String Quartet

String Quartet No. 4: Zydeco Madness (2006)

Instrumentation: 2 vns, vla, vc

Duration: 9:30

To the forgotten of Hurricane Katrina.

Zydeco is Creole-based music indigenous to Louisiana. The lead instrument of a Zydeco band is accordion and the music itself over the years has integrated a wide variety of popular music forms. Rather than trying to copy the sound or instrumentation of a Zydeco band, the emphasis is on rhythm.

String Quartet No. 2: Up to the Sky (1988)

Instrumentation: 2 vns, vla, vc

Duration: 12:00

The title was originally given to me by my son, who at the time of writing this piece was three and a half years old. I was looking for a way to describe the motion of the musical lines in this piece constantly striving upwards.

When he threw a ball high into the air he would say it went "up to the sky". Serendipitously, around the same time, I found this poem in one of his poetry books and borrowed a line from it for the title. I feel the poem evokes the mood of this quartet.

From
FIREFLY

I think
if you flew
up to the sky
beside the moon,
you would
twinkle
like a star.

Li Po