The Knights
Music from the Great War Era

An orchestral collective, flexible in size and repertory, The Knights strives to transform the concert experience by engaging listeners and defying boundaries. The ensemble’s programs showcase the players’ roots in classical tradition and their passion for discovery. The group has, as a New Yorker reviewer observes, “become one of Brooklyn’s sterling cultural products.” The Knights evolved from late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The brothers are also founding members of Brooklyn Rider, the inventive string quartet that made its Center for the Performing Arts premiere in April 2015. The Jacobsens serve as artistic directors of The Knights, with Eric as conductor. In 2012, the Jacobsens were selected from among America’s most talented visual, performing, media, and literary artists to receive a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship. In recent seasons, the collective has made its Tanglewood and Ojai music festival debuts and collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Dawn Upshaw, Jeremy Denk, the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Joshua Redman Quartet, santur player Siamak Aghaei, and pipa virtuoso Wu Man. The Knights’ roster features diverse talents, including composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters, and improvisers, who bring a range of cultural influences—from jazz and klezmer to pop and indie rock—to the ensemble. On stage, the group’s camaraderie retains the intimacy and spontaneity of chamber music. The Penn State concert, with an ensemble of eleven musicians (two violinists, violist, cellist, double bassist, clarinetist, bassoonist, trumpeter, trombonist, percussionist, and pianist), features a program of music composed mostly between 1914 and 1924. The program includes Sergei Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, Maurice Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, Anton Webern’s Three Little Pieces for Cello and Piano, Ernest Bloch’s Prayer for cello and piano, Caroline Shaw’s arrangement of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Tierkreis: Leo, and Igor Stravinsky’s Suite from The Soldier’s Tale.