Ars Nova Workshop presents a special night of string quartets led by two of the most exciting downtown composers: John King with Crucible Quartet – who will be performing pieces from their 2010 collaboration, 10 Mysteries – and Jessica Pavone with members of the Toomai Quartet – who will be performing pieces from their 2009 collaboration Songs of Synastry and Solitude.

Crucible will be performing 10 Mysteries, a composition in nine movements (whatever silence appears after the last breaths of the ninth movement is the 10th mystery). It was completed in 2007 and was premiered at The Stone in NYC in March of that year. It was the first quartet in which King used what he calls “trilogic unity” in its creation: composed “determinate” music, improvised “spontaneous” musical directives, and chance-determined “random/indeterminate” musical elements. These three methods of organizing sound were, at that time and up to the present continue to be, of prime importance for his methodology of combining, mixing, coalescing, and distilling musical materials. The central movement in the piece is called “incantation,” what was heard in a dream; the “dance” movement (#7) is based on the first 100 integers of pi, non-repeating rhythmic and harmonic cycles which push into infinity; the 1st movement is an impressionistic blur that bursts forward using the rhythms of the individual players’ heartbeats; the penultimate movement represents a slipping in and out of chaos and stasis, which drives towards the conclusion – a whispering of angels. Crucible will also perform excerpts from a 3-hour work-in-progress entitled Kosmos.

Crucible is:
Jennifer Choi, violin
Cornelius Dufallo, violin
John King, viola
Alex Waterman, cello

“The ensemble brings vitality, sensitivity and, in many instances, astounding brute force to their impassioned interpretations.” –All About Jazz on John King and the Crucible Quartet

Ars Nova – Venue: Philadelphia Art Alliance
251 S. 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA Map
Price: $12 General Admission
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