Sounds of Now: ‘Nuc’ from the Ligeti Quartet

Anna Meredith’s joyful, furious, energetic and restful music dazzles but is never too serious.
The critically-acclaimed Ligeti Quartet share tracks from their new album fusing acoustic and electronic music for string quartet by the Mercury-prize nominated composer.

Anna Meredith has achieved incredible success straddling multiple musical worlds, never compromising her raw, individual style. This concert is based around the Ligeti Quartet’s new album, Nuc, providing a survey of Meredith’s career to date, heard through her original works for string quartet.

Nuc started life as a conversation between Anna Meredith and Richard Jones (Ligeti Quartet’s viola player) after realising that after a decade of frequently working together, they had almost an album’s worth of music. So an idea developed in which they would not only make the first studio recordings of Anna’s original music for string quartet, but that Richard would create new arrangements of existing tracks by Anna including from her award-winning electronic and dance albums.

The result is a joyful, occasionally furious, never too serious, energetic/restful collection of tracks which dazzle with Anna’s signature compulsive harmonies, rhythmic shifts of gear and sparkling textures.

REVIEWS

“An album that continually surprises and enlightens” (BBC Music).

“juddering rhythms and subversive scale passages sent the substantial crowd out into the night in exhilarated mood… Music making of this magnificence is rare”  (Bachtrack)

“A remarkable, uncompromising collection that shows the composer and ensemble to be uniquely perfect collaborators.” ★★★★★  (Buzzmag)

“Pop meets the avant-garde. A match made in art music heaven! ”
Elizabeth Alker BBC Radio 3 Unclassified