SOMEHOW WE CAN

With a keen sense for sonic diversity, cultural context, and musical idiosyncrasy, the program assembles works that rethink the string quartet both in content and form. These compositions span from deconstruction and improvisation to focused sonic research and poetic intimacy. Several works are being performed in Europe for the first time. The program also amplifies voices that have often been marginalized within the canon of contemporary music – such as those of BiPoC and LGBTQ+ composers. Together, they weave a musical fabric that doesn’t smooth over difference but makes it productively audible – inviting audiences into a multifaceted, collective experience.

The first set opens with Fluffy Pink! (2020) by Yuri Umemoto. Inspired by the omnipresence of tentacles in anime, the work offers a maximalist take on otaku culture: the four string players become a many-armed, exaggerated, playful Moe figure. Neutral Objects (2020) by yaz lancaster reflects on the supposed neutrality of everyday things like milk, masks, or mailboxes—objects that gained symbolic weight during the pandemic. In Boids (2018) by Misato Mochizuki, scales become “personalities” that swarm together until the cello disrupts them—only for them to regroup. Affines by Sarah Hennies avoids melodic development, instead modulating unison through subtle rhythmic shifts and changing tempi—a minimalist study in time and repetition.

The second half begins with String Quartet No. 17 by Wadada Leo Smith. His music eschews conventional notation for improvisation—instead, it is “creation”: an autonomous expression shaped by spiritual and artistic depth. The quartet explores sonic textures and formal openness, allowing space for individual voices within a collective structure. Icon Studies II by Sarah Davachi elevates microtonal nuances into sonic monuments. Henry Threadgill, like Smith a member of Chicago’s AACM, brings in complex rhythms and colorations reminiscent of jazz, reframed through the string quartet format. Four Sharp Corners by Kelley Sheehan is an object “to be touched and manipulated”—a deconstruction of instruments, posture, and the social codes of classical concert performance. In Journey of the Horizontal People by Raven Chacon, a female player takes the lead: “She will be the leader when all others are lost.” overlay by Ted Hearnecombines material from two works by his teacher David Lang into a delicate perpetuum mobile, led by the viola—described by Hearne as the “singer” of the piece. Somehow We Can (1987) by Alvin Singleton, the earliest work in the program, gestures toward classical quartet form—a vigorous first theme, a lyrical second—but resists dialectical development, letting contrasts coexist as a kind of pluralism to be accepted “somehow.” The program concludes with leaving by Cassandra Miller: a soft, melancholic coda—a quiet drifting away from the program’s intensity.

Programme

Yuri Umemoto – Fluffy Pink! (2020)
Yaz Lancaster – Neutral Objects (2020)
Misato Mochizuki – Boids (2018)
Sarah Hennies – Affines (2020)

Pause I

Henry Threadgill – Sixfivetwo (2018)
Sarah Davachi – Icon Studies II (2021)
Wadada Leo Smith – String Quartet Nr. 17 (2024)

Pause II

Raven Chacon – The Journey of the Horizontal People (2016)
Ted Hearne – Exposure III: Overlay (2019)
Alvin Singleton – Somehow We Can (2002)
Cassandra Miller – Leaving (2011)