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- Susan Chandler: Madeline Island Chamber Music
commissioned a piece to be written
by the composer Caroline Shaw for Brooklyn Rider.
Caroline Shaw is this incredible young composer.
She is the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for music.
- Nicholas Cords: So, I've actually known her
since she was about that tall
and she would come to our concerts.
I mean, she's just an amazing composer who has, I think,
at her very heart, her very compositional heart
is a string quartet
- Jonathan Swartz: And Brooklyn Rider thought
that it would be meaningful
in the context today to engage new composers
and get them to write with their perspectives
on healing and music.
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- Nicholas Cords: It's a project called "Healing Modes"
and it's using Beethoven's "Opus 132,"
his great late string quartet.
We have five composers who are writing for this project
to shed light on what healing and music means
in today's context.
- Colin Jacobsen: First of all, it was just great
having her here because
we got to play it for her before the performance
and have her do some last-minute tweaks
based on how it was coming across to her.
So that's the lab aspect of having a living composer there.
- Nicholas Cords: We only got the piece on Tuesday.
And so there truly, truly was a "wet ink" feeling
to what was going on
but actually that,
that is totally a part of the tradition.
You know, playing the music
while the ink is still drying on the page.
- Susan Chandler: They are fearless as a group.
Brooklyn Rider is just fearless,
and very, very good with contemporary music
so I know it's going to be terrific.

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[cheers and applause]

[cheers and applause]

[plinking string]