Sat, Nov 23
|Scholes Street Studio
String Quartet Premiere
Brooklyn Composers Alliance presents three string quartet world premieres performed by Xanthoria Quartet! Doors open at 7:00pm, music begins at 7:30pm. General Admission $15, student discount at the door $10.


Time & Location
Nov 23, 2019, 7:30 PM
Scholes Street Studio, 375 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, NY 11206, USA
About the event
Program Notes
String Quartet No. 2, "Recent Emotions" by Sean Vigneau-Britt
I always use music to express my emotions, but I usually let the audience interpret what those emotions are. With this composition, I assigned each of the four movements a different emotion that I have experienced recently and wrote the music to express that one specific sentiment. The movements are, respectively, I. Anger, II. Despair, III. Fear, and IV. Hope.
Minuet and Trios; and Abacus, by Seth Grosshandler
The Minuet is a movement of a larger piece (String Quartet No. 1) currently in progress. It is in a late 18th century style, with a few bursts of romanticism and a few detours to modality. Unusually -- but not uniquely -- for the form, the Minuet has two Trio sections rather than one.
The “Abacus” for String Quartet is written in a more modern and romantic style. It is in an A-B-A-C form. After a short introduction, the A section is written with lush harmonies; the B section is canonic, starting simply and building; the C section is a very simple and quiet ending.
String Quartet No. 2, “Four Seasons” by Mavis Pan
This string quartet was composed over the past 5 years, each movement expressing the sentiment felt at one of four different seasons. The first movement, Le Printemps (spring), was first sketched in 2014 at the beginning of my graduate study in composition. The second movement, L’Été (summer), was completed upon my graduation in 2017. The third and fourth movements, L’Automne and L’Hiver, were composed this fall and still young winter right before this premiere in 2019.
Over the past few years, after experiencing deaths of loved ones as well as the new births of family and friendships, I have learned the hard truth that certain people were only destined to be in my life for a particular season. Since remorse or regret cannot change the past, I can only cherish and embrace the beautiful things in their season. It is never easy to let go of the lost, but beautiful memories are preserved in music.