PRISM Quartet with Andrew Bishop

The award-winning PRISM Quartet performs a program of music by Roshanne Etezady, Kristin Kuster, Bill Ryan, Bright Sheng, Chris Potter, and Don Byron. SMTD Professor Andrew Bishop will join the group as a guest artist.

PRISM Quartet presents a program that travels from the factory floor to a pine forest and from Hollywood to China. Four of the works were commissioned by PRISM, including Roshanne Etezady’s Inkling, a one-minute vignette written in 2004 for the ensemble’s twentieth anniversary. As its title suggests, it offers the merest hint of an idea, and its clouds of sound showcase PRISM’s flexibility and color. Don Byron’s new Quartet for Saxophones is a fearless homage to classic film scores of the ’50s and ’60s, from the title-sequence swagger of “Saul Bass” to a closing “Fandango.” Bright Sheng’s Old Tune Renewed takes its name from a Chinese tradition in which performers reinvent well-known compositions as new works. Sheng builds his piece on a folk song from Northwestern China, capturing the spirit of singing that rings through open valleys while imbuing it with his own voice. In selections from Chris Potter’s epic Improvisations, written for PRISM’s Heritage/Evolution series and recorded on Heritage/Evolution, Volume 2, jazz saxophonist Andrew Bishop improvises over the quartet, stepping into the solo role first shaped by Potter and Ravi Coltrane on the recording. The program’s other two works have deep Michigan roots. Bill Ryan’s Tiny Machines, a set of miniatures inspired by the robotic assembly line at Ford’s truck plant in Dearborn, is heard in an arrangement commissioned by the Sinta Quartet. Kristin Kuster wrote Red Pine for the Sinta Quartet to mark Don Sinta’s retirement from the University of Michigan. WNYC’s John Schaefer calls it “a sonic depiction of the simple beauty of the pine forests of Ontario.”

This program is co-presented by the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance and New Sounds Music, with support from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council.

PRISM Quartet is:
Timothy McAllister, soprano saxophone (SMTD Professor of Saxophone)
Zach Shemon, alto saxophone
Matthew Levy, tenor saxophone
Taimur Sullivan, baritone saxophone

ABOUT THE PRISM QUARTET

Intriguing programs of great beauty and breadth have distinguished PRISM Quartet as one of America’s foremost chamber ensembles. “A bold ensemble that set the standard for contemporary-classical saxophone quartets” (The New York Times), PRISM has performed at Carnegie Hall and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has toured Latin America, China, and Russia under the auspices of USIA and USArtists International. PRISM has also appeared as soloists with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra, and has held residencies at the nation’s leading conservatories, including the Curtis Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory, with an upcoming residency at the Juilliard School. A two-time recipient of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, PRISM has commissioned more than 400 works by eminent composers, including Pulitzer Prize winners William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Susie Ibarra, Bernard Rands, Tyshawn Sorey, Julia Wolfe, and Zhou Long, and MacArthur Fellows George Lewis, Bright Sheng, and Miguel Zenón. PRISM’s discography is extensive, with nearly 40 releases on Albany, BCM&D, BMOP/Sound, ECM, innova, Koch International, Navona, Naxos, New Dynamic, New Focus, Orange Mountain Music, and its own label, XAS Records. The Fifth Century, PRISM’s ECM recording with The Crossing, won a 2018 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. PRISM was named by its alma mater, the University of Michigan, as the first recipient of the Christopher Kendall Award in recognition of its work in “collaboration, entrepreneurship, and community engagement.” PRISM Quartet performs exclusively on Selmer saxophones.