Beethoven meets Climate Justice in E-Flat Major

Join Luisa Neubauer from Fridays for Future Germany and the Lydian String Quartet for a journey into the universe and back, and a conversation about climate justice.

Tues., Oct. 29, 2024 7:00 pm ET (US); Goethe-Institut Boston, 170 Beacon Street, Boston, MA

Click here for more details and to RSVP

Lydian String Quartet

Clara Lyon, violin Julia Glenn, violin Mark Berger, viola Joshua Gordon, cello

From its beginning in 1980, the Lydian String Quartet (Clara Lyon and Julia Glenn, violins; Mark Berger, viola; Joshua Gordon, cello) has been acclaimed by audiences and critics across the USA and abroad for embracing the full range of the string quartet repertory with curiosity, virtuosity, and dedication to the highest artistic ideals of music making. Residing at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts since the group’s founding, the quartet has continued to build a reputation for their depth of interpretation, performing with “a precision and involvement marking them as among the world’s best quartets” (Chicago Sun-Times). From the acknowledged masterpieces of the classical, romantic, and modern eras to new remarkable compositions written by today’s cutting edge composers, the Lydians approach music-making with a sense of exploration and personal expression that is timeless. The Lydian String Quartet has performed extensively throughout the United States at venues such as Jordan Hall in Boston; the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; Lincoln Center, Miller Theater, and Weill Recital Hall in New York City; Music Mountain in Connecticut; the Pacific Rim Festival at the University of California at Santa Cruz; and the Slee Beethoven Series at the University at Buffalo. Abroad, the Quartet has made appearances in France, England, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Armenia, and Taiwan. The Lydians enjoy collaborations in traditional configurations as well as in boundary-crossing performances, recently including musicians such as clarinetist David Krakauer, tabla player Sandeep Das, pipa player Chen Yihan, and others. The Lydians have long championed the commissioning, performing and recording of new works. They enjoy working with young composers at the quartet’s Brandeis home as well as in mini-residencies at universities across the US. Their programming and recording of American contemporary quartet repertoire has earned them numerous Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, grants from the Meet the Composer/Rockefeller Foundation/AT&T Jazz Program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. In 2012 their first Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize drew over 400 applicants; as a result, first prize-winner Kurt Rohde wrote his epic string quartet treatises for an unrecovered past for the Lydians, who premiered it in 2013 and recorded it in the summer of 2015. The newest LSQ Commission Prize winner is Lembit Beecher. The Lydians’ 29 currently available commercial recordings reflect their diverse and far-reaching repertoire, including works by Beethoven, Brahms, Fine, Ives, Ornstein, Persichetti, and Schubert as well as American contemporary composers they have long known and collaborated with such as Martin Boykan, Eric Chasalow, Yu-Hui Chang (forthcoming), Peter Child, John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Steven Mackey, Kurt Rohde, Laurie San Martin, Harold Shapero, and Yehudi Wyner.

Luisa Neubauer

Luisa Neubauer is a youth climate justice activist and lead organizer of the German "Fridays for Future" climate movement. For over five years now, Luisa and Fridays for Future have brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets. In 2022 TIME Magazine included her among the "100Next" leaders. In "Neubauer vs. Germany“ she and others won a landmark constitutional court ruling against the German government (then led by Angela Merkel) in 2021, forcing the government to improve its climate law. She and others are now suing the (new) German government again. She has published three best-selling books on the climate crisis. One of them is available in English: Beginning to End the Climate Crisis. A History of Our Future, published by Brandeis University Press in 2023. Her Ted Talks on climate action have been watched more than 4 Million times. Luisa Neubauer is currently completing a Masters degree in Geography. She is the host of the award-winning Podcast "1,5 Degrees". A Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University this fall, she normally lives in Berlin.