Joe Jackson
was born on August 11, 1954 in Burton-on-Trent, England, but grew up in the South Coast naval port city of Portsmouth. A skinny, asthmatic kid, he loved books and originally wanted to be a writer. At age 11, though, he joined a school violin class in order to escape the humiliation of Sports periods in which it was very often him, rather than the ball, which got kicked. Much to his own surprise, he found himself fascinated by music and eagerly studying music theory and history.

A couple of years later, Joe had switched to the piano, mainly because of his new ambition: to be a composer. His first efforts were pieces for piano and small groups of instruments. Within a few more years, though, he was writing songs, and leaning more towards the pop world.

At age 16 Joe played his first paying gig, as pianist in a pub next door to a glue factory just outside of Portsmouth. This was followed by other pub gigs (in which he was often trying to entertain crowds of drunken, bottle-throwing sailors) and accompanying a bouzouki player in a Greek restaurant.

At age 18 Joe won a scholarship to study Composition, Piano, and Percussion at London's Royal Academy of Music. During the three years he spent there, he broadened his horizons further by working with a Fringe theatre group, studying Jazz with John Dankworth at the Academy and in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, and playing in pop cover bands with names like Edward Bear and The Misty Set. By the time he left the Academy, he was the co-leader and songwriter of Arms and Legs, a proto-punk outfit which released two singles on the MAM label before burning out somewhere around 1976.

Joe then took a detour through the Cabaret world, as pianist and musical director first for the Portsmouth Playboy Club and then for singing duo Koffee N' Kreme. The main purpose of this was to save money to make demos of his own songs.

By 1978 Joe was living in London and hawking an album-length demo, with his own band (Graham Maby, Bass; Dave Houghton, Drums; Gary Sanford, Guitar) standing by. That demo - already called Look Sharp - eventually found its way to American producer David Kershenbaum, who was in London in the capacity of talent scout for A&M Records. Joe was immediately signed and Look Sharp more professionally re-recorded in August '78. The Joe Jackson Band finally started to play regular gigs and the album was released in January 1979.

Joe Jackson's story up to this point is much more fully, fascinatingly, and hilariously recounted in his book A Cure For Gravity. From here on, though, it becomes more a matter of public record. Look Sharp (containing the hit Is She Really Going Out With Him) was followed within a year by the very similar I'm The Man (containing the hit It’s Different For Girls) and in 1980 by the darker, more reggae-influenced Beat Crazy. At the end of 1980, drummer Houghton decided to quit, and Joe decided to dissolve the band and try something new.

In 1981 Jackson recorded Jumpin' Jive, a 'musical vacation' paying tribute to Swing and Jump Blues artists such as Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway. Returning to songwriting, Joe spent a large chunk of 1982 in New York. The result was Night and Day, a more sophisticated and melodic record built around keyboards and Latin percussion, rather than guitars. With a new guitar-less band, Jackson hit the road for a whole year, and the album became his biggest success, spawning the hit singles Steppin’ Out, Breaking Us In Two and Real Men and going platinum in the US. During the tour Joe also somehow found time to write his first film score, for James Bridges' Mike's Murder. (He would go on to write several more, including most notably for Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker in 1988).

Now based in NYC, Jackson's next album Body and Soul (1984) was in a similar vein to Night and Day but featured a horn section (which, along with the Blue Note-inspired cover art, led many people to wrongly assume he'd made a jazz record). For Big World (1986) Jackson stripped everything down to a 4-piece again, and recorded live, direct to 2-track master. In 1989 he went in the opposite direction with the majestic, semi-autobiographical Blaze of Glory, and toured with an 11-piece band. Laughter and Lust (1991) was more like a mainstream (though still idiosyncratic) rock record, but yet another lengthy world tour left Jackson exhausted and at a creative dead end. As he sees it, his workaholic phase - which also included several film scores, a live album (Live 1980-86), an instrumental album (Will Power, 1987), guest appearances with Suzanne Vega, Ruben Blades and Joan Armatrading, and endless touring - was over. ...

Todd Rundgren
A Wizard, A True Star. The title of Todd Rundgren's 1973 solo album aptly foreshadows the contributions of this multi-faceted artist to state-of-the-art music. As a songwriter, video pioneer, producer, recording artist, computer software developer, conceptualist, interactive artist, and CEO, Rundgren has made a lasting impact on the form, content, and delivery of popular music.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Rundgren began playing guitar as a teenager, going on to found and front quintessential '60s cult group The Nazz. In 1969 he left the band to pursue a solo career, recording his debut offering, the legendary "Runt". But it was 1972's seminal "Something/Anything?", on which he played all the instruments, sang all the vocal parts and acted as his own producer, that catapulted Rundgren into the superstar limelight, prompting the press to unanimously dub him "Rock's New Wunderkind." This was followed by such landmark LPs as "The Hermit of Mink Hollow", "A Wizard, A True Star" and such hit singles as I Saw The Light, Hello It's Me, Can We Still Be Friends, and Bang The Drum.

Additionally, as a producer, Rundgren has brought his creativity to bear on albums by Patti Smith, Cheap Trick, The Psychedelic Furs, The Tubes, MeatLoaf, XTC, Grand Funk Railroad, Hall & Oates, Paul Shaffer, and many other artists. He is also highly regarded as a film/TV composer having scored projects ranging from "Pee Wee's Playhouse" to "Crime Story" to "Dumb and Dumber" for which he received BMI's 'Film Composer of the Year' accolades.

In 1974 Rundgren formed Utopia, an entirely new approach to the concept of musical high adventure, and embarked on an extensive round of recording and touring that continued throughout much of the '70s and '80s. Utopia combined technical virtuosity and creative passion to create music that, for millions, defined the term 'progressive rock'. ...

ETHEL
Established in New York City in 1998, ETHEL quickly earned a reputation as one of America’s most adventurous string quartets. More than 20 years later, the band continues to set the standard for contemporary concert music. Known for its enlivened playing, blending uptown, conservatory musicianship with downtown genre-crossing, ETHEL has been described as “indefatigable and eclectic” (The New York Times), “vital and brilliant” (The New Yorker), and “infectiously visceral” (Pitchfork). Since its inception, ETHEL has released nine feature recordings (one of them nominated for a Native American Music Award), performed as guests on 40+ albums, premiered 225 new works, won a GRAMMY® with jazz legend Kurt Elling, and performed in 14 countries, 45 states, and 250 cities.

At the heart of ETHEL is a collaborative ethos – a quest for a common creative expression that is forged in the celebration of community. In addition to premiering 21st century works by a broad range of groundbreaking composers, the quartet creates and tours rich, often multimedia, productions in which community engagement is a key element. ETHEL is currently touring the evening-length ETHEL’s Documerica, inspired by the tens of thousands of images shot in the 1970’s as part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s decade-long Project Documerica; The River, a collaboration with Taos Pueblo flutist Robert Mirabal (The River [Innova Recordings] was released in 2016); Grace, a journey highlighting musical iterations of redemption and featuring ETHEL’s own adaptation of Ennio Morricone’s moving score to the 1986 film, The Mission; and Ancient Airs and Dances, a tribute to the music of the European Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque Eras comprised of ETHEL members’ self-composed material and arrangements of seminal music.

Recently, ETHEL premiered Circus – Wandering City at The Ringling in Sarasota, Florida, and performed its New York premiere at the BAM Next Wave Festival in 2018. Co-commissioned by The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (The Ringling), and Brooklyn Academy of Music, the immersive work combines projections of stunning images, films and interviews from the Museum’s archives, the words of circus performers past and present, and original music composed and performed live by ETHEL.

Currently in development is ART Intel, a new, multi-media project exploring the topic of artificial intelligence and its meaning for human creativity. The quartet is collaborating with filmmaker and producer Molly McBride to explore the possibilities within this challenging subject. The group is also currently developing its newest collaboration, Vigil, with Lebanese violinist and composer, Layale Chaker.

The quartet regularly performs works by all of the members of the ensemble, alongside music by Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, Phil Kline, Svjetlana Bukvich, David Lang, Dan Friel, Mary Ellen Childs, John King, Jessie Montgomery, Raz Mesinai, John Zorn, Missy Mazzoli, Anna Clyne, Steve Reich, Kenji Bunch, Don Byron, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Marcelo Zarvos, Pamela Z, Evan Ziporyn and Terry Riley. Since 2005, ETHEL has premiered 225 new works, many of them commissioned by the quartet. This season marks the fourth chapter of ETHEL’s HomeBaked Project, an initiative designed to showcase emerging composers. The most recent Round IV commissions premiered at National Sawdust in 2019 and will be featured in an emerging composers’ festival at Brooklyn Public Library in May 2020.

ETHEL has collaborated with such luminaries as David Byrne, Kurt Elling, Bang on a Can All Stars, Thomas Dolby, Sō Percussion, John King, Ursula Oppens, Laurence Hobgood, Jake Shimabukuro, STEW, Phil Kline, Vijay Iyer, and Lionhheart. ETHEL recently collaborated on national touring programs with Taos Pueblo flutist Robert Mirabal, guitarist Kaki King and rock legend Todd Rundgren. In creating its multimedia and stage productions, ETHEL has worked with theater directors Annie Dorsen, Steve Cosson, Daniel Flannery, and Grant McDonald; projection designers Deborah Johnson and John Narun; and choreographers Wally Cardona, Gina Gibney, Annie-B Parson, Dusan Tynek, and Mathew Janczewski.

ETHEL is the Resident Ensemble at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar, Ensemble-in-Residence at Denison University, 2019-20 Creatives-in-Residence at the Brooklyn Public Library, and most recently the 2018-19 Quartet-in-Residence at Kaufman Music Center’s Face the Music, and 2019 Levi Family Distinguished Visiting Artist at The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

ETHEL is Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Corin Lee (violin).