For this concert, Friction Quartet will be joined by pianist Sarah Cahill to bring the beauty and wonder of "Gila Country" to life in the world premiere of Bay Area composer Max Stoffregen's The Gila: Mesa, River, and Mountain. This new piano quintet was inspired by Stoffregen's foot travels through Arizona and New Mexico along the Grand Enchantment Trail and it is his hope that you will experience the mystery and vitality of this great landscape through the dimension of sound.
Friction Quartet will also give the world premiere performance of an inventive new six movement string quartet from British composer Piers Hellawell. Both of these new works were commissioned as part of the first round of the Friction Commissioning Initiative. Also programmed is ABACISCUS by composer Geoffrey Gordon. For more information on the composers, please visit their websites: piershellawell.com http://maxstoffregen.comhttp://www.geoffreygordoncomposer.com
Friction Quartet exists to modernize the chamber music experience and expand the string quartet repertoire. Friction achieves this mission by commissioning new works, curating imaginative programs, collaborating with artists, and presenting interactive educational outreach. Friction has given more than 90 world premiere performances and commissioned 55 works for string quartet. They launched the Friction Commissioning Initiative in 2017, commissioning six new works with the help of twenty-three donors. The second iteration of this Initiative is currently active and the quartet is seeking support for six commissions from composers between the ages of 16 and 21.
Friction has served as Artist-in-Residence at The New Music for Strings Festival in Denmark, The Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in Nova Scotia, the Napa Valley Performing Arts Association, SF Friends of Chamber Music, and the Old First Concert series. They have also been Quartet Fellows in Residence at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan and were the first Ensemble-in-Residence at the Center for New Music in San Francisco.
Friction has participated in the San Francisco Symphony's “Adventures in Music” program for the last two years, providing interdisciplinary music education to young students. They are also Ensemble Partners with the Young Composers & Improvisors Workshop, workshopping and premiering works by young composers in Bay Area schools.
While Friction has garnered international attention as commissioners and interpreters of new music, they are also devoted to performing masterworks of the string quartet repertoire. They were the second-place winner of the 2016 Schoenfeld International String Competition and were quarter-finalists in the 2015 Fischoff Competition.
For more information about Friction Quartet or to contribute to the Friction Commissioning Initiative visit: www.frictionquartet.com
Sarah Cahill, recently called “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over sixty compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Yoko Ono, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).
Cahill’s latest project is The Future is Female, a ritual installation and communal feminist immersive listening experience featuring more than forty compositions by women around the globe, ranging from the 15th century to the present day, including new commissioned works. Cahill has presented the program at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Bowling Green New Music Festival, North Dakota Museum of Art, and Point Reyes Dance Palace. She will continue to perform this project in museums, galleries, and concert halls in coming seasons.
Other recent appearances include a concert at San Quentin of the music Henry Cowell wrote while incarcerated there, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Boston Institute for Contemporary Art, a performance at Alice Tully Hall with the Silk Road Ensemble, San Francisco Symphony’s Soundbox, a residency at the Noguchi Museum, and concerts at San Francisco Performances, Terry Riley’s Sri Moonshine series, and (Le) Poisson Rouge and the Italian Academy in New York, the Interlochen Arts Festival, Festival of New American Music, Huddersfield Festival (UK), among many others.
Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Other Minds, Tzadik, Albany, Cold Blue, Other Minds, and Pinna labels. Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory, and curates a monthly series of new music concerts at the new Berkeley Art Museum. For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.