November 4, 2023 • 1:13 pm Comments Off on Brooklyn Rider and Kinan Azmeh: Starlighter
My review of Starlighter, the latest Brooklyn Rider release featuring the quartet’s collaboration with clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh, is in the November issue of Gramophone:
Ever since they formed nearly two decades ago, Brooklyn Rider have been reimagining the string quartet’s potential both in their playing style and in their devotion to new repertoire. …
Filed under: Brooklyn Rider, CD review, Gramophone, Kinan Azmeh, review, string quartet
October 17, 2023 • 12:36 am Comments Off on Kronos at 50
My profile of the Kronos Quartet at 50 is available in The Strad.
Ask violinist David Harrington what he’s listening to these days, and you’ll get an instant glimpse into the insatiable hunger for discovery that defines and fuels Kronos Quartet, the trailblazing ensemble he founded in 1973. With Kronos Quartet, it’s the ears that are the window to the soul.
Filed under: Kronos Quartet, new music, string quartet
December 4, 2020 • 10:31 am Comments Off on Dover Quartet at Cal Performances
While preparing to write program notes for the upcoming stream from Cal Performances — a concert by the Dover Quartet that premieres on 10 December — I got to submerge myself in some glorious string quartets. Along with Haydn’s Op. 76, No. 2 (“Die Quinten”) and Dvořák’s magnificent Op. 106, the Dovers will perform an early work from the years while György Ligeti was still in Budapest (Métamorphoses nocturnes).
Here’s a look at the Ligeti, with score included:
Filed under: Cal Performances, Ligeti, string quartet
September 9, 2020 • 9:03 am Comments Off on Tippet Rise at Home: Escher String Quartet
On Thursday, 10 September, at 6pm MT, Tippet Rise continues its monthly streaming series, Tippet Rise & Friends at Home, with a concert featuring the Escher String Quartet.
Their program includes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet in F major, K. 590 and the Adagio from Samuel Barber’s Quartet, Op. 11 (otherwise known as the “Adagio for Strings”).
You can access the stream here.
Here are the last two months’ streams:
Filed under: chamber music, string quartet, Tippet Rise
December 4, 2019 • 11:45 am Comments Off on The Miró Quartet at 25
The November-December 2019 issue of Strings magazine is now available. I wrote a profile of the marvelous Miró Quartet and their Archive Project, which celebrates the ensemble’s quarter-century milestone.
When the Miró Quartet started out in October 1995, a prediction that it would be thriving a quarter century on must have sounded wildly optimistic. “Because we were such different personalities in terms of musical approach and demeanor, we had a lot of fights and disagreements in the first couple of years,” recalls cellist Joshua Gindele…
continue (starts p. 20)
Filed under: Beethoven, profile, string quartet, Strings
November 14, 2019 • 1:00 pm Comments Off on A Prismatic Program from the Danish String Quartet
Currently touring the West Coast, the Danish String Quartet paid a visit recently. I now get what the fuss is about. Here’s my review for Strings:
The Danish String Quartet‘s contribution to the Beethoven 250 celebrations this season includes a tripartite North American tour. As part of the fall segment of this tour, which is currently underway, the Scandinavian foursome made a recent stop in Seattle. On offer was the first of the Beethoven-themed programs they are presenting under the project name PRISM. The performance launched this season’s International Chamber Music series at the Meany Center for the Performing Arts of the University of Washington.
Filed under: Bach, Beethoven, chamber music, Danish String Quartet, review, Shostakovich, string quartet, Strings
October 21, 2019 • 11:27 am Comments Off on JACK and John Luther Adams at the Crypt Sessions
If you happen to be free tonight in New York, the JACK Quartet will introduce John Luther Adams’s new string quartet, Lines Made by Walking, at the Crypt Sessions in its East Coast premiere. It’s a fantastic exploration of the medium. Here’s my review of the world premiere, which the JACKs gave a few months ago at Tippet Rise.
Filed under: JACK Quartet, John Luther Adams, string quartet, Tippet Rise
August 8, 2019 • 7:48 am Comments Off on John Luther Adams and JACK Break New Ground at Tippet Rise
John Luther Adams (center) with the JACk Quartet: John Pickford Richards, Austin Wulliman, Christopher Otto, and Jay Campbell (left to right)
Credit: Zackary Patten
Last weekend, at Tippet Rise Art Center, I got to experience the brilliant JACK Quartet give the world premiere of Lines Made by Walking, the latest string quartet (No. 5) by John Luther Adams (plus a foretaste of his next quartet, whose premiere is already on the horizon in spring 2020).
Thanks to his close working relationship with the JACKs, JLA has become fascinated with the medium, though he waited until age 58 to take it up. He’s now finishing his Sixth and Seventh String Quartets. My review for Musical America:
FISHTAIL, MT — The vast, roiling orchestral soundscape of the Prize-winning Become Ocean has served many listeners as an entrée into the world of John Luther Adams. But he is just as much at home within the intimate dimensions of chamber music…
Filed under: commissions, John Luther Adams, string quartet, Tippet Rise
April 22, 2019 • 10:05 am Comments Off on Finding a Way Back to the Garden: Caroline Shaw’s Music for String Quartet
Caroline Shaw image (c)Kait Moreno
The May-June issue of STRINGS magazine has just come out, with my cover story on Caroline Shaw and her music for string quartet.
Filed under: Caroline Shaw, profile, string quartet, Strings
November 9, 2018 • 12:02 am Comments Off on Joan Tower at 80
My profile of Joan Tower, who recently turned 80, is in the September issue of Strings magazine (starts p. 27).
Filed under: chamber music, Joan Tower, profile, string quartet, Strings
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MEMETERIA by Thomas May 