Joe Brent & Alon Sariel
Biography Joe Brent & Alon Sariel
Joe Brent
Called, “one of the truly exceptional musicians of his generation,” a mandolinist about whom it has been said, “there has never been a mandolinist with greater technical skills,” and a composer whose music, “touches and communicates the essence of what it means to be an alive, feeling human being,” Joe Brent has forged a career as both instrumentalist and composer with unparalleled fluency across multiple genres.
As a classical mandolinist, Mr. Brent has worked closely with many of the great modern composers, premiering works by Elliot Carter, Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg, Olga Neuwirth, David Loeb, Nathan Davis, and Joe Hisaishi among many others. He has performed with many well-known chamber ensembles, including The International Contemporary Ensemble, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Argento New Music Project, Speculum Musicae, A Far Cry, Fireworks Music, Art of Élan, Tres Americas, NOVUS, and nunc. Concurrently, he is thoroughly versed in the traditional orchestral repertoire, having performed with Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, New World Symphony, The American Symphony Orchestra, and the New York City Ballet and City Opera. As a solo artist, he has given recitals and clinics in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2001, has lectured on contemporary music at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and was the 2017 artist in residence at Marble House Project.
Mr. Brent has performed as featured soloist with the Orchestra a Pizzico Ligure in several performances throughout northern Italy, in the Miller Theatre portrait of Elliot Carter conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky in celebration of the composer's 99th birthday, and in an all-Carter program at Tanglewood Music Festival under the direction of James Levine. In 2013 he performed as soloist in an all-Beethoven program with Michael Tilson Thomas and The San Francisco Symphony as well as with Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He has presented as a soloist at the DUMBO Arts Festival, BRIC Arts Festival, Hildener Meisterkurs für Mandoline und Guitarre in Düsseldorf, Germany, the Festival Internacional de Música Clásica Contemporánea in Lima, Peru, the 2008 and 2011 Classical Mandolin Society of America annual conventions, and the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, UAE. He and harpist Bridget Kibbey were named amongst the first artists to participate in the Weill Music Institute's Carnegie Hall Musical Connections program, and in 2011, he joined the faculty of the Mannes School of Music. He maintains an active international concert schedule.
Simultaneously, Mr. Brent has maintained an active career in popular and improvising music. He has performed and/or recorded with Regina Spektor, Woody Allen, Jewel, Stephane Grappelli, Alice and Ravi Coltrane, Tommy Tune, Sam Moore (from Sam and Dave), the Alan Ferber Nonet + Strings, Jillette Johnson, and Kishi Bashi. He has been featured in dozens of Broadway and off-Broadway pit orchestras, including Tony Award winners and nominees Spring Awakening, Everyday Rapture, Big River, Urban Cowboy, the 2014 Shakespeare In The Park production of Much Ado About Nothing, and the 2019 revival of Oklahoma!.
In 2012 he founded the improvising chamber ensemble 9 Horses, which features his own compositions for an ever-changing improvising new music ensemble, with a core of himself (on several instruments), Sara Caswell on violin and Hardanger fiddle, and Andrew Ryan on bass. 9 Horses was a finalist in the 2014 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, the only improvising ensemble to do so. 9 Horses released its debut album, Perfectest Herald, in 2015, and was the 2016 winner of the 21CM LAUNCH: Emerging Artists competition. Brent has received commissions for new works for 9 Horses to perform in 2017 with ensembles from University of Arkansas Little Rock/ACANSA Festival, DePauw University/21CM, Colorado Mesa University, Southern Illinois University, Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, University of Texas at El Paso, and South Dakota State University. 9 Horses released Blood From A Stone, a 4-song EP in 2019, and the critically-acclaimed double album Omegah in 2021.
In 2007, Mr. Brent published two books of mandolin pedagogy, Scales and Arpeggios for the Mandolin and Orchestral and Chamber Excerpts for Mandolin. That same year, he released his debut album, Point of Departure, featuring duets with Ms. Kibbey. In 2010, he recorded the complete mandolin works of David Loeb for Vienna Modern Masters, and in 2014 he released a recording of John Dowland’s lute music arranged for himself and Israeli mandolinist Alon Sariel for paladino media. He is a prolific recording artist, as a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer, and has received grants from New Music USA and Chamber Music America.
Mr. Brent plays custom-made 8-string and 10-string acoustic mandolins by Brian Dean of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and a 5-string electric mandolin by Adam Buchwald of Burlington, VT.
"Brent's music is just bursting with emotion and its immediacy is partly what makes it so attractive and inviting... Brent is not playing the mandolin, but rather music on what happens to be a mandolin. Caswell's violin (and Hardanger d'amore) breathes, speaks and sings, while every note from Conley (including his extremely accurate bowing) is alive... this highly emotive music touches and communicates the essence of what it means to be an alive, feeling human being. 9 Horses is a very special group from which there is no doubt more will be heard and Perfectest Herald is a very special creative work. The only way to fully understand its depth and complexity is to listen to it, and this reviewer feels very fortunate to have had that opportunity." -- Budd Kopman, All About Jazz
Alon Sariel
As a mandolinist and lutenist, as well as a conductor, Alon Sariel is at home in the fields of both early and new music, having premiered dozens of works dedicated to him. He appeared at festivals such as the Salzburger Biennale for New Music and the Early Music Festival in Utrecht, and has performed in halls such as the Berliner Philharmonie and Sala São Paulo in Brazil.
Musical roads have taken Alon Sariel to many different genres from folk to avantgarde, leading him to collaborations with a bright spectrum of first-class artists such as soprano Dame Emma Kirkby, counter-tenor Andreas Scholl, trumpeter and intuitive-music artist Markus Stockhausen, violinist Jean-Christophe Spinosi, accordionist and banjo player Stian Carstensen and clarinetist David Krakauer.
A winner of numerous international competitions, prizes and awards, Alon Sariel has also been actively engaged in several socio/political-musical projects including Live Music Now (Yehudi Menuhin), Rhapsody in School (Lars Vogt) and the West-Eastern Divan (Daniel Barenboim).
As a soloist and member of different ensembles, Alon Sariel toured throughout Europe, the USA and Mexico, South America, South Africa, and the Middle- and Far-East. He has given master classes for the Classical Mandolin Society of America (CMSA) and at institutions such as Trinity College of Music (London), Lilla Akademien (Stockholm), the conservatories of Kazan (Russia) ZUŠ Nová Paka (Czech Republic) and Celaya (Mexico). Alon Sariel's playing was transmitted via radio stations worldwide, including Arte, BBC4, Bayerischer Rundfunk, WDR3, P2 Klassiskt, Kol HaMusika, WQXR and WNYC among others.
Currently residing in Hanover, where he is musical director of the international Baroque orchestra Concerto Foscari and founding member of PRISMA, with whom he was awarded the first prize at the International Biber Competition in Austria 2015. Recent engagements as soloist/conductor include ensembles as Munich Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Radio Symphony, Sofia Philharmonic, Tel Aviv Soloists, Camerata Tinta Barocca (Cape Town) and the Barokksolistene (Norway).
Among diverse recording productions with different ensembles, Alon Sariel is signed on several world premiere recordings such as the trios for plucked instruments by Paul Ben-Haim (for Albany Records) and by Yehezkel Braun (for IMI), as well as for "Nedudim" for mandolin and string orchestra by Gilad Hochman (with the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin for Neue Meister). His recording "Paisiello in Vienna" marking the 200th anniversary of the composer's passing was released by Brilliant Classics to a wide critical acclaim. Alon Sariel's last recording "Telemandolin" (Berlin Classics) was awarded the "Golden Label" by Klassiek Centraal (Belgium) and the prestigious OPUS KLASSIK (Germany). Furthermore, the album has been described by the press as „a recording of epic proportions“. (Mandolin Café, USA)
2019 saw the release of his album "Rembrandt“ (querstand) with music of the Dutch Golden Age, and "Bach in the White City“ (Sheva Collection), an homage to the Bauhaus Centenary, bridging elegantly between Weimar and Tel Aviv. Furthermore, Alon Sariel has recorded Beethoven's mandolin literature on historical instruments for the 2020 NAXOS Classics Beethoven complete works CD box set.
