Brooklyn Rider

Featuring the first-ever performances of Glass's complete works for string quartet

The string quartets of Philip Glass span from the mid 1960s to the present, tracing the humble origins of the composer from the studio lofts of SoHo to his stature today as one of the most iconic compositional voices of our time. A principal figure of the American minimalist movement, Glass’ works for string quartet have found inspiration from Shakespeare to Beckett, from the life of Yukio Mishima to the legend of Dracula, and from Schubert to Bach. Taken as a whole, the quartets document a key aesthetic development in American music and display a unique and inimitable aesthetic that powerfully encapsulates our time.

Nearly two decades ago, the string quartets of Philip Glass were integral to our nascent days as Brooklyn Rider. The glowing resonances and rich emotional depth of this music coaxed us towards an ever more collective spirit in those formative years. While immersed in this world, our sensitivities for blend, transparency, and tone color - three of the most essential string quartet ingredients - were greatly heightened. The synergistic combination of interlocking patterns and elemental harmonies also invited broader connections as we shaped our identity as a string quartet: the gossamer-like inner voices of Schubert, the pulsating energy of our home base, New York City, or drone-based textures present in a wide web of world music traditions. All of this has led to a lasting relationship between Brooklyn Rider and this sonically diverse music, with the quartets serving time and time again as touchstones for our work on stage and in the recording studio (having recorded all but the music from “Dracula” and String Quartet No. 9, “King Lear” on the composer’s label, Orange Mountain Music). We are proud to celebrate the string quartets of Philip Glass for our 20th anniversary as a special multi-part retrospective of his complete music for string quartet, the first such programmatic exploration of its kind.

- Nicholas Cords, Brooklyn Rider