JACK QUARTET

RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER Quatuor à cordes 1931
GABRIELLA SMITH Carrot Revolution
IANNIS XENAKIS Tetras
AMY WILLIAMS Tangled Madrigal – European premiere
GEORGE LEWIS Quatuor à cordes n° 4.5, Partial Truth

If there is one ensemble that never ceases to show how contemporary music can be an experience of vital, unparalleled intensity, it is certainly the JACK Quartet: through the composers it plays, the aesthetics it promotes and the euphoric concert performances that are the result – without turning their backs on difficulty in any shape or form. Here we journey through a century of creativity with, mostly, composers both female and male who have never been heard before in Aix: from Tetras by Iannis Xenakis (1983), with all its scraping, grinding and sliding, to the experimental Partial Truth commissioned from the Afro-American composer George E. Lewis (2022) and a quartet by Ruth Crawford Seeger (1931), a shining example of transatlantic modernism, to the European premiere of a work by Amy Williams, as well as the delightful Carrot Revolution by Gabriella Smith (2015), inspired by an idea of Cézanne’s.