BargeMusic
Picture this. The sun dips below the Manhattan skyline splashing the sky with color. The water below lulls the boat slowly rocking you back and forth. After a moment of complete peace, a calming quartet begins to play, gracefully sliding their bows across the strings. That’s just a typical night on the Barge down at Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn. 
BargeMusic, one of the most unique and entertaining nights New York City has to offer, has been providing eager listeners with chamber music to the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline since 1977. Their programs run the gamut with 220 chamber music concerts a year ranging from strings to horns and more.
A few Fridays ago, I had the pleasure of venturing out to the Barge to listen to the musical stylings of The Voxare Quartet. An eager young string quartet that has been playing together about two years, their program was a celebration of great American composer Terry Riley’s 65th birthday.
An improvisational composer by nature, Terry Riley seldom wrote his music down or notated it at all. It wasn’t until his later years that his contemporaries made him write his music down, which Riley resisted by writing fragments of his compositions in no particular order. This leaves it up to the quartet performing the compositions to select the order of the fragments and thus capture the improvisational essence of his music, making each performance unique and giving the music a life of its own. The first piece of the evening, Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, was arranged by the Voxare Quartet and burst to life with a beautiful body of harmonies coming to a compelling crescendo that was an amazing way to start the set, which quickly transitioned into softer sounds. Next on the bill was Riley’s first piece String Quartet (1960). Inspired by the foghorns of a gloomy San Francisco evening, String Quartet (1960) transported the audience to a peaceful Californian night on the water and was a perfectly appropriate selection given the setting. The first half of the performance was rounded out by The Wheel/Mythic Birds Waltz, a combination of shorter pieces that truly captured the energy and spirit of Terry Riley’s music.
Though called a minimalist composer, there was nothing lacking from Riley’s G-Song, the first piece of the second half and the last Terry Riley selection of the evening (as well as my personal favorite of the night!) The well-rounded piece was performed with beautiful ease by the Voxare Quartet and was a real joy to listen to. The last selection of the evening was a set of shorter pieces by Riley protégé and contemporary Lou Harrison. Harrison took inspiration from every form of music imaginable, from medieval sounds to the music of India and even rag-time. The real fun of listening to the set was identifying where each form or inspiration was present through out the pieces, and the ingenius way in which Harrison adapted such diverse sounds for string instruments. The playful pieces were full of surprises and certainly ended the evening on a high note.
If you’re looking an out-of-the-ordinary way to enjoy the arts in New York City, BargeMusic is for you. Grab a slice at Grimaldi’s or a scoop from Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory and take in the stunning views at the Brooklyn Bridge Park before the show to make it a perfect New York night.
