schedule

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum partners with Castle of our Skins to celebrate the centenary of American composer Julia Perry.

Carlos Simon Warmth from Other Suns
Ruth Crawford String Quartet 1931
F.J. Haydn String Quartet in D major, Op. 71 No. 2

F.J. Haydn String Quartet in D major, Op 71 No 2
Ruth Crawford String Quartet 1931
Elena Ruehr String Quartet No. 12 (world premiere)

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Works written for string quartet serve as an ideal setting for innovation and composers use them as laboratories to experiment and create new forms from well established ones.  Franz Joseph Haydn wrote the Opus 71 set of string quartets to play in large concert halls for his second tour of London, public spaces with large audiences that contrast with the more intimate court settings for which he wrote his earlier works while in the service of the Esterhazy court.  Ruth Crawford’s String Quartet 1931, a defining work of American modernism, explored a sound world that influences composers to this day. This program concludes with the world premiere of Elena Ruehr’s String Quartet No. 12, “Moving Shapes”.  Written for the Arneis Quartet in 2024, these five movements were inspired by different kinds of shapes that move: a Fourier Transform, pinwheels, shifting clouds, sunlight reflecting on calm water, and turbulent ocean waves.

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Arneis Quartet partners with pianist Victor Cayres presenting a progam of music by Carlos Simon, Robert Schumann, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

In 2020, a series of catastrophic wildfires devastated landscapes and communities in California. Although California is often associated in the international imagination with big cities, beautiful coastal scenes, and mountain resorts, the majority of the state consists of forests, farms, orchards, pastures, and rural small towns. The fires burned primarily in these remote inland regions. This exhibition showcases and celebrates that “other” California.

For more than 18 months, the American multimedia artist Scott Ordway traveled throughout California conducting interviews with survivors and documenting the impact of fire and drought through photography and video. He combined these materials to create The End of Rain, a critically-acclaimed multidisciplinary project that weaves together music, poetry, and visual art. Images from The End of Rain presents photography and video from the collection. The February 7 opening reception will include an artist talk by Scott Ordway and a concert by the Arneis String Quartet.  The musical program will be repeated on March 7.

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