Saturday, May 24, 2025
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
The Cell - 338 West 23rd Street, New York, NY, 10011
Tickets – suggested $15 donation – available online and at the door
Reception to follow
NTQ’s Electric Sax series returns with Vol 3: radial monochrome. This year’s program will feature the premiere of commissioned works by James Díaz and Anna Meadors, alongside a revised work by Cecilia Lopez.
Program
Anna Meadors – Circulatory Signal, for saxophone quartet and no input mixer (2025) * #
James Díaz – radial monochrome, for amplified saxophone quartet (2025) * #
Cecilia Lopez – Le Diplomat, for saxophone quartet and electronics (2022)
* world premiere
# commisioned by New Thread Quartet
Circulatory Signal is a piece for saxophone quartet and feedback mixer, performed by Meadors. Also known as a no-input mixer, it uses internal feedback loops created by routing its outputs back into its inputs. The piece becomes a conversation between breath, electricity, and sound, where human and electrical circuits intertwine. This is Meadors’ first time processing other players through the mixer, an exciting expansion of her practice. The title comes from her considering the mixer’s feedback loop alongside the body’s circulatory system.
radial monochrome for amplified saxophone quartet explores shifting textures and timbral gradients within a tightly woven ensemble fabric. As its title suggests, radial monochrome draws from a singular sonic palette, expanding and contracting like concentric waves—revealing subtle variations in tone, color, and density.
Through graphic notation, Lopez’s piece Le Diplomat combines in equal parts improvisation and composition. The piece utilizes one of Lopez’s first sound-objects “Chapas,” an amplified large sheet of metal used to filter and play with the sound of the saxophone. Lopez joins the saxophone ensemble as a fifth performer using analog synthesis and the Chapas to process the instrument´s sound. The result is a piece that challenges the conceptions of both contemporary music and improvisation.
Performed by:
New Thread Quartet – Jonathan Hulting-Cohen, Noa Even, Erin Rogers, and Zach Herchen
Anna Meadors – electronics
Cecilia Lopez – electronics
