New Works for String Quartets at Automata

Automata in Los Angeles presents an evening of string quartets by Luke Martin and Aaron Foster Bresley on Saturday. (Image: Facebook)

Automata, the performing arts space in Los Angeles’s Chinatown, presents an evening of string quartets by CalArtians Luke Martin (Music MFA 16), a composer recently selected as the 2016 Steven Rothenberg Internship Fellow, and New York-based Aaron Foster Bresley (Music MFA 13) on Saturday (Jan. 23) at 8 pm.

Performing the new works are CalArts students Jonathan Tang and Yvette Holzwarth on violin, Joy Yi on viola and Luigi Polcari on cello.

The evening includes several compositions from Martin’s just-released residues CD, which emerged from an intense collaboration between the composer and members of the quartet. In an email, Martin describes residues as a “series of five graphic score string quartets exploring uncertain relational space between subjects and everyday objects existing as residues of themselves due to their leftover or forgotten status.”

Martin’s “residues no. 1: remembrances”:

The Automata show also features Bresley’s “barrier – bend/erect,” which New Classic LA writer Paul Muller describes in a review as a “deceptively simple piece that rewards the careful listener with an impressive scope of expression in the absence of conventional musical landmarks.”

For those unable to attend the Automata concert, there is another show planned for CalArts on Feb. 13.