Online
Composer in Focus: Richard Strauss
One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s…
Read MoreString Quartet No. 1, “Calvary”
“When I sat down to write this string quartet, I was not trying to write something Black, I was just writing out of my experience,” said Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) about his String Quartet No. 1, Calvary, which was performed by a string quartet of ASO musicians in September of 2020 at the Washington Lake Park Amphitheater in…
Read MoreString Quartet No. 1, Lyric
In 1946, American composer George Walker (1922-2018) wrote what would become one of his most notable works at the young age of 24: String Quartet no. 1. Walker was introduced to music at 5 years old and was quite prolific in his lifetime; his works have been performed by almost every major orchestra in the U.S, and he achieved quite…
Read MoreJuba for String Quartet
The latest ASO Online release was performed live this past September during a socially-distanced chamber music performance at the Washington Lake Park Amphitheater in Sewell, NJ. A string quartet of ASO members performed Trevor Weston‘s Juba as part of a program of works by Black composers, curated by ASO violinist Philip Payton. The term “Juba”…
Read MoreString Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 (1935)
The middle movement of Samuel Barber’s String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 (1935), later arranged by the composer for orchestra as Adagio for Strings, is “one of the most recognizable pieces of classical music in the world” (NPR). In a live socially-distanced chamber music performance, members of the ASO performed all three movements of…
Read MoreThe Magic of Nino Rota
A string quartet of ASO musicians performs the works of Italian-born Nino Rota (1911-1979). Born into a family of musicians, Rota was no stranger to music and was a child prodigy whose first oratorio was performed in Paris and his hometown, Milan, when he was only 12 years old. Through the remainder of his career,…
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