Haydn: Dialogues is a multi-season commissioning project that reimagines the traditional string quartet cycle. Over the course of the next ten seasons, concluding in 2032 (Haydn’s 300th birth anniversary), the Cramer Quartet will perform Haydn’s 68 string quartets alongside newly commissioned works by composers of marginalized identities. Each commission is an invitation to respond to an opus from Haydn’s string quartet oeuvre in the composer’s own musical voice, writing specifically for historical instruments.
The first installment of Haydn: Dialogues will premiere in New York City on April 3, 2022 with a new work by American composer Alexandra du Bois performed alongside Haydn’s Op. 20 No. 2 and Op. 20 No. 3 quartets.
With this project, the quartet marries its passion for historical performance with a commitment to rebalancing the string quartet canon by centering the voices of women, non-(cis)males, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ folx and other communities historically underrepresented in classical music.
Tickets: $25 General Admission, Pay As You Wish (Low-Income, BIPOC, Students) —> purchase tickets online now
ABOUT ALEXANDRA DU BOIS
Described as “an intense, luminous American composer” (Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times) and “a painter who knows exactly where her picture will be hung,” (Vivien Schweitzer, New York Times), the music of Alexandra du Bois is often propelled by issues of indifference and inequality throughout the United States and the world.
Alexandra du Bois (Ph.D. Stony Brook University; M.M. The Juilliard School; B.M. Indiana University Jacobs School of Music) is a Manhattan and Vermont based composer and violinist whose musical imagery has continually attracted commissions created to honor or mourn world events both historical and contemporary. Her music has been performed in concert halls across five continents—her travels connecting her tangibly to the countries that inform and inspire her work.
Kronos Quartet founder and first violinist, David Harrington, described the music of du Bois in 2003 as having “found a voice when many people were speechless” who writes music that “attempts to be a conscience in a time of oblivion. She dared to counter abuses of moral authority with an internal, personal sound using the string quartet as a witness, a reminder, that music and creativity are part of a continuing web of responsibility.” (Strings Magazine).
Her commissioned works range from orchestral (symphonic, chamber, and string orchestras) to collaborative (photojournalists, choreographers, playwrights, visual artists, video artists, and filmmakers) to chamber music (solo, duo, trio, quartet, and quintet without conductor) to voice (a cappella choir, double and triple choir, voice and piano, and chamber vocal ensemble).