Verona Quartet: Parallel Planes
$6
Cheng Jin Koh — Mountains of Echoing Halls for Yangqin, String Quartet, and Dance (world premiere)
Béla Bartók — String Quartet No. 3, BB. 93, Sz. 85
Texu Kim — Ritus Sanitatem (world premierre)
Two new works by Cheng Jin Koh and Texu Kim take stabs at examining elements of their respective cultures through the lens of a classical string quartet. Cheng’s new work will feature a dancer and the yangqin (Chinese dulcimer) alongside western strings to paint pictures of the Xiangtangshan Caves and their magnificent carvings and detailed decorations. Texu Kim’s new work for string quartet, “Ritus Sanitatem” (Right of Healing), will focus on Kim’s native Korean tradition of Byoung-goot (shamanistic healing rituals) as inspiration. In order to combine this Korean tradition with a string quartet, Kim has made the music more universal by including inspiration from medieval European chants, shaman drumming, and psychedelic rock.
Each of these new works is partnered with a twentieth-century European string quartet by Bacewicz and Bartók. These composers have each taken inspiration from their own folk traditions and have infused them with their compositional language. For Bacewicz, her favorite Polish dance, the Oberek, fills the music of the finale with movement and effervescence, while Bartók’s integration of folk music within his compositional language celebrates his recognition as one of the earliest and most revered ethnomusicologists.
About Verona Quartet
Jonathan Ong, violin |
Dorothy Ro, violin |
Abigail Rojansky, viola |
Jonathan Dormand, cello