art music 20/21C

Art music 20/21 C

Contemporary string quartets

World premiere played by the Signum Quartet, CBSO Centre, Birmingham

Volans String Quartet No. 12 played by the Signum Quartet

Recorded by Lydian Quartet

I – NODE: Tuning Knot  00:00-03:22
II – Recently Found Fragments: Chant Loop  03:28-11:38
III – Striding Rituals: Nocturnal Gatherings for Mass Wooing  11:44-17:30
III.5 or 5.IV – Optional habits  17:43-18:40
IV – CODEX: I know I know this (…almost remembering…)  18:44-25:04
V – Turn the Corner: Post-Rapture Celebration  25:08-28:04
VI - NODE: Ex nihilo…In nihil [-for Mary Ruth-]  28:05-35:30

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past is dedicated to the Lydian String Quartet and was composed as part of their Composition Commission Award, which was made possible by the generosity and vision of Marjorie B. and Martin Cohn. It was composed in San Francisco and Cambridge and is 35 minutes long.

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past (2013-14/rev. 2017) for string quartet

V1 06 String Quartet No. 3  Tapas - VI. Six

Recorded by Momenta Quartet

Apple wood is carried as a talisman to attract love and long life and apples are and important ingredient in spells of love, immortality, and healing.-from Jane Gifford’s “The Wisdom of Trees”

In the summer of 2014, the Momenta Quartet and I spent a week at Avaloch Farm Music Institute working on the beginning of a new String Quartet. Surrounded by apple orchards at this professional musician’s retreat, musicians rehearsed all day, took walks through the woods, and spent evenings listening to each other perform. There, time slowed and was reflected in the stillness of clouds hovering over a nearby lake.String Quartet: In Irish Mythology, Emhain Abhlach (pronounced similar to Avaloch) is an island paradise of everlasting beauty whose residents danced the days away. 

String Quartet: Avaloch is a single, fifteen-minute long movement. The work is dedicated to Alfred Tauber and Deborah Sherr, who had the combined vision to create an amazing place for performers and composers to unite in the creation of new and important musical works.

Volans String Quartet No. 12 played by the Signum Quartet

Kevin Volans