2015 Fall Residency
Argus Quartet
Birdfoot’s first annual Fall Artist Residency presented a dynamic series of concerts and events with the award-winning Argus Quartet and composer/percussionist Eric Guinivan. The quartet used the residency to collaborate with videographer Todd Mason to record Eric Guinivan’s String Quartet No. 1 (commissioned by the Argus Quartet with a prestigious Chamber Music America grant and premiered in Amsterdam in October 2014).
The residency performances also showcased the quartet’s yearlong collaboration with Guinivan and premiered a new work written specifically for this residency.
During their ten days in New Orleans, the quartet presented several Community Concerts, Gumbo Giusto at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (discussing how string quartet performance, like gumbo is much more than the sum of its ingredients!), and performances at Café Istanbul and the Marigny Opera House. In addition to the concerts, a sold-out crowd joined the artists and Birdfoot Artistic Director “backstage” for cocktails and an evening devoted to exploring one of the anchor works of the quartet’s residency, Béla Bartók’s fourth string quartet.