« Il est probable que dans la hiérarchie artistique, les oiseaux sont les plus grands musiciens qui existent sur notre planète. »

— Olivier Messiaen

Humane Performance Initiative

Upcoming Performances

Quartet Harriet

A wooded trail along Chickies Creek, with water running over rocks beside it
String Quartet
A Walk in the Woods

Urban Arts House, 430 West Orange Street, Lancaster, PA — Friday, 6 November, 5:00 pm (First Friday). Free will offering.

Molly S. Photography, 128 East Grant Street, Lancaster, PA — Date to be determined

A handwritten pencil sketch of a score on manuscript paper
String Quartet in progress
(sketch)

Olivia’s Fine Art, 140 North Prince Street, Lancaster, PA — Thursday, 29 October, 5:00 pm (music at 5:15). Free will offering.

Members of Quartet Harriet

Lititz Public Library, 651 Kissel Hill Road, Lititz, PA — Monday, 23 November, 6:30–7:30 pm. Klezmer and Jewish music, with Christopher Brooks, violin, and Laurie Haines Reese, violoncello.

Inspirations

  • ◦
    My love of classical chamber music.
  • ◦
    The intriguing example of the avant-garde movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Beats, Abstract Expressionism, and musical experimenters like John Cage. At times, these pioneers forgot beauty (imho, a mistake), but their ideas remain fruitful.
  • ◦
    The incessant noise and high sound levels of the contemporary world (including popular music).
  • ◦
    The desire to break from rectangular screens and stages with a passive audience.
  • ◦
    Nature.

Principles

  • ◦
    All natural instruments (no electronics)
  • ◦
    Humane sound levels
  • ◦
    Intimate, quiet, spaces: audience and performers sharing the space (no stage)
  • ◦
    Serious art: beautiful, but never cloying or patronizing:
    • My compositions
    • In C, Terry Riley
    • Morton Feldman
    • Others? (Suggestions are welcome.)
  • ◦
    Low ticket prices, children free and encouraged
  • ◦
    Multiple performances per program
  • ◦
    Alcohol consumption encouraged (depending on performance location)

Quartet Harriet

Quartet Harriet was founded to honor the woman who made this possible, including funding: my mother, Harriet L. Brooks.

Members

  • Christopher Brooksviolin

    Christopher Brooks playing the violin in a galleryChristopher Brooks was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He began studying the violin at PS 8 in Brooklyn Heights and at the Third Street Music School. Attending the New School of Music in Philadelphia, Mr. Brooks studied violin with Jascha Brodsky and Geoffrey Michaels.

    He has played chamber music and been a member of numerous orchestras including Orquesta Bética Filarmónica de Sevilla (concertmaster), the Frysk Orkest in the Netherlands, and the Lancaster, Reading, York, and Harrisburg Symphonies (concertmaster). Currently, he plays with the Allegro Chamber Orchestra in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

    In addition to his broad experience in orchestral and chamber music, he has performed with many improvisation-based ensembles, including folk, rock, jazz, Klezmer, and freely-improvised accompaniments for modern dance.

    Christopher Brooks is also a professional acoustics consultant, working as a Senior Consultant with TLC Engineering. His specialty is music and acoustics and acoustical design for performance spaces.

    www.creativeviolinist.com has more information on Christopher’s performing and teaching.

    Among his publications are:

    • The Creative Violinist: Integrating Technique and Music through Improvisation
    • Architectural Acoustics
    • Bemused: Poems Written After Dark

  • Jennifer Sternickviolin

  • Jenny Huerterviola

    Jenny Huerter holding her violaJenny Huerter is an active performer and teacher of viola and violin in the Central PA area. She is Assistant Principal Viola of the York Symphony Orchestra and performs regularly with other groups including the Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra, Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Fulton Theater Orchestra and many other orchestral and chamber groups in the area. She is Adjunct Professor of Viola and Violin at Lancaster Bible College and coaches viola sectionals for the York Youth Symphony Orchestra, as well as teaching privately from her home in Annville, PA. Jenny holds a B.M. in Viola Performance and an M.M. in Viola Performance and Pedagogy, both from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she studied with Victoria Chiang. In addition to her work as a musician and teacher, Jenny is mom to four amazing kids who keep life full and always an adventure.

  • Laurie Haines Reesevioloncello

    Laurie Haines Reese playing the cello under stage lightsLaurie Haines Reese is a cellist dedicated to creating and performing music—especially new music—that explores the cello’s creative possibilities. An accomplished classical musician with a lifelong curiosity about what else the cello can do, she is equally at home in folk, jazz, improvisatory, and experimental music.

    Based in Lancaster, PA, Laurie has freelanced and concertized extensively throughout the United States and Europe, including performances in Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Hawaii, and New York. She holds a Master of Music in Performance from the University of Southern California, where she studied advanced cello repertoire with the legendary cellist Eleanor Schoenfeld.

    Laurie’s musical life has always crossed boundaries. While living in Miami, she performed with jazz great Ira Sullivan in the ensemble Strings Attached. She has been recording professionally since the age of seventeen and is as comfortable in the recording studio as she is on the concert stage. In an entirely different musical direction, she sings and plays cello with Abigail’s Garden, a folk duo with her sister, Tish Brown, performing Celtic music, originals, and an eclectic collection of covers.

    For Laurie, the cello is less a fixed category than an invitation: to explore, to listen, to improvise, and to discover what happens next. As a member of Quartet Harriet, she brings that spirit of curiosity and collaboration to the ensemble’s performances of new, experimental, and indeterminate music.

Past Performances

Workshop

Scores, sketches, rehearsals and writing — the work as it is being made.