Tribeca New Music is pleased to present the Orange Road Quartet – Miguel Calleja, Lauren Conroy, violins; Nicky Moore, viola; Jordan Bartow, cello - offer a blazing program of new and recent works by six contemporary composers whose imaginations ignite the boundaries of the string quartet form. From introspective lyricism to sonic pyrotechnics, this evening is a testament to the vitality and versatility of today’s chamber music.
The concert opens with Bobby Ge’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, a work inspired by William Blake’s visionary poetry cycles. Just as Blake blurred the line between youth and adulthood, innocence and experience, Ge interlaces two musical languages: his early, pop-inflected lyricism and his later, more kinetic and self-aware style. The result is a vibrant dialogue between musical selves—naïve melodies refracted through a sophisticated, contemporary prism.
Next comes Justine Leichtling’s Controlled Burn, a searing meditation on destruction and renewal, written in connection with Northern California’s Fire and Music Project. Leichtling translates the elemental power of fire into a sonic ritual—crackling textures, glowing harmonies, and flickers of intensity that capture the awe and danger of flame. The quartet becomes a vessel for transformation, where chaos yields to creation.
The first half concludes with Erich Barganier’s Apocrypha of the Eastern Ranges (East Coast Premiere), a work that requires amplification and embraces the raw energy of Appalachian fiddle music. Drawing on his roots in the American South, Barganier fuses folk-punk grit with post-minimalist precision, channeling the rugged landscapes and resilient communities of rural Appalachia. Influences of Iannis Xenakis and George Crumb infuse the piece with visceral physicality—unrelenting rhythms, bow scrapes, and electrifying sound masses that blur the boundary between tradition and experiment.
After a brief pause, the program continues with Alex Barsom’s Lead Tongue, a four-movement work performed without interruption. Barsom’s music—deeply informed by his Coptic-American identity—melds electronic sensibility with ancient resonance. Lead Tongue unfolds as a continuous transformation, threading the listener through shifting emotional terrains that balance density with delicacy.
The evening’s world premiere follows: Zachary Ritter’s window of tolerance, a poignant exploration of mental and emotional states that incorporates fixed-media (audio) playback. Inspired by psychologist Dr. Dan Siegel’s concept of the “window of tolerance,” the piece journeys through three stages of the anxious mind—freeze, hypervigilance, and equilibrium. Expansive reverb, distorted textures, and electronic atmospheres merge with the live quartet, creating a cathartic path toward calm and self-acceptance.
The concert concludes with Matt Browne’s Great Danger, Keep Out, a dazzling musical portrait of the inventor Nikola Tesla. Commissioned for the Tesla String Quartet, Browne’s score electrifies the hall with high-voltage virtuosity and flashes of humor. Mechanical rhythms evoke Tesla’s laboratory machinery, while harmonic “easter eggs” nod to his obsessions with the number three and the tritone. As lightning bolts of sound arc across the ensemble, Browne reminds us that invention and imagination often share the same spark.
Together, these six composers and the fearless artistry of Orange Road Quartet deliver an evening of intense color, emotion, and innovation—a controlled burn of music that smolders long after the final note fades.