Asheville, NC (November 5, 2019) – On Thursday, December 12 at 7 PM Grammy award-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman brings his new project to BMCM+AC, presenting Bach’s complete cello suites on the violin. A founding member of Brooklyn Rider and a member of the Silkroad Ensemble, Gandelsman has recently collaborated with Tyondai Braxton, Bela Fleck, Nico Muhly, Yo-Yo Ma, Caroline Shaw, and Mark Morris.
Johnny Gandelsman is one of the first to record or perform Bach’s complete cello suites on violin. This is Gandelsman’s second initiative towards adapting Bach’s compositions to violin, following his recordings of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas in 2018. Having worked with incredible masters of various world music traditions, like Bela Fleck, Martin Hayes, and Kayhan Kalhor, Gandelsman’s playing of the Suites is equally inspired by folk and fiddling traditions, as it is by historically informed performance.
In these compositions, Bach captured every human emotion imaginable, making the compositions truly universal. These works are known and beloved all over the world, thanks to legendary performances by giants like Pablo Casals, Anner Bylsma and Yo-Yo Ma.
$10 for BMCM+AC members + students w/ID / $15 non-members
More info: http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/performance-johnny-gandelsman/
About Black Mountain College
Founded in 1933, Black Mountain College was one of the leading experimental liberal art schools in America until its closure in 1957, fostering some of the greatest artists and intellectuals of the 20th century. After the Bauhaus in Germany closed due to mounting antagonism from the Nazi Party, Josef and Anni Albers readily accepted an offer to join the Black Mountain College faculty. During their 16-year tenure in North Carolina, the Alberses helped model the college’s interdisciplinary curriculum on that of the Bauhaus, attracting an unmatched roster of teachers and students, including R. Buckminster Fuller, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Mary Caroline (M.C.) Richards, Ruth Asawa, Stan VanDerBeek, Jacob Lawrence,
Charles Olson, Aaron Siskind, and Robert Rauschenberg.
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) was founded in 1993 by arts advocate Mary Holden to celebrate the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to celebrate its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance.
The Museum is committed to educating the public about the history of Black Mountain College and promoting awareness of its extensive legacy through exhibitions, publications, lectures, films, seminars, and oral histories. Through our permanent collection, special exhibitions, publications, and research archive, we provide access to historical materials related to the College and its influence on the field.
BMCM+AC provides a forum for multifaceted programming in a dynamic environment in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Our goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact – integrating art, ideas, and discourse.
More about BMCM+AC: http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/
Image Credits: Johnny Gandelsman, photo credit: Shervin Lainez | Josef Albers instructs at Black Mountain College ca. 1940. © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society, New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016.