Bowerbird is pleased to present the New Thread Quartet performing their program Explorations. The ensemble invites the audience to a reception following the performance.

New Thread Quartet presents Explorations, Vol. 8: Energy Flows, featuring music by Marilyn Shrude, Georg Friedrich Haas, Hannah Kendall, James Tenney, and a world premiere by Hong-Da Chin. The quartet’s annual Explorations Series, now in its 8th iteration, is dedicated to programming important works of our time. The unifying element that brings these works together is the undulation of sonorities.

Wishing doesn’t make it so was inspired by the same phrase from Stephen King’s Heart of Atlantis. Hong-Da Chin is intrigued by these words, because they point to how our “minds can run like a child in a world full of winter,” but it’s not until we take action that our ideas become real and hold meaning. This transfers to the action a composer takes when they engrave the ideas they have in their mind. Chin takes the trill, a standard technique used for centuries, to a whole new level.

energy flows nervously . . . in search of stillness is seeped in the chromatic motion and harmony typical of Marilyn Shrude’s music. Pulsating, churning, and thickly layered, the intensity waxes to its loudest, most dissonant sonorities, finally waning to calmness and silence.

Hannah Kendall’s Gilt was inspired by Hew Locke’s 2022-2023 Facade Commission of the same name, created for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Kendall represents Locke’s four shimmering, golden sculptures with each voice in the quartet. The extreme saturation of sound and layered texture mirrors the meaning and symbolism behind Locke’s piece.

Saxophonquartett is a spectral motor of microtones, swelling and rubbing against each other until they explode into wailing overtones. The piece is a masterful display of Georg Friedrich Haas’ ability to take musicians to the edges of their instruments.

James Tenney, American music theorist and composer, included Swell Piece in his collection entitled Postal Pieces, short works that could fit on a postcard. Instrumentation is not specified and the instructions are simple. Players swell from nothing to as loud as they can play and return to nothing with as little timbre and intonation shift as possible. The piece demonstrates Tenney’s interest in harmonic perception, minimal material, meditation, among other parameters.

New Thread Quartet Program Notes

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

New Thread Quartet was formed with the mission to develop and perform impactful new music for the saxophone, and to provide high level ensemble playing to feature today’s compositional voices. In 11 seasons, the quartet has commissioned and premiered over 45 new works by composers such as Amy Beth Kirsten, Richard Carrick, Ben Hjertmann, Ebun Oguntola, Scott Wollschleger, Kathryn Salfelder, Taylor Brook and Emily Koh.

Based in New York City, New Thread has performed at Carnegie Hall, Roulette, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Morgan Library, Bang on a Can Summer Festival Benefit, and Monadnock Music. The quartet has performed, toured and recorded more than 30 important works for saxophone quartet including Kati Agócs’ Hymn in New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall; Marilyn Shrude’s Evolution V and energy flows nervously… in search of stillness, as part of a 75th Birthday Celebration Concert at the Dimenna Center featuring Lost Dog Ensemble and the Momenta Quartet; Erin Rogers’ Urban Composites at the World Saxophone Congress in St. Andrews, Scotland; and the premiere recording of Elliott Sharp’s seminal work Approaching the Arches of Corti for 4 soprano saxophones, recorded with Grammy-winning engineer, Judith Sherman, now available on New World Records. New Thread released its debut album Plastic Facts in 2018 on New Focus Recordings and in 2020 recorded three works on [word]plays, an album by Emily Koh now available from Innova Recordings.

New Thread has a track record of working closely with composers in a workshop environment during the formation of new works. The quartet strives for multiple performances of newly commissioned works in an attempt to bring new music to different audiences as often as possible. New Thread’s annual self-presented Explorations Series showcases works by emerging composers, adding exciting new voices to the saxophone canon.

New Thread has conducted masterclasses, residencies, and performances for student saxophonists and composers at Peabody Conservatory, University of Virginia, Berklee Conservatory, Bronx Community College, Aaron Copland School (Queens College), Montclair State University, and New York University. A strong community supporter, New Thread attends NASA Regional and Biennial conferences across the US. The quartet encourages young composers to create new works for saxophones through an open submission policy, conducting reading and feedback sessions throughout the year. New Thread is a presenting partner of Composers Now.

Ensemble members are Jonathan Hulting-Cohen (soprano saxophone), Noa Even (alto saxophone), Erin Rogers (tenor saxophone), and Zach Herchen (baritone saxophone).

www.newthreadquartet.com/