Concert Review: Above the Stars, Below the Stairs

The Attaca Quartet plays Beethoven at The Crypt Sessions.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Silence: church in session: the Attacca Quartet in the crypt.
Photo by Tristan Cook © 2018 Unison Media.

The Church of the Intercession sits on a steeply sloped intersection, right at the southern border of Washington Heights. On Thursday night, the acclaimed series The Crypt Sessions (curated by publicist-turned impresario Andrew Ousley) opened its third season of playing concerts deep in the earth. The venue is a strange one: the stone vault that supports this historic church. Even more unusual was that this concert featured one work: Beethoven's Op. 132 String Quartet in A minor, played by the Attacca  Quartet.

Concert Review: Jukebox Heroes From Outer Space

Jeff Lynne's E.L.O. and the Attacca Quartet rock Radio City Music Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Jeff Lynne (center, to the drummer's right) and E.L.O. perform "Telephone Line"
last night at Radio City Music Hall. Photo by the author.

Forty years ago, Electric Light Orchestra were one of the biggest bands on the planet. The group, brainchild of singer-songwriter Jeff Lynne conquered the world with brilliant pop songs and a sound that mixed the British psychedelic-baroque pop of The Beatles with actual orchestral instruments: violin and cellos that chugged along with the band onstage. In the '80s, they ditched the strings for synths, calling it a day in the middle of the "me" decade. This led to Mr. Lynne taking a 25-year break from the rigors of concert touring. In the late '80s and '90s, he applied his producer's touch to projects by Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison, ultimately founding the five-piece supergroup The Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan.

Concert Review: Notes from the Underground

The Attacca Quartet play Haydn in a crypt.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Members of the Attacca Quartet rehearse in the crypt of the Church of the Intercession.
Photo by Andrew Ousley.

The Church of the Intercession sits on the corner of West 155th and Broadaway, an imposing 100-hyear-old stone pile located across from the equally historic Trinity Church Cemetary. A fantasy of peaked Gothic arches and stone passageways, the church is now home to the Crypt Sessions, a recital series played deep beneath the earth in the church's crypt. On Thursday night, this unlikely venue hosted the Attacca Quartet, performing Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross

Concert Review: Allegations and Alligators

The Attacca Quartet plays John Adams.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Attacca Quartet and a former escalator rider.
Photo © AttaccaQuartet.com

The Attacca String Quartet are one of the bright lights of the chamber music scene in New York right now. On Tuesday night, the group celebrated the release of Fellow Traveler, their new CD featuring the chamber music of John Adams with a concert Le Poisson Rouge.  Mr. Adams was in attendance.

The Superconductor Interview: The Attacca Quartet

A morning sit-down with this New York chamber ensemble.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fiddlers on the roof: The Attacca Quartet
(L.R. Amy Schroeder, Keiko Tokunaga, Andrew Yee, Luke Fleming)
Image © 2013 The Attacca Quartet.

"On the second day of undergraduate," Andrew Yee says, "there was one of those team-building seminars, I met Amy (Schroeder) who was a friend of a friend. After we met we asked each other, 'Do you like chamber music?'"