ETHEL & ROBERT MIRABAL

"Red Willow Suite" by ETHEL and Robert Mirabal in Taos, NM at the Harwood museum, June 2023 Commissioned by the Taos Chamber Music Group

"New music bonding with old images in rich, provocative, and moving ways." - The New York Times

“In the hands of ETHEL, American music is alive and well.” - The Washington Post

THE RED WILLOW

In this unique expression of thirteen years of friendship and collaboration, GRAMMY® Award-winning, master musician, actor, artist and story-teller, Robert Mirabal, elder of the Taos Pueblo, and GRAMMY® Award-winning, genre-defying, New York-based string quartet, ETHEL, come together gratefully to, yet again, reimagine the concert experience.  Their art is a vigorous blend of joy, compassion and vital virtuosity.  Building on their previous programs, Music of the Sun, The River, and Song for Taos, but more specifically addressing the challenges of the post-pandemic world, and in honor of Mirabal’s community, they offer a ceremony full of original music, movement and wisdom. The Red Willow is a new program built around a work commissioned by Taos Chamber Music Society in the summer of 2023.

With their signature mastery, ETHEL and Mirabal refer to the local, the timeless magnificence of Taos, then explode it into the universal with a kaleidoscope of sounds that transcend geographical and temporal boundaries.  Each member contributes their unique voice, and together, they weave a gorgeous tapestry with colors from Native America, Europe, Africa and Asia.  At the pinnacle of the program is the central work, The Red Willow Suite, a breathtaking, ambitious piece of music and storytelling, not to be missed.  The audience will feel the urge to dance and celebrate, as the space around their hearts grows and deepens.

• Quartet plus flutist Robert Mirabal