{"id":2446462,"date":"2019-07-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=309486"},"modified":"2019-07-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T06:00:00","slug":"american-string-quartet-bringing-sounds-of-insects-and-machines-to-aspen-music-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/american-string-quartet-bringing-sounds-of-insects-and-machines-to-aspen-music-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"American String Quartet bringing sounds of insects and machines to Aspen Music Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The American String Quartet will give a recital at Harris Concert Hall on Wednesday, July 24.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

You won\u2019t hear anything else quite like Vivian Fung\u2019s \u201cInsects and Machines\u201d this summer at the Aspen Music Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never played or heard anything like this piece,\u201d said American String Quartet violist Daniel Avshalomov, who will perform it with his group on July 24 at Harris Concert Hall.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t much string music that the American String Quartet \u2014 celebrating its 45th anniversary this year \u2014 has not heard or played. But Fung has done it with this wild 12-minute trip down the sonic rabbit hole \u2014 mimicking the buzz of swarming insects, making a waltz out of it, circling the listener\u2019s head like a bug in pursuit, and then gradually morphing it into a mechanized whine.<\/p>\n

The adventurous Juno Award-winning composer, born in Canada and now based in California, has made a name for herself by crafting idiosyncratic new soundscapes and breaking fresh ground in classical music.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are coming for melodies and harmonies, you\u2019re going to be baffled,\u201d Avshalomov said. \u201cIt\u2019s all rhythms and patterns and metric changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a dose of melody and harmony at the Aspen recital, the Quartet will prime the audience with the crowd-pleasing Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s beloved \u201cAmerican\u201d String Quartet No. 12 and close with with Cesar Franck\u2019s Piano Quintet (with the seemingly ubiquitous pianist Anton Nel joining.) They\u2019re picky about the challenging, contemporary pieces they perform and champion, such as Fung\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose we take on, we don\u2019t just play the premiere and drop it,\u201d Avshalomov explained. \u201cWe tour with it, we program it with things that complement it. Vivan Fung is a great example of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quartet premiered \u201cInsects and Machines\u201d two months ago in New Jersey at the Red Bank Chamber Music Society. But the quartet\u2019s relationship with Fung goes back 17 years, to her time as a doctoral candidate at Juilliard. The American String Quartet had been asked to sit in on a recital of new string works by composition students, and heard a Fung movement that was entirely pizzicato \u2014 the musicians setting aside their bows and plucking the whole time. Nobody Avshalomov knew of had done this since Bartok in his Fourth Quartet.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe looked at it and said, \u2018Yes, it\u2019s good but can there only be one?\u2019\u201d he recalled. \u201cShe asked for criticism and we said, \u2018Where are the other three movements? You\u2019ve got to finish this thing!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Quartet eventually took the piece on tour and has continued championing Fung\u2019s work, most recently commissioning Fung to write what would become \u201cInsects and Machines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re finished, it\u2019s this wonderful feeling,\u201d Avshalomov said of playing Fung\u2019s work. \u201cYou\u2019ve stretched your bran in a new way you never have before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, being the American String Quartet carries a little extra weight during this themed \u201cBeing American\u201d season in Aspen.<\/p>\n

Avshalomov joked that, when he heard about the theme, he thanked Music Fest administrators for singling out his group. But the name, he noted, is little more than that. The quartet, Avshalomov recalled, chose the moniker after going nameless for a bit at the outset in 1974, when they won both the Coleman Competition and Naumburg Award and were thrust upon the world stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said, \u2018In 1976 there is going to be a big bicentennial year and we might get a boost from that,\u2019\u201d he recalled with a laugh. \u201cAnd here we are 45 years later.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Quartet is in Aspen for its long-standing summer residency at the Music Fest, mentoring emerging and student quartets at the school. But Avshalomov\u2019s Aspen connections go back even further. He saw his first concert here as a child in 1958 and was a student here in 1968, serving on the faculty since 1976. So he\u2019s seen the festival evolve from since nearly its inception. He recalled how, in the late 1950s, the original Music Tent was propped up with a massive wooden center pole that would occasionally be lifted from the ground by a strong wind and crash loudly to the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was my favorite part of any concert as a child,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI\u2019d sit and watch that pole the whole time. Luckily my taste in music has grown slightly more sophisticated.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American String Quartet will give a recital at Harris Concert Hall on Wednesday, July 24.Courtesy photo You won\u2019t hear anything else quite like Vivian Fung\u2019s \u201cInsects and Machines\u201d this summer at the Aspen Music Festival. \u201cWe\u2019ve never played or heard anything like this piece,\u201d said American String Quartet violist Daniel Avshalomov, who will perform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 13:31:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}