The Rites Quartet celebrates the history of Mary Ehrlich’s composing for dynamic improvisers in a quartet context.

Saxophonist, clarinetist, and flutist Marty Ehrlich (b. 1955) began his musical career in St. Louis, Missouri, performing and recording with the Human Arts Ensemble. He appears on their 1973 recording “Under the Sun” with Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake, Jim Marshall, J.D. Parran, and others. He attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where his teachers were George Russell, Jaki Byard, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Allard, Ran Blake, and Joe Maneri. In 1977, Ehrlich received the Conservatories' Chadwick Medal for outstanding academic and artistic achievement at graduation.  

Moving to New York City in 1978, Ehrlich performed in the ensembles of George Russell, Chico Hamilton, Anthony Braxton, Charles "Bobo" Shaw The Human Arts Ensemble, and Julius Hemphill. He continued to work in America and Europe with the artists of BAG and the AACM, in the…