Momenta returns for Quartet Series concert, student thesis presentations

The Momenta Quartet. (John Gurrin)

The Momenta Quartet. From left: Adda Kridler, Michael Haas, Emilie-Anne Gendron and Stephanie Griffin. (John Gurrin)

Known for its dedication to contemporary music across stylistic boundaries, the Momenta Quartet returns to Bates for a concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 9, at the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission is $12, available at batestickets.com. A limited number of free tickets are available for students and seniors 65 and older at bit.ly/oacbates. For more information about this Olin Arts Alive Quartet Series event, please contact 207-786-6163 or olinarts@bates.edu.

The quartet also performs the following night as part of a concert of music composed by Bates students for their senior thesis projects. Read about that event.

Based in New York City, the Momenta Quartet aims to share the best of contemporary music with its audiences. It focuses on the work of emerging and underrepresented modern composers, and includes music from many different cultures and genres, including jazz and avant-garde improvisation.

Momenta’s unique concert experience combines the works of living composers with selected great music from the past, creating what The Washington Post calls an “utterly beautiful sonic skyscape.”

Praised by The New York Times for its “focused, fluid performance,” the Momenta Quartet has premiered more than 50 works in the past eight years and has collaborated with more than 80 composers.

The quartet consists of violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Adda Kridler, violist Stephanie Griffin and cellist Michael Haas. The quartet has performed in Indonesia, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The New York Times notes that “word of the Momenta Quartet’s diligence, curiosity and excellence is definitely out.”

Currently in its ninth year in residence at Temple University in Philadelphia, the quartet has performed and lectured at a number of colleges and universities, including Cornell, Columbia, Swarthmore and Haverford. It has received grants from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Aaron Copland Fund, the Brooklyn Arts Council and the New York State Council on the Arts.