{"id":2416150,"date":"2026-05-14T07:54:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2416150"},"modified":"2026-05-14T07:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:54:21","slug":"wpr-music-new-album-of-the-week-strings-intertwined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wpr-music-new-album-of-the-week-strings-intertwined\/","title":{"rendered":"WPR Music new album of the week: &#8216;Strings Intertwined&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Michigan-based ConTempus Quartet is celebrating its 10th year as an ensemble focusing on underrepresented music and living composers.<\/p>\n<p>ConTempus is a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.contempusinitiative.com\/contempus-quartet\">self-described<\/a> \u201call-female quartet performing in a medium historically shaped by male composers and performers.\u201d For this new album, they\u2019ve chosen pieces by three female composers: Florence Price, Fernande Decruck and Ivette Herryman Rodriguez.<\/p>\n<p>Each of the works has an interesting background. For example, the String Quartet no. 2 in A Minor by American composer Florence Price was discovered in a trunkful of hand-written musical scores in dilapidated house south of Chicago. The house was undergoing renovations in 2009, and thankfully the music wasn\u2019t chucked into a dumpster \u2014 the scores found their way to Price\u2019s archives at the University of Arkansas. Many of the pieces have now been published and recorded, including a symphony, two violin concertos and this quartet.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wpr-injected-form wp-block-wpr-theme-gravity-form\">\n<div class=\"gf_browser_unknown gform_wrapper gravity-theme gform-theme--no-framework\" data-form-theme=\"gravity-theme\" data-form-index=\"0\" id=\"gform_wrapper_2\">\n<div class=\"gform_heading\">\n<h2 class=\"gform_title\">Understanding Wisconsin, Together.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"gform_description\">WPR\u2019s \u201cWisconsin Today\u201d newsletter keeps you connected to the state you love without feeling overwhelmed. No paywall. No agenda. No corporate filter.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Like many of Price\u2019s major works, this quartet includes a Juba movement, a dance originating in West Africa and brought to the U.S. with enslaved people. It also incorporates some blues and traditional spirituals within a thoroughly classical structure.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Florence Price, String Quartet No 2 Movement III. Juba\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dWzlIaqhsPw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The second work on the album is the Suite dans le style ancien pour quator \u00e0 cordes, or Suite in the Old Style for String Quartet, by French composer Fernande Decruck. She was born just a few years after Price in a small village not too far from Toulouse. Like Price, who studied organ, piano and composition at the New England Conservatory, Decruck studied organ and composition at the Paris Conservatory, and even traveled to the U.S. to give organ recitals.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Fernande Decruck, 1928 \/ <em>Courtesy of Fplanas24, Wikimedia Commons<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Decruck is known especially for her saxophone pieces, and this suite was an unpublished work in manuscript form, possibly her only work for string quartet. The ensemble was able to gain access to scans of the hand-written music, which includes stylized dance forms of the baroque era, like the courante, sarabande and gigue.<\/p>\n<p>The final work on this new release is the String Quartet No. 1 by Cuban-born composer Ivette Herryman Rodriguez, which was commissioned by the ConTempus Quartet. Rodriguez took inspiration from the other two pieces, synthesizing it with her own style and influences, creating an appealing sound that\u2019s fresh and modern, but respectful of the past. The titles of the second and third movements of Rodriguez\u2019s quartet are thought-provoking, as is the music: \u201cNostalgia: una mirada al pasado\u201d (a look at the past), and \u201cMontuna: Una mirada a mi tierra\u201d (a country woman, or hill woman: a look at my land). The first is titled \u201cChorale and Variations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The title of the album, \u201cStrings Intertwined,\u201d represents a musical dialogue across generations, and this recording from the ConTempus Quartet is full of rich and meaningful conversations that are well worth listening to.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"String Quartet No 1\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/irFlfYug-Oc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wpr.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Michigan-based ConTempus Quartet is celebrating its 10th year as an ensemble focusing on underrepresented music and living composers. ConTempus is a self-described \u201call-female quartet performing in a medium historically shaped by male composers and performers.\u201d For this new album, they\u2019ve chosen pieces by three female composers: Florence Price, Fernande Decruck and Ivette Herryman Rodriguez. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2416151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2416150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/WPR-Music-new-album-of-the-week-Strings-Intertwined.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2416150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2416152,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416150\/revisions\/2416152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2416151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2416150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2416150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2416150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}