Griffon Featured in Patchwork Narratives

Midsummer’s Music’s resident Griffon String Quartet is partnering with composers David Gerhard Utzinger and Jon Mueller for a Patchwork Narratives of Sound event that will examine their music, as well as work by Caroline Shaw and Jessie Montgomery. The event will be held Oct. 31, 8 pm, at SWY231, 231 N. 3rd Ave. in Sturgeon Bay.

Patchwork Narratives of Sound brings together four disparate works by four 21st-century composers. Although stylistically and sonically distinct, they all connect to the others through the composers’ explorations of an individual quality of sound.

Utzinger’s Bounce is an electronic work presented in quadraphonic sound that explores the sound of a bouncing ping-pong ball and the ways in which computer manipulation can transform that sound.

Afterlife Cartoons is a tour of drum songs by Mueller, a percussionist whose aim is to place percussion and rhythm in the center of a work. 

Montgomery’s string quartet Strum develops the sound of a “strumming pizzicato,” and Shaw’s string quartet Entr’acte creates a dialogue between musical forms of the past and present.

The quartet comprises violinists Ji-Yeon Lee and Vinicius Sant’Ana, violist Blakeley Menghini and cellist Ryan Louie. The concert will be performed in the round, with no pauses between the works, to create a larger “patchwork narrative.” 

Purchase tickets ($20 each) at midsummersmusic.com or at the door.