Evan.... you won me over a LONG time ago! I love the rhythmic complexity of this piece!

This is a program note. This is my chance, as the composer, to try and win you over before/after you’ve heard the piece. If I know it’s not great, I can use this time to make up some esoteric artsy stuff that justifies it after the fact. It sounded like that on purpose, The Artist says. Alternatively, if I know its a banger, I can use this time to stroke my own ego and tell you all about the cool and interesting musical, rhetorical, and narrative devices I so masterfully crafted and interweaved to create this divine artistic statement. Perhaps if I am daft and pretentious, I can do a healthy combo of both and use lots of words to marvelously describe my mediocre work while completely oblivious to its inadequacy. Either way, I am conflicted about the best approach to use in this space so I will say this: This is a string quartet. I wrote it, and the performers are insanely good at playing it. Everything else is up to you.

***

The ensemble in the recording is JACK Quartet.

String Quartet No. Who Cares

Refraction: the fact or phenomenon of light, radio waves, etc. being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density.

The musical DNA of this piece is grounded and constant throughout. The material itself does not change, yet the manner in which it is explored and the transformations it undergoes all encompass the concept of this piece. The initial tone is stretched into a cluster sonority that later informs all aspects of the proceeding material including the rhythmic, noise, and harmonic aspects of the piece. Each section is conceptually a new medium the original material passes through. My hope is that the listener is able to discern the expansive alterations as they occur and recall past events that may have evolved into greater significance, essentially following the material through this journey of refraction.

Refraction (saxophone quartet)

This song, written as a sort of apology letter to an old friend, is one of my first excursions into the singer-songwriter genre. Heavy musical influences include jazz, a style made familiar to me by my father and whose harmonic language I find most expressive, as well as contemporary broadway, whose combination of popular music forms and theatre never cease to touch my heart in a profoundly beautiful manner. 

Recorded live by the composer: April 22, 2018

To an old friend—

evan o adams (2020)
solo violin with distortion

about the "one in one" project: 
during the period of social distancing, self-isolation & self-quarantine due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in march 2020, i challenged andrew noseworthy & myself to write a 1 minute solo for each other in 1 hour. afterwards, i extended the invitation to anyone who wanted to try by posting the challenge idea (to write a 1min violin solo in 1hr) to my social media. i was overwhelmed with the response to this project, and will be recording each piece for an upcoming release while in self-quarantine this spring.

String Quartet No. Who Cares

Evan O. Adams

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