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String Quartet no.2" (2002), Europese première; 3 delen.
Het Mondriaan Kwartet speelde de wereldpremière in Winnipeg, Canada, op 10 mei 2003.
Michael Matthews (Canada - 1950) - "String Quartet no.2"
String Quartet No. 2 was composed in Winnipeg between September 2002 and February 2003. The work is in three movements, and is approximately twenty-five minutes in duration. The basic tempo arrangement of the movements is moderate, very fast, slow. This structure is intended in a way to push the piece in opposite directions, towards both speed and slowness. In contrast to this directional tension, there is a cyclical aspect to the piece, reflected in the use of certain musical materials throughout the piece, the most obvious of which is the return of the repeated pulse of the opening of the first movement at the close of the final movement. This work was written for and dedicated to the Mondriaan Quartet, who gave the world premier performance on May 10, 2003, at Crescent Fort Rouge Church in Winnipeg
Biography Michael Matthews - Website : www.michaelmatthews.net
Michael Matthews' music has been performed in countries around the world. In 2001 the world premier recording of his Symphony No. 1was released on TNC Records; Virko Baley conducted the Kiev Camerata Orchestra. Recent performances have included Prelude to Macbeth(Michelle Mourre and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra); Ernst Toller: Requiem for an Idea(Sequitur Ensemble, New York); Miniatures(12th Annual Review of Composers, Belgrade); Prelude to Macbeth(Regina Symphony Orchestra); Landscapeand Lorca Sketches(Ana Simic and the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra); String Quartet No. 1(the Cuarteto Latinoamericano); the Saskatoon premier of Between the Wings of the Earth(Earl Stafford and the Saskatoon Symphony); and the Russian premier of Postlude(Sergei Golubkov).
Recent world premiers have been given by the Agassiz Music Festival of Piano Quartet; by the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet of Away, Tear Away; by the Saskatoon Symphony of Fire falls, ice falls; by David Stewart and the BIT 20 Ensemble of Particles of One; by Roger Admiral of Fantasy/Nocturne; by the Saskatoon Symphony of . . . far off, toward forgetting . . .; and by the Mondriaan Quartet of String Quartet No. 2.
The composer has recently completed a work the Ian Hodges/Charlene Pauls duo. Upcoming projects include a CD recording by Mexican flautist Alejandro Escuer of Vertical Garden, new commissions for the Winnipeg and Saskatoon Symphony Orchestras, and the world premier of the composer's new chamber opera, Prince Kaspar.
Matthews has been the recipient of numerous commissions and awards; in 2000 he held a Rockefeller Foundation residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy. In the summer of 1999 he was a participant in the Composition and Computer Music Seminar of the Bartók Festival in Szombathely, Hungary. His orchestral work Two Interludeswas awarded third prize in the 1997 du Maurier Arts Ltd. New Music Festival Canadian Composers Competition. In 1994 he became the first Canadian to receive a prestigious commission from the International Computer Music Association. He has also received Canada Council and Manitoba Arts Council grants, the Winnipeg Rh Institute award for interdisciplinary research, a residency at the EMS computer music studios in Stockholm, Sweden, and a prize in the Premio Musicale Cittá di Trieste, Italy for his orchestral piece The Wind Was There. He has worked at the Banff Centre and at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University.
Commissions have come from such organizations as the Agassiz Music Festival and Agassiz Chamber Music Series, the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet, BIT 20 Ensemble, the Mondriaan Quartet, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, the Carlos Chavez Orchestra, the Kiev Camerata Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Hilliard Ensemble, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Molinari String Quartet, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Ensemble Resonance, the Thira Ensemble, Vancouver New Music Society, the Roseberry Orchestra (U.K.), Prairie Theatre Exchange, CBC Radio, Aurora Musicale, Music Inter Alia, and the Korean chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music. Matthews has also written works for performers Therese Costes, Alejandro Escuer, Lori Freedman, Corey Hamm, Beverly Johnston, Sara Laimon, Paul Marleyn, Poul Rosenbaum, Shirley Sawatzky, Harry Sparnaay and Peter Vinograde.
Matthews is a conductor, a founding member of the chamber ensemble Thira and a founder and artistic director of the GroundSwell new music series. From 2002-2004 he was Composer-in-Residence with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra. Works available on CD are: Symphony No. 1and Out of the Earth(recorded by Virko Baley and the Kiev Camerata for TNC Records); In Emptiness, Over Emptiness(recorded by Therese Costes for the CDCM series on Centaur Records); Scattered Mirrors(recorded by Shirley Sawatzky on Adventures of Piano Woman); Of Time and Sky(recorded by Peter Vinograde on Two Canadian Masterworks for Piano); Fantasy(recorded by Victor Schultz on Jeté); Songs of the Masked Dancers (recorded by Thira on Passage Through Time); The First Sea(recorded by Lori Freedman for the CDCM series on Centaur Records); and Between the Wings of the Earth(recorded by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra for BIS Records). He has lived and traveled extensively in Asia, Europe, Central America and the Caribbean. Matthews holds a Ph.D.
in composition from the University of North Texas, where he studied with Larry Austin. He is currently Professor of composition and Director of the Computer Music Studio at the University of Manitoba.