JACK Quartet’s collaboration with Catherine Lamb has become a central artistic relationship, pushing forward the creative work of both the composer and quartet. Lamb’s music represents a facet of the very cutting edge of string instrument writing today. JACK has spent its existence expanding their abilities as chamber musicians and taking part in the conversation about enriching the language of possibilities in string quartet music. That the challenge in Lamb’s music comes through the lens of harmony and not through extended techniques or outre rhythmic demands, but rather a yogic attention to the sustained sound of the strings resonating traditionally, makes it all the more fascinating.

divisio spiralis requires JACK to retune their instruments to create new patterns of resonance as they slowly descend for over an hour, journeying through harmonic landscapes that can be crystalline and fuzzy, throbbing and placid, using microtonal tunings based on the overtone series of a 10 Hz fundamental.