The young and exciting Jack Quartet will come to Denmark this month to play four concerts of contemporary Danish string quartets. Since forming at the Eastman School of Music, this American foursome has become one of the foremost exhibitors of contemporary music. Danish audiences will have the rare treat of hearing these virtuosos take on some of the most thrilling, sometimes moving, and more often ground-breaking chamber music Denmark has to offer.
The Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen hosts the first concert on November 7 and includes two world premieres by Edition·S composers. The second of his ‘Mosiaco’ series of works, Ejnar Kanding’s Obscure Transparence takes the traditional string quartet and adds live electronics with the software Max/MSP. Completed this year, Anders Brødsgaard’s String Quartet also receives its first performance.
On November 9 at the Auktionshuset in Århus, Jexper Holmen’s Intend and Simon Steen-Andersen’s String Quartet No.2 will be performed. Holmen’s work might be though of as ‘catastrophic’, but only according to it fitting between his idea of ‘Pre-Catastrophic’ works and ‘Post-Catastrophic’ ones. This is violent music, where the players balance brutal periods of musical catastrophe with fleeting moments of arrest.
Steen-Andersen’s String Quartet No.2 requires the players to use ‘prepared and amplified bows’ and where Holmen’s work swings almost offensively between extremes in dynamic, this work of 2012 is contrastingly a kind of microscopic study in restricted means.
In addition to this, following recent success with his song work Me Quitte, Niels Rønsholdt’s Americana will receive its first performance.
And, if that was not enough, a further highlight of the Jack Quartet's Århus concert will be a performance of Crystal Tapestry by the promising young Danish composer Allan Gravgaard Madsen.
The following day, the Jack Quartet completes their tour of Denmark with a visit to the Utzon Centre in Ålborg. Alongside other contemporary Danish quartets, Kanding’s Obscure Transparence, Steen-Andersen’s String Quartet No.2, and Brødsgaard’s String Quartet will be heard.
And, on the November 16, the quartet return to Denmark to play the Define Festival in Sønderborg where Kanding and Brødsgaard will be heard again.
The Jack Quartet in Denmark:
Nov. 7: Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen
Featuring:
Ejnar Kanding, Obscure Transparence (world premiere)
Anders Brødsgaard, String Quartet (world premiere)
Nov. 9: Århus Unge Tonekunstnere, Århus
Featuring:
Niels Rønsholdt, Americana (world premiere)
Jexper Holmen, Intend
Simon Steen-Andersen, String Quartet No. 2
Nov. 10: Utzon Center, Ålborg
Featuring:
Ejnar Kanding, Obscure Transparence
Simon Steen-Andersen, String Quartet No. 2
Anders Brødsgaard, String Quartet
Nov. 16: Define Festival, Sønderborg
Featuring:
Ejnar Kanding, Obscure Transparence
Anders Brødsgaard, String Quartet