Aizuri Quartet: What’s Past is Prologue – Program 1 (on-demand until 7/7/2021)
Free
Gabriella Smith — Carrot Revolution
Rhiannon Giddens — At the Purchaser's Option
Alex Fortes — Selected works
Emma Frucht, violin
Miho Saegusa, violin
Ayande Kozasa, viola
Karen Ouzounian, cello
Hildegard von Bingen, arr. Alex Fortes – Columba aspexit
Gabriella Smith – Carrot Revolution
Rhiannon Giddens – At the Purchaser’s Option
The GRAMMY Award-winning string ensemble performs What's Past is Prologue, two digital concerts of music by female composers spanning the past millennia, filmed March 2021 at the studio of renowned sculptor Joel Shapiro.
The phrase "what's past is prologue," from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, "has become a modern shorthand for the notion that history set the context for the present," says Aizuri cellist Karen Ouzounian. "Contemporary composers reflect on the work of those who came before them as they push the string quartet medium towards the future." The dramatic setting for this two-part program is Shapiro's large-scale geometric sculptures that suspend from the ceiling and extend from the walls and floors of his studio in Long Island City, Queens.
Program 1, available June 23, includes Benedictine composer, philosopher, and abbess Hildegard von Bingen’s (b. 1098) liturgical poem Columba aspexit, arranged for string quartet by Alex Fortes; composer and environmentalist Gabriella Smith’s (b. 1991) Carrot Revolution, written for Aizuri’s GRAMMY-winning album Blueprinting; and GRAMMY and MacArthur Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens’s (b. 1977) At the Purchaser’s Option, a haunting work inspired by an 1830s advertisement selling a young female slave with or without her 9 month old baby.
In Conversation: Aizuri Quartet
BAC and Tippet Rise present a conversation with Aizuri Quartet on Monday, June 28 at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific
Free, live on Zoom.
Registrations available beginning May 24; more details here: https://bacnyc.org/performances/performance/aizuri-quartet
Program 2 is available June 30; more information here: https://livemusicproject.org/event/aizuri-quartet-whats-past-is-prologue-program-2-on-demand-until-7142021/
Streaming June 23 at 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific until July 7 at 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific.
Streaming information forthcoming. Check here for updates: https://bacnyc.org/performances/performance/aizuri-quartet
Link to donate: https://bacnyc.org/support/support-bac