Brooklyn Rider: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

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Uploaded by on Mar 12, 2010

It's hard to know what will happen when the string quartet Brooklyn Rider starts playing. Yes, these four guys love to play Debussy and Brahms, but they're just as likely to team up with a singer-songwriter or a Kurdish kamancheh player. Or write their own music.

So we weren't sure what they'd do when they stopped by Bob Boilen's desk to play a Tiny Desk Concert in the NPR Music offices. What we got was a bracing sample of their visceral fire, beginning with a saucy Armenian dance by an orthodox priest named Komitas — one of the pieces they picked up during their travels with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble.

The next piece is proof that inspiration can come from almost anywhere — even, as Brooklyn Rider violinist Colin Jacobsen sheepishly admits, a "bouncy-ball" with a wildly unpredictable second bounce. He wrote the piece as a companion to music by Debussy. And finally, the piece we were anxiously anticipating: Brooklyn Rider's theme song of sorts, "Ascending Bird." It's Jacobsen's stunning arrangement of a Persian folk song that goes back thousands of years.

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Top Comments

  • Colin, you rock!!!!!

    I'm fascinated listening to you play!

  • Maaaaaaan I could be more thankful with this tiny desk concerts, made my day, the rest of the week and probably most of the following months

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All Comments (21)

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  • 17:48 THE CELLO OH MY GOD

  • Thank you so much for a great experience. I learned a lot about music in ways I hadn't thought of before! (From ASIJ HS Strings)

  • Brooklyn rider came to my school!!!!! they were so amazing!!!! :)

  • Thank you for inspiring all musicians so much!!

  • Anyone else think of Lawrence of Arabia???

  • I just randomly turned on WNYC in the car a bit ago, and heard these fine fellows playing with Martin Hayes - they've made one new fan for certain. Wonderful!

  • Wow.

  • OMG Fiddlers on da roof!

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