Tina Davidson: Barefoot Jasper String Quartet & Natalie Zhu

• Tina Davidson (b. 1952): Tremble:
• 1Davidson: Tremble09:49
• Barefoot:
• 2Davidson: Barefoot10:13
• Wēpan:
• 3Davidson: Wēpan09:16
• Hush:
• 4Davidson: Hush09:18
• Leap:
• 5Davidson: Leap: I. Uncertain Ground05:15
• 6Davidson: Leap: II. Sudden Passage05:51
• Total Runtime49:42

Info for Tina Davidson: Barefoot

Composer Tina Davidson writes “For years I composed about a sense of connectedness to something larger than myself. But in this decade of life, I find myself returning to quieter issues.” On this inward looking, deeply personal release, Davidson’s chosen vehicle for exploring that relative quietude is chamber music for string instruments and piano. In these works for variations of the piano quintet, Davidson draws on the rich lineage of classical chamber music, and takes advantage of its unique capacity to explore Romantic style expression. Within that frame, she consistently diverges from expectations, putting her individual compositional stamp on each piece and reclaiming well traveled textural territory for a unique expression of the artistic moment in which she finds herself.

Tremble for piano trio is a musical meditation on a state of restless anticipation. Building off of moto perpetuo arpeggios in the piano, lightly muted from inside the keyboard, the violin and cello trade off lyrical gestures. Davidson imports the sense of expectancy into the violin part by way of momentary colorations of phrases, whether they be tremolos, adjustments to a bright sul pont timbre, or the brief skittering of a col legno gesture. The underlying expressive tenor of the “trembling” vacillates between hope and apprehension. Approximately two thirds through the work, Davidson steers the piece towards more angular, mixed meter material, as vigorous passagework interweaves through the three players. Ultimately, the work finds its way to a bright resolution in a buoyant coda.

Barefoot, for piano quartet, opens with a series of slow glissandi, sliding between pitches as one run one’s feet through grass and dirt exploring the ground. As with Tremble, Davidson sticks with a musical idea long enough to inhabit it and explore its corners and possibilities. A contrasting, rhythmically flowing section follows and establishes the main body of the work. Barefoot is a celebration of exhilarating connection to the physical — dance, freedom, and the earth.

Scored for piano quintet, Wēpan translates as “weeping” from Old English. Davidson uses metallic preparations on specific notes on the piano to create a multi-dimensional timbral soundscape. Evocative sliding gestures in the strings meld and intersect with effected melodies on the keyboard. Near the midpoint of the work, the piano plays a music box-like accompaniment underneath a harmonized melody in rhythmic unison in the strings. Davidson uses sparing microtonal inflections to color this “weeping” theme. In a dramatic climax, the ensemble plays an expansive melody together with a tremolo effect, as the piano preparations shimmer within the overall sound. The work ends with the plaintive glissandi with which it began.

Hush for violin and piano balances impressionistic harmonic ideas with a primarily Neo-romantic frame of a keyboard supporting an elegiac primary line in the violin. Davidson alternates between turbulent, swirling figures in the violin, lyrical melodies over gentle arpeggios, and off-the string development of angular motivic ideas. Hush ends with a quiet rustle, as the violin ascends to the fifth of a tonic chord over a gently oscillating figure in the piano.

Davidson composed Leap for piano quartet during the imposed lockdown of the Covid pandemic, suddenly finding ourselves in entirely new terrain and jumping into the unknown. In the opening movement, “Uncertain Ground,” brief moments of polytonal inflection help to establish a sense of unfamiliar circumstances. “Sudden Passage” is vigorous and driven, characterized by modular motivic material distributed among alternating pairs of instruments that is punctuated by accented arrivals. Davidson contracts this angularity with soaring melodies in the violin and viola over percolating accompaniment.

The Jasper String Quartet and pianist Natalie Zhu perform Davidson’s music with warmth and lyricism, bringing a traditional chamber music sensibility to their readings. Davidson’s embrace of the canonical chamber music frame is refreshing and honest, as she mines its resources to zero in on expressive nuances that capture her artistic sources of inspiration over the last fifteen years. (Dan Lippel)

Jasper String Quartet
Natalie Zhu, piano

Jasper String Quartet
Celebrated as one of the preeminent American string quartets of the twenty-first century, the prizewinning Jasper String Quartet is hailed as being “flawless in ensemble and intonation, expressively assured and beautifully balanced” (Gramophone). The Quartet is highly regarded for its “programming savvy” (ClevelandClassical.com), which strives to evocatively connect the music of underrepresented and living composers to the canonical repertoire through thoughtful programs that appeal to a wide variety of audiences.

A recipient of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award (2012), the Quartet’s playing has been described as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” (The Strad). The ensemble has released eight albums, including its most recent release, Insects and Machines: Quartets of Vivian Fung (2023) which Strings Magazine praised as being “intensely dramatic throughout demonstrating both their advocacy of new music and their transcendent mastery.” The Quartet’s 2017 release, Unbound, was named by The New York Times as one of the year’s 25 Best Classical Recordings.

The Quartet regularly collaborates with some of today’s leading artists, including tenor Nicholas Phan, clarinetist Derek Bermel, pianists Amy Yang, Natalie Zhu and Myra Huang, and the Jupiter String Quartet. Collaborations and commissions with living composers include Lera Auerbach, Derek Bermel, Patrick Castillo, Vivian Fung, Brittany J. Green, Aaron Jay Kernis, Akira Nishimura, Reinaldo Moya, Michelle Ross, Caroline Shaw and Joan Tower.

“flawless in ensemble and intonation, expressively assured and beautifully balanced.” — Gramophone

The Quartet will release new recordings in 2024 and 2025, including Reinaldo Moya’s Pájaros Garabatos with soprano Maria Brea in 2024, works by Tina Davidson with pianist Natalie Zhu in 2024, and Richard Festinger’s Quartet No. 5 in 2025. In celebration of its Twentieth Anniversary in 2026-27, the Quartet has commissioned new works from composers Patrick Castillo, Brittany J. Green, Reinaldo Moya and Michelle Ross.

The Jasper String Quartet is passionate about connecting with audiences beyond the concert hall and has performed hundreds of outreach programs in schools and community centers across the US. The Quartet is the Professional Quartet-in-Residence at Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians and is also Director of the annual Saint Paul Chamber Music Institute. In addition, the Quartet is regularly invited to conduct short-term residencies at colleges and universities, and in partnership with presenters. Past residencies include those at Trinity University (San Antonio), Michigan State University, BYU Idaho, Swarthmore College, Oberlin Conservatory, Credo Music, Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, and the University of Iowa.

The Quartet is Artistic Director of Jasper Chamber Concerts, a series in Philadelphia dedicated to encouraging curiosity, community, and inclusivity through world-class chamber performances. With decades of experience in designing and presenting educational programs, the Quartet added its Community Connections program to the series in 2023, which brings performances to underserved schools and community centers throughout the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area. Additionally, the Quartet continues its residency at Arlington High School in New York State, now in its fourteenth year. Generously supported by the Howland Chamber Music Circle, the Quartet performs and works with the school’s orchestras and chamber music ensembles twice yearly.

Formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the Jasper String Quartet launched their professional career in 2006 while studying with James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Kenneth Goldsmith as Graduate Quartet-in-Residence at Rice University. In 2008, the Quartet continued its training with the Tokyo String Quartet as Yale University’s Graduate Quartet-in-Residence. That same year, the Quartet swept through the competition circuit, winning the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize in the Plowman Chamber Music Competition, the Grand Prize at the Coleman Competition, First Prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs, and the Silver Medal at the 2008 and 2009 Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions. They were the first ensemble honored with Yale School of Music’s Horatio Parker Memorial Prize, an award established in 1945, and selected by the faculty for “best fulfilling…lofty musical ideals.” In 2010, they joined the roster of Astral Artists after winning their national auditions.

Natalie Zhu
Known for captivating interpretations of a wide repertoire, Natalie Zhu is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Musical Fund Society Career Advancement Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, and Astral Artists Award. The Philadelphia Inquirer heralded Ms. Zhu in recital as a display of “emotional and pianistic pyrotechnics.” Selections from her live performances are frequently broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today.”

Ms. Zhu has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has appeared as soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Haddonfield Symphony, The Curtis Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Princeton Chamber Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, Riverside Symphony Orchestra, and the Colorado Philharmonic National Repertory Orchestra. Ms. Zhu was frequently requested by The Philadelphia Orchestra as the orchestral pianist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Ms. Zhu made her European debut in 1994 at the Festival de Sully et d’Orleans in France She has also given solo recitals at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Hall in New York City, Seattle Chamber Music Society, New York’s Steinway Hall and Merkin Hall, Philip Lorenz Memorial Keyboard Series in Fresno, Portland Piano Festival in Oregon, Munich’s Herkulessaal in Germany, and Beijing Concert Hall in China. She has performed with the Vermeer, Miami, and Daedalus Quartets, and collaborated with members of the Guarneri, Dover, Orion, Mendelssohn, and Ying Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio, and Time for Three. Ms. Zhu began touring with renowned violinist Hilary Hahn in 1997. Ms. Zhu and Ms. Hahn have maintained a partnership with tours around the world, including a hugely successful Carnegie Hall recital debut. Ms. Zhu and Ms. Hahn released a CD for the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2005, as well as Suzuki Violin Books 1-3 in 2020.

As an active chamber musician, she has appeared in Marlboro Music Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Curtis-On-Tour, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Maestro Foundation Concert Series, Skaneateles Festival, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, Bay Chamber Concerts, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Crested Butte Chamber Music Festival, The Friends of Chamber Music Reading Concert Series, and Brooklyn Library Chamber Music Series. Ms. Zhu has been the artistic director of the Kingston Chamber Music Festival in Rhode Island since 2009.

Natalie Zhu began her piano studies with Xiao-Cheng Liu at the age of six in her native China and made her first public appearance at age nine in Beijing. At eleven she emigrated with her family to Los Angeles, and studied with Robert Turner and Li Ming-Qiang. By age fifteen she was enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music where she received the prestigious Rachmaninoff Award and studied with Gary Graffman. She received both a Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music where she studied with the late Claude Frank. Ms. Zhu lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband and daughter.

Booklet for Tina Davidson: Barefoot