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Posts Tagged ‘Adam Cuthbert’

People Inside Electronics interviews the Friction Quartet

This Saturday evening People Inside Electronics bring San Francisco’s Friction Quartet to LA for a program of works by Ian Dicke, Adam Cuthbert, Missy Mazzoli, Skrillex, Diplo, and PIE director Isaac Schankler. Tickets and more info are available at peopleinsideelectronics.com/friction-quartet.

Ahead of the show, Isaac has had a chance to sit down with the quartet’s cellist, Doug Machiz, for an interview. 

How did Friction Quartet form? What’s the history of the group?

Kevin and I were working on Philip Glass’ third quartet at the Zephyr Chamber Music Festival in the Italian Alps. The experience was incredibly moving and Kevin and I really enjoyed working on this non-traditional classical music together.  I had recently had my first experience playing contemporary classical music and I found that my background in improvised music made for a smooth transition into performing music that had not been performed before.  I was deciding in real time what something should sound like and that was exhilarating.

I was studying at UT Austin and became close friends with the Miro and Aeolus Quartets. There was something special and family like about their dynamic. I spontaneously decided that I could devote my life to performing string quartets that had never been played before and also that I could have Kevin as my partner in this endeavor.  I also knew from being at BU with Ari from JACK quartet that this could be a viable career option. So I asked Kevin if he wanted to do this and he said he has always wanted to do this.   So we decided that if I ended up in SF that we would go for it. A year later I was accepted to SF Conservatory of Music and Friction was born. Otis joined half a year after our formation and Taija joined 2 1/2 years ago. Now we have that stable familial feeling that I loved about the Miro and Aeolus Quartets and we are deciding what new string quartets can sound like.


Can you tell us a little about the program you’ll be performing?

We will be performing some of our favorite works we have commissioned that also happen to be electro-acoustic.  Ian Dicke’s Unmanned was one of the first pieces we commissioned and really became a flagship piece for us. Adam Cuthbert’s Universe Explosion exists because I met Adam at the Bang on a Can Festival and played his Universe Explosion for large chamber ensemble. I loved the piece so much and we collaboratively came up with the idea to have Adam arrange it for double quartet. Isaac Schankler’s Hagiography is one of our recent commissions and this will be the world premiere. It’s a stunning, ambitious work and we can’t wait to share it. We will close the program with two of my own arrangements of music by Skrillex.

Friction Quartet is known for championing new music — was that part of the quartet’s mission from the beginning? What made you want to focus on new music, and especially commissioning new music? There’s no shortage of string quartet music already out there, after all.

As I mentioned before, the quartet formed with the intention of specializing in new music.  Old music is fantastic, but it can’t possibly address what is happening in our lives and what we are feeling the way new music can.  We also believe in pushing the boundaries of what sound can do.  We want to share new sound worlds with people and move them in ways they never thought possible.  To quote the great Living Earth Show, we want to be a “megaphone for composers” who have important things to say about the world right now.

Initially we planned to only play music written after 1900 (we couldn’t possibly exclude our favorite 20th century giants). But over the years we decided to bring the old stuff into our repertoire because it’s too good not to. Also we don’t believe in excluding any music from our possible repertoire because we would just be missing out on potentially great music and new audiences.  There is something to learn from and enjoy in music of all styles and time periods.

I’m curious about your pop covers. A lot of quartets have taken stabs at covering pop music, but it seems to me there’s something special about the way you approach it, both in terms of the music you chose to cover, and the care and creativity that go into your arrangements. How do you decide what songs to cover, and what’s your thought process in terms of how to arrange them?

I try to find a balance between songs that I like and songs that are going to resonate with new audiences. All of the songs I arrange fall somewhere on that spectrum.  I’m on a mission to recruit new audiences simply because I don’t want anyone to miss out on how fucking awesome classical music can be.  But the arrangements are also self-serving. I want to provide extremely fun repertoire for the quartet to play and I want a creative outlet for myself as a performer of music written by other people. I’ve dabbled in free improv, jazz, electronic compositions and playing in bands.  These arrangements let me explore all of my musical interests in the context of my main project.

The most amazing and unintended consequence of making these arrangements is consistently getting huge crowds of young children to go absolutely ape shit.  It’s like we’re the fucking Beatles all of a sudden when we play Michael Jackson’s Thriller (check out our documentary, Friction, by Meridian Hill Pictures).  And this makes no sense because Michael Jackson’s career was all but over when these kids were born.  I feel confident that a lot of these kids are going to find more ways to be creative through music because of our performances.  I also think some of these kids will become fans of music when they otherwise may not have.

What’s next up for the Friction Quartet? Any upcoming projects you’re particularly excited about?

After our So-Cal tour we head to NYC for a performance of a favorite commission of ours, Juiced by Brendon Randall-Myers, at Roulette.  We will also make our Carnegie Hall debut as part of the Kronos Quartet Workshop performing classic and new Kronos commissions.  Then we head to Seattle to shoot a video, produced by Second Inversion, of In/Exchange for Steel Pan and Quartet by Andy Akiho with Andy himself on steel pan.  We have residencies at Cornish College and Western Washington University.  At WWU we are premiering a new string quartet concerto by Roger Briggs.  After returning to SF we have an onslaught of various awesome projects that all happen before we head back east to Detroit in June for the Shouse Institute at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.  I’m most excited about our SF Jazz debut in August with Fabian Almazan’s trio.

Tickets for the Friction Quartet show are available at peopleinsideelectronics.com/friction-quartet