Acclaimed as America’s premier post-classical string quartet, ETHEL presents a power-packed, sonic snapshot of the group’s life in New York City in its latest album Heavy. It’s only fitting that after 14 years of performing, commissioning, composing, collaborating and living in New York City, ETHEL celebrates the composers from NYC’s music community.

Recorded over an 18-month period by Cornelius Dufallo (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), Mary Rowell (violin), and Ralph Farris (viola), Heavy features works by eight celebrated contemporary composers: Don Byron, John Halle, Julia Wolfe, John King, Raz Mesinai, David Lang, Kenji Bunch, and Marcelo Zarvos. The album follows an organic progression from Don Byron’s intense, jazz-influenced “String Quartet No. 2: Four Thoughts on Marvin Gaye” tracks to the engaging “Rounds“ by Brazilian film composer Marcelo Zarvos.

“ETHEL has been playing most of these composers’ works ever since the group’s inception 14 years ago,” says Ralph Farris, co-founder of ETHEL. “These composers – this city – are so much a part of who we are as a group. This album serves as an homage to New York City, its people, and its music.” Heavy marks ETHEL’s third release, and serves as the group’s counterpoint to their most recent album LIGHT (Cantaloupe Music, 2006), which was selected as #3 on Amazon.com’s “Best of 2006: Top Classical Editor’s Picks”.

About ETHEL

ETHEL boldly infuses contemporary concert music with fierce intensity, questioning the boundaries between performer and audience, tradition and technology. Formed in 1998, New York’s ebullient ETHEL performs adventurous music of the past four decades including repertoire by Phil Kline, David Lang, John Zorn, Steve Reich, JacobTV, Don Byron, Evan Ziporyn, and Mary Ellen Childs. Boldly exploring new synergies, ETHEL initiates innovative collaborations with an extraordinary community of international artists such as Joe Jackson, Kurt Elling, Bang on a Can, Todd Rundgren, David Byrne, Ursula Oppens, Loudon Wainwright III, STEW, Ensemble Modern, Jill Sobule, Joshua Fried, Andrew Bird, Iva Bittová, Colin Currie, Thomas Dolby, Steve Coleman, Stephen Gosling, Jake Shimabukuro and Polygraph Lounge. ETHEL currently serves as Ensemble-in-Residence with the Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project, was recently the 2011 Artists-in-Residence at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory, and continues as the House Band and Music Curator for TEDx: Manhattan, TedX: Big Apple, and TEDx: Tempe.