Americana Modern Mandolin Quartet

• 1 Rodeo - 4 Dance Episodes: IV. Hoe Down (arr. R. Crawford) 03:48
• 2 I. Allegro ma non troppo 09:43
• 3 II. Lento 07:20
• 4 III. Molto vivace 04:11
• 5 IV. Finale Vivace, ma non troppo 05:52
• 6 West Side Story, Act I 04:53
• 7 Shenandoah 04:21
• 8 No. 1 in B flat major Allegro ben ritmato e deciso 01:56
• 9 No. 2 in C sharp minor Andante con moto e poco rubato 04:25
• 10 No. 3 in E flat minor Allegro ben ritmato e deciso 01:31
• 11 Bill Monroe Medley 08:28
• 12 I. 1957 Award Montage 04:28
• 13 II. November 25 Ichigaya 01:17
• 14 IV. 1962 Body Building 01:45
• 15 VI. Mishima Closing 03:23
• 16 Irish Roots Medley 04:43
• Total Runtime 01:12:04

Info for Americana

Sono Luminus presents this uniquely engaging collection of music that embodies the American spirit in Americana, the latest release by Modern Mandolin Quartet. Expressing their opinion on their choices of musical selections for this album, the quartet writes, “This music attracted us because of the wonderful way it sounds on our instruments, particularly the Dvorák. Since the musical character of the pieces is based on various forms of American music, it lends itself extremely well to the mandolin. While many selections for piano and string music rely on idioms and techniques that may not transpose well to the mandolin, the pieces included on this disc were chosen for their vitality and the way they jumped right off the page.”

The Modern Mandolin Quartet was formed in 1985 to give a new voice to that most American of musical instruments, the mandolin. Following the tradition of the mandolin orchestras and chamber groups from the early twentieth century, the MMQ uses the instruments of the mandolin family which correspond to the conventional string quartet (two mandolins, mandola, and mandocello). To date the Quartet has arranged and performed over 90 works originally written for orchestra, chamber ensemble, piano, guitar, and string quartet.

Fanfare Magazine exclaims, “MMQ play dead-straight, spot-on, and packed with freshness and vitality of a kind that is rare in material of this type. These are not down-scaled, make-em-easy, just-for-kicks charts either - they are a Major Thing. TRIPLE MUST!”

Matt Flinner, mandolin
Dana Rath, mandolin
Paul Binkley, mandola and guitar
Adam Roszkiewicz, guitar

Nominated for the 55th GRAMMY Awards for Best Engineered Classical Album and Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble

Matt Flinner
is widely considered one of the hottest mandolin players on the acoustic scene. He started out as a prodigy who was playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, and won the national banjo contest at Winfield Kansas in 1990, and the mandolin award there the following year. He then attended the University of Utah at Salt Lake City where he obtained a degree in composition and performed with the Utah Symphony. Flinner has two solo album releases to his credit, The View From Here and Latitude, which feature an all-star cast of acoustic players including Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, David Grier and Darol Anger. Flinner believes that his early years spent in the Rocky Mountains had a very real impact on his music. “There’s an American harmony in classical music that’s this big wide-open sound — Aaron Copland’s work, for example,” Flinner says. “So I think there could be something to that, that your surroundings reflect your music.”

Dana Rath
mandolinist, has devoted his musical career to reawakening interest in the mandolin family instruments. He has worked with The Berkeley Mandolin Ensemble,the Rudy Cipolla group, the Hotzeplotz Klezmer Orchestra and is a founding member of The Modern Mandolin Quartet. His interest in classical mandolin began while studying classical guitar at Loyola University in New Orleans. He then studied in Europe with mandolin virtuoso Keith Harris. Other instructors include Gertrud Troester, Emmanuel Sheynkmann and Andy Statman. Dana has recorded new works by Alexis Alrich and Larry Polanski for Opus One Records. He has also performed with the Berkeley Symphony and Louisville Symphony and has played mandolin, guitar and banjo for San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater. His involvement with the Quartet continues his dream of bringing new prominence to the modern mandolin.

Paul Binkley
plays mandola and guitar with the Modern Mandolin Quartet and also contributes many of the group’s arrangements. Paul began his musical studies in London, Ontario where he gave his first professional concerts before graduating from high school. He became an instructor at the London Guitar and Lute Center for several years before moving to San Francisco to complete his Bachelor of Music degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and his Master of Arts in Music degree at San Francisco State University, majoring in guitar performance. Paul has been an ensemble player with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the San Francisco Opera, Ballet, and Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony and many other orchestras. He is guitar instructor at Mills College. He has also recorded contemporary pieces for Opus One Records and Centaur Records. Other recording credits include the San Francisco Symphony recording of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet with Michael Tilson Thomas.

Adam Roszkiewicz
began playing the guitar at age 7, inspired by Mississippi John Hurt, Tom Petty, and his father’s shiny new Fender Stratocaster. His first lessons were from his father and later with Gregory Coleman and John Schneiderman. Now based in the Bay Area, Adam performs classical music, bluegrass, country, folk and new acoustic music on guitar, mandolin, and mandocello. Adam has performed at festivals around the world including the Icicle Creek music festival in Washington, the Mozart festival in San Luis Obispo, the Blue Highways festival in Utrecht, Holland, the Singer Festival in Warsaw, Poland and the Hardly-Strictly-Bluegrass festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In addition to the Modern Mandolin Quartet, Adam currently plays with the Bluegrass band Front Country and is a member of the Ger Mandolin Orchestra. Adam has also performed with AJ Roach, Ana Egge, Rachel Ries, Anais Mitchell, and Mike Marshall. Adam earned his undergraduate and graduate diplomas in music performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with David Tanenbaum and Marc Teicholz. In March 2005, he made his Carnegie Hall debut, performing guitar duets with Santiago Gutierrez. In addition to performance, Adam is also a dedicated music teacher with over 15 years experience giving private lessons and workshops. His book of flatpick guitar arrangements of fiddle tunes is due to be published in 2013.

Booklet for Americana