A Twentieth Sense for Strings

It was at the turn of the twentieth century that American musical styles were more clearly defined by its people, spawned by those who came to America by choice or by force. For this set of pieces, I selected the traditional instrumentation for string quartet because most of these music styles began with the use of stringed instruments, such as fiddle and banjo, or the human voice. The quartet provides both the flexibility and range of expressivity required to adequately portray these influences from popular American music from the twentieth century.