Long Gradus
- Quatuor Bozzini
Western Front is pleased to present Long Gradus (2020-21), a long-form composition by Sarah Davachi commissioned by the string quartet, Quatuor Bozzini, as part of their Composer’s Kitchen Residency in Gaudeamus, Utrecht. This performance will mark the Canadian premiere of all four movements of this work.
As Davachi notes, a gradus is a sort of handbook meant to aid in learning a difficult practice; in this case, Long Gradus is designed to considerably slow the cognitive movements of both listener and player, and to focus their attention on the relationships between moments.
Long Gradus was developed as an iteration of Davachi’s ongoing preoccupation with chords, cadences, and sustained sound. In this context, horizontal shifts in pitch and texture occur on a very gradual scale, allowing the listener’s perceptions to settle on the spatial experience of harmony. A system of septimal just intonation, as well as a Baroque scordatura, emphasizes the sympathetic resonance of strings tuned in both pure fifths and unisons. Long Gradus uses a formalized articulation of time-bracket notation alongside unfixed indications of pitch, texture, and voicing that allow the players some discretion in determining the shape of the piece. A sense of pacing that is markedly different from that of mensural notation emerges, while the open structure of the composition results in each performance having a unique configuration.
The performance will be followed by a Q&A with Quatuor Bozzini and Sarah Davachi.
The event will be live streamed for free here.
About the Artists
Quatuor Bozzini is a Montréal based string quartet that specializes in new, experimental and classical music. Currently composed of Clemens Merkel, Alissa Cheung and Stéphanie and Isabelle Bozzini, the quartet cultivates an ethos of risk-taking, experimentation and collaboration. Their artist-led approach has resulted in the realization of numerous innovative and highly-praised productions, including inter-disciplinary projects with video, theatre and dance. Their musical ‘laboratories’ work to mentor and support new generations of composers and performers.
Sarah Davachi is a Canadian composer, performer and researcher currently based in Los Angeles, California. Her work is concerned with the close intricacies of timbral and temporal space, utilizing extended durations and considered harmonic structures that emphasize gradual variations in texture, overtone complexity, psychoacoustic phenomena, and tuning and intonation. Her compositions span solo, chamber ensemble, and acousmatic formats, incorporating a wide range of acoustic and electronic instrumentation. Similarly informed by minimalist and longform tenets, early music concepts of form, affect, and intervallic harmony, as well as experimental production practices of the electroacoustic studio environment, in her sound is an intimate and patient experience that lessens perceptions of the familiar and the distant. Davachi is currently a doctoral candidate in musicology at UCLA, focusing on timbre, phenomenology, and critical organology.
Accessibility
The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor, which is accessed by a flight of 26 stairs. The second floor is not currently accessible to wheelchair users. Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Aram Bajakian. Presented with the support of the Government of Canada and SOCAN Foundation.
Western Front is a non-profit
artist-run centre in Vancouver.
We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.