CONCERTS

77TH SEASON OF

national gallery of art | october 28, 2018
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PROGRAM

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PUBLIQuartet 

Curtis Stewart, violin

Jannina Norpoth, violin

Nick Revel, viola

Amanda Gookin, cello

Ian David Rosenbaum, percussion

Celebrating Rachel Whiteread

MIND /  THE / GAP

October 28, 2018 | 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

PUBLIQuartet

Sancta Femina (2017)

PUBLIQuartet

What Is American (2016)

II

IV

PUBLIQuartet

OWN (2016)

Intermission

Andy Akiho (b. 1979)

LIgNEouS

With Ian David Rosenbaum, percussion

Photo by Ryan Scherb
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Boston’s First Church, the group features at least one PUBLIQ Access composition on 

every concert program. The best of these works are included on PUBLIQuartet’s 

self-titled debut album on CAG Records (2015). During the 2017 – 2018 season, the group 

also premieres three new works written for the quartet by Jessica Meyer, Steven 

Snowden, and Xian Wang.

Founded in 2010, PUBLIQuartet’s mentors include members of the Muir, Juilliard, 

Orion, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, American, and Brentano String Quartets and composers 

Joan Tower and Butch Morris. The ensemble has participated in residencies at the 

Juilliard String Quartet Institute, the Robert Mann String Quartet Institute, the Shouse 

Institute (GLMF ), and the Banff Centre.

Ian David Rosenbaum

Praised for his “excellent” and “precisely attuned” performances by the New York 

Times, percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum has developed an astonishing musical 

breadth. He made his Kennedy Center debut in 2009 and later that year garnered 

a special prize created for him at the Salzburg International Marimba Competition. 

Rosenbaum joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program 

in 2012 as the second percussionist selected in the program’s history. He has appeared 

at the Bay Chamber, Bridgehampton, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, 

Norfolk, and Yellow Barn Festivals.

Highlights of the 2017 – 2018 season include The Industry’s world premiere production of Galileo, with music by Andy Akiho and a libretto by Yuval Sharon; a ten-city tour 

of the West Coast with Sandbox Percussion; and the world premiere of there is no one, 

not even the wind, by John Luther Adams with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln 

Center. In early 2017, Rosenbaum released his first solo album, Memory Palace, on 

VIA Records. It features five commissions from the last several years and collaborations 

with Brooklyn Rider and Gina Izzo.

Rosenbaum is a member of Sandbox Percussion, HOWL, the Pittsburgh New Music 

Ensemble, Foundry, and Novus NY. He has recorded for the Bridge, Innova, Naxos, and 

Starkland labels and is on the faculty of the Dwight School in Manhattan. 

THE PERFORMERS

PUBLIQuartet 

Applauded by the Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in 

chamber music,” and by the New Yorker as “independent-minded,” PUBLIQuartet’s 

creative programming lends a fresh perspective to the classical music scene. Dedicated 

to presenting new works for string quartet, the group was selected as Concert Artists 

Guild’s New Music / New Places Ensemble at the 2013 CAG Competition and went on 

to garner Chamber Music America’s 2015 ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award 

for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary, classical, jazz, and world 

chamber music. PUBLIQuartet’s genre-bending programs span the classical canon 

and also feature open-form improvisations that expand the techniques and aesthetic 

of the traditional string quartet.

These distinctive qualities led New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to name 

PUBLIQuartet as its 2016 – 2017 MetLiveArts Ensemble-in-Residence, for which it 

performed concerts in various Met spaces, including the Cloisters, the Met Breuer, 

and Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. PUBLIQuartet created unique programs for each 

performance, collaborating with others, such as Andy Akiho, Ian David Rosenbaum, 

Nadia Sirota, Helga Davis, and James Carter. The success of these concerts led to a busy 

2017 – 2018 touring season across the United States, including a Washington, DC, debut 

with the Washington Performing Arts and a special Wolf Trap performance of John 

Corigliano’s epic String Quartet, in celebration of the composer’s eightieth birthday.

Recent career highlights include PUBLIQuartet’s Lincoln Center debut on the 

Great Performers Series and a sold-out Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall. The 

group has also performed at a wide variety of venues and festivals, including BAM 

Café, Le Poisson Rouge, and Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York City; the Detroit Jazz 

Festival; and a special appearance with Grammy-winning pianist/composer Billy Childs 

at the Newport Jazz Festival. In 2016, PUBLIQuartet was selected by The Late Show 

with Stephen Colbert to perform a ninety-minute improvised “soundtrack” to the final 

presidential debate that streamed live on the Late Show’s Facebook page.

PUBLIQuartet’s commitment to support emerging composers led to the creation 

of PUBLIQ Access in 2014, an innovative program that promotes emerging composers, 

as well as a wide variety of underrepresented works for string quartet, from classical, 

jazz, and electronic, to non-notated, world, and improvised music. In addition to annual 

PUBLIQ Access concerts at New York’s DiMenna Center for Classical Music and at 
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Upcoming Events of the SeventySeventh Season of The William Nelson 

Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, concerts 

are held in the West Building, West 

Garden Court.

Flophouse Crew

Celebrating Gordon Parks: The New Tide,

Early Work 1940 – 1950

November 4, 4:00

East Building Auditorium

Tapestry

Lessons of Darkness: Armistice Day 1918

November 11, 3:30

Nobuntu

Featuring traditional Zimbabwean songs, 

Afro jazz, and gospel

November 18, 3:30

PROJECT Trio

Sound Sketches

November 23, 12:10

Location will be posted 

the day of the concert.

M5 Mexican Brass

Brasscinación

Serious fun from the 

baroque to Broadway!

November 25, 3:30

Carolina Eyck + Contemporary Music

Fantasias

December 2, 3:30

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art 

and all of its programs is free of charge, 

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording 

equipment during the performance 

is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic 

devices are turned off.

—

Concerts are made possible in part 

through the generosity of donors to the 

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition 

of their support. Please contact the 

development office at (202) 842-6450 or 

circle@nga.gov for more information.

—

The department of music produced 

these program notes. Copyright © 2018 

Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Nets), 2002, suite of five etched German-silver metal sheets. Published by Edition 

Schellmann Contemporary Art Production. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Collectors Committee 

and Gail and Benjamin Jacobs © Rachel Whiteread
NGA.GOV/MUSIC