Closing Reception: Nigun | Notations on Prayer

Pharos is excited to co-host this unique evening filled with art and music at a community-rooted gallery in the heart of Boston. The performance will feature works by Leonard Bernstein, Libby Larsen, Eugene Bozza and György Ligeti, a fun program of timeless classical and concert favorites, newer works and the avant-garde.

Based in Boston, The Pharos Quartet is a stirring musical collaborative formed by four New England saxophonists: Jennifer Bill (soprano), Amy McGlothlin (alto), Emily Cox (tenor) and Zach Schwartz (baritone). Their unique combination of ideas, styles and expressions brings the sound of the saxophone quartet to a new apex. With a vivid repertoire, balanced between notable pioneers as well as visionaries of tomorrow, Pharos maintains a steady appetite for today’s most demanding saxophone quartet literature. Their concerts are stimulating, entertaining and unpredictable. Its members bring together their own international performance experience and fuse it into a distinct chamber music event.

Pharos, the great lighthouse of antiquity and often considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was built by the Ptolemaics in circa 280 BC in the port city of Alexandria on the coast of Egypt. This great beacon of light that stood for around 1,000 years inspires the quartet to be a guiding light in chamber music performance of the 21st century. The Pharos Quartet are ambassadors of Rovner products, makers of fine saxophone ligatures and accessories, and are honored to be the first chamber ensemble to hold this title.

Free and open to the public, the reception will include refreshments, remarks, Hanukkah candle-lighting and a concert by Pharos Quartet.

A nigun (melody) is a wordless, often spiritual song or prayer, sung by Jewish communities in synagogue, around the Shabbat dinner table and in other communal gatherings. Characterized by repetitive sounds such as “bim bim bam” or “nai nai nai,” nigunim range in emotion, tradition, composition and purpose. Nigunim typically have repetitive melodies, lack words and involve community participation through harmonies.

“Nigun | Notations on Prayer” brings together works by seven Jewish artists that visually respond to nigun through process, repetition, motif and abstraction. From Alex DeRosa’s repetition of medical terms paralleling the Mi Sheberach to Rachel Bird’s repetitive figure drawings meditating on the nigun within each individual, each artist investigates how to represent and connect oral tradition and visual representation, creating a physical prayer.

Featuring artwork by:

• Natalya Bernstein
• Rachel Bird
• Alex DeRosa
• Shelby Feltoon
• Stacy Friedman
• Joshua Lennon
• Emily Mogavero (curator)

Generously supported by the Hotel Buckminster, Golob Art, Combined Jewish Philanthropies and Moishe House.

Located in Kenmore Square in collaboration with Hotel Buckminster, Post-Cubicle Gallery is a space organized by local artists Alexander Golob, Edie Côté and Danielle Pratt. If you are interested in collaborating with a project, please contact us at postcubicle@gmail.com.