By Rick Koster, The Day, November 30, 2016
It would be my luck that, hopping on a subway out of Park Slope, I’d spot four “obvious” musicians with their instrument cases, and I’d mutter some snide comment about hipsters and how it’s impossible to get away from them.
And, of course, the four gentlemen in question would turn out to be Brooklyn Rider — the astonishingly talented and forward-thinking string quartet — and they’d smile gently at my idiocy, whip out their instruments, and regale me and the other fortunate passengers with the five-part Culai suite from their magnificent “A Walking Fire” album.
The happy reality is that Brooklyn Rider — violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Michael Nicolas — are returning Saturday and Sunday to Old Lyme as part of the Musical Masterworks chamber music series taking place in the First Congregational Church. Along with Masterworks’ artistic director/cellist Edward Arron, the ensemble will perform original material by Jacobsen as well as works by Boccherini, Beethoven, Parma Newsmen, Aoife O’Donovan and Gonzalo Grau.
Brooklyn Rider, Musical Masterworks, 5 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, First Congregational Church, 2 Ferry Road, Old Lyme; $35, $5 for students under 23 with ID; (860) 434-2252, musicalmasterworks.org.
