Join us at the Soiree

Our Spring Soiree is coming up: Thursday May 16 6-9pm, at The St. Botolph Club at 199 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. This year's theme is Night Music from the Streets of Madrid. We'll have live music from the Criers, drinks, buffet, and our ever-popular silent auction! Tickets are $125, $200 for two, and can be obtained by emailing Kelly Reed: kelly@afarcry.org A preview of our auction items:

Sponsor a Concert Help A Far Cry kick off their season in Jordan Hall by sponsoring "Once Upon a Time" on September 7 at 8PM. Hang out back stage, sit in the recording booth, and attend the dress rehearsal. Value: $20,000. Opening bid: $2,500.

An Evening of Music and Food A group of Criers will come to your home, cook dinner and play you some tunes. Invite up to four guests. One of our most popular items! Value: $3,000. Opening bid: $1,500.

Iron Chef is Back! You think the Criers can make music? Wait till you sample their cooking! Top 3 bidders will win a place at the table for you and a guest. And...you get to be the competition judge! Value: $300 per couple. Opening bid: $200.

Your Own String Quartet A quartet of Criers will play in your home. What would you do with your own personal string quartet? Value: $3,000. Opening bid: $1,500.

Catch the Vibe Bill Flynn, Artist and Professor of Art at Massachusetts College of Art, sketched A Far Cry in rehearsal. These sketches, that so wonderfully catch the spirit, energy and vibe of A Far Cry, are highlighted in our Season Seven brochure. Large charcoal sketch--Value: $800. Opening bid: $400. Small ink sketch--Value: $500. Opening bid: $250.

Kristen and Kurt Kristen Watson, featured soprano from A Far Cry's concert "Long Gaze", will reprise her performance of the wistful and provocative songs of Kurt Weill, in a special house concert setting. The lucky bidder wins an appearance from Ms. Watson and her accompanist in a customized concert of Weill and other 40s-era inspired tunes, right in the comfort of your own home. Value: $2,000. Opening bid: $1,000.

Vermont Winter Retreat Join the Criers for a special evening in Liisa Kissel's Grafton, Vermont barn for dinner and an informal concert. Package includes one night's stay at the Historic Grafton Inn and a gift certificate to Grafton Ponds Outdoor Center for a day of cross-country skiiing. Date: Tuesday, February 4. Value: $400. Opening bid: $200.

Darling Pie-of-the-Month Club Award-winning pie baker Margaret Darling, mother of award-winning violist Sarah Darling, will bake six pies for you throughout the course of the year and a Crier will deliver them to your home! Value: $250 Opening bid: $125.

Garden Clean-Up Experienced gardener Kelly Reed offers one day (4-5 hours) of spring or fall garden clean-up. Value: $250. Opening bid: $125.

Vacationing in the Virgin Islands? A Far Cry friends Jacqui and Howard Schwartz offer you a one day sailing excursion on their 44 foot ketch. Value: $200. Opening bid: $100.

Emmanuel Music Join Renowned Emmanuel Music for a concert next season in the beautiful Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street. Value of two tickets: $150. Opening bid: $75.

Summer Music in Rockport Join A Far Cry as they kick off the Rockport Chamber Music Festival at this sold-out concert on Friday, June 7 at 7:30PM. Value: $130. Opening bid: $80.

Music and Dinner with Isabella Come hear A Far Cry at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and enjoy lunch (or dinner) in Cafe G prior to the show. Sunday performances at 1:30: September 22, December 8, February 2, May 11. Thursday Avant Gardner performances at 7:30pm: December 5, April 17. Top two bids will be accepted. Value: $120. Opening bid: $75.

MFA Membership One Family Membership to the Museum of Fine Arts. Value: $200. Opening bid: $100.

ICA Membership One Family Membership to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Value: $95. Opening bid: $50.

Be Hip Crier Megumi Stohs Lewis will navigate you through the world of the hippest new music apps for your tablet or phone. Value: $100. Opening bid: $50.

More Music, Please! Take home more tunes--our Season Six Collaborators' CDs. This basket features music from David Krakauer, John McDonald, Paula Robison, Markus Schirmer, and Nicholas Urie. Value: $100. Opening bid: $25.

Our Home

We are only beginning to process yesterday's violence in Boston. Our constant prayers are with all who were affected by the attacks. We are left with so many questions and so few answers. There is so much we don't know. The one thing we do know is that we love our city and its people. Boston is AFC's home. We drive like maniacs, scream at Sox games, and spend too many hours at the pub down the street. We grew into adults at NEC, and Longy, and Harvard, and BU. Between the 18 of us, we've played in every church, synagogue, hall, gallery, theater, library, dive bar, and coat closet in this town and loved every minute of it. More importantly, we live in a city where 150 people trudged through four-foot snow drifts on foot to support us at our last community concert. This city has given us all more than we could ever dream of - a home, a life, a vibrant and open-hearted community, and a chance to make music together. It's a debt we could never hope to repay.

All the thanks we can offer is our music. We hope this will offer some humble amount of hope and healing to this community, which has been generous to us beyond measure.

What kind of cello is that? This Thursday's Avant Gardner Instrument Experiment

At this Thursday's Avant Gardner Concert, we'll be playing Francesco Geminiani's "La Folia" on a complete set of carbon fiber instruments, generously loaned to us for the month by Luis and Clark Carbon Fiber Instruments. Imagining our audience might be curious about this idea, we checked in with Jae Young Cosmos Lee, who fathered this exciting brainchild.

Q) Where did the idea come from? A) The initial idea came to me while AFC was on tour a couple of years back playing at an outdoor venue in Louisiana with 98% humidity and light rain and our musicians were freaking out... A few of the artists were very reluctant to continue playing on their precious instruments and most of our instruments sounded like they were under water.. We still finished the concert by sheer will, but the experience inspired me to look for a solution.

Q) How did you come across Luis and Clark instruments? A) Well the very first time I ever saw and heard a Luis & Clark instrument was in 2006 - the Canadian cellist, Shauna Rolston, was playing hers at Banff. Then a few years later after our concert in Louisiana, to my surprise, I found out that the company was located in the Boston area and that one of our board members already knew Luis Leguia, founder and owner of the Luis & Clark company and a former cellist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Moreover, it turned out that he had already seen A Far Cry perform, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the group. At my first meeting with Luis & his wife Stephanie, they generously loaned me a carbon fiber instrument, which I ended up playing a couple of chamber music concerts on in the fall.

Q) On a concert largely made up of music written in the past 20 years, why specifically play the one Baroque piece on the program (Geminiani's La Folia) on these new "space age" instruments? A)The title of this "Avant Gardner" program "Folly" is taken directy from the context of "La Folia", in its literal translation meaning "Madness".. What could be more "Avant-Garde" or even "Mad" than playing on a set of instruments that the 17th-century violinist and composer, Geminiani,"Il Furibondo" himself, or even Jascha Heifetz would never have imagined hearing.. Believe it or not, this is the very first time a professional ensemble would be playing on a set of carbon fiber instruments in a concert setting.. ever. I gotta say that is pretty sweet. Maybe The Guinness Book of World Records will come calling us. In all seriousness though, it seemed like the best way for us to really try these instruments was to use them to play the most "conventional" piece on a new music concert..

Q) How is it different playing a carbon fiber instrument? A) Carbon fiber responds very differently than wood and possess a completely different voice of its own without the loss of sound quality. The response time is quicker and it resonates 360 degrees around the instrument in comparison to the wooden instrument relying mainly its "f" holes as the sound output. It is virtually unbreakable & can resist the most dramatic of weather conditions.. Some people lament over the fact that its color palette is a bit more limiting than a wooden instrument, but in my opinion, one can find many different colors with judicious use of the bow. I heard a story that a couple members of the Louisiana Philharmonic who played on Luis and Clark instruments were able to retrieve their instruments in sturdy condition after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the instrument locker flooded. The only parts that had to be replaced were the bridge and soundpost, which are the only wooden parts. It really is a modern marvel.. I can imagine the experience perhaps feeling like the first time Buddy Holly plucked the strings on an electric guitar and began drooling over its distortions...

Q) Part of the inspiration for this project came from the Landfill Harmonic. Right? Can you tell us more about that? A) Back in my days when I was living out in west coast, I worked for a violin dealer for a couple of years, and was very fortunate to play on super fine, 17th and 18th century Italian instruments for clients every week. There were Strads, Guarnerius, Gaglianos, Amatis, you name it.. They were already priced in the multiple millions of dollars even back then, and I look at auction reports now a days and find that a lot of these prices have doubled and tripled.. HOW, WHY.. WHO CAN AFFORD THAT!!

Especially not me and a lot of the best musicians I know, who should be playing them. Then on the flip side of that equation, I recently watched a YouTube video of a student orchestra in the slums of Paraguay, called Landfill Harmonic. These under privileged kids play on instruments made by recycled garbage parts, but I have to say that it is one of the most inspiring videos about music I've seen in a long time, since it puts the love of music, the person's musicianship and soul before all the other things that preoccupy our business presently. There should be something in between a $20 million Stradivarius and a violin made out of a gas canister, not only that sounds great but is more affordable, because the aim of young musicians should be one of lofty goals such as creating beauty, excitement and having fun - not "When I grow up, I want to play so well, a foundation will buy me an expensive Montagnana cello!" There needs to be a equalizer in our present day, which is not that different from an electric car that forces us to move away from fossil fuel, to save our environment and economy. In a sense, I see carbon fiber instruments leading this movement for classical music as a whole, in the years to come. I want to think of them as even-ing the playing field - research into new materials might make it possible for people all over the world to experience the music we love, and we want to support that.

Patchwork Rescheduled

Saturday afternoon's concert has been moved to Sunday at 6pm, at St. John's Church in Jamaica Plain. The Gardner Museum concert has been canceled, so this is your ONE CHANCE to see this innovative and moving program!

Back in Jordan Hall Jan. 11!

After a fall of nationwide touring and our first tour to Europe (!), A Far Cry returns to Jordan Hall with "The Long Gaze" - a wide-ranging program that is a veritable hometown LOVE FEST! Tufts University composer John McDonald presents the world premiere of his newly-commissioned work. “Gentle but Uneasy Dance Music.” Benjamin Britten’s haunting “Les Illuminations” features not one but two local stars: soprano Kristen Watson and tenor Zachary Wilder. Anton Webern’s early String Quartet (1905) provides an otherworldly interlude before Kristen and Zachary return for a rocking selection of Kurt Weill songs, in new arrangements by Nicholas Urie.

A Far Cry in Jordan Hall | TICKETS January 11 2013 8pm New England Conservatory, Boston, MA

*McDonald: Gentle but Uneasy Dance Music Britten: Les Illuminations - (feat. Kristen Watson, soprano; Zachary Wilder, tenor) Webern: String Quartet (1905) Weill: Songs - (feat. Kristen Watson, soprano; Zachary Wilder, tenor)