The Quartet Will Premiere Vivian Fung’s String Quartet No. 4 on October 11 

The Manhattan School of Music will proudly present the Artists in Residence, The American String quartet, in their New York premiere of String Quartet No.4, Insects and Machines, on Oct. 11, 2019.

The Quartet, led by JUNO award-winning Canadian composer Vivian Fung, will perform at 7:30 PM on Oct. 11, playing masterpieces such as Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No.4, Sunrise, and Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111. 

The central portion of this performance, Fung’s own String Quartet No.4, Insects and Machines, was commissioned by the Red Banks’ Chamber Music Society in New Jersey. The piece was inspired by the noise that permeates our daily lives. 

“On a recent trip to Cambodia, I was especially attuned to the persistent noises of buzzing insects that accompanied my walk through the thick jungle, and this cacophony gelled with my emotional reaction to the terrible genocide of the Khmer people,” Fung said in the news release.

“I give voice to this background babbling in this quartet, organizing the various moments as episodes that freely morph from one event into another. One can hear buzzing at the beginning that turns into a waltz, which in turn transforms into a motoric adventure of machine-like chuggings-along. Much like the sound of thumping bass in a neighboring car, the episodes come in as waves and then disappear into the distance to be replaced by other soundscapes. The end result is an unrelenting fast and virtuosic 12-minute tour-de-force quartet.” 

Fung has received a myriad of awards and grants, including the 2015 Jan V. Matejcek New Classical Music Award for achievement in new music from the Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), a Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Gregory Millard Fellowship, and grants from ASCAP, BMI, American Music Center, MAP Fund, American Symphony Orchestra League, American Composers Forum, and the Canada Council for the Arts.  She is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre and currently serves as Vice-Chair of the board of the American Composers Forum. 

The Oct. 11 performance will begin at 7:30 PM at the Greenfield Hall, Manhattan School of Music. Ticket prices vary.