INTERVIEW: ETHEL and Allison Loggins-Hull ‘Persist’ into the future
Photo: ETHEL will perform with flutist Allison Loggins-Hull at Merkin Hall, Sept. 24. Photo courtesy of the artists / Provided by AMT PR with permission.
ETHEL has outlasted many groups within the creative music space, and perhaps the reason is because the string quartet is not so easily definable. They produce a sound both classical and contemporary, with an indie vibe but also firmly planted in tradition and collaborative spirit. One only has to look at their collaborators over the years to see evidence of their eclectic tastes: Kurt Elling, David Byrne, Bang on a Can All Stars and Lionheart, among many others.
The band — consisting of Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello) and Corin Lee (violin) — is gearing up for a busy end to 2024. They have a special concert Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall in Midtown Manhattan. That gig is billed as A New Sounds LIVE concert where they will be joined by flutist Allison Loggins-Hull, and the host for the evening is the person behind New Sounds on WNYC, John Schaefer.
The concert is a unique one because ETHEL no longer fits into the “New Sounds” category, being that they established themselves in the late-1990s. Instead, they will be shining the spotlight on emerging composers, including Loggins-Hull, Migiwa “Miggy” Miyajima, Xavier Muzik, Sam Wu and 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist Leilehua Lanzilotti, according to press notes. This is part of ETHEL’s HomeBaked project, which commissions works from early-career composers.
One of the most anticipated pieces for the evening will be Loggins-Hull’s “Persist.” The other works are called “PillowTalk” (Muzik), “The Reconciliation Suite” (Miyajima), “Terraria” (Wu) and “we began this quilt there” (Lanzilotti).
Recently ETHEL collectively answered questions from Hollywood Soapbox as the quartet prepared for the concert. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How did you select the compositions that will be featured at the Merkin Hall concert?
The program ETHEL is performing with Allison Loggins-Hull at Merkin, on Sept. 24, was generated as an integral project. We did not select the pieces, but rather, the composers. Allison was a partner in the whole process, from writing and performing the title work, “Persist,” to adjudicating the applications. In this, all five of us had equal votes. Having limited the number of subsequent commissions to four, we each guided ourselves by personal affinity to the candidates with whose work we felt most “in tune.” The other, overarching criterion was to focus on composers from diverse, underrepresented backgrounds.
When you play these pieces side by side, do you find connections, even though they are seemingly quite different?
We have always found that the mind finds connections between pieces in concert programs, whether they are conscious and intentional, or not. We experience that kind of awareness ourselves and are always interested to hear such observations from the audience! They are often dramatically revealing.
Are emerging composers given enough chances to have their works professionally played?
Every composer spends large amounts of time and energy generating the resources — artists, finances, presenters, marketing — necessary to bring their works to life. This effort is massively greater for emerging composers, whose ecosystems are still growing and developing. Yet, theirs is the vital voice of the future we all live into, and ETHEL has always felt they deserve the same powerful delivery as the recognized masters.
How important has WNYC and New Sounds been to supporting ETHEL and other new artists?
When I first moved to New York for school, in 1983, New Sounds had already been on the air for a year, and it quickly, permanently became the soundtrack to the city I fell in love with. Public radio, itself, is precious and inspiring. For creative artists like ETHEL, the knowledgeable, supportive, engaging treatment we have received from John Schaefer, his championship and deep reach into the exact audience that finds us the most interesting, is vital and impossible to overestimate.
Do you agree with the adjective that is often applied to ETHEL: genre-defying?
One of the earliest, most fundamental challenges ETHEL has always had is putting our sound into words. At first, we made light of it, as in, “Not your grandmother’s string quartet.” Then, we were able to quote significant reviewers and publications, as in, “In ETHEL’s hands, American music is alive and well.” Now, we even see ourselves referred to as a genre, as in, “like ETHEL,” to qualify other groups. We have always enjoyed musics from all over America and all over the world, and our single great departure is to bring it to our audiences using the instruments and training of the Classical Western European tradition. Our GPS is, as Duke Ellington said, “If it sounds good, it is good.”
What was the impetus for founding this group in 1998?
The New York art environment at the turn of the century was busy, tumultuous and wickedly fun. The four original ETHELs were all successful freelancers with a heightened taste for new music. We came together to perform a quartet dance score by an old friend, John King, heavily influenced by the Delta Blues sound. Every evening we performed it, the audience would clap the dancers off the stage, then give us a separate, enthusiastic round of applause as we got up to leave. We enjoyed each other enormously and realized the music was so strong; it represented a level of compositional maturity worthy of focused advocacy. If we could generate a repertoire that powerful, we could build a group on it! And we wanted to!
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
ETHEL and flutist Allison Loggins-Hull will perform at A New Sounds LIVE concert Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
