Tag: Explorations Series

New Thread Quartet / credit: April Renae

NTQ presents our 6th Explorations concert with a program of cutting edge works for saxophone, drawing from meditative breath, temporal flux, sine tone clusters, dissembled instruments, and vocalization.

The concert opens with works from NTQ’s residencies at New York University and Binghamton University. Neva Derewetzky‘s small voices explores time and air, growing from meditative breath to sweeping dynamic swells. Derewetzky writes the saxophone “is an instrument that begs to run… For just a few minutes, I want the instrument to be patient. To take a breath and to wait.” Michael Seltenreich‘s Ornamentation 1 uses flux in tempo to build a constant pulsing line. The work builds harmonically while always centered around the push and pull of time. Our program will continue with commissioned works by NTQ founding member Erin Rogers and by Victoria Cheah. Erin Rogers‘ Foliage utilizes timbral and harmonic shifts to produce slow motion color changes in a gradual transition to noise. Victoria Cheah‘s Walk for a shell incorporates fixed media playback alongside the saxophone quartet, and explores how actions along a path may connect you to others. Cheah writes “Pilgrimage journeys put time and effort to work at covering a distance in an offering of respect. Walk for a shell attempts this respect with gestures of tuning, ghosts of words exchanged, and offerings of effort.”

Explorations Vol. 6: Time and Breath
Sunday, Sept 10 @ 2pm
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Benzaquen Hall
450 West 37th Street, New York, NY, 10018
Tickets – $10 online and at the door
Online ticket sales have closed. You may purchase a ticket at the door (card or cash).

Program
Neva Derewetzky – small voices (2023), NYC premiere
Michael Seltenreich – Ornamentation 1 (2022), NYC premiere #
Erin Rogers – Foliage (2023), world premiere *
Victoria Cheah – Walk for a shell (2023), world premiere *

Learn more at our event page.

Wow, NTQ @ 10 years?! Time flies by with all that microtonal, theatrical, noise focused, computer generated, light bulb conducted, meditative, and leg muted rep. Join us on Sept 16 as we celebrate with Explorations Vol. 5, featuring works by Martin Bresnick, Malaika Paralkar, Noah Meites, Elori Saxl and Om Srivastava.

New York’s most adventurous saxophone quartet celebrates 10 years of excellence-driven performance with five boundary-defying new works by American composers. Explorations Vol. 5: New Thread @ 10 Years evokes an expansive range of voices and techniques, including driving unison lines, microtonal harmonies, extended sonic palettes, complex rhythmic interplay and poetic inspirations. Following an 18-month hiatus for Covid-19, New Thread returned to the stage with renewed vigor in Spring 2022, debuting 3 exciting new programs and a new Soprano chair.

The program begins with decorated composer Martin Bresnick’s Mending Time. Co-commissioned by New Thread, PRISM, and a consortium of 18 other saxophone quartets, Mending Time is a 4-movement work inspired by Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” a poignant work for the current political climate. Malaika Paralkar’s Haze at the Edge of the Sky plays with micro-tunings and decorative sonic effects. A flutist and composer from the Philadelphia area, Paralkar blurs color and key in this short work for saxophones, combining trills, multiphonics, and singing to create textural drones. In Fracture Mechanics, from LA-based composer Noah Meites, cascading unison lines with competing articulation patterns interrupt whirring multiphonic sustains, exposing cracks in the ensemble-as-machine as it drives and ultimately falters, while Elori Saxl’s Private Life explores a deeper drone world using only tenor and baritone saxophones. KRIYA, a New Thread co-commission from composer Om Srivastava, is heavily inspired by rhythms from the North Indian tabla tradition. Sanskrit for “action,” KRIYA refers to a set of practices regarding breath control techniques in yoga, in this case testing the players in passages of lengthy, sweeping lines, and guiding the listener through a wild adventure.

New Thread Quartet will be joined by Thomas Giles at the alto sax chair for this concert.

Explorations Vol. 5: New Thread @ 10 Years
Friday, September 16, 2022 @ 7:30pm
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street, New York, NY
Tickets – $10 online and at the door

Program
Martin Bresnick – Mending Time, co-commissioned *
Malaika Paralkar – Haze at the Edge of the Sky
Noah Meites – Fracture Mechanics, world premiere, written for NTQ
Elori Saxl – Private Life
Om Srivastava – KRIYA, world premiere, co-commissioned #

* Co-comissioned by New Thread Quartet in a consortium led by PRISM Quartet with support from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

# Co-commissioned by New Thread Quartet and Palmetto Quartet