Spektral Quartet

04/11/2024

Check out our feature in The Strad!

An exclusive first look at a collaborative art film exploring the heightened qualities of perception and memory as enhanced by the liminal space between daylight and darkness, featuring music by Dutilleux

04/11/2024

Thus, the Reveal!

It has been two years since we filmed on the 55th floor of a Chicago skyscraper and watched ice melt at the edge of a prairie - and, it has been nearly two years since the musicians of Spektral Quartet performed together. Today we invite you to experience THUS, THE NIGHT, our collaborative art film with artist Antonia Contro and filmmakers Four/Ten Media, featuring our performance of Henri Dutilleux’s ‘Ainsi la Nuit’. We are grateful to the team at The Strad for helping us to share this work! (Read the full feature using the link in the comments.)

We are indebted to the many friends, supporters, and the extraordinary crew who helped us to bring THUS, THE NIGHT to life, and especially to our dear collaborators and visionary artists Antonia Contro, Evan Chapman, and Kevin Eikenberg, who not only responded to our initial vision, but dived in with us to study Dutilleux’s work from every angle in order to reflect the magic of this music and its concepts through film.

We hope you will treat yourself to a full immersion in the world of THUS, THE NIGHT, and allow time to unfold.

Credits:
Ainsi la Nuit composed by Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux
Performance by Spektral Quartet:
Clara Lyon & Theo Espy, violins; Doyle Armbrust, viola; Russell Rolen, cello
Visual art by Antonia Contro
Directed by Evan Chapman
Art direction by Evan Chapman, Antonia Contro, Kevin Eikenberg, Clara Lyon
Filming by Evan Chapman and Nick Hughes
Editing by Evan Chapman
Produced by Spektral Quartet
Production manager: Russell Rolen
Production coordinator: Clara Lyon
Production assistant: Laila Francis
Ice Sculptures by Alvaro Ramirez
Ice Sculpture Assistant: Salvador E. Hernandez
Audio producer: Hannah Collins
Recording and mixing engineer: Bill Maylone
Audio Mastering: Ryan Streber and Charles Mueller, Oktaven Audio
Hair and makeup: Pia Macias

Filming for THUS, THE NIGHT took place on the edge of the prairie at Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, the 55th floor of a Chicago skyscraper, and a private residence on Lake Michigan in June of 2022. Audio was recorded at the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory. Major support was provided by Gensler, CBRE Realty, Linden Capital Partners, and individuals.

_Thus, The Night_ is a short film inspired by French composer Henri Dutilleux's seminal work for string quartet written in 1976, "Ainsi la Nuit". One of the ...

04/10/2024

…as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me…immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents; and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took….
~ “Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust

From the hushed opening chord of Henri Dutilleux’s Ainsi la Nuit, a musical sense memory is already unfurling itself through time. Dutilleux was fascinated by Proust’s concept of memory and strove to create a similar fluidity in music, employing structures like palindromes, recurring complex harmonies that subtly transform, and “parentheses”: a series of short interstitial movements throughout the work that serve (in the composer’s words): “as reservoirs of sound events, in which can be found commentaries of what has gone before, and prefigurations of things still to come.”

In the creative process of devising THUS, THE NIGHT, the collaborative team was entranced by Ainsi’s theme of after-image: memories that are created and then “remembered” in transformation, fragmentation, and absence. Through use of temperature, scale, environment, weather, light, and repetition, Thus, the Night responds to Dutilleux’s notion of sense memory and encourages nonlinear pathways of perception.

The full film drops online tomorrow - don’t miss it!

04/09/2024

2 days to go!

Thus, the Night will be available online for the first time later this week, and we’re celebrating by reliving the magic of seeing our film onscreen at its premiere at Aspen Film

We can’t wait for you to experience the mysterious world of Thus, the Night - out this Thursday in a special feature by The Strad. Stay tuned!

Antonia Contro
Four/Ten Media
Aspen Film

03/06/2024

We are over the moon to finally share that our collaborative film Thus, the Night – will premiere in partnership with Aspen Film at the Isis Theatre in Aspen, CO on Thursday, March 14th, 2024. The evening will include a panel conversation with violinist Clara Lyon, visual artist Antonia Contro, and Evan Chapman of Four/Ten Media, to be moderated by Michal Raz-Russo, noted curator and Programs Director of the Gordon Parks Foundation, as well as a special live performance of Scorrevole – a new visual/sonic collaboration by Lyon and Contro.

A collaborative art film by the three-time GRAMMY-nominated musicians of Spektral Quartet, visual artist Antonia Contro, and production company Four/Ten Media, Thus, The Night interweaves sonic and visual impressions of nighttime through a surrealistic lens, illuminating the sensuousness and complexity of our human relationship to darkness. Inspired by French composer Henri Dutilleux's seminal 1976 work for string quartet, "Ainsi, la Nuit", the film strives

to reflect the composer's interests in surrealism, highlighting the unique and heightened qualities of perception and memory as enhanced by the liminal space between light and dark.

Thus, the Night was first shared with an intimate circle of friends and supporters in Chicago in November of 2023, and has since garnered the award of Best Music Video in the Chicago Indie Film Awards, Rome Music Video Awards (October 23’), and Brussels Capital Film Festival (November 23’). The film was also named a finalist in the Tatras International Film Festival, and was an official selection at this year’s Montreal Independent Film Festival and València Indie Film Festival. Join us in Aspen for the first public screening! Link to purchase tickets in the comments below...

02/16/2024

We are thrilled to finally announce the release of our collaborative film, Thus, The Night – which will premiere online March 21st. Check out the trailer now and watch this space for updates!

Thus, The Night is a 19 minute film featuring our performance of Henri Dutilleux's seminal 1976 work for string quartet, "Ainsi la Nuit". One of our final projects together, the film was developed in collaboration with visual artist Antonia Contro and film production company Four/Ten Media. In Thus, The Night, we strove to reflect the composer's interests in surrealism, highlighting the unique and heightened qualities of perception and memory as enhanced by the liminal space between daylight and darkness.

Filming took place on the edge of the prairie at Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, the 55th floor of a Chicago skyscraper, and a private residence on Lake Michigan in June of 2022.

We can't wait for you all to experience the film in its entirety next month!

10/14/2023

"A MASTERPIECE." - SPIN Magazine. Dive into the transcendent world of "Behind the Wallpaper." Consider it for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance & Best Contemporary Classical Composition at this year's GRAMMYs®.

04/04/2023

“An instant classic”

This is one HELL of a review of ‘Behind the Wallpaper’ from Peter Margasak for Bandcamp. He was an early adopter of this piece and instrumental to helping it take flight. We miss you in Chicago, Peter!

Agnese Toniutti plays John Cage; new work from Alex Temple with Julia Holter and Spektral Quartet; and more.

03/09/2023

Not going to lie, landing inside the pages of SPIN feels pretty amazing.

“…capping a stellar legacy of carving out their own routes in the crowded world of post-Kronos quartets.”

He had a purple stain on his forehead. It smelled of beets and vinegar. He’d gotten used to it. He didn’t know it was there. He couldn’t understand why

03/08/2023

What if all album reviews were this personal, and this thoughtful…

Behind the Wallpaper was a staggering achievement in 2015, when it was first written. After much anticipation, its recording is transcendent.

03/03/2023

Happy BEHIND THE WALLPAPER Release Day! Huge hugs to New Amsterdam, Bill Brittelle, Zach Hanson...and of course the incredible composer at the heart of this project, Alex Temple!

Before listening on your fave streaming platform, please enjoy a very Julia message from Julia Holter.

03/02/2023

Only one day till 'Behind the Wallpaper' is out in the world! Today on the Spektral Blog: Alex Temple on why this album is essential to our current cultural moment...

Believe it or not, it's been more than ten years since an offhand tweet birthed the collaboration that would eventually result in this album. Cut to the fall of 2012: Spektral had recently asked me to write a short piece for them, and I was considering adding a vocal part that I would perform myself