ETHEL string quartet is bringing its own unique blend of new music, flawless technique and rambunctious excitement to music lovers with its program “Present Beauty”. Nationally recognized as “one of the most exciting quartets around,” ETHEL will explore the beauty of new classical music with pieces by a half dozen contemporary composers, in a program ranging across spontaneity, minimalism, non-traditional sources and the driving, ethereal lyricism of one of America’s greatest living composers, Philip Glass.
Bay Chamber’s Artistic Director Manuel Bagorro describes ETHEL as an American chamber ensemble that “embodies a new attitude to engaging audiences and commissioning new work. They constantly innovate through fascinating collaborations and thoughtful programming - Bay Chamber Concerts is absolutely delighted to be presenting a concert by this remarkable quartet as part of our Performing Arts Series”.
Uninhibited and innovative in their music-making, ETHEL has premiered over 50 new works by contemporary composers over the past three years. At this Bay Chamber concert, ETHEL invites its audience to take a journey of discovery, bridging new and old sources of aesthetic beauty in its selection of works. The first work on the program, To Whom It May Concern, Thank You, by Mark Stewart, features a new instrument in the string quartet, a daxaphone, something that looks like a wooden knife, is played with a stringed bow, and sounds … well, the audience will have to make up its own mind on that. But, answering innovation with tradition and not to be outdone, Dorothy Lawson’s cello sounds every bit as glorious as a cello can, but is made of sparkling carbon fiber instead of wood. Local boat builders know the benefits of carbon fiber as the new material of choice for incredibly strong, lightweight boat hulls and spars, and here they can hear this remarkable material take flight in music.
The second selection on the program shows off a wholly different approach in classical music. The musicians are given 24 musical modules, composed by Terry Riley, to reconstruct in performance however they want. This idea may sound like heresy in the classical world but of course is routine in jazz and blues, and should be a lot of fun for the audience. ETHEL will no doubt handle it with panache. The family of the lead violinist, Ralph Farris, hails from Eastport so he knows the territory.
Philip Glass, on the other hand, has become somewhere of a revered historical fixture on the new music scene and has certainly been among the most prolific, including two groundbreaking revolutionary scores for his two powerful operas written in the 1970s, Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha. ETHEL will present a suite in four parts arranged from Glass’s score for the 2002 movie The Hours. Well suited to the steady pacing of movies, Glass takes a repetitive melodic motif, starting quietly but insistently, and slowly introduces new layers of repetition, fugue-like, reaching a propulsive peak before ultimately falling back to a hushed tremolo which fades slowly away.
The second half of the program reinforces
ETHEL’s eclectic side. Composer Julia Wolfe’s piece, Early that summer, provides the quartet a chance to stretch its wings, with “a small occurrence early that summer” snowballing into something large and explosive, showing off their technical skill and joy in exuberant music making. Wed, by David Lang, returns the program to the tragic, tense minimalism of The Hours, but more astringent and less melodic than Glass. It recalls the true story of a wedding where the bride is on her deathbed, joyousness surrounded by an encroaching, inevitable darkness.
In the final work, ETHEL takes on a cultural import with a three-part composition by the fast-rising Asian-American composer Huang Rao. Rao’s String Quartet No. 2: The Flag Project, features familiar Buddhist prayer flags and finger cymbals, taking the movements of three flags to construct an other-worldly meditation on Buddhist culture in the Himalayas.
ETHEL performs as part of Bay Chamber Concerts’ Performing Arts Series at the Camden Opera House at 7 pm Saturday, February 2. For ticket information please visit www.baychamberconcerts.org or call (207)236-2823. Specially discounted tickets for ages 35 and under.
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