Elena Ruehr (1963-)
Quatuor à cordes n° 1 "4 Pièces pour quatuor à cordes "
Quatuor à cordes n° 2 "Song of the Silkie"
Quatuor à cordes n° 3
Quatuor à cordes n° 4
Quatuor à cordes n° 5 "Bel Canto"
Quatuor à cordes n° 6

Stephen Salters, baryton
Quatuor Cypress

Cecily Ward, violon
Tom Stone, violon
Ethan Filner, alto
Jennifer Kloetzel, violoncelle

Quatuor Borromeo

Nicholas Kitchen, violon
Kirstopher Tong, violon
Mai Motobuchi, alto
Yeesun Kim, violoncelle

For Guggenheim Fellow composer Elena Ruehr the appeal of the string quartet lies in the ability of four instruments to express an infinite range of emotional possibilities, to communicate across time. Her six string quartets attest to her enthusiasm for musical time-travel: echoes of Perotin, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorák, Schoenberg and jazz are there, but the musical language is purely her own. Elena’s Six String Quartets are a magnum opus, three of them commissioned by the Cypress String Quartet, two by the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and one an ASCAP Award winner.