Momenta Festival XI: Keys to Creativity

"Momenta": the plural of "momentum"—four individuals in motion towards a common goal. This is the idea behind the Momenta Quartet (Emilie-Anne Gendron, Alex Shiozaki, Stephanie Griffin, and Michael Haas), whose eclectic vision encompasses contemporary music of all aesthetic backgrounds alongside great music from the recent and distant past. The New York City-based quartet has premiered over 200 works, collaborated with over 250 living composers and was praised by The New York Times for its “diligence, curiosity and excellence.” In the words of The New Yorker’s Alex Ross, “few American players assume Haydn’s idiom with such ease.” 

The quartet came into being in November 2004, when composer Matthew Greenbaum invited violist Stephanie Griffin to perform Mario Davidovsky’s String Trio for events celebrating Judaism and culture at New York’s Symphony Space and Temple University in Philadelphia. A residency through the composition department at Temple University ensued, and the rehearsals and performances were so satisfying that the players decided to form a quartet. Through this residency, Momenta gave two annual concerts highlighting the talents of Temple University student composers alongside twentieth-century masterworks and works from the classical canon, repeating the programs at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. From the outset, Momenta treated all music equally, devoting as much time, care, and commitment to the student works as to the imposing musical monuments. 

Word of Momenta’s passionate advocacy for emerging composers spread quickly. Composers started inviting Momenta for similar concerts and residencies at other academic institutions. Today, Momenta’s educational-performing circuit includes Binghamton, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Hawaii Pacific, Michigan State, New York, Temple, Tufts, Washington, and Yeshiva Universities; Bard, Barnard, Bates, Haverford, Hunter, Ithaca, Lehman, and Williams Colleges; and Boston, Cincinnati, Eastman, and Mannes conservatories. Momenta has received commission grants from the Koussevitzky, Barlow, and Jerome Foundations, and a Chamber Music America commission for Alvin Singleton, whose resulting work, “Hallelujah Anyhow” (2019), is featured on their 2022 album of his complete string quartets. Deeply committed to the musical avant-garde of the developing world, Momenta has premiered and championed the works of Tony Prabowo (Indonesia), Cergio Prudencio (Bolivia), and Hana Ajiashvili (Georgia); has collaborated with numerous gamelan ensembles; and in 2018, was taken by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Embassy La Paz to Cochabamba, Bolivia for new music concerts and a teaching-performing residency at the Instituto Laredo. 

Momenta has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery, Rubin Museum, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Chamber Music Cincinnati, and the Louisville and Philadelphia Chamber Music Societies. Festival credits include the renowned Cervantino Festival in Mexico; MATA; Music from Japan; Ostrava Days in the Czech Republic; Red Note New Music; the Smithsonian’s “Performing Indonesia”; the Yellow Barn Artist Residency; and since 2015, the quartet’s own annual member-curated Momenta Festival in New York City, featuring world premieres, guest artists, and samplings from Momenta's unique personal repertoire. 

Momenta has recorded for the Albany, Bridge, Centaur, Furious Artisans, Innova, Navona, New Focus, New World, and PARMA labels; and has been broadcast on WQXR, Q2 Music, Austria’s Oe1 and Vermont Public Radio. The quartet’s latest album Alvin Singleton: Four String Quartets was released to critical acclaim in 2022 by New World Records. Their debut album, Similar Motion, featuring visionary works by Debussy, Philip Glass and Arthur Kampela, is available on Albany Records. Upcoming recording adventures include a project to record all thirteen string quartets by Mexican microtonal maverick Julián Carrillo (1875-1965) for Naxos, the complete string quartets of Roberto Sierra, and an American album featuring diverse works by Elizabeth Brown, Jason Hwang, Shawn Jaeger, Yusef Lateef, and Matthew Greenbaum.