A virtuosically surgical multimedia work for amplified string quartet and multi-channel video by PaulPinto performed by Bergamot Quartet and The Rhythm Method.
Commissioned by The Rhythm Method and Bergamot String Quartets, String Quartet No. 3 OCTET continues PaulPinto’s playful exploration of video and theatrical chamber music. Just shy of an hour, the performance begins with a close-up on a tablescape of string instruments “operated” by four methodical musicians, their eight dexterous hands, and hundreds of pencils. Alternating through moments of Foreman-like precision and virtuosic irreverence, OCTET is a subtle and one-of-a-kind marriage of sonic slowness and visual anticipation.
PaulPinto’s String Quartet No. 4: I PASS’D A CHURCH has become a cornerstone of The Rhythm Method’s repertoire, and was released on New Focus Recordings in 2024.
“A composer and performer of astounding talent. He is one of those musicians who apparently can do anything”-Robert Ashley, composer
Bergamot Quartet Ledah Finck violin Sarah Thomas violin Martine Kinsella Thomas viola Irène Han cello
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
Bergamot Quartet is an NYC-based string quartet dedicated to the evolution of chamber music. They are sought-after interpreters of contemporary music who are expanding the definition of the string quartet genre by leveraging their skills as a classically trained ensemble with their enthusiasm for learning from and adapting to creative artists across a variety of genres. Bergamot maintains a full schedule of collaborations, residencies with educational institutions, appearances on series, recording sessions, and self-produced shows.
Bergamot recently launched “Project Resonance” with composer/performer Dan Trueman, a multi-tiered project fostering the creation and performance of new works for Bergamot playing a set of Hardanger instruments (traditional Scandinavian 9-stringed folk instruments). As educators, Bergamot serves on faculty at New Music On The Point and Arts Letters and Numbers Creative Music Intensive. They also operate the monthly concert series “Bergamot Quartet Extended” as a medium to showcase their many inspiring collaborators and present new work.
Based in New York City, Bergamot Quartet is Ledah Finck and Sarah Thomas, violins; Martine Kinsella Thomas, viola; and Irène Han, cello. Bergamot Quartet was the inaugural Graduate String Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music 2020-2022, where they were mentored by the JACK Quartet.
Praised as “fierce, fearless, and virtuosic… unapologetically stylistically omnivorous and versatile” (New Music Box) and “trailblazing…skillful composer-performers” (The New Yorker), The Rhythm Method strives to reimagine the string quartet in a contemporary, feminist context. The four performer-composers of The Rhythm Method continually expand their sonic and expressive palette through the use of improvisation, vocalization, graphic notation, songwriting, and theater.
The Rhythm Method has given performances at Roulette, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, the Met Museum, the Morris Museum, and the Noguchi Museum, and has been featured at Long Play Festival, Lucerne Festival Forward, MATA Festival, Music Mondays, TriBeCa New Music, and the Austrian Cultural Forum’s Moving Sounds Festival. The Rhythm Method seeks to nurture ongoing relationships with universities and schools, cultivating multifaceted creativity and musicianship in students of all ages. They have been in residence at NYU, Columbia, Tulane, Arkansas State University, Zurich University for Art and Music, Hunter College, and Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts, and they serve as the quartet-in-residence for Lake George Music Festival’s Composers Institute.
The Rhythm Method’s ongoing activities include the Hidden Mothers Project, a programming initiative that highlights works by historical women composers, and Broad Statements, an annual mini-festival celebrating creative music-making by women, non-binary, and gender-expansive people in a wide array of artistic styles.
In June 2024, the quartet released “Pastorale,” an album featuring music by Lewis Nielson, PaulPinto, Marina Kifferstein on New Focus Recordings. Other releases include their 2022 self-titled debut album, comprised of music by all of the quartet members, “A Few Concerns” (2021), an album of cellist-singer-songwriter Meaghan Burke’s music, on Gold Bolus Recordings, and the group’s signature Wandelweiser Christmas arrangements, volumes I and II. The Rhythm Method’s recording of “Silence Seeking Solace” (with soprano Alice Teyssier) was featured on Dai Fujikura’s “Chance Monsoon” (SONY Japan).
Hailed by The Wire as “one of the most exceptional composers in new music, with a sensibility that can handle deadly seriousness and wicked humour” PaulPinto creates multi-disciplinary music, opera-theater, installation and performance. Sometimes with his longtime friends thingNY and Varispeed. And sometimes alone in his bedroom. Some highlights include Meredith Monk’s Indra’s Net, Patriots with Jeff Young, Gelsey Bell’s mɔɹnɪŋ, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, the cyclorama video installation Whiteness with Kameron Neal, an ongoing re-arrangement of Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives, and his first opera Thomas Paine in Violence. He sang and danced on Broadway in Dave Malloy’s Great Comet of 1812, and created many tiny performances during the pandemic for Zoom, television, headphones and the U.S. mail. Recent and upcoming projects include Water Music (an album and soundwalk on Gold Bolus Recordings), String Quartet No. 3 ‘Octet’ (Rhythm Method and Bergamot Quartets), The All-Father (a new take on Wagner’s Ring Cycle), and the operatic monodrama MANO A MANO, directed by Kristin Marting. A child of immigrants, born and raised in Richmond Hill, Queens, Paul now proudly calls Jersey City his home, because that’s where his wife, child, and vegetable garden are.
A virtuosically surgical multimedia work for amplified string quartet and multi-channel video by PaulPinto performed by Bergamot Quartet and The Rhythm Method.
Commissioned by The Rhythm Method and Bergamot String Quartets, String Quartet No. 3 OCTET continues PaulPinto’s playful exploration of video and theatrical chamber music. Just shy of an hour, the performance begins with a close-up on a tablescape of string instruments “operated” by four methodical musicians, their eight dexterous hands, and hundreds of pencils. Alternating through moments of Foreman-like precision and virtuosic irreverence, OCTET is a subtle and one-of-a-kind marriage of sonic slowness and visual anticipation.
PaulPinto’s String Quartet No. 4: I PASS’D A CHURCH has become a cornerstone of The Rhythm Method’s repertoire, and was released on New Focus Recordings in 2024.
“A composer and performer of astounding talent. He is one of those musicians who apparently can do anything”-Robert Ashley, composer
Bergamot Quartet Ledah Finck violin Sarah Thomas violin Martine Kinsella Thomas viola Irène Han cello
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
Bergamot Quartet is an NYC-based string quartet dedicated to the evolution of chamber music. They are sought-after interpreters of contemporary music who are expanding the definition of the string quartet genre by leveraging their skills as a classically trained ensemble with their enthusiasm for learning from and adapting to creative artists across a variety of genres. Bergamot maintains a full schedule of collaborations, residencies with educational institutions, appearances on series, recording sessions, and self-produced shows.
Bergamot recently launched “Project Resonance” with composer/performer Dan Trueman, a multi-tiered project fostering the creation and performance of new works for Bergamot playing a set of Hardanger instruments (traditional Scandinavian 9-stringed folk instruments). As educators, Bergamot serves on faculty at New Music On The Point and Arts Letters and Numbers Creative Music Intensive. They also operate the monthly concert series “Bergamot Quartet Extended” as a medium to showcase their many inspiring collaborators and present new work.
Based in New York City, Bergamot Quartet is Ledah Finck and Sarah Thomas, violins; Martine Kinsella Thomas, viola; and Irène Han, cello. Bergamot Quartet was the inaugural Graduate String Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music 2020-2022, where they were mentored by the JACK Quartet.
Praised as “fierce, fearless, and virtuosic… unapologetically stylistically omnivorous and versatile” (New Music Box) and “trailblazing…skillful composer-performers” (The New Yorker), The Rhythm Method strives to reimagine the string quartet in a contemporary, feminist context. The four performer-composers of The Rhythm Method continually expand their sonic and expressive palette through the use of improvisation, vocalization, graphic notation, songwriting, and theater.
The Rhythm Method has given performances at Roulette, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, the Met Museum, the Morris Museum, and the Noguchi Museum, and has been featured at Long Play Festival, Lucerne Festival Forward, MATA Festival, Music Mondays, TriBeCa New Music, and the Austrian Cultural Forum’s Moving Sounds Festival. The Rhythm Method seeks to nurture ongoing relationships with universities and schools, cultivating multifaceted creativity and musicianship in students of all ages. They have been in residence at NYU, Columbia, Tulane, Arkansas State University, Zurich University for Art and Music, Hunter College, and Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts, and they serve as the quartet-in-residence for Lake George Music Festival’s Composers Institute.
The Rhythm Method’s ongoing activities include the Hidden Mothers Project, a programming initiative that highlights works by historical women composers, and Broad Statements, an annual mini-festival celebrating creative music-making by women, non-binary, and gender-expansive people in a wide array of artistic styles.
In June 2024, the quartet released “Pastorale,” an album featuring music by Lewis Nielson, PaulPinto, Marina Kifferstein on New Focus Recordings. Other releases include their 2022 self-titled debut album, comprised of music by all of the quartet members, “A Few Concerns” (2021), an album of cellist-singer-songwriter Meaghan Burke’s music, on Gold Bolus Recordings, and the group’s signature Wandelweiser Christmas arrangements, volumes I and II. The Rhythm Method’s recording of “Silence Seeking Solace” (with soprano Alice Teyssier) was featured on Dai Fujikura’s “Chance Monsoon” (SONY Japan).
Hailed by The Wire as “one of the most exceptional composers in new music, with a sensibility that can handle deadly seriousness and wicked humour” PaulPinto creates multi-disciplinary music, opera-theater, installation and performance. Sometimes with his longtime friends thingNY and Varispeed. And sometimes alone in his bedroom. Some highlights include Meredith Monk’s Indra’s Net, Patriots with Jeff Young, Gelsey Bell’s mɔɹnɪŋ, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, the cyclorama video installation Whiteness with Kameron Neal, an ongoing re-arrangement of Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives, and his first opera Thomas Paine in Violence. He sang and danced on Broadway in Dave Malloy’s Great Comet of 1812, and created many tiny performances during the pandemic for Zoom, television, headphones and the U.S. mail. Recent and upcoming projects include Water Music (an album and soundwalk on Gold Bolus Recordings), String Quartet No. 3 ‘Octet’ (Rhythm Method and Bergamot Quartets), The All-Father (a new take on Wagner’s Ring Cycle), and the operatic monodrama MANO A MANO, directed by Kristin Marting. A child of immigrants, born and raised in Richmond Hill, Queens, Paul now proudly calls Jersey City his home, because that’s where his wife, child, and vegetable garden are.
