by Jacob Strauss
ENCORE Chamber Music held a musical tasting on Sunday afternoon, July 3rd at the Dodero Center for the Performing Arts. “Tales of Travel and Transformation” featured members of the Verona Quartet, artistic director Jinjoo Cho, and other faculty of the summer institute.
Cellist Max Geissler led off with composer-in-residence Andrew Rindfleisch’s Quiet Music for Solo Violoncello. Gymnastic hand positions land on natural harmonics in “Waltz Music.” Heavy rhythmic lines roll under chords played assertively by Geissler in “Fast Music,” then become quiet while wind chimes glisten in “Slow Music.” [Read more…]
In their debut album Diffusion, the Verona Quartet celebrates folk music’s influence on string quartet language at the beginning of the 20th century — a style that reflects their values as an international ensemble with members hailing from all across the globe.
If you had to guess the composers of two of the pieces performed by the Wasmuth Quartet on January 6 by sound alone, you would almost certainly guess wrong. As part of Oberlin Conservatory’s Chamber Music Intensive & Festival, the young string quartet presented music by Haydn, Webern, and Ligeti in Kulas Recital Hall, but probably not the Ligeti or Webern you would easily recognize. 