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Invert is a unique New York City based string quartet performing original new music composed by its members, and their own arrangements of other composer's works. Invert's name is taken from their literal inversion of the traditional string quartet format - they feature two cellists instead of the usual two violins. Drawn from diverse, eclectic musical backgrounds, Invert's members defy tradition by being firmly rooted in rock, jazz and world musics rather than the classical upbringings typical of most string players. These influences are reflected in their compositions, which range from pieces evocative of soundtracks from Expressionist cinema to driving melodic works that often feature open sections of improvisation. Since it's debut in August 1999, Invert has regularly performed at many renowned New York venues, including The Knitting Factory, Irving Plaza, The Cutting Room, Joe's Pub, and Makor. Their self titled debut CD, containing six original compositions, was independently released in 2001, and selections from it have received airplay on WFMU, WZBC and WNYC. They were featured on The Kitchens "String Summit," have recorded string accompaniments for two releases by legendary indie rockers Guided By Voices, and have appeared on bills with artists as diverse as Mission of Burma, Rachel's, Erik Friedlander, Carla Kihlstedt's Two Foot Yard, American Analog Set, Quasi, and Rasputina. Invert's full length second CD, entitled "Between The Seconds," was released by Capstone Records on January 2004. This ten track disc contains eight original compositions and arrangements of The Beatle's "Tomorrow Never Knows" and Bernard Herrmann's Prelude from the film "Psycho." You can hear previews of its tracks, get further details on this CD, and purchase it online here.
Chris George - Cello Chris George, Invert's founder and one of its composers, began his musical studies at age 15, when he took up the electric bass guitar. In 1982, he enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he focused on performance and composition. While attending Berklee, Chris joined the popular rock group Boys Life performing in the most reputable clubs around the city and touring through parts of the United States. The group shared bills with some of alternative rock's greatest bands, including The Ramones, John Cale, The Jam, and The Violent Femmes. In 1985, Chris formed his own group, Drumming on Glass, playing bass and writing most of the songs. During this time his interest in Eastern music led him to take up the sitar and begin studying Indian classical music with sitarist Michael Segal, a student of one of Ravi Shankar's disciples. Chris quickly integrated the sitar into D.O.G.'s sound. Throughout the 1980s, D.O.G. played regularly in local Boston clubs and toured through parts of the United States. They released a 7" single and two full length LPs/CD's on Aurora Records, produced by Lou Giordano (Mission of Burma, Bob Mould). Their song "All The Colors" charted on CMJ's top 100. From 1993 to 1994, Chris joined forces with two members of The Cavedogs (Capital Records recording artists) to form Merang. Meanwhile, beginning in January of 1992, Chris had begun studying the cello. Over the next two years, while taking private lessons with Ben Meyers and attending master classes at the New England Conservatory of Music taught by world renowned cellist Colin Carr, Chris began to feel an ever greater pull towards chamber music and the greater challenges the cello had to offer. In 1994, Chris moved to New York City and decided to focus exclusively on the cello. He attended a chamber music program at Mannes School of Music and performed in various chamber group settings. He then spent several years studying privately with Maxine Neuman, a renowned cello soloist and orchestral performer, who tutored him in cello technique and the art of composition. After accumulating a backlog of original compositions scored for multiple cellos, Chris began seeking other string players in order to perform and record this music. In the fall of 1998 he teamed up with another ex-Bostonian bassist-turned-cellist, Steve Berson. With the addition of violinist Helen Yee followed by violist Asha Mevlana in 1999, Invert was formed.
Helen Yee - Violin Helen Yee is a violinist, multi-instrumentalist, composer residing in the worlds of music between East and West, traditional and new, "high" and "low." Over the years she has taken the best of her classical training and then expanded beyond the confines of written music - to improvise and compose in multiple styles. Ms. Yee has performed in Off Off Broadway productions of experimental theatre, including work with Mabou Mines. Helen Yee has also performed and recorded with a number of rock/pop bands including Too Cynical To Cry and Mairead. As a session musician she has contributed to a number of movie soundtracks, including Cost of Living, Number One, Tug of War, and Martin Scorcese's Kundun. She has performed extensively in the New York area in venues as diverse as CBGB's, Lincoln Center and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has been part of residencies at Colgate University, Peabody Conservatory, workshops at Manhattan School of Music, and her experience includes many workshops for children in arts-in-education programs. She was also recently a presenter on the subjects of alternative chamber music and strings around the world at the recent American String Teachers Association national conference. Helen Yee has also been a long-time member of Music From China, for which she performs on yangqin and percussion. Music From China, an ensemble that performs traditional and new music on traditional Chinese instruments, is a recipient of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP award for adventurous programming. In 2000 she appeared on the stage with Yo-Yo Ma and Music From China in a concert of new work by Zhou Long, at Washington D.C.'s Freer Gallery. A native of New York, Ms. Yee began with classical training and after earning her BA at Yale University continued her studies in jazz and improvisation, including work with Julie Lyonn Lieberman, Roni Ben-Hur and Richard Tabnik. In addition, she has also explored improvisation in other contexts including Sound Painting (tm) as directed by Walter Thompson and vocal and instrumental improvisation with various groups.
Chirs Jenkins - Viola The newest member of Invert, Chris Jenkins brings to the group his extensive training in classical music with some of the best violists and musicians in the world. At Harvard, where he earned a BA in Music, he studied viola with Michelle LaCourse, chair of Boston Universit's string department, and received coachings in chamber music from the famed pianist Robert Levin, Lydian Quartet violinist Daniel Stepner, and the composers John Harbison and Yehudi Wyner. His quartet reached the semifinal round of the Fischoff Competition in 2001. In 2003 he earned a Master¹s degree at New England Conservatory with Martha Katz, founding violist of the internationally recognized Cleveland Quartet. In 2004, he finished a Professional Studies degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where he worked with Karen Dreyfus, former winner of the Naumburg and Tertis Competitions, and Michael Tree, violist of the award-winning Guarneri Quartet. In addition, he has studied in Austria with Thomas Riebl of the Vienna String Sextet, and with Heidi Castleman of Juilliard. As a Fellow at the Perlman Music Program, he was coached by Itzhak Perlman and traveled with the program to Shanghai, where he played with and coached Chinese students. |
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Chris' background has not been confined to classical music. He began his studies in jazz violin with Julie Lyonn Lieberman in 1993. In 2003, he traveled to England with George Russell and his Living Time Orchestra, a group composed of some of the best jazz players in Europe and America. There he performed Russell's "Dialogue With Ornette," for three keyboards and solo violin, at The Royal Northern Academy of Music in Manchester, and in London's Barbican Hall. A dedicated teacher and coach, Chris teaches violin and viola at the Bloomingdale School of Music in New York. He has previously coached chamber groups at Harvard and taught violin in Cambridge, MA. The rest of his time is spent touring with chamber groups and freelancing in New York City. As a violist in the Sphinx Quartet, he has given quartet and solo performances at the Walnut Hill School in Boston, in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, and Bermuda. The quartet gives its debut in Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium in December 2003, and in Weill Recital Hall in January 2004. In the string octet The Young Eight, he has taught and performed in North Carolina, and toured California and Nevada. As a 2003 and 2004 semifinalist of the Sphinx Competition, he plays on a 2002 Marcello Villa, a Cremonese viola, generously loaned by David Kerr in agreement with the Sphinx Organization.
Steven Berson - Cello A native of Baltimore, Maryland, cellist Steven Berson moved to New York in 1997 to pursue the greater potentials it offered to those wishing to make creative music. Responding to an ad in the New York Press seeking other string players, he joined forces with Chris George in September, 1998 in order to create Invert. Steve is a graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music, where he studied both electric bass and composition. While in Boston he also studied West African rhythm and percussion with master drummer Nurudafina Pili Abena. Steve did not pick up the cello until 1988, when he illicitly borrowed one from the school by posing as a Music Education major and claiming to need it for a nonexistent cello lab (for those people with a highly developed sense of morality - don't worry! - the cello was returned). Primarily self taught on the cello, he has always pursued using the instrument for non-traditional genres. From 1990 to 1996 a central focus for Steve was Acoustitronics, a solo project where he used a digital echo system to layer and loop bass guitar, cello, bouzouki, djimbe, bamboo flutes, voice and percussion, creating edgy ambient textures and surreal songs. With Acoustitronics he performed on the East Coast extensively, including supporting Mission of Burma founder Roger Miller on a 1995 tour. Acoustitronics has also done numerous live soundtracks for Baltimore's Black Cherry Puppet Theatre, and has collaborated with interactive video animator Marcos Ferrer, and choreographers Marsha Tallerico and Tony Agostinelli. To date Steve has released two solo recordings on Primalyrical Myuzik, a tantric stab (1993) & Map to Sorrow Feast (1995). Steve has also appeared on CD's & vinyl records released by FOT, Waferface, Metamusic, Retallack Records, Simple Machines and RiskyDisk Records. His work as an audio engineer, primarily in the realm of digital editing and mastering, has appeared on numerous releases, including CD's and vinyl records for Martha Wash, AV8 Records, X-mix and Eon Music; and on Erik Friedlander's score for the PBS series "The Kingdom of David." Steve has composed and performed the soundtrack for two short films written and directed by Michelle Cutler, "Funeral" and "Woosh." He currently works as the mastering engineer for Europadisk. Steve's main instrument is a post-War German cello by Framus, and he is greatly pleased with its restoration, done by Robert Young of Viseltear & Young Violins.In December 2001 Steve commisioned a 5-string acoustic/electric contra-cello, which he has dubbed "The Green Funk Machine." A collaboration between three instrument makers, this instrument allows Steve to reach as low as the F on an upright bass, and to amplify the cello's sound while retaining a rich natural tone. Richard Barbera from Barbera Transducers created the hybrid bridge/piezo pickup, Nicholas Tipney from Vector Instruments created the tailpiece and neck (using Gotoh bass tuners instead of traditional pegs), and Robert Young & Sebastian Maria from Viseltear & Young Violins assembled the instrument using the body of a Wilhelm Eberle cello, and provided the top and neck with its unique green finish. Steve now resides in a converted industrial building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he shares his room with a plethora of instruments and recording gear. |
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