Support the Momenta Quartet this Holiday Season!

Your year-end donations will help us produce the next in-person Momenta Festival this June!

Momenta Quartet recording Alvin Singleton's string quartets at Oktaven Audio, October 27, 2021. Photo by John Gurrin

​Dear friends,
 
It’s been quite a year – again! I hope you all are doing as well as possible in these weird times. 
 
All things considered, Momenta has had an excellent and productive Fall. We made our first in-person college visits to Haverford and Williams Colleges and Binghamton University, where we will make two more visits as part of our residency this year. What I am most happy about – no more virtual performances! 
 
Which brings me to the topic of this letter – we are in the planning and fundraising phase of the next real, honest-to-goodness, live, in-person actual Momenta Festival this coming June!!! 

​As with all things during COVID, the Momenta Festival is going to be more complicated and more expensive this year – mainly because we will be renting a larger venue but also because we plan to stream the concerts or make high quality videos for those who do not feel comfortable coming out to concerts. If there is actually a silver lining to this cloud (I am struggling to find it…) – I guess it would be that musicians are reaching audiences all over the world. 

We are still discussing programming, but I am planning a Juneteenth celebration for my Momenta Festival concert – with two pieces by Alvin Singleton and pieces by improviser/composers Yusef Lateef and Hilliard Greene. 
​
Speaking of Alvin Singleton – my festival concert will double as a CD release celebration for our record of his complete string quartets, coming out on New World Records this Spring. Recording with Alvin was DEFINITELY one of the highlights of 2021! As was giving the second performance of my own chamber arrangement of the “Liebestod” from Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde” at the Andrew Freedman Home this past September, thanks to generous grants from City Artist Corps and the Bronx Council on the Arts. Here is a little holiday viewing gift for you!

​Thank you in advance for your generosity and best wishes for the holiday season!

Stephanie