Featured Composer Elizabeth Brown: In Conversation with Stephanie Griffin In preparation for the premiere of Elizabeth Brown‘s string quartet “Just Visible in the Distance” (2013) on February 20th at Brooklyn’s Firehouse Space, Momenta’s violist Stephanie Griffin sat down with Elizabeth for an interview. Tickets for the event can be purchased here, and Elizabeth’s famous guacamole
Happy New Year from Momenta! We are back in action after a brief separation which took Stephanie to Brazil (land of Arthur Kampela!) and Emilie and Michael to Boston and Calgary where they performed with our friends in A Far Cry. Our first concerts of 2014 are near home: in and around Princeton, NJ, and two consecutive nights in Manhattan. Being that it’s a new year, we also have two new collaborators joining us for
It has been an exciting and productive year for Momenta! 2013 saw more concerts, more world premieres, and more Momenta than ever before! With the holidays coming up, we decided to share with you our own personal reflections on our favorite Momenta moments from 2013. Enjoy, and see you in the new year! Emilie: To me, the most enjoyable projects sometimes happen unexpectedly during transitional times of the “con
You can dance if you want to… especially if you are in the Momenta Quartet! We’ll be pulling out all the stops at our next concert on Thursday, October 17th at 8pm on Tom Buckner’s Interpretations series at Roulette (Brooklyn, NY). Ours is the second set on a double feature that also includes composer/improviser Gene Coleman and his N_JP Ensemble. The theme behind this concert is particularly close to my heart: Music
An Array of Stunning New Programs for 2014-2015 Music in Motion Debussy: String Quartet in G minor Arthur Kampela: Uma Faca So Lamina Philip Glass: Music in Similar Motion American Landscape Scott Johnson: Soliloquy (with the recorded voice of I.F. Stone) Elizabeth Brown: Just Visible in the Distance (2013, composed for Momenta) Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 4 (Amazing Grace) Augusta Read Thomas: Eagle at S
After spending the summer apart for various musical activities, Momenta is back in action! We started off our 2013-2014 season with three concerts in Pennsylvania, including some brand new repertoire, second chances, and exciting collaborations. Our first concert was on August 28th in the beautiful little town of Kimberton, PA as part of the Kimberton Village Summer Arts Series. You can find information about events
Summer is officially here! If you missed us at the Chelsea Music Festival this June you will have to wait until September when we reconvene for two concerts in Mount Gretna, PA. We’re very excited to return to Gretna, this time performing with pianist Charles Abramovic, guitarist and composer Allen Krantz, and the fabulous Daedalus Quartet. For more information, please visit Gretna Music. In the mean time, we’l
Interview by Stephanie Griffin (SG) with composer and friend of Momenta, Eric Nathan (EN). June 9th, 2013- New York, NY SG: I’m here in Eric Nathan’s living room, where we just had a Momenta rehearsal on his new piece “Multitude, Solitude,” which we are going to premiere at the Chelsea Music Festival on June 16. So, Eric, my first experience playing your music was playing the quartet, “Four to One,” that you wrote f
Posted by Adda Kridler Last fall, when I officially joined the Momenta Quartet, a particular theme during rehearsals (besides Fatfest – I’ll get to that in a bit) was a running, ominous joke/threat: “Just wait until we get to Kampela.” I had Asmira’s old Kampela part, and I’d briefly perused it, with its fastidiously maniacal notation and its 5:6 under 7:4 rhythms, but hey, I’
