The Rhapsody Project

The Knights announce Rhapsody, a new multi-year project inspired by the 2024 centennial of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Rhapsody is The Knights’ multi-year initiative that comprises commissions, performances, recordings, and educational initiatives, inspired by the example of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and its centennial in 2024. Gershwin's strikingly original and imaginative work, combining influences from jazz and classical music, came to embody the cultural zeitgeist of the Roaring Twenties. Through this project, The Knights will explore our current cultural moment in collaboration with some of today’s most animating cultural voices.

Over the next three years, The Knights will present a series of commissions and collaborations with a diverse group of composers and guest soloists who connect classical music with other musical traditions, and who are committed to using their art to explore and redefine today's classical music landscape. Confirmed participants include Chris Thile, Jessie Montgomery, Gabriel Kahane, Du Yun, Aaron Diehl, Christina Courtin, Anthony McGill, Wu Man, Kayhan Kalhor, Allison Loggins-Hull, Michael Schachter, and Brooklyn Youth Chorus, with many more to be announced as the project unfolds.

In addition to highlighting The Knights' genre-blurring programming and virtuosic musicianship, Rhapsody will feature performances throughout New York City, across the country, and around the world, and it will include integrated educational components in partnership with youth orchestras, colleges and universities, young composers, and music students of all ages.