The carmela S. Haklisch Innovation fund
2021-22 Projects
Knights Musician Grant recipient
Megan Conley, harpist
Foundational funding for Ocean Music Action, a music and climate-activism initiative
which pairs concerts of music inspired by the power and beauty of the ocean with
donations to ocean conservation groups and beach/waterway cleanups.
Upcoming Ocean Music Action Projects:
Visit the Ocean Music Action website for all upcoming events at https://oceanmusicaction.org/calendar
Recent Ocean Music Action Projects:
July 28, 2022 - Ocean Music Action & Members of The Knights: Bargemusic, Brooklyn, NY
July 16, 2022 - City of Water Day NYC with the Newtown Creek Alliance
July 10, 2022 - Ocean Music Action & Members of The Knights: Children’s Concert and conservation activity, The Lighthouse Works on Fishers Island, NY
July 9, 2022 - Ocean Music Action & Members of The Knights: The Lighthouse Works on Fishers Island, NY
April 22, 2022 - Earth Day Concert at Rothko Chapel, Houston, TX, followed by a cleanup of Buffalo Bayou
April 21, 2022 - Concert at Rice University, Houston, TX
July 25th 2021 - Children’s Concert in East Hampton, NY, followed by beach cleanup
All photos by Kelli Hull
Learn more at oceanmusicaction.org
2020-21 Projects
Knights Musician Grant recipient
AMIE WEISS, violinist
for the production of The Knights in Italy residency, which includes virtual
masterclasses, performances, and collaborations with visual artists for Italian audiences.
The Knights in Italy Projects Include:
Opera Buffa and Classical Style, a mini-course taught by historical clarinetist Lorenzo Coppola.
The Knights 10-Year Retrospective featuring 5 Brescia-based artists’ responses to Knights’ recordings from the last decade of music-making.
Masterclasses by Knights members for Italian musicians and students of all ages.
Caitlin Sullivan's masterclass, Emma Baiguera, guitar student (Milan Conservatory student) from Manerbio, Italy
Miranda Sielaff's Masterclass, with Anna Glibchuk, Milan Conservatory student originally from The Ukraine
Caitlin Sullivan's masterclass, student Olga Martinelli from Liguria, Italy
Guillaume Pirard's masterclass, student Elisa Locatelli from Crema, Italy
Kreutzer Project Recording
What is it about Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata that has made this work so endlessly influential and inspiring? Written at the beginning of the 19th century, the massive violin sonata inspired the novella by Tolstoy about jealousy, obsession, lust and insanity. The novella in turn inspired Czech composer Leos Janacek to write his romantic and manic tone-poem of a string quartet.
The Knights wanted to celebrate Beethoven's 250th birthday in 2020 in a way that blended old and new; that was about creation as much as recreation, had tie-ins to a larger world (in this case a literary one) and that helped keep the flame burning for the music we love and the tradition it comes from. The Kreutzer Project has allowed the group to explore the obsessive, emotional and intellectual worlds that both Beethoven and Janacek probed with their respective Kreutzer Sonatas, bringing the groundbreaking identity of these works to the 21st century through new arrangements by members of The Knights that reimagine these masterpieces for chamber orchestra.
The Carmela S. Haklisch Innovation Fund provided a grant to support the recording of the Kreutzer Project in February 2020 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This recording, which features Knights Artistic Director Colin Jacobsen as violin soloist, will be released in the summer of 2022.