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A Far Cry Closes the Friends of Music 2011–2012 Season

Posted On May 04, 2012 | 16:17 pm | by lisaw | Permalink

Valerie Stains

On April 22nd and 23rd, the Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry performed the final concerts of the 2011–2012 Friends of Music season. The self-conducted group of young musicians (the Criers, as they call themselves) made its Washington, D.C. debut last year right here at Dumbarton Oaks. We were so impressed by their musicianship, energy, and freshness, that we immediately invited them to play for us again this season, and they did not disappoint. Their impressive performances of music by Heinrich Biber (Battalia), Ludwig van Beethoven (the "Serioso" String Quartet, arranged for string orchestra by A Far Cry), Osvaldo Golijov (Tenebrae), and Benjamin Britten (Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge) were warmly received by Friends of Music audiences. The Washington Post’s Stephen Brookes attended and reviewed the concert.

According to the New York Times, A Far Cry “brims with personality or, better, personalities, many and varied.” The orchestra was founded in 2007 by a tightly-knit collective of seventeen young professional musicians and since the beginning has fostered those personalities, developing an innovative structure of rotating leadership both on stage and behind the scenes. The Criers maintain strong roots in Boston, rehearsing at their storefront music center in Jamaica Plain and fulfilling the role of Chamber Orchestra in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.