The Hemphill Stringtet
This coming May the 28th, LOOVE Annex is delighted to welcome THE HEMPHILL STRINGTET -- a collective string quartet devoted to performing the music of African American composer and saxophonist Julius Hemphill (1938-1995).
The quartet aims to bring greater attention to Hemphill’s compositions and highlight his role as a major Black American composer of the late twentieth century. In his obituary, The New York Times called him “one of the most important musicians of his generation.” Additionally, the group aims to expand the role of improvisation, particularly from the African American tradition, in the string quartet instrumentation. The group is notably inspired by some of the polyphony and group improvisation practiced by the World Saxophone Quartet (of which Hemphill was a member).
Featuring:
Curtis Stewart - violin
Sam Bardfeld - violin
Stephanie Griffin - viola
Tomeka Reid - cello
“The quartet’s origin was a little serendipitous”, Bardfeld says, “I ran into Marty Ehrlich at a gig in Brooklyn and he told me that he had just published the World Saxophone Quartet music in an edition for strings and suggested I play them. I touched base with Tomeka — she and I were both huge Hemphill fans already — who said Peter Margasak had just asked her to put together a group to play Mingus Gold at Chicago’s 2022 Frequency Festival. We agreed to ask Curtis and Stephanie to join us. Besides being great improvisers, each co-leads a string quartet that deals extensively with contemporary classical music — Curtis with the Publiq Quartet and Stephanie with the Momenta Quartet. We all enjoyed playing together and playing this music so we kept going.”
Reid added, “For me this is the ideal context in which to engage with traditional string quartet instrumentation, by way of the compositions of amazing jazz and creative music artists like Julius Hemphill. Sam Bardfeld had also learned of these pieces and we decided to ask Curtis and Stephanie to join us as they are both stellar improvisors. We also added some of the World Saxophone Quartet pieces to the mix that we enjoyed playing to round out the program.” - Burning Ambulance
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