Sirius Quartet - New World
New World by the Sirius Quartet invites listeners into the familiar terrain of a string quartet, yet once you’re here, you’ll experience something altogether different, manifested in the genre-defying repertoire, the stylistic differences between each musician, and in their virtuosic performances. Artists, it has been said, can create visions of the future. The Sirius Quartet is an exemplar of how folks from different artistic and cultural backgrounds can come together as one: Fung Chern Hwei (violin) from Malaysia, Gregor Huebner (violin) from Germany; Sunjay Jayaram (viola) from the United States; and Jeremy Harman (cello) from Canada. In this program, we have a soundtrack for not only a new world, but a better one.
Though the four members of the Sirius Quartet come from different countries and cultures, many of the same political and societal forces are bringing tumult and dislocation across the planet. These incredible musicians are creating music that speaks passionately to the times in which we live, and by so doing, are challenging the rest of us to imagine and ultimately manifest more harmony in the world.
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In 2019, they premiered their new program & album New World, a politically-charged and topical work that explores themes of immigration, discrimination, and being an agent of change. The album was released August 23, 2019 on ZOHO Records.
The title track “New World, Nov. 9, 2016” was the Grand Prize winner for the New York Philharmonic’s “New World Initiative” composition competition in 2017. Composer/violinist Gregor Huebner balances idyllic and hopeful themes of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (“New World” Symphony) with the fiercer passages found in the Shostakovich String Quartet No.8 that allude to tensions between the composer and the Soviet Union. “With two immigrant violinists, we in the quartet feel that it’s important to create music that speaks to the moment in which we live and gives hope,” says composer Huebner.
Huebner’s “#STILL” is based on the devastating song “Strange Fruit,” first recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. Eighty years later and institutionalized racism remains endemic. Composer/violinist Fung Chern Hwei describes the opening work, “Beside the Point” as his “declaration of struggle against discrimination.” Cellist/composer Jeremy Harman’s “Currents” maintains an often vague sense of menace throughout, prodding the listener out of any complacency. The Beatles’ iconic “Eleanor Rigby” and Radiohead’s “Knives Out,” both arranged by Huebner, showcase the group’s fierce improvisational acumen. Recorded in Germany over two years, New World is the quartet’s first full-length since 2016’s Paths Become Lines. The album & its program is both an impassioned lament for the state of a nation and beyond, and a beautiful and hopeful call to action.
Photo by Franz Heller. Download hi-res image here
Photo by Franz Heller. Download hi-res image here
