CRAMER QUARTET: THE SEVEN LAST WORDS PROJECT
THURSDAY, NOV 18 | 7:30 PM
THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT & CULTURE
18 BLEECKER ST. | MANHATTAN
SUNDAY, NOV 21 | 7:00 PM
FLUSHING TOWN HALL
137-35 NORTHERN BLVD. | QUEENS
Five Boroughs Music Festival, in partnership with the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture and Flushing Town Hall, is proud to present the Cramer Quartet in their premiere performances of the Seven Last Words Project.
The Seven Last Words Project is an immersive string quartet performance that interweaves seven new works by composers Jessica Meyer, Colin Jacobsen, Nico Muhly, Tania León, Reena Esmail, Paola Prestini, and Caroline Shaw with Franz Joseph Haydn’s nine-movement masterpiece The Seven Last Words of Christ. Each of the new works is written as a response to a movement of the Haydn, taking the place of sermons that would traditionally be given in a church service setting. The result is a quilting of old and new and a meditation on these seven famed phrases from a contemporary and global viewpoint.
At the Sheen Center, audiences will also have the opportunity to experience the performance with accompanying digital projections designed by Camilla Tassi, a new and experimental component of the Seven Last Words Project and the start of an ongoing partnership with the Cramer Quartet.
BUY TICKETS
Thu 11.18.21 | Sheen Center for Thought & Culture
$30 General Admission
This event is in the past.
Sun 11.21.21 | Flushing Town Hall
$25 General Admission
$15 Student w/ID
This event is in the past.
PROGRAM
JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809): The Seven Last Words of Christ
JESSICA MEYER (b. 1974): Father, forgive them
COLIN JACOBSEN (b. 1978): Verily
NICO MUHLY (b. 1981): Short Variation on Mulier, ecce filius tuus
TANIA LEÓN (b. 1943): Lágrimas (Tears)
REENA ESMAIL (b. 1983): Varsha (Rain)
PAOLA PRESTINI (b. 1975): It is finished
CAROLINE SHAW (b. 1982): Seven
ARTISTS
CRAMER QUARTET
CRAMER QUARTET
With period instruments and an invigorating historically informed approach, the Cramer Quartet brings uncommon warmth, transparency, and texture to both classical-era string quartet repertoire and newly commissioned works that explore and expand the sound world of gut strings. The ensemble’s programming strives to rebalance the string quartet canon and advance cultural equity, both in the realm of historical and contemporary music. As individuals who identify as women or gender expansive, people of color, and/or LGBTQ+, each member of the quartet brings their own history of navigating classical music’s exclusionary practices to the ensemble’s cultural equity work.
CAMILLA TASSI
CAMILLA TASSI
Born in Florence, Italy, Camilla Tassi is a designer and musician interested in the production of early and contemporary music performances. Her work as a projection designer includes Apollo’s Fire’s opera tour of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, including performances at Zellerbach Hall (Berkeley, CA) and Hill Auditorium (Ann Arbor, MI). She has designed video projections for staged works such as Pollock’s Stinney: An American Execution (PROTOTYPE Festival, NYC), Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Berlin Opera Academy), Scarlatti’s Il Primo Omicidio (Yale Voxtet, CT), Glass’ The Fall of the House Usher for Arthur Yorinks (MASS MoCA, MA), Carissimi’s Jepthe (Hopkins Center for the Arts, NH), Tesori’s Fun Home (Yale School of Drama), as well as for recitals, chamber music, and theater.