String Quartet and Other Berklee Players Heat up Newport Folk Festival 2016

Day two of the 2016 Newport Folk Festival was a 90-degree scorcher, the air thick with the smell of sunblock, and almost every attendee either holding a cup of the Rhode Island-famous Del’s frozen lemonade or in line to get one. So when country-folk artist Margo Price began her midday set singing, “Let’s go back to Tennessee,” it wasn’t hard for the eager crowd packed under the Quad Stage tent to make the imagined leap to the sultry heat of the South.

The audience tapped toes to Price’s soulful country tunes, which evoked the country noir of early Neko Case and the honky-tonk of Loretta Lynn. But for her fifth song, “Hands of Time,” Price brought out a quartet of Berklee string players to accompany her, and by the end of the song she had brought the otherwise seated crowd to its feet.

Pulling the Right Strings

The quartet, collectively known as Berklee Instant Strings, consists of four Berklee students chosen by the String Department for the purpose of offering a string section to touring artists who otherwise might not have had access to such a resource beforehand. And, in fact, Price was the second set for the quartet, as the group had accompanied folk artist Aoife O’Donovan the day before. And while that might seem like a big undertaking for the players, they knocked it out with only six hours of practice, just two of which was spent with the bandleaders.

But this was the whole idea behind Instant Strings, as conceived by Darol Anger, associate professor of strings, and directed by his departmental colleague Joe Walsh. “We wanted to offer a string section that could arrange something on the spot and be flexible,” Walsh said of the crew. They also needed to “be great players who can read/play in a quartet but who are good on their feet and can improvise.” The four who rose to the challenge included students Emily Baker, five-string fiddle; Kathleen Parks, fiddle; Cristobal Cruz Garcia, cello; and recent alumna Carolyn Kendrick ‘16, fiddle.

Anger agrees, pointing out that his department has "a crop of incredibly talented players that know how to rise to these kinds of performances." And while this is the Instant String debut, the idea has been kicking around Anger's mind for years as he's logged decades of playing festivals of all genres. "It's a way of keeping myself alive and staying in shape," he said, adding that extending that idea to the versatile student population was an obvious move. He hopes that this is just the beginning, and could see the "instant" idea growing to orchestra levels. "We've just scratched the surface of this," he said.

From Students to Artists

Besides the thrill and adrenaline ride of performing on the legendary stages of Newport Folk—“a capstone gig” for folk artists, Walsh pointed out—the string players were excited for the immersion into the professional world. “I love how Newport has welcomed us,” Cruz Garcia said. “They treat us like artists.” For Emily Baker, dual major in performance and music therapy, another highlight was “getting to work more with Joe, because he’s one of my mentors,” she said. “This gave me the opportunity to work with him not just as a student and teacher.”

The artists were impressed with the Berklee players as they showcased a range of talent for each set. For Price, the quartet performed the arrangement exactly as it appeared on her debut album, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, whereas O'Donovan requested they mix it up between existing arrangements and improvisation, something the players felt very prepared for. "We’re all performance majors, so this is what we do," Kendrick said of the performance, mentioning that O'Donovan was particularly pleased. "Aoife loved how it went and is hoping to work with us again in the future," she said.

Growing Berklee's Newport Roots

Even beyond the two Instant Strings performances, it wasn’t hard to find evidence of Berklee throughout this year’s lineup. On Saturday, Ruby Amanfu ’98, recently in the limelight for her impressive backing vocals on Beyoncé’s Lemonade, electrified the Harbor Stage, and later that afternoon, Sam Moss ’11 plucked heartstrings on the Museum Stage. And, as has become a Sunday morning tradition at Newport Folk, the Berklee Gospel and Roots Choir, a 12-piece vocal ensemble backed by a 14-piece band, gave a stirring performance to help ease people into the festival’s final day as well as build excitement for next year.

Watch Margo Price perform "How the Mighty Have Fallen" with the Berklee Instant Strings at Newport Folk Festival 2016:

Watch the Berklee Gospel and Roots Choir perform Kirk Franklin's "Before I Die" at the Newport Folk Festival 2016: