Name: The Knights with Rufus Wainwright & Laurie Anderson at Saint Thomas Church
Start: 2023-05-02T19:30:00
Location: St. Thomas Church

The Knights

Experience the Carnegie season’s first performance by the intrepid chamber orchestra The Knights, led by artistic directors Eric Jacobsen and Colin Jacobsen. In an inspired new collaboration, they intersperse Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3—one of the composer’s most traditionally “classical” works—with original poetry by prizewinning poet and multidisciplinary artist J. Mae Barizo. Even in its original form, this would be Carnegie Hall’s first performance of Glass’s symphony—but in the hands of The Knights, it’s something no audience has heard before. In the program’s second half, The Knights perform a timeless orchestral staple: Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, a work of complex dualities and grand Romanticism.

The Knights at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Driven by a “passion for musical discovery” and an “open-hearted spirit of camaraderie,” The Knights bring fresh excitement and insight to every performance. Tonight, conducted by Eric Jacobsen, they traverse a vast soundscape of American music as part of Carnegie Hall’s United in Sound: America at 250 festival. The program features Copland’s Pulitzer Prize–winning, folk-infused masterpiece: the Appalachian Spring Suite, plus the New York premiere of a concerto written by Gabriel Kahane for clarinetist extraordinaire Anthony McGill, part of the ensemble’s multi-year Rhapsody project.

The Knights at Carnegie Hall with Anthony McGill

Death of Classical and The Alexander S. Onassis Benefit Foundation present Waiting for the Barbarians, a sprawling, one-night-only exploration of love, loss, lust, and longing centered around the timeless poetry of C.P. Cavafy, set to brand-new music by luminaries like Rufus Wainwright & Missy Mazzoli, Laurie Anderson, Helga Davis & Petros Klampanis, Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, and more, accompanied by The Knights and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Seated amidst the towering Gothic arches of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, this program of entirely new music will take listeners on a musical journey across genres and sound worlds, with each piece sharing the same question: what do we lose – and gain – when we give away a part of ourselves?