JACK Quartet Premieres Three New Works at Merkin Hall
“Patricia Alessandrini’s quasi-anthology piece A Complete History of Music (Volume 1) set up the transformation happening in the hall. It opened an Alice in Wonderland-esque concert, each work being an experience evoking visceral distortions. Alessandrini placed the quartet in the middle of electronics both musically and spatially, the quartet becoming part of the electronics in how they played their instruments to pull surprising sounds out of them. It wasn’t immediately clear where these sounds came from — they weren’t manipulated on stage for the eyes to “see,” but rather manipulated by how the ears could hear them, interacting with the musicians as they played in real-time.
The relationship between live performers and interactive electronics was on full display in the fourth movement, “Appendix 2,” which carries an absence of time the way an appendix of a timeline book stands still. As the quartet lightly drew their bows over the strings to create whispery, ghostlike tones, sounds of industrial suspensions emerged: a train easing into a station with faint screeches as it comes to a stop; the slight creaks of a ship swaying on water. Throughout, the strings and electronics created sounds like those heard in the “industrial” opening of a concert where musicians tune, empty their valves blowing air through the instrument, and click their keys against wood and metal. Throughout, JACK Quartet seamlessly showed a sonic understanding of the piece’s inner-workings.”
Donna Lee Davidson
