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US Premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas's String Quartet No. 8; World Premiere of I can't breathe

Feb. 04, 2015

US Premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas's <em>String Quartet No. 8</em>; World Premiere of <em>I can't breathe</em>

Georg Friedrich Haas’s String Quartet No. 8 receives its US premiere on February 24 with the JACK Quartet as part of Miller Theatre’s Pop-Up Concert Series. The work was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society Basel and received its premiere in October with the JACK Quartet in Switzerland.

Also this month, trumpeter Marco Blaauw delivers the world premiere of Haas’s I can’t breathe (In memoriam Eric Garner) at the Kölner Philharmonie on February 8. Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik, the piece is dedicated to Eric Garner who became a symbol in recent American protests against police brutality. Haas elaborates:

I can’t breathe (In memoriam Eric Garner) begins quite traditionally with a dirge: a free cantilena in twelve-tone space. Then the intervals constrict; the song becomes more and more smothered, ultimately in a 16-note scale. The dirge constricts within a sonic space of other trumpet notes of extreme registers and changing colours – cautious symbols, perhaps, of the world from which the victim was violently torn away.

The piece receives a repeat performance by Blaauw on February 21 at Muffathalle in Munich, Germany as part of Musica Viva.

Visit millertheatre.com and musikfabrik.eu for more information about the performances.

For more information on Georg Friedrich Haas, visit universaledition.com

Georg Friedrich Haas
String Quartet No. 8 (2014)
for string quartet
22’

I can’t breathe (In memoriam Eric Garner) (2015)
for solo trumpet

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