Nature in Canadian String Quartets

The Molinari Quartet present a concert at Array Space in Toronto. The theme of the concert is nature in Canadian string quartets and features two works by R. Murray Schafer that are directly inspired by nature.

Written in 1976, the Second quartet was inspired by the work of the World Soundscape Project in which Schafer studied the acoustic phenomena of natural and urban environments. This quartet is subtitled Waves, and depicts the rhythm of the breaking and backwash of the waves on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada.

Winter Birds, Schafer’s Tenth quartet, is an attempt to suggest, in the compressed form of a string quartet, the night and morning of the winter soundscape outside Schafer’s window in central Ontario, with its birds and animals.

The Molinari Quartet will also perform Quinsin Nachoff’s virtuosic and rhythmically engaging String Quartet No.1

This concert is made possible thanks to a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, diffusion hors-Québec programme.