With their gripping performance style and unquenchable appetite for musical adventure, Brooklyn Rider has carved a singular space in the world of string quartets over their fifteen-year history. Claiming no allegiance to either end of the historical spectrum, Brooklyn Rider most comfortably operates within the long arc of the tradition, seeking to illuminate works of the past with fresh insight while coaxing the malleable genre into the future through an inclusive programming vision, deep-rooted collaborations with a wide range of global tradition bearers and the creation of thoughtful and relevant frames for commissioning projects. The current concert season is strongly illustrative of the intrepid musical appetite of Brooklyn Rider. This fall, they began unveiling a major new commissioning and programmatic venture called The Four Elements; an exploration of the four classical elements (earth, air, water and fire) as both metaphor for both the complex inner world of the string quartet and the current health of planet Earth. This winter, the quartet will also release The Wanderer, their first ever live concert recording, made in Palieusius Manor in Eastern Lithuania while on tour last spring. The album consists of two works written recent works written for Brooklyn Riderby Gonzalo Grau and Osvlado Golijov, as well as Schubert’s iconic “Death and the Maiden” String Quartet. This season also sees the quartet reuniting with Magos Herrera across the US for their Dreamers project. The 2021-22 season boasted two unique collaborative ventures: one with Israeli mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, and the other, a brand new phase of work with Swedish mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, where they explored themes of love and death through the music of Franz Schubert and Rufus Wainwright. Also, 2022’s release of The Stranger (Avie Records) with tenor Nicholas Phan was recently nominated for a 2023 Grammy® Award and made numerous “best of”lists for 2022, including The New Yorker. Brooklyn Rider has remained steadfast in their commitment to generate new music and collaborative ventures at nearly every phase of their history. Shared during the global pandemic at the height of the US lock down, the Grammy®-nominated recording Healing Modes (In A Circle Records) was described by The New Yorker as a project which "...could not possibly be more relevant or necessary than it is currently.” That same season also saw the release of two projects from vastly different musical spheres—The Butterfly with the master Irish fiddler Martin Hayes (In A Circle Records) and the other, Sun On Sand (Nonesuch Records), featuring the saxophone great Joshua Redman. In fall 2018, Brooklyn Rider released Dreamers on Sony Music Masterworks with Mexican jazz vocalist Magos Herrera. These projects, along with the rest of Brooklyn Rider’s extensive discography, have helped give rise to NPR Music’s observation that Brooklyn Rider is “recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative21st-century ensemble.”

Born in Mexico City and currently based out of New York City, Magos Herrera is a dazzling jazz singer songwriter, producer, and educator. Declared as "One of the greatest contemporary interpreters of  song” by The Latin Jazz Network, Magos is regarded as one of the most active vocalists in the contemporary Latin American jazz scene. She is best known for her eloquent vocal improvisation and  her singular bold style, which embraces elements of contemporary jazz with Ibero-American melodies  and rhythms singing in Spanish, English and Portuguese, in a style that elegantly blends and surpasses language boundaries.  

“She gets way under the skin of the song, recalling great communicators like Edith Piaf or Billie  Holiday” is how NPR describes Herrera’s talents who has recorded 9 albums including joint  collaborations with producer Javier Limón in addition to having participated as a guest artist of several  recordings and albums. An accomplished artist, Magos has performed in leading international cultural  venues such as Lincoln Center in NYC, Kennedy Center in DC, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City,  Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Union Chapel in London, Duc des Lombardes in Paris, Kamani  Auditorium in Delhi, Palau de la Musica in Valencia, and has been part of the line-up of some of the most memorable jazz festivals around the world including Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz  Festival, Festival Internacional Cervantino, to mention a few. Throughout her career, Magos has  garnered important awards and recognitions, including a Grammy short-list nomination in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category for her album Distancia (2009), and is the only female artist to have received the Berklee College of Music’s Master of Latin Music Award. She is well known for  championing women’s causes, served as spokesperson for UN Women, and has contributed to  important campaigns including UNITE to end violence against women and He For She, as a promoter of gender equality. She serves as an artistic advisor of the “National Sawdust,” one of Brooklyn’s most  innovative venues, and as a frequent collaborator for radio and TV Magos produces and hosts a weekly  radio program from New York for Mexico’s Public Radio.  

In 2018 Magos released her album Dreamers (Sony Music) in collaboration Brooklyn Rider .”Dreamers  is not only a work of art, setting musicians of the highest order to accomplished music with purpose,  but it is a work of love as well” wrote Sounds and Colors on this highly acclaimed album that rapidly got  into #1 Amazon, #2 iTunes and got into the Top lists of The New York Times, Billboard classical, NPR  Music, NPR Alt Latino, PRI The world, among others and was nominated for the international Grammys  for Best Arrangement with the song “Niña”. This recording includes gems of the Ibero- American  songbook reimagined by a superb group of arrangers including Jaques Morelenbaum, Gonzalo Grau,  Diego Schissi, Guillermo Klein and Brooklyn Rider’s own Colin Jacobsen. In the same year Magos  received the Omecíhuatl Medal, an award granted by the Women's Institute of the government of  Mexico City in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the empowerment of women through the  arts and culture and has been included as one of the most creative Mexicans in the world by Forbes  Mexico. Herrera is a 2020 recipient of Chamber Music Americas New Jazz Works Award, a 2021 South Arts Jazz Road Creative Residencies and Cafe Royal grants and currently  she serves as a Cultural Diplomatic Advisor for the Mexican Government.  She is also part of Mannes conservatory and The New School faculty in New York.

Created and recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and in collaboration with composer Paola Prestini, in December 2020 Herrera released her tenth album “Con Alma” An operatic tableau on  isolation (National Sawdust Tracks), exploring the question of how we can find communion a in a time of isolation. With more that 30 musicians around the globe including Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería,  Jeff Zeigler, Kinan Azmeh, Romero Lubambo, Gonzalo Grau, Vinicius Gomes, Diego Schissi, Ensemble  Sjella, Constelation Chor and The Young People’s Chorus of New York City this artifact of our time was  presented as a virtual digital experience on Dec 13th through National Sawdust virtual stage Mexican  Government Secretary of Culture platforms directed by multimedia director Ashley Tata and in  collaboration with visual artists Kevork Mourad.  

In retrospective as NPR describes on Herreras work “She's stretching the very notion of jazz singing,  pushing past the diva pleasantries into a sound that's bold, thrilling and effortlessly global.”