Ariadne Quartet to Premiere Work by Ithaca Composer

The Ariadne String Quartet, a chamber ensemble of School of Music faculty members, will present a free concert on Monday, November 12, at 8:15 p.m. in the Whalen Center’s recital hall. The group will perform an early quartet by Beethoven, Webern’s Six Bagatelles and Langsamer Satz, and the premiere of Sally Lamb’s Revival for String Quartet, which was commissioned for the ensemble by local arts patron Percy Browning. Founded in 1994, the Ariadne String Quartet is currently composed of violinists Susan Waterbury and Margaret Cooper, violist Debra Moree, and cellist Nicola Heinrich.

Lamb is a lecturer in the School of Music and recent winner of the ASCAPLU$ Award, given by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers to assist and encourage writers of serious music. These awards are granted by an independent panel and are based on the prestige value of each writer’s catalog of original compositions, as well as recent performances of those works.

"The four-movement quartet makes use of a few favorite hymn tunes, and the title expresses a rethinking of old tunes and a new look at an important part of my musical heritage," Lamb says. Each of the work’s movements is distinct, ranging from a high-church setting of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence to a rustic version of the same melody. Other hymns incorporated into the quartet include Were You There? and Precious Lord.

In addition to having served on the faculty of Syracuse University, Lamb has been composer in residence at elementary schools in Syracuse and Ithaca. She received a doctoral degree in 1998 from Cornell University, where she studied under Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra.