Performance Series - Chamber Music: Ying Quartet But Not Simpler March 5, 2007

This inventive new concert program, conceived by electronic music wizard Tod Machover, is a collage of pieces interwoven in electronic and acoustic form, including Bach chorales, a madrigal by William Byrd, string works by Elliott Carter and John Cage, and Lennon-McCartney's 'A Day in the Life,' along with a new quartet and four interludes by Machover. The program, praised as "a fantastic (and entirely musical) notion" by 'The New York Times,' is bookended by the first and final movements of Beethoven's Opus 135 Quartet. Gentle amplification and audio "shaping" of the sound, along with projected program notes, make the concert experience fresh and contemporary.