronounced EEF-ah) O’Donovan (born November 18, 1982 in Newton, Massachusetts) is an Irish-American singer and songwriter. As well as solo work, she is known for being the lead singer for the progressive bluegrass/string band Crooked Still and a member of the female folk-noir trio Sometymes Why.

O’Donovan grew up in a musical family, immersed in folk music. She went on to study contemporary improvisation at the New England Conservatory of Music in her hometown of Boston. Since her first professional engagement singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers, she has maintained a wide variety of side projects and collaborations. Most recently, she has performed and recorded with Ollabelle, Sometymes Why, Karan Casey and Seamus Egan, Jerry Douglas, Jim Lauderdale, Darol Anger, Sarah Jarosz, Sara Watkins, Christina Courtin, Noam Pikelny and Chris Thile (The Punch Brothers).

For the past 10 years, O’Donovan has been fronting the alt-bluegrass/string band Crooked Still, which she formed when she was 18. Despite her young age, Aoife has toured in ten different countries, performed with the Boston Pops and the Utah Symphony Orchestra and has appeared on countless radio and television programs.

Her natural talent for songwriting recently came to the attention of Alison Krauss, who recorded Aoife’s song Lay My Burden Down, which is included on Alison’s album Paper Airplane (2011 Rounder Records) and can also be heard in the film Get Low (2010 Sony Pictures). Aoife’s crystalline voice has also been heard on True Blood (HBO) and Private Practice (ABC). In June 2010, Aoife released her first solo recording in the form of a limited edition 7” vinyl. Featuring two original tracks, it garnered rave reviews from audiophiles worldwide. O’Donovan’s project with Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer and Stuart Duncan titled The Goat Rodeo Sessions was released in October 2011 (Sony Masterworks).

O’Donovan performs shows with her band, Robin MacMillan on drums, Jacob Silver on bass and Ryan Scott on guitar. Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, O’Donovan makes her home in the musical hotbed of Brooklyn, NY. Learn more at www.aoifeodonovan.com. 

About The Knights
The Knights are a collective of adventurous musicians dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience and eliminating barriers between audiences and music. Driven by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they inspire listeners with vibrant programs rooted in the classical tradition and passion for artistic discovery. The Knights evolved from late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers together serve as Artistic Directors of The Knights, with Eric Jacobsen as Conductor.
 
Proud to be known as “one of Brooklyn's sterling cultural products... known far beyond the borough for their relaxed virtuosity and expansive repertory” (The New Yorker), the orchestra has toured extensively across the United States and Europe since their founding in 2007. The Knights are celebrated globally, appearing across the world’s most prestigious stages, including those at Tanglewood Music Center, Ravinia Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, the Vienna Musikverein, and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. The orchestra has collaborated with many renowned soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Béla Fleck, and Gil Shaham.
 
In the 2024-25 season at Carnegie Hall, The Knights will be joined by esteemed musicians such as Aaron Diehl, Aoife O’Donovan, Reena Esmail, and Cécile Mclorin Salvant. The group also continues its premieres of new works for the Rhapsody project, a multi-year commissioning initiative inspired by the 2024 centennial of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. For the latest on their season and a complete list of artistic partners and collaborative projects, please visit their website: https://theknightsnyc.com.

*Photography credit: Shervin Lainez

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