The Knights

The New York-based ensemble The Knights seeks to expand the idea of what an orchestra can be through creative programming and a unique atmosphere of camaraderie that treats the orchestra as an ensemble capable of creating the intimacy and immediacy of a much smaller group. Each individual voice in the group helps to shape, refine, enrich, and eventually unify the overall sound and feeling of the ensemble. The sense of openness, warmth and trust that is present in the rehearsals translates into an amazing amount of freedom, spontaneity and joy in performance.

Eric Jacobsen

In the fall of 2003, cellist, Eric Jacobsen appeared with Renee Fleming at the opening of Zankel Hall, at Carnegie Hall and on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Mr. Jacobsen is a member of the string quartet known as Brooklyn Rider, with violinists Jonathan Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen and violist Nicholas Cords. He regularly performs at Bargemusic, often playing with Steven Beck, a pianist that Mr. Jacobsen has worked with for 10 years. He is the curator and artistic director of the 92nd Street Y's Makor Centor for Classical Cafe.

Mr. Jacobsen has appeared as soloist with the Chamber Soloists of Austin in Texas , the Riverside Orchestra, the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, the Greenwich Village Orchestra, the Lake George Chamber Orchestra, the Woodstock Festival Orchestra, and the New York Repertory Orchestra. He has been heard on NPR programs such as ‘Sound Check’ and ‘Performance Today’, where he performed in four live chamber music concerts last November. Mr. Jacobsen enjoys performing with Dutch violinist Vera Beths and studying with her husband, the great baroque cellist Anner Bylsma.

Mr. Jacobsen is a member of Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. Last year he participated in residencies in Japan's National Museums in Nara and Fukuoka and travels with the ensemble have taken him to Baku, Azerbaijan, Switzerland and Malaysia to perform for the Aga Khan. During this fall, Mr. Jacobsen has participated in residencies at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in NY. Mr. Jacobsen has also collaborated at The Tenri Cultural Institute and The Angel Orensanz Foundation in performances with musicians from Armenia and Iran; Gevorg Dabaghyan on the Duduk, and kemancheh master, Kayhan Kalhor. Mr. Jacobsen is also the cellist in the Mark O'Connor String Quartet performing original works by the great American fiddler.

Mr. Jacobsen organizes the chamber ensemble, The Knights, which performs as a chamber orchestra and smaller ensembles. The Knights recently presented a series of concerts at New York 's Bargemusic, in collaboration with flutist Paula Robison. Working with Ms. Robison, Mr. Jacobsen kicked off a Sol Lewitt exhibit at the Gardner Museum in Boston, performing the Mozart D major flute quartet in a room designed around that piece.

As a conductor, Mr. Jacobsen most recently led an all Beethoven program at the Tilles Center in Long Island and at the Washington Irving School in Manhattan. In the spring of 2007, Mr. Jacobsen lead The Knights in Beethoven’s 7th Symphony at the annual Beethoven Festival at the Planting Fields Arboretum. In conjunction with a celebration for the city of NY, he conducted a concert at the Brooklyn Lyceum working with singer-songwriter Christina Courtin.

Mr. Jacobsen has studied at The School for Strings, and The Juilliard School, where he received his Bachelor of Music, under the guidance of Harvey Shapiro and David Soyer.

He has spent summers, in Salzburg, Austria, Villars, Swizerland with Ardyth Alton, in Engelberg, Switzerland and Florence, Italy with Harvey Shapiro, and chamber music at the Lucerne Festival.

Recent events this season included a tour to Ireland with The Knights and a debut performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto. Upcoming events include a tour to India with the Silk Road Ensemble and a DVD release of the first Bach Cello Suite with animation by Kevork Mourad.

Mr. Jacobsen can be heard on recordings with distinguished artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Bono, and Mark O'Connor.

Mr. Jacobsen plays a Bernardus Calcanius cello crafted in 1744.

Colin Jacobsen

Violinist Colin Jacobsen, a 2003 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, first played to critical acclaim at the age of fourteen, collaborating with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic in a performance that was hailed by The New York Times:
‘Jacobsen was the impressively accomplished soloist in Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, sounding as if he were born to the instrument and its sweet, lyrical possibilities.’

He looks forward to a return engagement with the New York Philharmonic this May, performing Brahms' Double Concerto with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, David Zinman conducting. Colin Jacobsen began his violin studies at the age of four with Doris Rothenberg and continued with Louise Behrend at the School for Strings and, later, at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division, where he won the school-wide concerto competition. He was also the recipient of the Grand Prize from both the New York State and National American String Teachers Association Competitions. Mr. Jacobsen studied with Josef Gingold for two summers, and graduated in 1999 from The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Mann. During the 2000-2001 season, he continued his studies with Vera Beths at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague.

Over the past few years, Colin Jacobsen has pursued a varied career of solo and chamber music engagements. In addition to his appearance with the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Jacobsen has been guest soloist with the symphony orchestras of Albany, Charlotte, Eugene, Rhode Island, Nashville, Charleston, the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. He has given recitals at Long Island University's Tilles Center for the Performing Arts and the San Miguel de Allende Music Festival in Mexico. At the School for Strings 25th anniversary celebration at Carnegie Hall, Mr. Jacobsen gave the world premiere of Ellen Taafe Zwillich's Partita for Violin and String Orchestra.

Mr. Jacobsen has also enjoyed cross-disciplinary explorations with several dance companies, including the New York City Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group, and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. In May of 2005, he wrote and performed the music for Spiral Songs, a collaboration with C. Eule Dance.

Mr. Jacobsen performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at Bargemusic, and is a member of the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert. Summer performances have taken him to the Banff Centre for the Arts, Bravo! Colorado Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, Moritzburg Festival, Ravinia Festival, Salzburg Festival and in Taiwan's National Concert Hall. As the Young Artist in Residence for NPR's Performance Today, he programmed and played live for listeners across the country this past November. Mr. Jacobsen has also been a resident performer on WQXR Radio's weekly On A-I-R (Artists-in-Radio) Series. Colin Jacobsen plays a Guarneri violin crafted in 1696.

The Hon. Gustin L. Reichbach

Justice Gustin L. Reichbach is a native of Brooklyn a 1967 graduate of SUNY at Buffalo, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated Columbia Law School in 1970.

While in law school at Columbia, he co-authored The Bust Book - What to do Until the Lawyer Comes, published by Grove Press in 1970. He is also one of the authors of Raising and Litigating Electronic Surveillance Claims in Criminal Cases, published by Lakes Law Books, San Francisco,1976.

Justice Reichbach was in private practice from 1972-1990, with offices in both New York and California. In 1974-1975, he served as counsel to Commissioner of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which secured for the first time bargaining rights for the United Farm Workers to represent California field workers.

As an attorney, Justice Reichbach tried and won the landmark loft living case, Lipkis v. Pikus, which resulted in the protection of 10,000 loft tenants living in formerly illegal commercial lofts.

Justice Reichbach has been on the bench for more than 18 years having been first elected to the Civil Court in 1990 and then to the Supreme Court in 1998.

Reichbach attracted considerable attention when he instituted an AIDS Prevention and Education project within the criminal court, which included distribution of condoms to prostitutes and drug addicts. His efforts, earning him the sobriquet “The Condom Judge”, were recognized in 1992 when he received the David Michaels Award for Courageous Efforts to Promote Integrity in the Criminal Justice System from the New York State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section.

In 2003-2004 he served as an international judge for the United Nations Mission is Kosovo, where he presided over war crime cases growing out of the Balkans Wars of the 1990’s. He was eventually made a ‘permanent’ member of the Kosovo Supreme Court.

Justice Reichbach is the author of more than 100 published opinions and has presided over more than 80 homicide trials

He has been honored by both the New York Criminal Bar Association and the Brooklyn Criminal Bar Association.

Justice Reichbach, his wife Ellen Meyers and daughter Hope are 25 year residents of Boerum Hill.