Global Music Award Gold Medal Winners Carpe Diem String Quartet with Jeff Midkiff, mandolin to appear at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall January 6

For Immediate Release December 10, 2018

Contact: Aileen Rohwer, 734.276.8558 glpaaoffice@greatlakespaa.org

Carpe Diem String Quartet to feature Global Music Awards Gold Medal Winning music of Jeff Midkiff, Music for Mandolin and String Quartet at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall on January 6, 2019

Ann Arbor, MI—Carpe Diem String Quartet presents For/By/Four on January 6, 2019, 2pm at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. The program will feature works composed “For” the quartet or “By” the quartet including Jonathan Leshnoff, Jeff Midkiff, Korine Fujiwara, Reza Vali, and Erberk Eryilmaz. Tickets $40 at carnegiehall.org or Carnegie Charge 212.247.7800, Box Office at 57th and Seventh.

One of the most unique and sought-after chamber ensembles on the concert stage today, the Carpe Diem String Quartet was founded in 2005 in Columbus, Ohio, and has gone on to become a boundary-breaking, award winning ensemble that has earned widespread critical and audience acclaim for its innovative programming and electrifying performances. With programming that reflects its passions for Gypsy, tango, folk, pop, rock, and jazz-inspired music alongside the traditional string quartet repertoire, Carpe Diem has defied easy classification while quickly becoming one of America’s premier “indie” string quartets.

Featured on the concert is the recently recorded Quintet No. 2, “Gypsy” by Jeff Midkiff. A mandolinist, fiddler, classical clarinetist and composer, Midkiff is an outstanding musician who feels comfortable in more than one setting—musically and personally. “I feel at home in the Blue Ridge Mountains playing fiddle tunes,” Jeff Midkiff says, “but then again, I feel at home in a professional orchestra as well.”

The music on this recording reflects the composer’s versatility, with strong folk and fiddling elements combined with sophisticated and sensitive writing for the string quartet. From a recent concert, the reviewer wrote:

            “Often the string players alternated pizzicato chords with the solo mandolin, revealing the composer’s artistic use of instrumental colors. A dance-like third section in triple meter links into a generally fast final section that combines elements of gypsy-style violin-playing, and cimbalom-like strumming on the mandolin, with the traditional techniques of country fiddling. Midkiff has even paid homage to Bach by having written a short fugato near the end. The audience’s enthusiastic response to the Quintet prompted an encore called “Run for Your Life.” Here, the down-home style was expertly finessed, and provided an appropriate ending to the concert.”

• Tim Gaylard, Special to The Roanoke Times, Oct. 28, 2018

For additional information, contact Great Lakes Performing Artist Associates at glpaaoffice@greatlakespaa.com 415 N. Fourth Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 734.665.4029.