#4984, Music for Strings

Hear music for strings in work by Armenian-American composer Mary Kouyoumdjian, New York-based experimental composer Lea Bertucci and string settings of the Aramaic text of Kol Nidrei.

Mary Kouyoumdjian is an Armenian-American composer and documentarian, who comes from a family that survived the Armenian genocide and the Lebanese Civil War. Listen to her arrangement written specially for the Kronos Quartet, of “Groung [Crane]” based on a recording of the Armenian folk song of the same name, where a singer calls out to a crane, pleading for news from their homeland, and which became an anthem for the Armenian diaspora. It’s from the 2025 album, WITNESS, a collection of music by Kouyoumdjian, for Kronos Quartet. Listen also to a movement of the long-form work, “Silent Cranes” (also based “Groung [Crane]”) for Kronos Quartet which incorporates the voices of Armenian genocide survivors, and sound design.

Then, there’s work by experimental musician Lea Bertucci, whose work bridges performance, installation and multichannel activations of acoustic space. She has teamed up with Italy’s Quartetto Maurice and their cellos, double basses, harps, and percussion for the 2024 album Of Shadow and Substance, a reference to an episode of cult TV favourite The Twilight Zone. Using stringed instruments in the ancient “just intonation” tuning structure, Bertucci and the Quartetto create an unsettling, eerie space, especially in her piece “Vapours”. The Quartetto Maurice were prompted to visualize vapours in air and to meditate on hysteric fits as they play, while Bertucci controls the sonic space with subtle processing and spatial mixing. 

Plus, music by American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger, and producer John Zorn and his setting for string quartet version of Kol Nidre, as played by JACK Quartet from their 2025 recording of the complete string quartet music of John Zorn, and more. - Caryn Havlik

Program #4984, Music for Strings (First aired 3/7/2025)

ARTIST: Kronos Quartet & Mary Kouyoumdjian
WORK: Groung [Crane], arr. Mary Kouyoumdjian [1:00]
RECORDING: WITNESS
SOURCE: Phenotypic Recordings, due out March 14
INFO: phenotypicrecordings.com

ARTIST: JACK Quartet
WORK: John Zorn: Kol Nidre [6:27]
RECORDING: John Zorn  - The Complete String Quartets
SOURCE: Tzadik Records
INFO: www.tzadik.com

ARTIST: Kronos Quartet & Mary Kouyoumdjian
WORK: Groung [Crane], arr. Mary Kouyoumdjian [4:21]
RECORDING: WITNESS
SOURCE: Phenotypic Recordings, due out March 14
INFO: phenotypicrecordings.com

ARTIST: Kronos Quartet & Mary Kouyoumdjian
WORK: Mary Kouyoumdjian: Silent Cranes, I. slave to your voice [9:13]
RECORDING: WITNESS
SOURCE: Phenotypic Recordings, due out March 14
INFO: phenotypicrecordings.com

ARTIST: Quartetto Maurice, Lea Bertucci
WORK: Lea Bertucci: Vapours [19:22]
RECORDING: Lea Bertucci - Of Shadow and Substance
SOURCE: Cibachrome Editions
INFO: https://leabertucci.bandcamp.com/album/of-shadow-and-substance

ARTIST: Maya Beiser
WORK: Mohammed Fairouz: Kol Nidrei [7:43]
RECORDING: Tranceclassical
SOURCE: Innova
INFO: innova.mu