by Evan Kory –

In March we hosted the Quartetto Patagonia featuring our two artists in residence for the upcoming season and two of their friends. Laura Casarez, Emily Chao, Emmy Tisdel, and Juan David Mejia presented a beautiful program of music by Joseph Haydn, Osvaldo Golijov and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw. If you missed the original performance, you can catch the video here.

The work by Shaw, “Entr’acte” is a spellbinding piece that opens with sweeping rich chords that are fused with dramatic dissonances. The pizzicato section is poignant and worth listening to again and again. The delicate plucks on the string instruments have a dance quality that is unexpected and alluring. The piece utilizes many inventive extended techniques for the string instruments. Entr’acte is a gorgeous example of Caroline Shaw’s brilliant compositions and leaves the listener feeling that the future of classical music is in great hands with this composer.