gardensongs (2024) for string quartet
I can’t stop
putting plants in the ground. There’s a hunger in me,
a need to watch something grow.
- Ada Limon, “Sway”
gardensongs reimagines a string quartet as a garden teeming with life. I think there’s a real power to thinking of the complex network of relationships in a string quartet (musical, artistic, personal) as an ecosystem: grown through small daily rituals, needing to be nurtured and cared for with tenderness, encompassing an intricate web of symbiotic relationships. In gardensongs, I explore the ecology of the string quartet, envisioning its virtuosity as the cultivation of a garden. Inspired by timelapse videos of flowers sprouting and blooming, the first movement takes the form of a playful set of dances in which material germinates and propagates between the different members of the quartet. The second movement is a shimmering and expressive meditation on the garden as a metaphor for the connections between us – musical, ecological, familial.
gardensongs (2024) for string quartet
i. dances of blooming
ii. i need to watch something grow
gardensongs for string quartet was co-commissioned by Quatuor Lontano and Meenakshi Chakraverti in honor of her daughters Pia and Milena.
putting plants in the ground. There’s a hunger in me,
a need to watch something grow.
- Ada Limon, “Sway”
gardensongs reimagines a string quartet as a garden teeming with life. I think there’s a real power to thinking of the complex network of relationships in a string quartet (musical, artistic, personal) as an ecosystem: grown through small daily rituals, needing to be nurtured and cared for with tenderness, encompassing an intricate web of symbiotic relationships. In gardensongs, I explore the ecology of the string quartet, envisioning its virtuosity as the cultivation of a garden. Inspired by timelapse videos of flowers sprouting and blooming, the first movement takes the form of a playful set of dances in which material germinates and propagates between the different members of the quartet. The second movement is a shimmering and expressive meditation on the garden as a metaphor for the connections between us – musical, ecological, familial.
gardensongs (2024) for string quartet
i. dances of blooming
ii. i need to watch something grow
gardensongs for string quartet was co-commissioned by Quatuor Lontano and Meenakshi Chakraverti in honor of her daughters Pia and Milena.
selected performances
Sep. 2024 - Quatuor Molinari, Montreal, Canada
Jul. 2024 - Quatuor Lontano, Musicales D'Assy Festival, Haute-Savoie, France
Sep. 2024 - Quatuor Molinari, Montreal, Canada
Jul. 2024 - Quatuor Lontano, Musicales D'Assy Festival, Haute-Savoie, France