SKU: BT.MUSM570367399

English.

Sadie Harrison 's Squish! (King Kong's Love Song) for String Quartet. Composed and published 2016. Dedicated to Cuatro Puntos and The American School for the Deaf. Squish! is a love story, King Kong’s love story. But not the conventional one immortalised in the 1933 Hollywood film - the terrifying giant ape astride the Empire State Building who clasps the fainting heroine, while swiping hopelessly at the planes which eventually send him crashing dead to the ground. This is the American Sign Language (ASL) version which has something of a twist at the end. Squish! was written as Composer-in-Residence with Cuatro Puntos and was commissioned with funds from the Connecticut Officeof the Arts. The premiere took place at the American School for the Deaf (the oldest permanent school for the deaf in the United States founded in 1817) in West Hartford, Connecticut, on 7th December 2016.

SKU: BR.EB-9259

World premiere: Stockholm (Festival O/MODERNT), June 19, 2017

ISBN 9790004185599. 9 x 12 inches.

When Hugo Ticciati asked me to write a new piece for his quartet, I was immediately enthusiastic about this project. I love how Hugo and his O/MODERNT String Quartet unite old and new music in a completely natural way. So, I was absolutely excited about Hugo`s idea of having my piece based on two of my idols, Bach and Beethoven, deconstructing the one and constructing the other. With all my respect for these great composers I gave to the piece a very personal inner part consisting of my own music that influenced and inspired the other parts. For the whole piece I felt very close to Beethoven, who said: To make a fugue is not art, which [is something] I have made dozens of times in my study. But the imagination will assert its rights and must come today, in light of the old traditional form, to another truly poetic element. De/Con is a travel into different centuries with different sound-languages. For me, it was like having a wonderful constructive discussion with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, each of us trying to speak our own language, approaching the others step by step. The piece could be defined as a Love Letter to two of the greatest composers ever. De/Con could be preceded by (parts of) Johann Sebastian Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of the Fugue) and succeeded by Ludwig van Beethoven's Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue). Ideally, then, all parts should be played attacca. It could, but it hasn't to be played with these two pieces. (Manuela Kerer)

World premiere: Stockholm (Festival O/MODERNT), June 19, 2017.