THE RHYTHM METHOD

“The American avant garde has a long and sometimes painfully precious tradition of art strictly for art’s sake – and this quartet seems hell-bent on changing that.” — New York Music Daily

Praised as “fierce, fearless, and virtuosic… unapologetically stylistically omnivorous and versatile” (New Music Box) and “trailblazing...skillful composer-performers” (The New Yorker), The Rhythm Method strives to reimagine the string quartet in a contemporary, feminist context. The four performer-composers of The Rhythm Method continually expand their sonic and expressive palette through the use of improvisation, vocalization, graphic notation, songwriting, and theater.  

The Rhythm Method has given performances at Roulette, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, the Met Museum, the Morris Museum, and the Noguchi Museum, and has been featured at the Lucerne Festival Forward, on the String Orchestra of Brooklyn’s String Theories Festival, MATA Festival, Music Mondays, TriBeCa New Music, and the Austrian Cultural Forum’s Moving Sounds Festival. The quartet tours regularly both in the US and abroad, and has performed internationally in France, Austria, and Switzerland. The Rhythm Method seeks to nurture ongoing relationships with universities and schools, cultivating multifaceted creativity and musicianship in students of all ages. They have been in residence at Tulane University, Arkansas State University, Zurich University for Art and Music, Hunter College, Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts, and New York University, and they serve as the quartet-in-residence for Lake George Music Festival’s Composers Institute.

This season’s highlights include the premiere of OCTET, a large-scale, multimedia, work by Paul Pinto, co-commissioned by Bergamot string quartet for string octet with pre-recorded video; the album release shows for both Carrie Frey's 'Seaglass' and Anaïs Maviel's 'Listen to the Rain'; residencies at Berklee, New York University, and the Lake George Music Festival; performances as featured ensemble of the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival; premieres of new works by all four members of The Rhythm Method; and the 7th annual Broad Statements Festival.

The Rhythm Method’s ongoing activities include the Hidden Mothers Project, a programming initiative that highlights works by historical women composers, and Broad Statements, an annual mini-festival celebrating creative music-making by women, non-binary, and gender-expansive people in a wide array of artistic styles.  

In June 2024, the quartet released “Pastorale,” an album featuring music by Lewis Nielson, Paul Pinto, Marina Kifferstein on New Focus Recordings. Other releases include their 2022 self-titled debut album, comprised of music by all of the quartet members,  “A Few Concerns” (2021), an album of cellist-singer-songwriter Meaghan Burke’s music, on Gold Bolus Recordings, and the group’s signature Wandelweiser Christmas arrangements, volumes I and II. The Rhythm Method’s recording of “Silence Seeking Solace” (with soprano Alice Teyssier) was featured on Dai Fujikura’s “Chance Monsoon” (SONY Japan).