The Grammy-nominated orchestral collective The Knights will bring their talents to UF today.
The New York-based chamber orchestra will play at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts today accompanied by violinist Gil Shaham. The concert will close the ensemble’s February Florida tour, in a performance titled “The Kreutzer Project.”
The performance will be based loosely around Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata” and will begin with a piece by solo violinist Colin Jacobsen.
Formed in 2007, The Knights evolved from a group of friends playing chamber music together to an acclaimed orchestral ensemble. The orchestra has performed at renowned venues like Carnegie Hall and have collaborated with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma and Shaham. They are featured on Shaham’s 2016 Grammy-nominated release.
The Knights are dedicated to delivering a unique and emotional experience to their audience, Eric Jacobsen, co-founder and conductor, said.
“We want to have a moment, whatever that means,” the conductor said. “We want to have a moment onstage with the audience where people have a memory, they take something away.”
The Knights will be joined by Shaham, who won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance and was also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year” in 2012.
Katy Pendleton, an 18-year-old UF music and neuroscience freshman, said a performance by a Grammy-nominated chamber orchestra is beneficial to performing arts students who are building their talents.
“Listening to professional musicians can introduce us to new ways of phrasing pieces and expressing ourselves through our instruments as we find our own individual style,” Pendleton said
The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for UF students are $10 while regular tickets begin at $40 and can be bought on the UF Performing Arts website.
Contact Marlena Carrillo at mcarrillo@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @marcar313.
