Ciompi Journal | The Ciompi Quartet

Ciompi Presents 2022 Summer Chamber Music Series

DURHAM, NC – Duke Gardens has always been the setting for this delightful series, however this summer the series will open with a free concert at Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church presented by Caroline Stinson, performing with the Lydian String Quartet. However, the three remaining concerts will be held at Duke Gardens.

Subscriptions are $60. Purchase subscription tickets beginning May 24. Single tickets are $25 General Public; $20 Non-Duke Students/Duke Employees; $10 Youth/Duke students.

Tickets and subscriptions may be purchased online via ticket.duke.edu.

Tickets are also available at the Duke University Box Office, Bryan Center, Upper Level. The box office is open weekdays 11am-6pm, or you may call 919-684-4444. The box office accepts cash, check, credit cards and Duke Card FLEX payments.

All Concerts begin at 7:00pm.

Note: The June 2 concert is a FREE concert and will be presented at Trinity Ave Presbyterian Church, 927 West Trinity Ave, Durham, NC. You can reserve tickets online. A non-perishable food item for the Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church’s food pantry is requested

The three remaining concerts will be presented at Kirby Horton Hall in the Doris Duke Center at Sarah P. Duke Gardens, 420 Anderson St, Durham, NC 27708. Call 919-684-3698 for directions.

Ciompi Presents is sponsored by the Department of Music, Sarah P. Duke Gardens and the Ciompi Quartet Fund.

Trout Clout performs the Trout Quintet

In this film of 2 parts by Rodrigo Dorfman, follow Duke students in Trout Clout performing the Trout Quintet. The Duke Chamber Music Program is led by the Ciompi Quartet.

Portfolio Project: The Ciompi Quartet commissions Duke Graduate Composers

In the summer of 2020, the Ciompi Quartet commissioned a unique project from four composers in Duke Music’s graduate program. The parameters of the commission were unorthodox: to find a solution to the compositional and performing challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic by creating short works that could be practiced and recorded remotely by each member of the quartet. Although the members were ultimately able to record together in Baldwin Auditorium in November/December 2020, the pieces submitted by James Budinich, Ryan Harrison, James Chu, and Maximiliano Amici demonstrate creative solutions to the challenge of creating works for musicians who are not present in the same space.

View the performances and read interviews with the composers »

A video and a message for our friends

As we each sit in front of our music stand with instrument in our hand, alone at home, all the memories from our concerts on the stage around the world flash back. Memories of how our music brought smiles to our audience who did not even speak the same language, or made someone cry who attended a concert for the first time, all are held dear to our hearts. More than ever, our heartbeats are pumped with rhythmic drives, ou…See More

A brave new world

Everyone in the music world, musicians of all types, are going through the same process: figuring out how to function during this indefinite shut-down of our normal musical life. Many of us feel there is no replacing the act of offering live music for a live audience in a setting intimate enough for everyone in the room to sense each other’s physical presence. Nevertheless it is interesting to try and reach each other through alternate means. I have paid scant attention to the various platforms available to collaborate and perform via the web, other than giving the occasional Skype lesson and watching the occasional live-stream. Suddenly, it is the only way we can communicate. There is a whole array of techniques and equipment to be mastered.

And so we begin: the Ciompi members are engaging in our first ever remote recording, each of us attempting record a separate track that is synced to produce a final result. It’s for a Duke senior whose senior project has been waylaid by the virus. We are trying to make it whole by this new method. All of us will benefit by the experience and we will have taken our first steps into the unknown. To be continued.

SOPRANO ELIZA BAGG: CREATIVE, ORIGINAL, COLLABORATIVE

Soprano Eliza Bagg will be joining us for our November concert dates (November 14 (12PM), 17 (8pm) and 18 (4pm)), so we took a moment to chat with her about some of the repertoire – in particular the Monteverdi and the new Daniel Wohl work. Eliza, a “sought-after vocalist” (WNYC), is a Brooklyn and Los Angeles-based musician. Along with creating her own work, she has worked closely with a number of prominent and emerging composers including John Zorn, Michael Gordon, and Caroline Shaw, among others.

Did you pick the 3 Monteverdi Madrigals? How did you narrow it down to those ones? Who arranged them? Yes, I picked the 3 madrigals. I was looking for ones that would work well with the top line being isolated as a solo line, which is not necessarily how most madrigals are written. In this way, Lamento della nina made perfect sense as it is originally for one female vocalist and a kind of male choir backing her up. But really, all three are just pieces I’ve known and loved for a long time. My long-time creative collaborator and bandmate from Pavo Pavo, Oliver Hill, arranged them for voice and string quartet — he works quite frequently creating string arrangements for indie-rock bands such as The Dirty Projectors, Wet, Helado Negro, Vagabon, and more.

When did you learn about the Daniel Wohl commission? Daniel and I had been looking for a way to work on a project together for a long time — when this idea came up with the Ciompi, it seemed like a natural opportunity to create a work together and to bring in the Ciompi as collaborators.

What has it been like collaborating with Daniel? Daniel and I worked together very closely over the summer developing the core ideas for the piece: we would get together in his studio where he would record me improvising, singing melodies and playing off of specific ideas that came up in the session. He then used pieces of those recordings to create the electronic tracks for each movement, which are essentially built out of one or two looping vocal phrases. Once the baseline idea for each movement was in place, we would get together and improvise fragments that then became the lead melodic lines — and as the piece has progressed, we have sent tracks back and forth while I’ve been traveling to solidify the lead vocal melody. We actually played around a lot with Renaissance style ornamentation, some of which has worked its way into the lead vocal lines. Meanwhile, Daniel has been completing the movements with the string quartet parts and other electronic sounds.

The piece is in 3 distinct movements with some a capella vocal interludes. We have been thinking about it as a kind of triptych, and it is in some ways about the concept of transformation — there is a distinct beginning, middle, and end, and the dominant sound of the piece is the manipulation — or transformation — of my voice. So much of the piece involves recordings of my voice that have been digitally processed — Daniel can speak in more detail about how he did this to create the electronic tracks using my voice. I will also be using a pedal in the performance to live process my own voice while performing, manipulating delay, autotune, pitch shifting, as well as adding harmonies and looping.

What’s next on the calendar for you? Coming up this year for me is performing Meredith Monk’s Atlas with the LA Philharmonic, releasing an album in January with my band Pavo Pavo and an art-pop album as my solo project Lisel, performing new works by Ben Frost, Julianna Barwick, and Angelica Negron with my vocal trio on the Liquid Music Series. and touring with John Zorn and Roomful of Teeth. Visit ElizaBagg.com for more information.