Momenta Festival: Ocean Breakup

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Momenta Quartet, with Stephanie Griffin, viola; Michael Haas, cello; Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Shiozaki, violins, returns to Americas Society for the fourth edition of their annual festival of new music. This evening's program, "Ocean Breakup," will be curated by Momenta violist Stephanie Griffin with Ariadne Greif, soprano; Ashley Jackson, harp; Carl Bettendorf, conductor; and guest violists William Hakim, Caroline Johnston and Jen Herman.

Program

About Momenta Quartet

Momenta: the plural of momentum—four individuals in motion toward a common goal. This is the idea behind the Momenta Quartet, whose eclectic vision encompasses contemporary music of all aesthetic backgrounds alongside great music from the recent and distant past. The New York City-based quartet has premiered more than 150 works, collaborated with over 200 living composers and was praised by The New York Times for its “diligence, curiosity and excellence.” In the words of The New Yorker’s Alex Ross, “few American players assume Haydn’s idiom with such ease.”

The quartet came into being in November 2004, when composer Matthew Greenbaum invited violist Stephanie Griffin to perform Mario Davidovsky’s String Trio for events celebrating Judaism and culture at New York’s Symphony Space and Temple University in Philadelphia. A residency through the composition department at Temple ensued, and the rehearsals and performances were so satisfying that the players decided to form a quartet. Through this residency, Momenta gave two annual concerts highlighting the talents of Temple student composers alongside twentieth-century masterworks and works from the classical canon, and repeated the programs at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. From the outset, Momenta treated all music equally, devoting as much time, care, and commitment to the student works as to the imposing musical monuments.

Word of Momenta’s passionate advocacy for emerging composers spread quickly. Composers started inviting Momenta for similar concerts and residencies at other academic institutions, among them Harvard, Brown, Cornell, and Columbia universities, the Boston and Cincinnati conservatories, and the Eastman School of Music. Momenta has received two Koussevitzky Foundation commission grants: for Malaysian composer Kee Yong Chong in 2009 and for Bolivian composer Agustín Fernández in 2011, a Barlow Foundation commission for Claude Baker in 2016, a Jerome Foundation grant to commission Eric Nathan in 2013, and a Chamber Music America commission for Alvin Singleton, whose new work will be featured prominently in our 2018–2019 season. Deeply committed to the musical avant garde of the developing world, Momenta has premiered and championed the works of Tony Prabowo (Indonesia), Cergio Prudencio (Bolivia), and Hana Ajiashvili (Georgia). Upcoming adventures include a project to perform and record all 13 string quartets by Mexican microtonal maverick Julián Carrillo (1875–1965) over the next three years.

Momenta has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery, Rubin Museum, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Cincinnati, Louisville Chamber Music Society, Washington University in St. Louis, Ostrava Days in the Czech Republic, and at the internationally renowned Cervantino Festival in Mexico.

The quartet will open its 2018–2019 season with Momenta Festival IV, a self-produced four-concert series taking place at the Americas Society and Tenri Cultural Institute. Other upcoming highlights include residencies at Bates and Williams colleges, collaborations with the Cornell University gamelan ensemble and student composers at Brown University, and recitals presented by Chamber Music Live at Queens College and the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, DC. Momenta will also continue its collaboration with Mexican actor/director Fernando Villa Proal on “The Lost String Quartet,” a theatrical string quartet for children, with an original score by Stephanie Griffin.

Momenta has recorded for Centaur Records, Furious Artisans, PARMA, New World Records, and Albany Records and has been broadcast on WQXR, Q2 Music, Austria’s Oe1, and Vermont Public Radio. The quartet’s debut album, Similar Motion, is available on Albany Records.