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Artist: Catalyst Quartet
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Catalyst Quartet:

Uncovered Vol. 3 - C-TP, GW, WGS

The lives of William Grant Still, George Walker, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, which unfolded between 1895 and 2018, encompassed the regime of racial terror that characterized the US following Reconstruction; the various Black artistic, political, and social projects that transformed the US in the 20th century; and the deep contradictions that continue to plague the US today. Indeed, as Perkinson said of his own position as a Black composer in the 1970s in relation to his forebears, we can say that “the situation has changed today; it has not changed very much, but it has changed.” The compositions featured here were written roughly between 1940 and 1956, and they represent Walker and Perkinson in their youths and Still in his prime. Each is a testament to these composers’ important place in the history of concert music in the US, their negotiations of competing aesthetic traditions of the 20th century, and their creative and deliberate engagement with what musicologist Eileen Southern referred to as “Black musical materials” in their compositional styles.

George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 “Lyric” is in a way the most youthful music here, being the artist’s ?rst major composition. Walker ?nished the quartet in 1946 while he was a student at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, just one year after he had ?nished his Artist Diploma at the Curtis Institute, where he had studied composition with Samuel Barber’s teacher Rosario Scalero. The abrupt and dissonant opening gesture of the ?rst movement quickly gives way to a harmonic lushness that portends the middle movement, which remains one of his best remembered works and is often performed alone as the Lyric for Strings.

Catalyst Quartet:

Uncovered Vol. 2 - Florence B. Price

“You and I could go to chamber concerts for years and never hear a program as full of surprises and discovery as this one. And we’ve been missing out.” – San Francisco Chronicle  

On Friday, February 4, 2022, GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet releases UNCOVERED Volume 2: Florence B. Price on Azica Records. The digital album is the second issue of a multi-volume anthology highlighting string quartet works by historically important Black composers which aims to bring greater awareness and programming of their music. Volume 2 is entirely devoted to the six known string quartet and piano quintet works of composer Florence B. Price – including four world premiere recordings – performed with pianist Michelle Cann, recipient of the 2021 Price Award.  The album consists of four string quartets, three of which have never been recorded, and two piano quintets, one of which has never been recorded, including Price’s Quintet in A minor for Piano and Strings; Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet; String Quartet in A minor; Five Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet; and her unfinished String Quartet in G Major and Quintet for Piano and Strings.

In the words of the Catalyst Quartet, “Price faced extreme obstacles in her lifetime, however her compositional output is vast despite the many barriers placed in her path. The six works in UNCOVERED Vol. 2 highlight her most productive years and unique cultural identity. Her experience as a Black woman displaced because of the deep racism of the Jim Crow south; a wife and mother fleeing from an abusive husband; a prodigious organ student at the New England Conservatory; and as an important contributor to the great Chicago Renaissance between 1935 and 1950, where she associated with icons such as Langston Hughes, Marion Anderson, and Margaret Bonds; shaping her body of work while contributing authentically to American music in its depth and beauty. The works on this album are a powerful reminder that America’s romantic classical vernacular, as prophesied by Dvorak, owes an incredible amount to the voices history has overlooked and suppressed.”

Catalyst Quartet:

Uncovered Vol. 1 - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

On Friday, February 5, 2021, GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet releases UNCOVERED Volume 1 on Azica Records. The first of a multi-volume set, Volume 1 features the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor including his Quintet in G minor for Pianoand Strings with pianist Stewart Goodyear, Fantasiestück, and Quintet in F sharp minor with clarinetist Anthony McGill.

UNCOVERED Volume 2 will feature the works of Florence Price and Volume 3 and beyond will feature Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker among others.

Catalyst Quartet poses, "Over the course of time there have been many overlooked artists in classical music, especially because of their race or gender. It is important to acknowledge that we have not yet heard the whole story due to this sidelining of musical voices. Composers like Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Florence Price, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson have contributed beautifully crafted work to the repertoire but are not widely celebrated because quality recordings and performances of their music are rare or non existent. With our next recording project we are helping to change this unfortunate reality."

Catalyst Quartet:

Bach/Gould Project

Through a collaborative arranging process, the Catalyst Quartet has created the first fully realized 4-voiced version of the Goldberg Variations for string quartet. The album features this special contribution to the string quartet repertoire along with Glenn Gould's only published composition, his String Quartet Op. 1, completed just before recording his own debut album of the Goldberg Variations in 1955. Having been collectively inspired by Bach's genius and Glenn Gould, the artist responsible for bringing the Variations into our collective consciousness, we have decided to explore and highlight this three dimensional relationship amongst Bach, Glenn Gould, and the medium of the string quartet.