PERFORMERS
- Emilie Anne Gendron, violin
- Josefina Urraca, piano
- Julia Yang, cello
- Matthew Cohen, viola
ABOUT THE CONCERT
The Thousandth Orange (2018) is a piano quartet—violin, viola, cello, and piano—by American composer Caroline Shaw, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, violinist, and singer. Co-commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall, it grew out of Shaw's love of Brahms's piano quartets and her fascination with still-life paintings of fruit. Beginning from a simple four-chord progression, the piece meditates on the small, oblique revelations that time can open up within a musical memory; its title conjures a thousand shades of orange, or a thousand ways of looking at a single one. Rhythmically intricate and rich in color and texture, it is heard here in a live CreArtBox performance at the DiMenna Center.