Fry Street Quartet Explores Music's Connection to Nature in USU Concert Series

LOGAN, Utah — The Fry Street Quartet will continue its yearlong concert series “Nature’s Resonance” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30. in the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall.

The Fry Street Quartet is celebrated for its innovative approach to chamber music, seamlessly blending classical masterpieces with contemporary works. Since winning the Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the quartet has captivated audiences worldwide, showcasing technical skill and emotional depth.

As part of their residency, this quartet not only performs but also teaches full-time in the string program at USU, letting students learn from world-renowned artists.

The “Nature’s Resonance” concert series features three performances inspired by works that celebrate the beauty of nature. The Fry Street Quartet has embraced this theme, recognizing the deep emotional connection between music and the natural world.

“What is ‘nature’s resonance’ if not that feeling of being connected and in tune with the world around us — particularly the non-human world around us? Whenever we spend time away from our human-centered environments we feel it; there’s a grounding, a sense of connection and insignificance as we melt into life forces and landscapes bigger than ourselves,” said Rebecca McFaul, founding member and violinist of the Fry Street Quartet. “We emerge from time spent that way just a little bit changed. Music and art are forms of human sense-making that can expand and fortify our perspective and experience, also holding the potential to leave us all just a little bit changed.”

The musical works selected for this performance invite listeners to immerse themselves in the sensations and ideas of interconnection, beauty and reflection.

The program opens with Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor.

“Much like looking at the soft, blended edges of a painting by Monet, the sonic textures and melodies of Debussy’s writing glisten, transform, and show that nothing is separate; quite the opposite — everything is connected and contingent,” McFaul said. “The sensuous nature of his singular string quartet is original, timeless and gorgeous.”

The FSQ will also perform “Source Code,” composed by Jessie Montgomery, which explores connections between different disciplines to find a common denominator.

“The first sketches of ‘Source Code’ began as transcriptions of various sources from African American artists prominent during the peak of the Civil Rights era in the United States. I experimented by reinterpreting gestures, sentences and musical syntax by choreographer Alvin Ailey, poets Langston Hughes and Rita Dove, and the great jazz songstress Ella Fitzgerald into musical sentences and tone paintings,” Montgomery wrote.

The finale for this program is Béla Bartók’s Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, performed by Fry Street Quartet violinist Robert Waters and Utah Symphony pianist Jason Hardink.

“In all of Bartók’s writing, he draws upon a deep connection to and knowledge of the folk music of Eastern Europe and North Africa,” McFaul said. “For Bartók, the authenticity of expression through folk rhythms and its improvisatory nature are absorbed and evolved into his own brilliant vernacular — itself another example of connections from past to present on an ever-evolving continuum.”

With this concert, members of the Fry Street Quartet aim to foster deeper connections within the community through music.

“Experiencing music that moves you is memorable and made more so if done in community with others,” McFaul said. “Positive common experience through art has the potential to connect us in ways that draw us together, live deeper, and trust one another. This is our hope.”

Purchase tickets online or at the CCA Box Office located in the Daryl Chase Fine Arts Center. For more information, visit the calendar listing.