ETHEL Spotlights Global Communities, Cultures, and Music Through Its Revolutionary TRUCK STOP Performance/Residency Project

ETHEL Spotlights Global Communities, Cultures, and Music Through Its Revolutionary TRUCK STOP Performance/Residency Project

NEW YORK, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- "America's favorite string band," ETHEL, celebrates a decade as the nation's premier rock-infused, postclassical string quartet, with the launch of its ambitious community-driven TRUCK STOP project. As an organic exploration of the world's musical melting pot, the 11-stop, 10- month long TRUCK STOP performance/residency tour examines, unites, and honors indigenous communities, cultures, and music. Estimated to accumulate over 40,000 miles across the United States and beyond, TRUCK STOP ranges from a three-day residency in San Antonio, Texas, exploring Tejano Conjunto music, to a week-long retreat on the island of Kauai studying the rich heritage of Hawaiian music.

The tour kicks off January 14th at Joe's Pub in Manhattan with a collaborative concert featuring Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and comes full circle October 14-18, 2008, in Brooklyn, where ETHEL will be joined by TRUCK STOP's alumni artists for a special concert series as part of BAM's Next Wave Festival. Other TRUCK STOP highlights include: a week-long residency/concert with Kaotic Drumline -- a community project designed to get youth off the streets at Dominican University in Chicago, Illinois; a four-day residency/concert with NAMMY (Native American Music Award) award-winning flutist Robert Mirabal in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of the Chamber Music Albuquerque series; and a week-long residency/concert in Tilburg, Holland, as part of the 2008 Festival Mundial.

A "truck stop" requires ETHEL to live within a community for a two to 10 day residency, which entails, though is not limited to: hosting projects/workshops with emerging artists at local schools/universities; developing new works and instrumental practices with local artists through collaboration, improvisation, and rehearsal; and performing a concert that salutes the common creative impulse that is formed in the celebration of community. Production of TRUCK STOP is supported by ETHEL's Foundation for the Arts with funding in part from the Greenwall Foundation, LEF Foundation, Meet the Composer's MetLife Creative Connections Program, the Multi-Arts Production Fund (a program of Creative Capital supported by the Rockefeller Foundation), and National Endowment for the Arts.

Musically omnivorous, prolific, and passionate, this band of four world- class, Juilliard-trained composer/musicians includes: Cornelius Dufallo (violin), Ralph Farris (viola), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Mary Rowell (violin). Over the past decade, ETHEL has performed over 300 shows in ten different countries as a favorite at countless festivals and venues around the globe. To learn more, visit http://www.ethelcentral.com/.

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Source: ETHEL

CONTACT: AMT Public Relations, +1-212-861-0990,
april@amtpublicrelations.com

Web site:

http://www.ethelcentral.com/

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