The Album
On this album, the Fry Street Quartet brings together works commissioned for The Crossroads Project by Grammy winner Libby Larsen and Pulitzer Prize nominee Laura Kaminsky to create a thought-provoking, viscerally affecting exploration of global sustainability.
Kaminsky’s Rising Tide tackles the divide between the natural world and man-made ecosystems. With a vivid, kinetic score, it encompasses a global life cycle, opening with sounds of wonder at the first stirrings of life, moving through the lushness of a world full of vitality to the turmoil of a complex civilization.
The water cycle forms the basis of Larsen’s Emergence. The work begins with playful evocations of precipitation and builds to gushing descents of runoff and hazy depictions of evaporation. Simultaneously, it captures a vast, potent emotional landscape. In its fourth movement, a wistful folk tune becomes distorted as its accompaniment becomes increasingly dark and jagged. Yet the work ends on a hopeful note, with the quartet resolved in a shared melody, and, ultimately, resounding as one gleaming, unified voice.