string quartet; duration: ca. 4’30”

Swells of Grey is a string quartet I wrote for the Bergamot Quartet, as a part of MATA Jr. 2020. The piece was premiered on October 18th, 2020, live streamed from Scholes Street Studio in Brooklyn, New York.

The piece centers around a 10-note motif, which forms the basis for all 4-5 minutes of material. This motif is stretched, compressed, transposed, inverted, retrograded, and chopped up in various ways throughout the work. One of the main ideas of the piece is the concept of contrasting layers of music, which occupy different sound worls but are all derived from the same material.

Many thanks to Pascal LeBoeuf and everyone at MATA, and to the Bergamot Quartet.