Eighth Blackbird, a four-time Grammy winning classical ensemble, is the ongoing Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Richmond. The ensemble's members are (from left): Michael J. Maccaferri, clarinets; Yvonne Lam, violin/viola; Lisa Kaplan, piano; Nathalie Joachim, flutes; Matthew Duvall, percussion; Nicholas Photinos, cello. (Photo by Saverio Truglia)
Eighth Blackbird is Richmond's purveyor of independent classical music, winning four Grammy awards in the last 10 years. This year, the group partnered with singer-songwriter Will Oldham (also known by the stage name Bonnie “Prince” Billy when singing or composing) for a showcase of collaborative work and a performance of Frederic Rzewski's "Coming Together," a landmark composition of modern classical music that pairs Eighth Blackbird’s and Oldham's styles. They’ll present their musical magic live on Wednesday at 7:30 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
“The partnership began out of initially all of us being huge fans of Will Oldham’s work,” said Lisa Kaplan, the pianist in the ensemble. “And about a year after meeting him at a music festival, there was a promoter in Brooklyn who wanted us to do [Rzewski’s “Coming Together”] with a celebrity narrator. We began thinking about who it would be great to work with, and that was Will.” Kaplan notes that “Coming Together” is a performance suited to Oldham’s talents as an actor, having performed screen roles outside of his music career in several independent movies, and even a cameo in a music video: Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing."
The music planned for the concert is a combination of new pieces and some scored selections of Oldham’s back catalog. “The music in this concert is a little political, but we feel it's very relevant and we really wanted to see what we could do with it,” says Kaplan. The ensemble is planning a brief tour with Oldham, playing cities across the West Coast in May, and hopes to continue touring into next year. “We’re going to keep doing this until people don’t want us to do it anymore,” Kaplan adds with a laugh. There is also an interest among the group in possibly preserving the partnership project through a recording. “I really have enjoyed this music we’ve played on this tour, and we’ve gathered enough music in this collaboration to record an LP,” says Kaplan.
This concert in particular will also be a first for the ensemble: they’ll venture beyond their host school, the University of Richmond, to play in a venue downtown. “We thought that it would be fun to open up to the community, and to make it a little more accessible to the city as a whole,” says Kaplan.
See this event in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Leslie Cheek Theater on Wednesday, March 29. 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $28. 289-8980 or modlin.richmond.edu/events.
