PERFORMERS:
Eric Pritchard, violin
Hsiao-mei Ku, violin
Jonathan Bagg, viola
Caroline Stinson, cello

Featuring Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo soprano and Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė, piano

PROGRAM:
Henri Dutilleux: Ainsi la Nuit (Thus the Night) for String Quartet (1976)
Béla Bartók: String Quartet #4
Gabriel Fauré: La bonne chanson

Featuring Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo soprano and Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė, piano.

The Ciompi Quartet, Duke’s resident ensemble, returns to Baldwin Auditorium with a dynamic program. Night Music—Bela Bartók’s term for music that depicts of the sounds and emotions of the night—is the central episode in the arch form of his Quartet #4. Fifty years later, Henri Dutilleux returned to the same nocturnal landscape in his string quartet Ainsi la nuit. The concert brightens after intermission with Fauré’s setting of Paul Verlaine’s love poetry, which floods the stage with glorious daylight. Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, called a ”matchless interpreter of contemporary opera” in Opera News, brings virtuoso musicianship to a collaboration with the Ciompi and Duke colleague, pianist Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė.